Life in the Cloud Begins at Birth

As the cloud prepares for another history-making year in its campaign to become a part of every part of our lives, a different type of history is being made. The birth of life. As we begin a new year, many around the world are celebrating new life, building on their family foundation.

“Foundations” are traditionally thought of as ground-level, or even underground; but as we ring in 2014, it’s time to start thinking of foundation in a new light. The cloud makes the possibility of sharing our lives with others more easily than before, like birth for instance. It’s enabling this connection and allowing people to access more information, more pictures, more video, and more data, with more ease than ever before. That connection doesn’t stop at content and data points- in fact, it doesn’t stop at all.

The cloud’s biggest value is in the Internet of Everything (IoE). IoE brings new experiences and interactions to life, and the cloud will only broaden IoE’s breadth over our lifetime with all of the devices, communicating, and sharing information.

In photojournalist Rick Smolan’s Human Face of Big Data project, stunning facts about how big data and the world of many clouds are changing how we live our lives, from our very first day, are showcased. For example:

During the first day of a baby’s life, the amount of data generated by humanity is equivalent to 70 times the information contained in the Library of Congress.

One-third of children born in the United States already have an online presence before they are born. That number grows  to 92 percent by the time they are two.

In 2012, the average digital birth of children occurs at approximately six months.

Within weeks of their birth, another one-third of all children’s photos and information are posted online.

If this amount of data isn’t already moving and being stored in the cloud already, you can say with good confidence it will be within the next 3-5 years. Just to give you a better idea on how much data will go through the cloud over the next few years, the recent Cisco Global Cloud Index forecasts that:

By 2017, global cloud IP traffic will reach 443 exabytes per month – that’s up from 98 exabytes per month in 2012 and an increase of nearly 4.5-fold.

Global cloud IP traffic will account for more than two-thirds of total data center traffic by 2017.

These stats begin to paint the picture of how pervasive cloud already is – and it doesn’t just pertain to babies. Do you know how the cloud impacts your life? Chances are you use cloud technologies daily whether you use online file storing services like Dropbox or Evernote, video communication services like Cisco WebEx and Jabber for your work communications, or social networks to connect with friends, family, and colleagues. If you use Dropbox, Google Drive, or Evernote to store your files, that’s in the cloud. If you use video communication like Cisco WebEx, that’s in the cloud. And it’s not just the end-users’ applications that are cloud. Companies large and small are using cloud to conduct their business and provide their products and services to their customers in the form of data centers, networking, and collaboration.

So as we ring in the New Year, and many celebrate new life, we should consider the possibilities of cloud in our lifetime – and beyond.

To read more insights on the cloud, visit our Cloud Perspectives page. Also, be sure to join the conversation – follow @CiscoCloud  and use the hashtag #CiscoCloud or leave a comment below.