ARDC Survey on Cloud Services Usage in Research

In June 2023, the ARDC ran a survey of all Australian researchers and research support staff to better understand how they use cloud computing services.

The survey was designed to help guide the development of the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud by identifying service gaps and opportunities to enhance its functionality. The survey results will also contribute to the National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy, which stems from the 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap.

Key Findings

The key findings from an analysis of the survey results are:

• Researchers across all Field of Research (FoR) codes use cloud technologies, but Biological Sciences, Earth Sciences, Health Sciences and Information and Computer Sciences dominated in this survey.
• Over half of respondents were using cloud technologies of all kinds to store or process controlled or sensitive data.
• The two most significant factors driving the choice of cloud platform were ease of use and cost.
• Over half of respondents acknowledged using a commercial cloud provider (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google Compute Platform, Oracle Cloud), with the budget for this coming from a mix of institutional funds and research grants, as well as industry grants, personal funding and cloud research credits.
• Almost two-thirds of respondents had used the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud. 
• Across a wide range of institutional, national and some international cloud providers, the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud was both used the most and received the highest rating for importance in supporting the respondent’s research.
• The overwhelming majority of respondents were happy with the available range of platforms or software services available on the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud