EDITOR’S QUESTION
HOW HAS THE CLOUD
IMPACTED DATA CENTRES?
he IT infrastructure
industry is at a
crossroads in terms
of product sales to
cloud vs. traditional IT
environments, according
to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
T
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT
Infrastructure Tracker showed vendor
revenue from sales of IT infrastructure
products (server, enterprise storage and
Ethernet switch) for cloud environments,
including public and private cloud, grew
WITH VENDORS
AND SERVICE
PROVIDERS
FINDING NEW
WAYS OF
DELIVERING
CLOUD SERVICES,
INCLUDING
FROM IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
DEPLOYED AT
CUSTOMER
PREMISES, END
USERS HAVE
FEWER OBSTACLES
AND PAIN POINTS
IN ADOPTING
CLOUD/SERVICES-
BASED IT.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
11.4% year over year in the first quarter of
2019 (1Q19), reaching US$14.5 billion.
But IDC also lowered its forecast for total
spending on cloud IT infrastructure in
2019 to US$66.9 billion – down 4.5% from
last quarter’s forecast – with slower year-
over-year growth of 1.6%.
Vendor revenue from hardware
infrastructure sales to public cloud
environments in 1Q19 was down 13.4%
compared to the previous quarter (4Q18)
but increased 8.9% year over year to
US$9.8 billion.
This segment of the market continues
to be highly impacted by demand from a
handful of hyperscale service providers,
whose spending on IT infrastructure tends
to have visible up and down swings.
Spending on the three technology
segments in cloud IT environments is
forecast to deliver growth for Ethernet
switches and storage platforms while
compute platforms are expected to
decline in 2019.
Ethernet switches are expected to be the
fastest growing at 20.9%, while spending
on storage platforms will grow slightly at
1.9%. Meanwhile, compute platforms will
decline by 2.8% in 2019 but will remain
the largest category of spending on cloud
IT infrastructure at US$34.2 billion.
Sales of IT infrastructure products into
traditional (non-cloud) IT environments
remained flat compared to 1Q18,
according to IDC.
For the full year 2019, worldwide spending
on traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure
is expected to decline by 3.5%, as the
technology refresh cycle that drove
market growth in 2018 is winding down.
By 2023, IDC expects that traditional non-
cloud IT infrastructure will only represent
42.4% of total worldwide IT infrastructure
spending (down from 51.9% in 2018). This
share loss and the growing share of cloud
environments in overall spending on IT
infrastructure is common across all regions.
Natalya Yezhkova, Research Vice President,
Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and
Technologies at IDC, said: “As the overall
IT infrastructure goes through a period of
slowdown after an outstanding 2018, the
important trends might look somewhat
distorted in the short term.
“IDC’s long-term expectations strongly
back continuous growth of cloud IT
infrastructure environments. With vendors
and service providers finding new ways of
delivering cloud services, including from
IT infrastructure deployed at customer
premises, end users have fewer obstacles
and pain points in adopting cloud/
services-based IT.”
Issue 05
29