Conclusion and Recommendations
The findings of the 7th Annual Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index illustrate the profound shifts in enterprise IT strategies driven by the rapid adoption of application containerization and Generative AI (GenAI) solutions.
The survey results also highlight the dual challenges and opportunities posed by GenAI adoption. While organizations are eager to leverage GenAI for productivity, automation, and innovation, they also face critical hurdles in the form of data security, skills gaps, and IT infrastructure modernization. Based on country-level results from Australia respondents, we offer the following recommendations regarding application containerization and GenAI implementation:
- Australia IT decision-makers should take advantage of the positive long-term perception of GenAI ROI. Plan projects, budgets, and metrics to span a 1-3 year timeframe. Setting ROI expectations within 12 months may likely result in project underperformance or failure.
- Evaluate adoption of 3rd party MLOps platforms/solutions to complement GenAI initiatives. Australia respondents show interest in MLOps solutions as a way to speed GenAI solution implementation and iteration, ultimately improving their ability to deliver on an AI strategy that focuses on “innovation” as a key result.
- Maintain investment in IT infrastructure modernization to support GenAI adoption, focusing specifically on the need to reduce regulatory and compliance challenges associated with legacy/outdated applications and systems.
- Mind skill gaps associated with emerging AI and cloud workloads. The #2 area needing investment to support GenAI in Australia is IT talent/hiring. Only 53% of Australia respondents feel they have the necessary skills they need to support cloud-native apps/containers. Hiring/training and investing to support both of these areas—GenAI and cloud-native/containers—may be an effective way to support multiple strategic areas at once.
See How Easily You Can Deploy and Secure GenAI Apps.
Country Findings Compared to Global/Regional Results
1. Organizations in Australia leverage containers for GenAI applications; rely on deployment of multiple Kubernetes environments.
All 110 Australia respondents (100%) say they are at least in the process of containerizing their applications today. From a workload deployment perspective, GenAI applications are cited as the most containerized application by Australia respondents at 75%, which was chosen at a slightly higher incidence rate than the global average of 70% (Q4) (see Figure 1).
Applications Containerized by Organizations Today: (Q4)
Generative AI (GenAI) applications
Development/ test applications
Enterprise-critical applications
(non-database applications)
Databases
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 1: Applications Containerized by Organizations Today: (Q4)
In terms of Kubernetes deployment, multi-environment usage is the clear standard, with 83% of Australia respondents saying they use more than one environment. This average aligns with both global and APJ rates of multi-environment deployment, at 80% and 83%, respectively (see Figure 2). Notable is the 55% of Australia respondents who say they use just two Kubernetes environments, which is much higher than global (36%) and APJ (40%) averages.
Number of Kubernetes Environments Deployed Today: (Q5)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Don't use Kubernetes environments
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 2: Number of Kubernetes Environments Deployed Today: (Q5)
Finally, we asked Australia respondents about the challenges they face regarding application containerization and container management. The results indicate challenges associated with IT infrastructure modernization, container-native app development, data silos, and related people skills (see Figure 3).
Key Challenges Organizations Face Regarding Application Containerization:
Showing Australia Results Only (n=110)
of Australia organizations feel their current IT infrastructure requires improvement to fully support cloud-native applications and containers (Q23).
of Australia organizations find cloud-native/container-native application development challenging (Q7).
of Australia respondents find data silos (isolated data storage systems that prevent seamless data access and sharing across different parts of org.) challenging (Q7).
of Australia organizations feel they have some but not all the necessary skills needed to support cloud-native applications and containers, which is 10 points higher than the APJ average of 37% (Q24).
Figure 3: Key Challenges Organizations Face Regarding Application Containerization:
Australia IT orgs show a high rate of implementation of GenAI solutions, potentially driven by strategies which target immediate improvements in productivity.
More than 80% of Australia respondents say their organization has a GenAI strategy in place. But what’s impressive is the high rate of active implementation of GenAI strategy in Australia, at 61%, which is slightly higher than the APJ average, and six points higher than the global average of 55% (see Figure 4).
