Widespread Private and Public Cloud Adoption

Cisco released the final installment of the Cisco Connected World Report, an international study about the behavioral trends of workers in accessing information anywhere, with any device, and the ability of information technology (IT) professionals to address their needs.

The latest results focus on data center, virtualization, and cloud computing trends, and evolving IT roles, in the context of increasingly mobile and distributed workforces.

The study found that global IT professionals are creating new job opportunities by increasing collaboration among teams in the data center, and adopting new technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing. But they’re also struggling to maintain security and data governance as employees demand more offsite access to networks and information.

Comparing Cloud Adoption Rates by Country
For example, across the 13 countries in the global study, 52 percent of the IT professionals stated they use or plan to use cloud computing, while much higher cloud adoption rates are predicted in Brazil (70 percent), China (69 percent) and India (76 percent).

Across the world, respondents rated the following as their top data center priorities for the next three years: improve agility and speed in deploying business applications (33 percent), better manage resource capacity to align demand and capacity (31 percent), increase data center resilience (19 percent), and reduce power and cooling costs (17 percent).

This report adds to the initial survey results released in October, which revealed that workers want flexible access to corporate information from any mobile device, anywhere, anytime, and to the results released in November -- which revealed disconnects in worker expectations around information access, IT policies and employee awareness of policies.

The latest survey results examine how IT managers are evolving their data centers and taking advantage of new technologies, while working to accommodate trends in the workplace like social media, device proliferation, video and an increasingly mobile workforce.

Summary of Cloud Computing Trends

• Cloud use today: Across the study's 13 countries, only an average of 18 percent of respondents are using cloud computing today, while an additional 34 percent plan to use the cloud.
• Top cloud users today: Brazil (27 percent), Germany (27 percent), India (26 percent), U.S. (23 percent) and Mexico (22 percent) top the list of countries that are already taking advantage of cloud computing, exceeding the average (18 percent) across all countries.
• Future cloud use: A large majority (88 percent) of IT respondents predict that they will be storing some percentage of their company's data and applications in private or public clouds within the next three years.
• Private clouds: One in three IT professionals said more than half of their company's data and applications will be in private clouds within the next three years. Private cloud adoption was predicted to be higher in Mexico (71 percent), Brazil (53 percent) and the U.S. (46 percent.)
• Timing for public clouds: Of those respondents that will use public clouds, one of every three (34 percent) plan to deploy within one year, and 44 percent predicted their companies would use public clouds within the next two years; 21 percent are expected to do so within two to three years.