ADAPT’s 2022 data reveals that local organisations will continue to have over 53% of their staff WFH indefinitely by 2023.

Technology has been the glue keeping business together, putting infrastructure leaders at the core of every organisation’s ability to respond and recover.  

The challenges that lie ahead for infrastructure leaders are new architecture considerations for a remote-first policy and balancing the optimisation and modernisation of existing technology investments.   

At ADAPT’s CCDC Edge Event under the moderation of ADAPT’s Senior Research Strategist, Aparna Sundararajan, global and local infrastructure leaders from Affinidi Group, National Australia Bank, Domain Group, and Service NSW debate key strategies for architecting an interconnected and agile digital infrastructure.   

To unlock the full keynote video and access an entire catalogue of ADAPT’s expert presentations, localised research, case studies, downloadable data and community interviews, speak with a Senior Research Consultant today

 

Transcription: 

Aparna Sundararajan:  

Let’s talk about creating this digital infrastructure that we have spoken about and discussing. I remember first tracking it in 2008. We are still talking a lot about the same challenges. A lot of organisations are still in the initial phases of the journey. 

But all of you have been able to successfully execute the strategy. I’d like to start by asking a straightforward question as to has the narrative around cloud changed? It started as a cost-saving initiative. Has it shifted? 

Suneetha Bodduluri:  

Maybe I’ll start with my journey towards the cloud and how it has shifted towards it. Our journey, especially for Service NSW, started about a few years ago with the typical problem of scalability, agility and also availability.  

About four years ago, when we were looking at the journey, it started with the specific problem statements to see what we can do. Then, we went and picked up a product that is very high transactional volume from this stage.

At the same time, it had a lot of customer impact, and we tried that on one of the public clouds. That cloud journey was successful. That built the basis of my entire life journey for the cloud migration program. 

Steve Day:  

It’s a really interesting question because I’ve seen so many IT executives fail on that cost-saving initiativeAfter all, they think about it all wrong.

Cloud doesn’t save you a lot of money – server for server replacement. That’s where a lot of people think that it will, and it just doesn’t.”

It saves you a lot of monebecause it creates a platform of innovation that enables you to worquickly in getting new technologies, build new frameworks out, new platforms out, that through an agile approach, improve the business dramatically. That’s where the savings come through. 

Kathryn Jepsen:  
The cost savings have diminished if you stack up the many service providers today regarding public cloud, private cloud offerings. My first rodeo was with a public cloud commencing back in 2014 

We were quite an early adopter and a financial services company. We did achieve some cost out because we paid back then $3 per gig storage a monthWe’re in the cents now and even fractions of a cent.  

We were able to drive some significant cost out. That is eroded over time. Ithat’s the conversation, if you’re embarking on your cloud journey for the first time around, trying to get executive buy-in, then there’s going to be some nasty surprises.  

You need to see cloud as an innovation enabler for your organisation. I’m sure everyone’s got a customercentric journey there, and you need to be able to scale your company rapidly. Cloud enables you to do that.”

You’re not waiting weeks or months for the provisioning of servicesWhat’s happening in microseconds now as demand for your consumers is coming online. 

Glenn Gore:  

It‘s not about pure TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) cost. It was around in the early days around availability to new tech.

The first public cloud service ever was S3, an object file storage system that just didn’t exist. There was no precursor to it. We all dealt with files or any block-based storage.  

This was the first publicly available object-based store, and developers started building fundamentally different applications on top of that. That just expanded over time to the hundreds and hundreds of services that are here today.  

It’s evolved to that people have access to skills, and it attracts the best talent in ways that if you arstucon legacy infrastructure, operating models, governance, you’re not going to attract the best talent.  

That problem is getting harder and harder as every year goes by.  

You’ve got to be using the right technology to attract the best talent into that organisation. That creates a flywheel of agility.”

If you do that, well, cost savings drop out of it. But it’s not cost savings in direct comparisons. You can’t compare it server to server. It is very much an apples and oranges comparison. 

To unlock the full keynote video and access an entire catalogue of ADAPT’s expert presentations, localised research, case studies, downloadable data and community interviews, speak with a Senior Research Consultant today

Contributors
Aparna Sundararajan Senior Research Strategist
Aparna Sundararajan leads the emerging and disruptive technology research agenda within ADAPT’s strategic advisory team. As Senior Research Strategist, her role is... More

Aparna Sundararajan leads the emerging and disruptive technology research agenda within ADAPT’s strategic advisory team. As Senior Research Strategist, her role is to create independent advice for the Australian C-Suite around emerging technologies, trends and investment priorities and developing industry leading content for the ADAPT portfolio of Edge events.

As a technology analyst and marketer, Aparna aligns the burning issues of senior executives with digital business dynamics and emerging technology capabilities to create strategic advice for ADAPT’s Members and Strategic Partners.

Aparna has had 12 years working in the IT services sector, much of it with Gartner, where she developed independent advice for senior IT managers on the emerging roles and responsibilities they face in digital technologies, digital customer behaviour, and business model transformation.

 

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Glenn Gore CEO at Affinidi Group
25 years of Internet industry experience leading disruptive innovation at scale. In his current role he is the group CEO for Affinidi... More

25 years of Internet industry experience leading disruptive innovation at scale.

In his current role he is the group CEO for Affinidi as well as a board member for GoodWorker and Trustana. Affinidi is working on decentralized trust and self-sovereign identity solutions.

Prior to Affinidi Glenn was the Chief Architect for Amazon Web Services responsible for architectural best practices and technology thought leadership.

Glenn has previously held leadership roles in OzEmail, UUNet, MCI/Worldcom and WebCentral. Glenn is passionate about the role technology has in shaping how we live, work and learn.

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Steve Day EGM Infrastructure, Cloud and Workplace at National Australia Bank
Results driven Cloud professional who specialises in the management of technical, operational and customer service staff. A passion for building customer obsessed... More

Results driven Cloud professional who specialises in the management of technical, operational and customer service staff. A passion for building customer obsessed cultures, continually improving the service life-cycle through innovation is reinforced with a deep knowledge of the underpinning technology.

Engineering qualifications are supported by extensive international experience, strong business acumen and 20+ years’ experience in leading ICT engineering and operations teams.

A highly motivated individual, who enjoys meeting the challenges facing customers in complex and highly competitive environments.

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Kathryn Jepsen Head of Cloud & Infrastructure Operations at Domain Group
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Suneetha Bodduluri Director of Channel Enablement at Service NSW
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Management Leadership