First OpenStack Australia Day Indicates Strong Uptake of OpenStack in Australia

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, June 16, 2016 - The first OpenStack conference in Australia has signalled expectations for the growth of OpenStack by the local market over the next 18 months. It also reflects significant opportunity for vendors and service providers specialising in OpenStack technology and services.  Held in Sydney last month with a keynote from Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director of the OpenStack Foundation who announced Sydney as the host city for the global OpenStack Summit in November 2017, OpenStack Australia Day was the region’s largest, and Australia’s first conference focusing on the Open Source cloud technology.

Hosted by Aptira, the sold out event attracted more than 300 users from a range of public and private sector organisations, as well as some of the largest OpenStack vendors and solution providers both locally and internationally, including Red Hat, SUSE and Rackspace among many others.
 

A survey to gather information about attendees’ OpenStack experience and adoption showed that approximately 65% had adopted OpenStack, while 70% of those who had not yet adopted OpenStack, have, or are in the process of investigating the use of this platform within their company, suggesting the potential for further growth of this platform within Australia.

Conference attendees provided valuable insights into why their organisations have not yet adopted this technology and where technical and commercial education is needed to bridge the gap. They also identified many advantages to running OpenStack - from increased transparency and integrity, to streamlining their internal IT infrastructure and providing greater scalability and flexibility within their organisation.
 

Assessing the growth of OpenStack within Australia, Aptira’s COO Roland Chan said “I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Australian enterprises that showed up to OpenStack Australia Day, and of those that attended and advocated uptake. This means we're starting to see more innovative thinking from Australian enterprises in this area. There's a lot of value to be unlocked in OpenStack so it’s a really positive indication for the future."

"There's obviously a lot of interest in the local market but I think we are going to see a real ramp up in the coming 12 to 18 months with regards to actual OpenStack adoption," said Keiran McCartney, Alliances & Solutions Manager at NetApp and Solidfire.
 

"We didn't even think, a few years ago, that OpenStack could be a fundamental building block for the strategic choice of next generation carrier networks via Network Functions Virtualisation, but it just happened." says Peter Jung, Business Development Manager at Red Hat.

Events such as OpenStack Australia Day, and the upcoming OpenStack Government Day help develop deeper understanding of the benefits of OpenStack among the community through user case studies, the exchange of feedback, technical sessions, live demonstrations and workshops.

Following the success of the first OpenStack Australia Day, several more Australian OpenStack events are planned between now and the OpenStack Summit in Sydney in November next year. These include the aforementioned OpenStack Government Day to be held in Canberra in November this year, the second OpenStack Australia Day in Melbourne in May 2016 and a collaboration with GovHack in mid 2017.

Hosted by Aptira, and supported by the OpenStack Foundation, these events will be held in addition to the long running Australian OpenStack User Group which meets quarterly in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.

"We can't do this without awesome volunteers who help us put these [OpenStack events] on all over the world," said Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director of the OpenStack Foundation. "So thank you to everybody that made OpenStack Day Australia possible."

About Aptira

Aptira is the leading provider of OpenStack in Asia-Pacific, providing cloud solutions and technology consultancy to meet the most demanding technology specifications for a wide range of organisations in telecommunications, media, finance, retail, utilities and government. With offices in Australia, India, Taiwan and Hungary, Aptira is a growing global business as its reputation for high quality services expands.

As the founder and prime motivator of the OpenStack community in Australia and India, the company is committed to the idea that what it is doing for its customers today will be mainstream tomorrow.

For more information, please visit aptira.com or follow Aptira on Twitter: @Aptira

 

About OpenStack

OpenStack® is the most widely deployed open source software for building clouds. Enterprises use OpenStack to support rapid deployment of new products, reduce costs and improve internal systems. Service providers use OpenStack to give customers reliable, easily accessible cloud infrastructure resources, supporting technologies including platforms and containers. OpenStack powers clouds for many of the world’s largest brands, including AT&T, Bloomberg, Cisco Webex, Disney, Fidelity and Walmart. Nearly 500 companies and 23,000 individuals across more than 150 countries are supporters of the project.

For more information on OpenStack, please visit openstack.org or follow OpenStack on Twitter: @OpenStack

To stay up to date with the latest OpenStack news and events in Australlia, please visit australiaday.openstack.org.au or follow OpenStackAU on Twitter: @OpenStackAU