Growth in Cloud IT Infrastructure Spending Will Accelerate in 2017

According to a new forecast from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches) for deployment in cloud environments will increase by 18.2% in 2017 to reach $44.2 billion. Of this amount, the majority (61.2%) will be done by public cloud datacenters, while off-premises private cloud environments will contribute 14.6% of spending.

With increasing adoption of private and hybrid cloud strategies within corporate datacenters, spending on IT infrastructure for on-premises private cloud deployments will growth at 16.6%. In comparison, spending on traditional, non-cloud, IT infrastructure will decline by 3.3% in 2017 but will still account for the largest share (57.1%) of end user spending.

In 2017, spending on IT infrastructure for off-premises cloud deployments will experience double-digit growth across all regions in a continued strong movement toward utilization of off-premises IT resources around the world. However, the majority of 2017 end user spending (57.9%) will still be done on on-premises IT infrastructure which combines on-premises private cloud and on-premises traditional IT. In on-premises settings, all regions expect to see sustained movement toward private cloud deployments with the share of traditional, non-cloud, IT shrinking across all regions.

Ethernet switches will be fastest growing segment of cloud IT infrastructure spending, increasing 23.9% in 2017, while spending on servers and enterprise storage will grow 13.6% and 23.7%, respectively. In all three technology segments, spending on private cloud deployments will grow faster than public cloud while investments on non-cloud infrastructure will decline.

Long term, IDC expects that spending on off-premises cloud IT infrastructure will experience a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.2%, reaching $48.1 billion in 2020. Public cloud datacenters will account for 80.8% of this amount. Combined with on-premises private cloud, overall spending on cloud IT infrastructure will grow at a 13.9% CAGR and will surpass spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure by 2020. Spending on on-premises private cloud IT infrastructure will grow at a 12.9% CAGR, while spending on non-cloud IT (on-premises and off-premises combined) will decline at a CAGR of 1.9% during the same period.