Global study gives SA mobile networks thumbs up

In the second annual Cisco Global Cloud Index, Cisco forecasts that global data centre traffic will grow four-fold and reach a total of 6.6 zettabytes annually by 2016.

The company also foresees that Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate at 79 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR): followed by Latin America (66 percent CAGR): and Central and Eastern Europe (55 percent CAGR).

Cisco predicts that global cloud traffic, the fastest growing component of data centre traffic, will grow 6-fold a 44 percent combined annual growth rate (CAGR) from 683 exabytes of annual traffic in 2011 to 4.3 zettabytes by 2016.

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. For the period 2011 2016, Cisco forecasts that roughly 76 percent of data centre traffic will stay within the data centre and will be largely generated by storage, production and development data. An additional seven percent of data centre traffic will be generated between data centres primarily driven by data replication and software/system updates. The remaining 17 percent of data centre traffic will be fueled by end users accessing clouds for web surfing, emailing and video streaming.

Key Highlights from the Study for South Africa:

· South Africa ranks as one of the most improved countries in mobile network performance, improving by 50% from 2011 to 2012. Morocco received a score of 67%.

· Overall consumer and business fixed network cloud performance in South Africa:

o Download speed of 2.045kbps,

o Upload speed of 764kbps,

o Latency speed of 95ms

· Overall consumer and business mobile network cloud performance in South Africa:

o Download speed of 2.629 kbps,

o Upload speed of 1.253kbps,

o Latency speed of 134ms

· Consumer mobile network cloud performance in South Africa:

o Download speed of 2.629kbps,

o Upload speed of 1.253kbps,

o Latency speed of 134ms

· Business mobile network cloud performance in South Africa:

o Download speed of 2.069kbps

o Upload speed of 865kbps,

o Latency speed of 151ms

Key Regional Highlights from the Study:

· From a regional perspective, the Cisco Global Cloud Index predicts that through 2016, the Middle East and Africa will have the highest cloud traffic growth rate, while the Asia-Pacific region will process the most cloud workloads, followed by North America.

· For global data centre IP traffic forecast for Middle East and Africa covering network data centres worldwide operated by enterprises and service providers, Cisco forecasts that global data centre traffic will grow nearly 11-fold over the forecast period and reach 251 exabytes annually by 2016. This represents a 60 percent compound annual growth rate or CAGR.

· Global cloud traffic will account for nearly two-thirds of total global data centre traffic:

o In Middle East and Africa, cloud data centre traffic will represent 64% of total datacenter traffic by 2016, compared to 37% in 2011. It will also grow 18.5-fold by 2016, at a CAGR of 79% from 2011 to 2016. Cloud data centre traffic grew 93% in 2011, up from 4.5

o In Middle East and Africa, traditional data centre traffic will represent 36% of total datacenter traffic by 2016, compared to 63% in 2011. It will reach 91 Exabytes per year (7.5 Exabytes per month) in 2016, up from 15 Exabytes per year (1.3 Exabytes per month) in 2011. This represents a 6.0-fold growth by 2016, at a CAGR of 43% from 2011 to 2016.

· Workload transitions: From 2011 2016, data centre workloads will grow 2.5 fold: cloud workloads will grow 5.3 fold:

· From a fixed network perspective, the average network performance characteristics for the Middle East and Africa can currently support intermediate cloud-computing applications such as high-definition video streaming and video chat applications.

Supporting Quotes:

Anver Vanker Consulting Systems Engineer, Cisco South Africa

‚”As 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. This year’s 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. 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.‚”