The data meteorologists at Cisco say the upcoming forecast extending into the year 2015 calls for a 12-fold increase in global cloud traffic, compared to 2010. Cisco doesn't expect data center traffic to grow quite as steadily, but it will still zoom past 2010 levels and show a four-fold increase by 2015, according to data outlined in Cisco's latest study, "Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010-2015."

Just how vital has the Internet become to everyday life? For some, it's just as important as any of the basic needs, including water, food, air, and shelter. And for others, the Internet doesn't rank as an absolute necessity like any of those things, but it comes awfully close, according to an online survey of nearly 3,000 adults.

Thousands of soon-to-be former Cisco employees will have reason to sing the summertime blues as the networking specialist gets ready to cut 15 percent of its workforce. Along with selling a manufacturing facility, the cost cutting moves are intended to save the company in the neighborhood of $1 billion and turn around its financial future.

If you think your daily commute to work is overcrowded, just wait until 2015 and try driving on the Internet's highways. By then, network traffic will have quadrupled to 966 exabytes per year as a content hungry populace gains access to cyberspace on more than 15 billion network connected devices that, ironically enough, will outnumber people 2 to 1. These are just some of the numbers Cisco tossed out in its fifth annual 'Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2010-2015)' released today.