Cloud adoption in Oz ahead of region

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 19 October 2011 00:41

Latest forecasts show there's a heavy cloud cover over Australia at the moment and it seems Australian enterprises are dealing with it as well as, if not better, than their counterparts around the world, particularly in the Asia Pacific, where Aussies lead in cloud adoption.

According to global virtualisation and cloud infrastructure vendor, VMware Australian organisations have matured in their approach to cloud computing and Australia still leads the Asia Pacific region in cloud adoption.

A survey of 6,141 Asia-Pacific decision-makers, including 1,078 in Australia, by Forrester Consulting for VMware, reveals that once again, Australian businesses view the technology primarily as a strategic business investment (47 percent) compared with all other markets, which view it as a route to cost savings.

Of Australian businesses surveyed, 67 percent reported that they have cloud initiatives in place, up from 60 percent in 2010, with the enterprises identifying that the number one barrier to cloud adoption is concern around data privacy and control. The concern about privacy replaces security, which rated number one in the same survey just 12 months ago.

According to VMware, data privacy concerns rated higher in Australia than any other country in the region in this latest survey.

'What is clear from the survey is that Australian companies are ahead of the game when it comes to cloud computing,' Duncan Bennet, managing director of VMware Australia and New Zealand, said.

'The drivers for continued implementation and adoption here are very different to those we see elsewhere in the region. It suggests that the majority of Australian companies are moving past technology concerns and focusing on the matters that have a marked impact on their businesses.'

Another sign of the Australian market's increased maturity, VMware reports, is that the focus is less on cost reduction than in other markets. The survey found that only 33 percent of Australian respondents are looking to use cloud purely to save on software costs - with 27 percent looking to save on services and 31 percent on IT staffing - whereas markets with lesser cloud penetration, such as India and China, see cost savings as a major driver.

'Although interest in cloud is stronger than ever, the study clearly shows that Australian businesses have serious concerns about data residency - and that if they embrace cloud computing, they are likely to look for offerings that keep data onshore,' Bennet suggests.

'Businesses do not want to fall foul of Australia's privacy regulations, and they want to know exactly where their data is at any given time. We know that this is a concern for Australia, which is why we have developed a community of hundreds of VSPP partners locally, so that our customers can rest easy, knowing their data is held here. We believe that the ability to give our customers a seamless cloud approach - whether public, private or hybrid - is essential if Australia is to maintain its leadership in cloud computing.

'As the most recent comprehensive study of cloud computing awareness and adoption trends in Asia Pacific, with more than 6,000 respondents, the survey gives us a clear view of the drivers and barriers to cloud adoption. Data residency has become a hot topic over the last 12 months, so it's no surprise that this concern is top-of-mind. Businesses need more education and clarity around this issue to ensure it doesn't hold back adoption of cloud and the associated business benefits that can be gained,' Bennet concludes.

According to VMware, Australia's confidence in cloud was confirmed (in the latest survey) by more than three-quarters (76 percent) of Australian businesses, which confirmed they would consider virtualising mission critical applications.

As a result, Australia remains the most virtualized country in Asia Pacific, according to VMware, with 91 percent of organisations currently deploying virtualisation technology, and most citing virtualisation as critical to their cloud initiatives, rating it 7.8 out of 10.

The survey reveals that, currently, 28 percent of Australian organisations have over 80 percent of their production applications running in a virtualised environment, up from 22 percent in 2010, and in contrast to a regional average of just 11 percent.