By Eric Hui, Director of Cloud, IT and Enterprise, Equinix, Asia Pacific
It’s becoming very apparent that Australia is shaping up to be the market to watch in the year ahead on a number of data intensive levels.
Cloud adoption
When Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched in Australia late last year, selecting Sydney as the ninth international region to deploy its global cloud computing platform, it signified that Australia was coming-of-age in terms of cloud. Gartner claims that around 30 to 40% of organizations in Australia have already put in some of the groundwork for cloud computing principles, with most of the investment from the enterprise sector coming from private cloud adoption. In Australia, Equinix Sydney is supporting AWS Direct Connect offering.
The launch in Australia followed AWS’s existing presence in both the Singapore and Tokyo regions – two of the most advanced markets for cloud services in Asia Pacific. The Sydney destination shows that the public cloud infrastructure giant certainly knows where demand will flourish.
A hot topic in the realm of public cloud has been around security and in Australia like every market there are deep concerns about data privacy. Equinix has recently addressed these concerns by introducing the availability of NetApp Private Storage for AWS in Equinix IBX data centers where AWS Direct Connect is deployed including Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo as well as Silicon Valley and Ashburn Virginia in the United States. This allows organizations to balance private and public cloud resources to best meet their business needs. This hybrid cloud model addresses some security requirements so that data remains private but can utilize low latency public cloud compute resources.
Introduction of National Broadband Network (NBN)
With the advent of the NBN and the cost efficiencies of cloud platforms, organizations in Australia are currently planning for their data center needs for the next decade…now.
The NBN has provided an enormous boost to data center market activity with industry estimates forecasting AUD 5 billion investment over the next 3-5 years. The NBN efforts foster more speed, more reliable connections, and more coverage, which contribute to better user experience for cloud and mobility. It will also stimulate data center investment outside of the capital cities where it is now mostly concentrated.
The rise of mobile data
In Australia, we are seeing a big rise in data only mobile plans. This is a clear indicator that mobile computing is getting more widely adopted. Business models are increasingly mobile, customers want to be device agnostic and accessing data on the fly. These trends are clearly indicators to drive cloud, and the underlying infrastructures need to be increasingly tailored for mobile cloud workloads. Virtualization, cloud management and security will be increasingly important in inter-cloud network architectures.
These are a great confluence of factors for the rise of innovative data infrastructure services and data center growth. Gartner is forecasting spend on data center hardware in Australia to hit AUD 2.09 billion (USD 2.19 billion) this year.
With the advent of a myriad of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers entering the market the burgeoning ecosystem needs a stable and welcoming policy to encourage healthy competition and attract offshore providers to open up locally.
All the key indicators that create innovation for a cloud-ready market are emerging in strength down under. From ready investment in infrastructure, a robust and growing content industry, government policy that supports infrastructure stimulation and a thriving ecosystem of developers and systems integrators – Australia is looking good from a regional and global perspective.
At Equinix, we will continue to innovate and operate a “platform of choice” for cloud service providers and Australia enterprise cloud users. For those IT organizations evaluating cloud on-boarding options, we encourage them to explore more about hybrid cloud models. This model combines the benefits of private cloud and public cloud i.e. controllability with flexibility and scalability. Equinix, along with our technology and solutions partner, is helping customers power their DNA (Data, Network, Applications).
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