As the content evaporates from personal
systems, cloud-server market set to double
Due to superfast growth of personal content and the need
to access that from anywhere through mobile computers, which
are now in the form of smartphones, tablets and ultrabooks,
content user need access to a powerful computing and storage
platform. cloud computing platform does all that at low
cost compared to single central server farm. Due to low
cost of service (now most are free), ease of access and
storing, the cloud computing is growing fast. Users are
pushing there huge files into cloud servers, to keep their
device lean in storage.
IHS iSuppli has reported the shipments of cloud servers
are projected to reach 875,000 units in 2012, up a notable
35 percent from 647,000 in 2011 and nearly double the 460,000
in 2010.
The explanation and other market finding reported by
IHS iSuppli are:
High growth rates ranging from 23 to 30 percent are anticipated
for each of the next three years until 2015, by which time
cloud server shipments will have hit approximately 1.8 million
units, as shown in the figure below. The five-year compound
annual growth rate for cloud servers beginning in 2010 stands
at 31 percent-five times greater than the forecast for the
total server market.
Cloud servers also will make up an increasing portion of
total server shipments-growing from just a little more than
5 percent of the market in 2010 to more than 15 percent
in 2015.
Cloud computing is a type of distributed computing, similar
to grid or utility computing, in which a work object is
split into parts and is then processed simultaneously by
discrete computers that run over the Internet. In cloud
architecture, the hardware, software and services are provided
to users, who then pay for applications and storage space
based only on the amount used.
"Clouds can be personal and geared toward the consumer-such
as those offered by Apple, Google and Amazon-for users to
store and manage their own data; or they can be oriented
toward the enterprise for business operations," said
Peter Lin, senior analyst for compute platforms at IHS.
"For the enterprise in particular, the cloud can be
deployed as software, platform or infrastructure to help
keep information technology costs down. The benefits are
many, including higher utilization of server devices, low
capital expenditure for clients, high scalability and access
to the service across multiple devices."
For the servers used in cloud data centers, easy maintenance
and the capability to add more servers are highly valued.
As a result, performance is not the key metric here; what
counts instead is expandability, energy efficiency and low
cost.
And because physical footprint is valuable in a data center,
the type of equipment that will find the greatest adoption
in the space likely will include both rack-optimized servers
and highly condensed blade servers, with their modular setup
made up of a single motherboard incorporating microprocessors,
memory and a network interface.
Also gaining in importance will be the practice of virtualization,
in which a single physical server runs multiple operating
systems and applications in order to bring about a higher
degree of server utilization.
Given the massive potential of cloud computing in the years
to come, a number of industry players have joined the fray
either as hardware or software providers.
Hardware providers for cloud computing include server original
equipment manufacturers (OEM); storage OEMs; server original
development manufacturers (ODM); and microprocessor vendors.
Software providers, on the other hand, include operating
system vendors as well as application or service providers.
While traditional server customers such as the enterprise,
the banking industry and the government bought server products
from either OEMs or value-added resellers (VARs), the server
sales channel is evolving into a hybrid model in light of
the rising popularity of direct sales by ODMs to their nontraditional
end customers. Increasingly, clients appear unable to get
their ideal configuration of product from current server
OEMs, tending instead to go for customized models sourced
directly from server ODMs-usually from Taiwanese-based companies
like Quanta and Wistron.
The rise of the white-box server-direct model will pose
both an opportunity and a threat to ODMs and OEMs alike,
as they usually do business together. Both entities must
balance those relationships while competing for new clients
in what will be the fastest-growing and most important segment
in the server industry through 2015, IHS believes.
