IDC takes tape measure to cloud server market

Servers shipped for deployment in both public and private clouds set to rocket by more than 20 per cent annually until 2015

The server cloud computing market is set to enjoy frenetic growth until 2015, IDC has asserted.

According to the market watcher, the number of servers shipped for deployment in both public and private clouds will soar by more than 20 per cent annually over the next five years as IT managers move to simplify their datacentres.

Public cloud units will reach more than 1.2 million by 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1 per cent. By then, the public cloud server market will be worth $3.6bn (£2.2bn).

On the private cloud side, server unit shipments will enjoy a CAGR of 22.4 per cent until 2015 to reach 570,000.

Despite the smaller volume of shipments, the private cloud server market will be worth more – some $5.8bn by 2015 – due to the larger converged systems involved in deployments.

In contrast, IDC found that public clouds are generally being built on simpler server hardware with a focus on energy efficiency, density and cost control. As a result, average selling values tend to be lower than an average x86-based server.

Katie Broderick, senior research analyst, Enterprise Platforms and Datacentre Trends and Strategies at IDC, said: "Cloud computing can dramatically simplify administrating and managing many companies' datacentres and position IT as a service organisation for the rest of the company.

"Offloading some of the more mundane tasks to the cloud (public or private) and freeing up manpower to focus on adding value to the business is critical to driving cloud adoption."