Amazon and Microsoft cloud are invading Oz, warns analysts.

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International cloud services are making significant headway in the Australian enterprise market, with Amazon Web Services, Apple and Google widely used here.

Two thirds of Oz enterprises that use IaaS (infrastructure as a serivce) are using a cloud computing service from an offshore provider with servers located ouside the country, according to technology analyst Telsyte.

This means “the opportunity is ripe for local providers to fill the void for Australian cloud services,” say analysts.

The Infrastructure and Cloud Computing Market Study surveyed 260 Chief Information Officers and showed the massive penetration of the big cloud computing vendors within local enterprises.

The research also looked at Aussie cloud IT policies and showed 36% of organisations have “no restrictions” on data being sent to offshore providers, however, 30% say their company data cannot leave Australia, which is “significant,” says Telsyte senior analyst Rodney Gedda.

The main cloud players currently circulating the market here include: Amazon Web Services, Apple, Attachmate, Citrix, Dell/EqualLogic, D-Link, EMC, Google, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NetApp.

Many organisations continue to operate IT service infrastructure (servers, storage systems, etc) in disparate locations, including server rooms and private data centres and this will not change drastically with the availability of cloud computing, the study also found.

The advent of on-demand cloud computing services has provided a compelling option for service delivery without the need to manage physical infrastructure for many Australian CIOs, says Telsyte senior analyst Rodney Gedda. 

“About 35 per cent of Australian enterprises are subscribing to some type of IaaS or PaaS cloud service, with the majority of subscriptions, and data, heading to overseas providers,” Gedda noted.

Public cloud services are being used for production and testing of server and storage environments but investment in on-premise infrastructure and private clouds are still strong with 19% of organisations building a private cloud and a further 35% ‘considering’ such a move.

In addition, many CIOs are unable to rely on public cloud for a variety of reasons, including reliability and data location restrictions.

More than half of Australian enterprises are now using server virtualization technology, according to Telsyte.