Cisco says almost all workloads will be cloud based within 3 years

In its latest Cisco Global Cloud Index (2016-2021), the networking giant predicts that by 2021, 94 percent of all workloads will run in some form of cloud environment and that dedicated servers will be a distinct minority. That 94 percent covers both public and private cloud scenarios, which means even in an on-premises scenario, almost all workloads are going to be run in a virtualized environment. The days where a server is dedicated to one workload are rapidly drawing to a close. We use the definition of one workload or instance with one physical server,” said Thomas Barnett, director, Cisco Service Provider forecast and trends. “In virtual scenarios, we’re seeing one workload with multiple virtual machines and containers. Based on growth in public cloud, we’ve overcome some of the barriers of adoption, such as cost and security and simplicity of deploying of these services.