For many tech leaders we are constantly facing decisions to better support our organisations. Predominantly we are faced with the constant pressures of finding cost savings whilst trying to keep the lights on and provide innovative solutions to our stakeholders. One of the most prohibitive areas we face is the cost of change, which can be technical, people or process but all represent increasing costs.

So, how do we achieve cost savings whilst ensuring stability & innovation? For many the decision will be migrating from on prem to cloud, but is the cloud the panacea? In this keynote join Mary-Beth Hosking as she teases out the change impacts of moving from DC to Cloud and questioning is it really worth it?

Melbourne’s data centre scene has witnessed incredible expansion in recent years, with growth rates of the market mirroring that of Australia’s Tier 1 market in Sydney. How is Australia’s largest secondary data centre market poised to evolve over the next few years, especially with the progress of upcoming developments? In this session, we dive into the shifts in data centre trends within Victoria’s capital city and discuss how Melbourne stacks up within the wider Australian context.

Over the last decade, the world has undergone a transformative digital evolution; at the core of this evolution are data centres that compile, process, store, and transmit massive volumes of data keeping up with the ever-increasing demand for information.
By 2025, there will likely be more than 27 billion IoT connections across the globe. This increase in connected devices makes uptime in data centers even more critical which probably can be best met by “Digitalisation” of the ‘Power Infrastructure’ that supports the 24/7 operation – Digitalisation including use of ‘IEC61850’ delivers efficiency out of the box, plus a future-proof platform for growth.
The high reliability, integrated diagnostics, fine selectivity, shorter fault reaction times and better fault tolerance delivered by IEC 61850 makes it ideal also for data centre power infrastructure.

Over the next few years as digital demand increases, as 5G kicks in and the need to access data on the basis of low latency increases also, Melbourne will continue to show strong growth in data center investment. The world in which data centers will operate is transforming quickly so how will data center design and planning help to manage change?

Cooling management has always been one of the most intractable challenges within a data centre and the rising cost of energy only adds to this challenge. As a result, reducing the actual energy consumption of cooling systems is now a priority for the industry, although this has had to take second place to both uptime and cooling effectiveness….and so it should. What if you were able to meaningfully reduce the power usage of your chillers without risking either uptime and / or cooling effectiveness? If you run a chilled water cooling solution, this Australian invented, manufactured and proven solution could be of interest to you. This idea may be the low hanging fruit if you’re looking for reduced carbon footprint or improved PUE performance.

It is now essential for any forward-thinking data centre to understand the potential economic impacts of climate change on their operations. This requires a comprehensive understanding of their organisation’s environmental impact and the implementation of a robust strategy to reduce emissions, comply with regulations, fulfill social responsibilities, and ensure business continuity despite the challenges posed by environmental risks. Future focused businesses getting ahead of the curve early can capitalise on opportunities the transition to a decarbonised business and economy offers, to ensure a sustainable and profitable future.

In this presentation Principal Consultant Matias Sellanes will go over five steps you can take now to begin, or progress on your climate action journey.

As data centers become increasingly critical for business and commerce, so data centers also become scrutinised more closely for ESG performance. This panel discussion combines the views of those who set the policy and those who need to execute it.  Where are the stress points? How are these resolved? And how does this impact on the “data centre as brand” trend?

As edge computing matures as an IT delivery architecture so it runs into the same questions as the data center industry overall. One of the most important of these is how it will impact the cluster of environmental and social issues included under ‘sustainability’. Will it lead to greater efficiency in IT delivery and, if so, how? How is it likely to impact demand patterns? How can the sustainability performance of Edge be monitored and managed? 

What impact is the ‘skills shortage’ and the costs of labour having on data centers and associated industries across Victoria? How should the State face the future of labour in and around the data center? What will be the role of different stakeholder groups in restoring the balance between the demand for and supply of necessary skill sets?

Over the past 18 months,  Adam has travelled to and explored more than 25 facilities across the world, each offering a unique product and a unique positioning. We have invited Adam to share (and show) some of his experiences and insights from his travels and to speak also about some of the things which surprised him.  

This panel will look at a number of the key technologies and I.T. innovations that we can expect to see coming onto the market in the near and longer-term future. Which will contribute most to the challenges currently faced by data centers? How will they do so?