According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, total spending on cloud IT infrastructure (server, storage, and Ethernet switch, excluding double counting between server and storage) will grow by 24.1% and will reach $32.6 billion in 2015. This amount will account for a third of the overall end user spending on enterprise IT infrastructure, up from 27.9% in 2014. In comparison, spending on IT infrastructure deployed in traditional, non-cloud, environments will decline by -1.6% in 2015, although at $66.8 billion will remain the largest segment of the market. Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure in 2015 will grow by 15.8% year over year to $12.1 billion, while spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will increase by 29.6% to $20.5 billion.

IDC expects that spending on cloud IT infrastructure in 2015 will grow across all regions except Central and Eastern Europe, which is disturbed by political and economic turmoil that is having a negative impact on IT spending. For all three technologies – server, storage and Ethernet switch – growth in spending will exceed 20%, with spending on servers growing at the highest rate, 25.5%.

For the five-year forecast period, IDC expects that cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.1% and will reach $53.1 billion by 2019 accounting for 46% of the total spending on enterprise IT infrastructure. At the same time, spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure will decline at -1.7% CAGR. Spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will grow at a higher rate than spending on private cloud IT infrastructure – at 16.3% vs 13.2% CAGR. In 2019, IDC expects service providers will spend $33.6 billion on IT infrastructure for delivering public cloud services, while spending on private cloud IT infrastructure will reach $19.4 billion.

"Numerous IDC surveys indicate growing interest among enterprise customers to cloud deployments across multiple IT domains," said Natalya Yezhkova, Research Director, Storage Systems. "End users often cite the agility of IT infrastructure and economic reasons as drivers for cloud adoption, but we also expect that the proliferation of next generation applications born and run in the cloud will fuel its further growth."