Storage is a linchpin in the development and adoption of cloud services. From IT-operations and performance, to objects stored — storage is a big part of the cloud. Equipment is still required for anything “in the cloud” too. As the market shifts to more cloud-first services, it isn’t as if we aren’t already deeply integrated in cloud storage. Have you used Google Maps in the last week? How about that coupon you downloaded from Foursquare? Answered any email from your phone this week? A lot more than you realize is enabled by storage.

Seagate recently released the infographic below that highlights the cloud’s growing storage footprint. Here are some stats:

• On June 1st 2012, there were one trillion objects stored on Amazon S3.
• Over one exabyte of data is estimated to be stored in the cloud.
• It is predicted that the global market for cloud equipment will reach $79.1 billion by 2018.
• More than 60 percent of businesses utilize cloud for performing IT-related operations.
• 15 percent of U.S. healthcare systems leverage cloud storage for images, and its predicted that number will increase to more than 50 percent in the next three years.
• About 600 million image procedures are performed each year by healthcare providers in the U.S.
• Its estimated 50 percent of organizations will require employees to use their own devices by 2017, which will depend on shared cloud storage.

Enterprises are learning there is more than one path to the cloud. For example, EMC has its hands in six different pathways to the cloud. As the Internet of Things continues to add “things” to the cloud, storage will continue to play a vital role as the backbone of cloud services. The more we do, the more we want to remember or have access to it — and there is only one common thread in those paths, storage.