Current State of Enterprise GenAI Strategy Development/Implementation: (Q9)
We have a strategy in place and are actively implementing it
We have a strategy in place but have
not yet started implementation
We are in the early stages of developing our strategy
We have not started planning our strategy yet
We aren’t going to develop a strategy
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 4: Current State of Enterprise GenAI Strategy Development/Implementation: (Q9)
or more of organizations already have
a GenAI strategy in place
What is driving and/or enabling such a high rate of GenAI strategy implementation in Australia? Survey findings illustrate an important, potentially related finding: the majority of Australia respondents (55%) believe GenAI will drive increased innovation for their business (see Figure 5).
Top Business Goals and Strategies Supported by GenAI: (Q18)
Increasing productivity
Increasing automation and efficiency
Increasing innovation
Customer retention and support
Decreasing operational costs
Employee onboarding
Industry differentiation
GenAI does not/could not support our overarching
business goals and strategies
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 5: Top Business Goals and Strategies Supported by GenAI: (Q18)
Innovation is a broad term and can be measured/achieved in many ways. Digging deeper into Australia respondent results, we find that the ability to achieve increased innovation via GenAI may rely specifically on the use of third-party machine learning operations (MLOps) platforms. When asked what processes or tools Australia organizations have in place for managing the lifecycle of GenAI models from development to deployment, 54% say they rely on MLOps platforms. One Australia respondent expanded on the use of MLOps platforms and specifically how it is tied to accelerated innovation:
“By introducing a third-party MLOps platform, we can quickly build, train, and deploy machine learning models without having to build complex infrastructure from scratch. This accelerates product innovation and allows us to apply AI technology to production optimization, quality control and other fields more quickly.”
– Australia respondent in manufacturing industry
Perceptions of GenAI Return on Investment (ROI) in Australia are optimistic and improve steadily over the long term (1-3 years).
To better understand trends around GenAI spending and expected business results, respondents were asked specifically about their organizations’ expectations for ROI when it comes to GenAI projects. Overall, the vast majority of Australia organizations (76%) expect their GenAI projects to break even or make a gain over a 1-3 year time period (Q13). When looking at how perception of ROI changes over time, survey data shows:
- 38% of Australia respondents expect to break even or make a loss on GenAI projects over the next year (Q13).
- 28% of Australia respondents expect to break even or make a loss on GenAI projects over the next 1-3 years (Q13).
These two data points indicate an important country trend: the longer GenAI projects are implemented, the more confident Australia respondents are they will result in small, moderate, or significant gain. This long-term optimism regarding GenAI success and ultimately ROI is important for two reasons. First, it means Australia decision-makers are committed to measuring the financial success of GenAI projects over multiple years – not just looking for quick wins. Second, this long-term outlook will allow for setbacks and iteration. Many GenAI projects will face implementation and operational hurdles. A long-term approach will allow for failure and re-evaluation, and ultimately lower rates of project abandonment.
76%
of Australia organizations expect their GenAI projects to break even or make a gain over a 1-3 year time period (Q13)
Summary of Country
Findings: Australia
Application containerization is set to become increasingly pervasive across Australia, with all country respondents (110 out of 110) saying their organization is at least in the process of containerizing applications (Q2). This trend may be driven by the fact that 99% of respondents from Australia agree that their organization benefits from adopting cloud-native applications/containers (Q25). This perceived benefit on containerization is driving immediate change, with 31% of Australia respondents stating that all newly developed applications are containerized—a rate that is 9 points higher than the regional APJ average of 22% (Q2).
Although Australia containerization adoption is moving in the right direction, there are always challenges to consider. For example, only 53% of Australia respondents feel they have the necessary skills they need to support cloud-native apps/containers, which is 10 points lower than the APJ average of 63% (Q24). Furthermore, 83% of Australia respondents believe their current IT infrastructure requires at least moderate improvement to fully support cloud-native apps/containers (Q23). Clearly, there is more work to be done both in terms of the people and technology required to accelerate rates of container adoption within Australia IT organizations
When it comes to GenAI adoption, 87% of Australia respondents state that their organization already has a GenAI strategy in place, while 13% state they are in the early stages of developing their strategy (Q9). Impressively, 61% of Australia respondents state they are actively implementing their GenAI strategy. This GenAI implementation rate is higher than the global average of 55% and in-line with the regional APJ average of 60% (Q9). In terms of applications/workloads being deployed today, 55% of Australia respondents say they are leveraging GenAI-based customer support and experience solutions (e.g., chatbots), while 48% say they are leveraging GenAI-based code generation and code co-pilots (Q8).
