Melbourne Convention 2025: Transforming Enterprise, Datacenters & Cloud in Victoria

The environmental, social and governance responsibilities which form the basis of ‘sustainability’ are continually evolving in terms of their measurement, management and delivery  What are the key learnings from the industry’s history of sustainability so far – what are the successes and achievements, and the areas where improvement may be required?  How can sustainability targets be reached across hybrid infrastructure configurations?

This presentation will look at where the Australian market stands in relation to other established markets around the world such as the USA, Japan and Korea.  It will examine also the key driving factors for the Australian market and the factors that will change the industry moving forward. What will be the impact of the acceleration of  digital technologies in terms of both demand and their operational application?

Cyber threats to telecom and networks systems and infrastructure are continuing to grow in sophistication. A lack of reporting on incidence, causes and impacts in Australia is seen in some quarters as a cause for concern in preparing against future threats. This keynote looks at some of the emerging techniques that have proven useful to telco and data systems in threat mitigation – Steve will look at the role of authoritative data in routing and fraud prevention, and the monetization of number assets as steps that can enhance security in the communications and data ecosystem.

Sustainability in data centres has evolved now to focus not just on energy, but on a broader range of natural resources, especially water. As sustainability priorities extend across the supply chain and on to consumers, data centres need to rethink how they source, use, and manage finite resources such as water, the land on which the data centre is built, skills, materials used in construction and operation. They need also to factor in impacts on the local environment and on local communities. Water, in particular, is of growing concern due to its vital role in data centre cooling and operations. .How can data centres respond to these resource challenges with innovation while maintaining operational resilience and future focus?

Cloud computing is considered to offer users agility, flexibility and efficiency in the digital economy and this looks set to continue – according to Grand View Research, the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 14.1% p.a. from 2023 to 2030. Yet cloud is not static; how will the growing deployment of AI and digital technologies be managed in terms of their strong reliance on considerable volumes of data?   What role will cloud computing play in this, and how will the forms in which cloud is made available and specific services develop?

Best practice datacentre management is required to deal with the growing demands on data centres in the context of requirements for continupis availability and cost (and carbon) efficiency. This presentation will describe the process of achieving an overview across the entire data centre and a view of where risks to operations are highest. The keynote will also take the data centre forward in time as AI and other demand sources ratchet up the pressures on data centre operation and management,

How far do data centres follow the policies and guidelines of the companies which own them or are data centres left to pursue their own paths towards sustainability? Do service data centres and cloud providers follow relevant corporate policies or are targets based on the profile of individual facilities and their clients? What role do different sets of national legislation play?

Digital infrastructure in Australia is facing a number of key questions, not simply as a result of accelerating demand trends but also due to technologies that are challenging the established means of meeting demand.  While the growth of AI learning and delivery is key to future demand, what role can AI play as an operational and planning tool for meeting future demand?    How will this change the fundamentals of digital infrastructure strategy, design and operation?  How therefore will Victoria’s digital infrastructure of 2034 be different to today?

The continuing deployment of digital technologies within data centres is driven usually by the requirement for operational efficiency and performance. What impacts do digital technologies have on the sustainability of data centres? How can different digital systems be deployed to improve sustainability performance?  In this context, what will be the role of people, skills development, management systems, and digital strategies in delivering ‘greener’ data centres? 

Is the community view of data centres still largely ‘unformed’? What evidence do we have for what the wider public outside the data centre and associated industries think? How does the opinion and information provided by media outlets outside the industry shape the view of the industry among different groups? Does this matter – if so, why? If not, why not – should it?

Connectivity is a critical requirement for datacenters and cloud as they act as key enablers of the digital age. Data and services are transmitted to and from (other) data centers, to intermediaries and end-consumers across the world and, in some cases, beyond it.  The expectation is of lower latency, faultless reliability and greater speed. As cloud, colocation and hybrid infrastructure continue to diversify services and increase their digital footprint across Australia, how well are each of these options prepared for the demands of an era based increasingly on connectivity?