Public cloud data centres driving enterprise IT spend

Public cloud data centers are driving enterprise IT infrastructure spend, with IDC reporting that by 2019 cloud IT infrastructure spend will hit US$54 billion – accounting for nearly half of all enterprise spend.

The figures, in IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, shows spend on public cloud infrastructure will soar 28.2% year on year in 2015 – ahead of the increase seen in overall cloud IT infrastructure spend, which will increase by 24.6% to reach $32.8 billion.

That increase in public cloud IT infrastructure will see spend for servers, storage and Ethernet switch products for deployment in public cloud hit US$20.4 billion.

Private cloud IT infrastructure spend growth is weaker at 19.1% year on year, to hit US$12.4 billion in 2015.

And IDC is forecasting that spending on IT infrastructure for cloud environments will continue to be strong going forward, with the company forecasting compound annual growth rate of 15.5% for the five year forecast period out to 2019.

In 2019, IDC says cloud IT infrastructure spend will hit US$54 billion, and account for nearly half of all enterprise IT spend, at 46.6%, up from 32.9% of worldwide spending in 2015.

In 2014, cloud infrastructure accounted for just 28.0% of enterprise IT infrastructure spend.

The company says 2015 will see IT spend on infrastructure for traditional, non-cloud environments decline 1.1%.

The analyst firm says globally all areas bar Central and Eastern Europe will see double-digit growth for cloud IT infrastructure spend. Central and Eastern Europe will buck that trend and record the only decline on cloud IT infrastructure in 2015.

Figures released by IDC earlier this week showed revenue from sales of infrastructure products, including server, storage and Ethernet switch, for cloud IT grew 23% year on year to US$7.6 billion in Q3 of 2015.