Despite the seemingly high levels of GenAI strategy implementation and solution deployments, Australia respondents still note a range of challenges and potential hindrances regarding GenAI solution development and deployment for their organizations, including:
- All 110 Australia respondents (100%) say they face challenges when scaling GenAI workloads from development to production – with the #1 issue being integration with existing IT infrastructure (Q19).
- 95% of Australia respondents agree that GenAI is changing their organization’s priorities, with security and privacy becoming higher priorities (Q25).
- 98% of Australia respondents also agree that their organization could be doing more to secure its GenAI models and applications (Q25).
- The #1 challenge faced by Australia organizations when it comes to leveraging or expanding utilization of GenAI is complexity and lack of expertise to build a GenAI environment from scratch (Q26).
- The #2 challenge faced by Australia respondents regarding GenAI utilization is privacy and security concerns of using LLMs with sensitive company data (Q26).
This report highlights several of these country-level findings in greater detail and provides comparisons to both global and regional results for context.
For the seventh consecutive year, Nutanix commissioned a global research study to learn about the state of global enterprise cloud deployments, application containerization trends, and GenAI application adoption. In the Fall of 2024, U.K. researcher Vanson Bourne surveyed 1,500 IT and DevOps/Platform Engineering decision-makers around the world. The respondent base spanned multiple industries, business sizes, and geographies, including North and South America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific-Japan (APJ) region
This report supplements the global findings of the 7th Annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) and highlights key results of surveys conducted with 110 IT professionals in Australia. It also compares results from Australia to the rest of the APJ region and global averages.
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Data privacy/security challenges related to GenAI will create implementation and expansion headwinds for Australia organizations.
This year’s ECI survey findings highlight some of the real-world complications associated with GenAI regulatory and compliance requirements, an issue which is often exacerbated in countries like Australia, given the nation’s growing requirements regarding data sovereignty and locality with respect to cloud computing (e.g., IRAP).
Survey findings show 51% of Australia respondents believe their organization needs to invest in/improve its cybersecurity capabilities to support GenAI (Q17). Furthermore, when asked about the challenges associated with leveraging or expanding utilization of GenAI workloads today, Australia respondents ranked privacy and security concerns of using LLMs with sensitive company data as a leading challenge (Q26) (see Figure 6).
Challenges Associated with Leveraging or Expanding Utilization of GenAI Workloads Today (Q26)
Privacy and security concerns of using LLMs with sensitive company data
Complexity and lack of expertise to build a GenAI environment from scratch
Lack of use cases for utilizing GenAI
None of the above are/ could be challenges
All of the above are/ could be of equal challenge
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 6: Challenges Associated with Leveraging or Expanding Utilization of GenAI Workloads Today (Q26)
Note: showing responses ranked first
Delving a layer deeper on GenAI implementation, data security/privacy concerns among Australia respondents outweigh other options. Specifically, 27% of Australia respondents cite privacy/security as their organization’s most important data-related aspect of GenAI implementations, making it the #1 data-related priority for GenAI implementation (Q14) (see Figure 7).
98%
of Australia respondents who agree data privacy is/would be a priority for their organization when implementing GenAI
Most Important Data-Related Aspects of GenAI Application/Workload Implementation (Q14)
Privacy/security
Performance
Scalability
Governance
They are of equal importance
Global
APJ
Australia
Figure 7: Most Important Data-Related Aspects of GenAI Application/Workload Implementation (Q14)
Note: showing responses ranked first
Data security/privacy concerns are further underscored by the 98% of Australia respondents who agree data privacy is/would be a priority for their organization when implementing GenAI (Q25).
Similar to many of the countries surveyed this year, data security/privacy is an area that will continue to create hurdles for GenAI implementation among Australia organizations. Potentially, these challenges can be addresses/alleviated with continued investment in IT infrastructure modernization and people skills, a recommendation echoed by survey respondents. Over 80% of Australia decision-makers believe their current IT infrastructure requires improvement to support data security (Q23). And 54% of Australia decision-makers believe their organization needs to invest in/improve their IT talent hiring to support GenAI, making it the #2 choice behind “investment in IT infrastructure” (Q17).