Yet more evidence that the future of IT lies in the cloud comes from International Data Corp. (IDC), which says public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft will increase spending on data center hardware (such as servers, storage and Ethernet switches) in the second half of this year. However, spending on traditional on-premises data center gear is set to decline.

On-premises IT equipment still accounts for the lion’s share of data center spending, at around 60 percent of the overall market, according to IDC’s latest Quarterly Cloud Infrastructure Tracker. However, by the end of the year IDC projects that enterprises will have spend 4.4 percent less on hardware than they did in the previous year. In contrast, public cloud providers will increase their annual data center spend by 19 percent compared to last year, buying $23.3 billion worth of equipment collectively.

Spending on hardware for on-premises private clouds is also set to increase by around 10 percent, IDC said. The total spend for private cloud will hit $13.8 billion by the end of 2016, with around 60 percent of this figure going towards on-premises private clouds.

IDC also provided a forecast for public cloud, private cloud and traditional IT spending for the next five years, and its welcome news for the data center industry as a whole. Public cloud spending is set to increase by 19 percent in that time frame, while private cloud spending will see a ten percent uptick, IDC said. Only traditional IT spending will decline in the next five years.

The largest public cloud providers are already enjoying significant growth, and many have laid down clear enterprise market strategies aimed at tempting more firms away from on-premises deployments.

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