ANZ organisations are moving towards a hybrid data center ecosystem strategy, which incorporates several services along with organisation-owned data centers.

This is the view of ‘End-User Demand for Third Party Data Center Services in Australia and New Zealand 2012’ report, drawing on a survey of 420 ANZ companies to provide a comprehensive analysis of the demand for third-party data center services.

The report released by International Data Corporation (IDC) discusses colocation, managed infrastructure services, hosting and cloud computing services by geographic regions within Australia and New Zealand markets.

"ANZ organisations are moving from a narrow one data center, one DR facility strategy to adopting a broader ecosystem of services," says Liam Gunson, IDC senior consultant.

"However, organisation-owned data centers will still be a feature of the market and the adoption of different third-party data center services will be mixed across regions in both New Zealand and Australia.

“Some regions will see strong growth, whilst others may witness a decline in the next two years."

Findings show on average 36% of ICT infrastructure amongst Australian organisations were located in a third party data center, and likewise 47% were located in a third party facility amongst New Zealand organisations.

IDC says they see an opportunity with 37% of Australian organisations and 44% of New Zealand organisations expecting to increase the percentages of infrastructure in a third party data center over the next two years.

“We expect the largest increase will come in colocation in the Victoria and Tasmania region , followed by Queensland in which the growth will be in third-party managed infrastructure services,” says IDC market analyst, Yee-Kuan Lau.

“In New Zealand, the largest growth in racks will come in the upper and mid-North Island in both colocation and managed infrastructure services.”

Matt Oostveen, research director for IDC, added: "It is interesting to note the move to hybrid data center models reflects the adoption of cloud services which are also being consumed as a hybrid model.

“Continued investment in on-premises data centers is validation that Australian and New Zealand organisations will continue to invest in in-house computing models.”