The advent of AI, especially generative AI, has allowed businesses to fast-track much of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re starting to de-risk the things people didn\u2019t do before because they were cost prohibitive or too complex,\u201d noted Walls. \u201cThat also helps de-risk modernisation as you modernise applications and architectures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hybrid cloud strategy<\/p>\n
Datacom sees cloud as a model, not just as a data centre. This means first working out the problem customers are trying to solve. The next step is to find the right platform and technology for that particular problem or workload \u2014 making sure not to put all your eggs in one basket, said Walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can then work out the right platform from a cloud-native perspective, rather than just lifting and shifting and not realising the benefits because it can\u2019t scale or be flexible,\u201d he said. \u201cA hybrid cloud strategy enables the ability to move and connect workloads between multiple clouds \u2014 on-premises, private, or public.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, moving those workloads doesn\u2019t happen automatically. The technologies in hybrid aren\u2019t always compatible, vendor lock-in doesn\u2019t make it easy to move out, and supportability is a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen \u2014 and what the report highlights \u2014 is a significant increase in the use of containerisation technologies,\u201d explained Walls. \u201cFirst, workloads ran on hardware. Then came virtualisation with VMs.<\/p>\n
\u201cCloud took that further, but often still ran VMs. Containerisation takes it further still, packaging workloads into a more portable mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walls said it\u2019s a more flexible technology that allows workloads to be delivered more efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where people are reducing the complexity of hybrid multi-cloud and moving towards the portability goal, as containerisation has really taken off in the last 12 to 18 months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
AI and sovereignty<\/p>\n
This reduces the complexity of the back end and makes it easier with the acceleration of AI workloads for high-performance, low-latency infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Datacom\u2019s cloud report shows a large percentage of organisations are intending to keep their data processing in-country.<\/p>\n
However, over half of this year\u2019s respondents expressed concern about in-country infrastructure capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear that AI is not only reshaping compute and storage requirements but also intensifying focus on data sovereignty and local infrastructure investment,\u201d said the report.<\/p>\n
According to Walls, the other interesting thing that shows up throughout the report and in customer conversations is the increasing geopolitical changes and tensions around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cVendor lock-in is one of them, but you also look at tariffs, fluctuating exchange rates, and challenges around resiliency of your platform, like access to your data \u2014 if an internet cable gets chopped, for example,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing challenges around internet cables being attacked or supposedly attacked around the world.<\/p>\n
About 68 per cent of Australian respondents interviewed said they wanted local data processing in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat fed into AI workloads being put in private cloud\u2014around 50 per cent preferred that platform,\u201d said Walls. \u201cThis links to concerns about political tensions and data sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally, people use hyperscale public cloud to experiment and test because it\u2019s flexible: you can turn it on and off, and all the technology exists there, so it\u2019s accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once users understand their use cases and want to get into full production of running LLMs full-time, it\u2019s often perceived to be safer and potentially more commercially viable to run in private cloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always on and productionised at that point,\u201d said Walls. \u201cAgain, that lends itself to a hybrid strategy: use public cloud for experimentation, innovation, and customer-facing digital omnichannel elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cRun your core knowledge work in sovereign or private cloud because of those concerns \u2013using both effectively is still a good strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Risk and resilience<\/p>\n
From a technology priority perspective, security was rated as a top technology priority. From a business priorities perspective, risk management ranked sixth.<\/p>\n
Walls said security strategy and hybrid cloud strategy should work together and coexist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a Venn diagram: security strategy, cloud strategy (hybrid), and cloud security strategy as a subset,\u201d he said. \u201cCloud security strategy is about protecting your cloud assets and ecosystem.<\/p>\n
\u201cHybrid strategy is about protecting your wider ecosystem at the same time. It\u2019s all connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a security perspective, only 43 per cent of those surveyed had a formal cloud security strategy in place, and only 50 per cent had mature security tools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a maturity challenge in just protecting cloud,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s even less maturity in understanding that hybrid cloud strategy provides part of your security and GRC [governance, risk and compliance] strategy too.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are starting to realise now, and we\u2019re seeing it show up in customer conversations. AI has forced many to think about this, as have geopolitical tensions.\u201d<\/p>\n
This also plays into the need for locally skilled staff as a top criterion for choosing technology partners, for government procurement.<\/p>\n
It reflects both skills shortages and geopolitical concerns, as well as the need for enablement alongside technology delivery, added Walls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The advent of AI, especially generative AI, has allowed businesses to fast-track much of that. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[64,63,257,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-158196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-computing","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}