The Cisco Global Cloud Index forecasts that the Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate by 2016.<\/p>\n
In the second annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2011 \u2013 2016), Cisco forecasts that global data centre traffic will grow four-fold and reach a total of 6.6 zettabytes annually by 2016.<\/p>\n
The technology giant found that in Middle East and Africa, cloud data centre traffic will represent 64% of total datacenter traffic by 2016, compared to 37% in 2011.<\/p>\n
It will also grow 18.5-fold by 2016, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79% from 2011 to 2016. Cloud data centre traffic grew 93% in 2011.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of the data centre traffic is not caused by end users but by data centres and cloud-computing workloads used in activities that are virtually invisible to individuals.<\/p>\n
For the period 2011 \u2013 2016, Cisco forecasts that roughly 76% of data centre traffic will stay within the data centre and will be largely generated by storage, production and development data.<\/p>\n
An additional 7% of data centre traffic will be generated between data centres primarily driven by data replication and software\/system updates. The remaining 17% of data centre traffic will be fueled by end users accessing clouds for web surfing, emailing and video streaming.<\/p>\n
According to Cisco, South Africa ranks as one of the most improved countries in Mobile network performance, improving by 50% from 2011 to 2012.<\/p>\n
Key Highlights from the Study for South Africa:<\/p>\n
Anver Vanker, consulting systems engineer, Cisco South Africa said:\u00a0\u201cAs cloud traffic continues to proliferate in a new world of many clouds, the Cisco Global Cloud Index provides all cloud computing stakeholders with a valuable barometer to make strategic, long-term planning decisions.”<\/p>\n
“This year\u2019s forecast confirms that strong growth in data centre usage and cloud traffic are driven by our growing desire to access personal and business content anywhere, on any device.”<\/p>\n
“It is clear that the next-generation Internet in South Africa will be an essential component to enabling much greater data centre virtualisation and a new world of interconnected clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n Top IT predictions for 2013 and beyond<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n HP SA investigating consumer cloud offering<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n