One of the busiest times of the year for my team comes every June when we release the Cisco Visual Networking Index which forecasts IP Traffic growth around the globe.  Now in its 5^th year, the forecast, which initially started as a internal project to guide our own engineers as they innovate the next generation of networking infrastructure, has now grown to be an innovation in its own right, helping to provide data for our service provider customer and regulatory bodies alike (not to mention press, analysts, and IP groupies like yours truly.)

The top level finding of this Cisco VNI Forecast, which spans from 2010 to 2015 is that total worldwide IP traffic will increase 4x by 2015, reaching 966 exabytes or just under 1 Zettabye (which is 10 to the 21^st power)  To put context to rising demand of IP over the last several years, we have had to change the unit of measurement several times just to keep up with the growth…. First it we measured traffic in terms of Petabytes… then moved to Exabytes… and now are embarking on Zettabytes…(looking ahead, we’ll eventually start to use the term Yottabyte…)

Factors that are driving this growth, include:

• Video, as it is increasingly a part of nearly every networked experience.  By 2015, one million minutes of video – nearly two years worth – will cross the network every second.
• More devices are connecting to the network – we forecast more than 15 billion will be on the network by 2015, making it on average more than two devices (whether it be a PC, phone, TV, or even machine-to-machine) per person for every person on earth (and if you’re like me, you’re an “overachiever” on this number, with well over a dozen devices connected to the network…by the way, just how many network connections are you responsible for?) Read More »

Tags: forecast, internet growth, internet traffic, ip traffic, research, Service Provider, visual networking index, vni, zettabyte

Just how rapidly is Internet usage growing?  Consider this:

• Total global Internet traffic will quadruple by 2015, reaching 966 exabytes per year, nearly a zettabyte.
• By 2015, the traffic equivalent of all the movies ever made will cross the Internet every 5 minutes.
• In 2015, one million minutes of video content will cross the global network every second.

These “wow!”-inspiring data bits come to you courtesy of the just-released “Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast, 2010-2015.”

We are indeed on the threshold of the “Zettabyte Era.”  And the implications are significant: Read More »

Tags: forecast, internet traffic, ip, Service Provider, visual networking index, vni

By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

How much information can you get from a number? Turns out, quite a bit.

At least, that’s the theory behind the Cisco Connected Life User Experience (CLUE). The index, designed by Cisco’s SP Marketing team, shows you trends in the adoption of various advanced services in different parts of the world, just by glancing at a number.

If you’ve never explored CLUE, check it out. It’s an impressive instrument that manages to convey a vast amount of information in a succinct package. I spoke with Shruti Jain and Thomas Barnett, who developed the index for Cisco’s Service Provider Marketing team, about how people are using it.

Read More »

Tags: applications, Cisco, CLUE, Connected Life User Experience, infrastructure, vni

Cisco continues on the MOVE.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Cisco introduced MOVE (monetization, optimization, Videoscape experience) solutions that help service providers monetize and optimize mobile video.   

Cisco MOVE is a strategic framework of solutions that include Cisco Mobile Videoscape™, Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi and Cisco Adaptive Intelligent Routing (AIR). Cisco MOVE is the next phase of Cisco’s service provider mobility strategy, which enables service providers to better monetize and optimize their networks, while delivering personalized mobile services across wired and wireless networks.

In the larger view, Cisco MOVE solutions are designed to address the increasing volume of mobile data traffic — particularly video. According to the recently released Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2010 to 2015, two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2015. Mobile video traffic is projected to more than double every year between 2010 and 2015.

-          Cisco Mobile Videoscape enables mobile operators to deliver enhanced mobile video experiences to customers through new technology on the Cisco ASR 5000 and Cisco Unified Computing System™ platforms. These platforms link the mobile network to the larger video distribution network enabled by the Cisco Content Delivery Network capabilities of Cisco Videoscape. The solution also utilizes the capabilities of the new Cisco Videoscape Media Suite to offer efficient and cost-effective content management across multiple screens.

-           Cisco’s Service Provider Wi-Fi Solution is a carrier-grade solution allows service providers to efficiently utilize Wi-Fi for mobile data offload.  Cisco SP WiFi with the Cisco Next Generation Hotspot technology provides standardized, seamless, highly-secure authentication enabling roaming and delivering a host of new services and mobile experiences.

-          Cisco Adaptive Intelligent Routing (AIR) lowers the cost of mobile data traffic by providing service intelligence throughout the network. Extending across the Cisco ASR 1000, Cisco ASR 5000 and Cisco ASR 9000 platforms, Cisco AIR distributes and shares network and customer intelligence broadly to interact and communicate on individual traffic types, and to optimize traffic routing and handling for the best service experience at the lowest cost.

Tags: ASR_1000, ASR_5000, ASR_9000, Cisco, content_delivery_system, network_intelligence, routing, service_provider, service_provider mobility, SP, videoscape, Visual_Networking_Index, vni, wifi

Last week, I tweeted about the Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2010 to 2015. According to the report, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold.

Two major global trends are driving these significant increases: a continued surge in mobile-ready devices such as tablets and smart phones, and widespread mobile video content consumption.

The Cisco study estimates that by 2015, there will be a mobile connected device for nearly every member of the world’s population.

So what does this mean? Well, for one thing, it’s a harbinger that it’s time to get our WAN architectures ready for the flood of video traffic. What happens when you don’t? Aside from the obvious—you deliver a frustrating and dissatisfying media experience—you also put other network applications at risk of going down.

If that’s not enough to spur you to take another look at your WAN, consider my top five predictions for what this tsunami of video traffic might lead to from a cultural trending perspective:

Read More »

Tags: Bill Gates, mobile, predictions, TelePresence, video, vni, WAN