Cloud computing: Technology and service

Call in the clouds, call on the side

"After listening to the whole day, what I want to know now is, who can tell me what is cloud computing in the simplest language?" "At the 2011 IT Leaders ' summit, the Shenzhen mayor, Xu, said the big it boss. 2011 is called the Year of cloud computing, the news about "cloud computing" is overwhelming, but what is cloud computing, even most industry experts, is not simple to say. Just like when the internet just appeared, how can people understand the fastest cloud computing? It is easiest to use the services that are around us to give examples. Apple is cloud, Yahoo Mail is cloud service, Taobao is cloud, Baidu Library is cloud service, even our daily service or complaint phone call, is also used in the cloud services.

In the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Beijing Xiangyun Project--The cloud base in addition to the World cloud box, heaven and Earth Super Cloud, Friends of the system of these companies, which inside the "cloud" company, there is a company is particularly different, this is known as a managed call center leader of the day-run intermediation.

How is the most traditional call center business and the most trendy cloud computing connected? We interviewed Mr. Wu, general manager of the day, Wu always said: "In fact, cloud computing is not just a new thing, but only in the last few years has been given the name, it is the technology and network development products." The birth of cloud computing has three big backgrounds: one is the rapid development of it technology such as virtualization technology, distributed computing, distributed storage technology and so on. It makes it possible to perform large-scale operations at lower cost. The second is the development of network technology and the promotion of the ability of bandwidth delivery. This makes it more feasible to allocate computing resources over the network. Third, the most important factor: the need for large-scale, low-cost computing and storage capabilities of the information explosion. With the development of Internet and it technology, computers and networks have penetrated every corner of human life and penetrated everyone. Catalyzed by these factors, Google has integrated the existing technologies and concepts, proposing the so-called cloud computing concept. That is, access to the required resources is achieved on an as-needed and extensible basis through the network. At the same time, cloud computing is divided into three models: Saas, PAAs and IASs. In this, the concept of SaaS is a long way off. ”

So, call center as a communication and computer technology integration business, natural also can use the characteristics of cloud computing, become a new type of cloud computing services. In fact, the day-run intermediation is also the first domestic practice of SaaS Mode call center-managed call center. While there was no cloud computing concept, the practice of cloud computing had actually begun. A managed call center is a service that allows customers to rent a call center seat on demand via the network. As defined by cloud computing standards, this is a typical cloud application in which every call service is done in the cloud.

According to Wu introduction, the current days of the integration of the customer has included the Internet, finance, insurance, education, medical and other dozens of industries, including Baidu, Qihoo 360, China Peace, Huatai Insurance, amber education and other thousands of well-known enterprises. You may not realize that you use search engines, car insurance reports, enrollment classes, booking tickets and so many services, in fact, there are cloud computing services behind. Cloud computing services are already around you.

The cloud is to be more convenient, cheaper

A number of enterprises of all the choice of day-run financing of the managed call center services, in addition to the days of the brand, services and the establishment of trust, the most important or because of the day to facilitate cloud computing hosting service center brought convenience and cheap.

The amber education is a well-known and successful domestic education group recently listed. With its customer service center in charge of the introduction, "in order to meet the company's various school services integration needs, we need within 1 months, to build the call center." And initially there was no planning for a lot of investment for call centers. When we learned about the managed call center of the day, it was completely in line with our needs. The two sides confirmed the cooperation, within 3 days, we opened the necessary seats. And later, as we joined the school increase, the increase in seats is also very flexible. ”

It is because the managed Call Center service is built on cloud computing architecture, System computing capacity, storage resources, network resources can be dynamically provisioned and extended, which is required for the managed Call Center service to be extended at any time, according to the characteristics of the need to provide a better technical guarantee. The main reason for the rapid popularization of managed call centers in China is that the change of the business model brings about a reduction in the cost of one-time input and later use and maintenance of the call center. And the cost of access and use of the lower cost, so that the original only large enterprises can operate the call center, began to become popular in small and medium-sized enterprises.

"In fact, from the three models of cloud computing: SaaS, Paas, IaaS, there is a business model and a certain application is a call center in SaaS mode." Wu always said. "Such as PAAs, IaaS level progress, due to the business model is not clear and huge investment, and so on, only a few manufacturers have some preliminary results." Therefore, cloud computing is a huge industrial chain, the various models will inevitably form the division of labor between up and down. In the future, whether it is built, hosted or outsourced, its call center format should be based on cloud computing, but some are in the private cloud, some in the public cloud, the entire Internet software industry itself towards cloud computing must guide the call center to cloud computing. ”

Technology 30%, Service 70%

Of course, the call center to the cloud, not only the technical connotation has changed, more importantly, its business model from the "Project integration model" to the "service operation Model" has changed, especially when the call center by the traditional large enterprises to the wider medium and small-sized enterprises after the popularization. As SMEs are characterized by large scale, relatively simple and standardized requirements, but more flexible business requirements. As a result, the managed Call Center service based on cloud computing has changed a lot compared to the traditional call center "business model".

First, the size of a vendor service customer base will rise from dozens of, hundreds of of the order of magnitude to thousands of and tens of thousands of of the order of magnitude. Such a customer base by one, one way to do projects, into the development and implementation of personnel, almost unimaginable. Second, the flexibility and variability of enterprise demand is higher. Whether the service is open, or later changes need to be more convenient, it is impossible to use the way of the project, and so on for a few months to say. Again, as the cloud computing service itself is through the network to achieve the allocation of resources, customer access to service chain lengthened, adding a lot of intermediate links, such as: Network systems, communication systems, business systems of their own, service providers services platform, these and the traditional call center single call system model is completely different.

The above changes will bring the biggest challenge to the future cloud-based call Center service: How to transform the "project Model" from system integration into "service mode" with Operation service as its core. In other words, "technology" is only the first step to achieve cloud computing, from the current practice of managed call center, it is important to account for 30%. The remaining 70% is service, and "service" is the key to whether cloud computing can be changed from concept to commercial. This service, is not the general sense of "after-sales service", but a complete set of service system. For example, the service system of day-run intermediation includes: Platform resource guarantee system, system and environment Operation maintenance system, business opening and after-sale service system, system and information security system, hardware and software system guarantee system and so on.

People often take "electricity" to compare with cloud computing, so, "technology" is the first to solve the problem of generators and wiring, but can allow households to enjoy cheap, safe, reliable "electricity", but also need the power company's complete service system. This is what "service" means for cloud computing.

(Responsible editor: admin)