The amount of global IP traffic will almost triple in the next five years, reaching 3.3 zettabytes in 2021, as multiple factors continue to accelerate the worldwide trend of digitization, according to Cisco Systems officials.According to the latest version of Cisco's annual Internet Visual Network Index (VNI) forecast, the Internet of Things will continue to be a driving force, while video will represent more than 80 percent of the traffic flowing over networks IP addresses. More people will have more personal devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will increase, and emerging trends such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (RA) and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) Most important in networks around the world.
A large part of the burden with respect not only to networking but also to security will lie with service providers as pressure builds on global networks, according to company officials.
"As digital transformation continues to affect billions of consumers and businesses, the network and security will be essential to support the future of the Internet," said Yvette Kanouff, senior vice president and general manager, Supplier Business. Cisco Services. "Driving network innovation with service providers will be key to enabling Cisco to support the needs of customers who want reliable, secure, high-quality experiences."
The numbers are amazing. Over the next five years, the number of Internet users will grow from 3.3 billion to 4.6 billion in 2021, or 58 percent of the population, while the number of M2M connections will account for more than half of the 27.1 billion devices and Connections within five years and 5 percent of global IP traffic by then, an indication of the growing influence of IOT, particularly in areas such as connected home, health care, smart cars and connected cities.
The bandwidth hunger video will continue to drive the growth of Internet traffic. Currently, 67 percent of Internet traffic comes from video, and there are 1.4 billion video users; Those numbers will jump to 80 percent and almost 1.9 billion users in five years. By 2021, users will see 3 billion videos per month per month, or about 1 million minutes of video per second. Playing a more important role in all this will be live video on the Internet, such as streaming TV applications and personal live streaming on social networks, which will grow 15 times and reach 13 percent of Internet video traffic in 2021. The VR and AR traffic will jump 20 times in five years, accounting for 1 percent of global entertainment traffic.
By 2021, there will be 541.6 million WiFi hotspots, six times more, and WiFi and connected mobile devices will account for 73 percent of Internet traffic in five years. SD-WAN, among the fastest growing sectors in the largest network virtualization space, will increase six-fold and account for 25 percent of WAN traffic in five years, and SD-WAN traffic will grow 44 percent a year. The traditional WAN will grow 5 percent annually. In another key trend, end-user Internet traffic is approaching the network, as more than a third of traffic will not touch the core in 2021.
As for security, Cisco officials said the average size of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is growing, approaching 1.2G bps, which they say are enough to completely remove most organizations. The number of such attacks around the world jumped 172 percent between 2015 and 2016, and will jump 2.5 times in 2021.
All of this will put even more pressure on service providers who are already trying to keep pace with demand. Thomas Barnett, director of services for Cisco's flagship provider of marketing services, highlighted the growing presence of IoT-related M2M devices, the increasing amount of global Internet traffic that will be wireless and the increasing threat of DDoS attacks such as networks and trends Internet service providers should pay special attention to. Barnett also described the recommended actions, such as the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, the development of plans to migrate to 5G and the development of a comprehensive long-term security plan.
"Today, consumers and enterprise users rely more on global IP networks than ever," he wrote. "While it may be easy to take connectivity as a fact when networks work well, it can be a minor inconvenience or a major difficulty when networks fail or provide suboptimal experiences.
