Investment opportunities and challenges in cloud computing and the big Data age

2013 China International Cloud Computing Technology and Application exhibition was held in Beijing on April 7, and Qintie, executive director of Cloud Base, was invited to attend the meeting as a keynote speaker and a keynote address on investment opportunities and challenges for venture capital. He explained the opportunities, challenges and problems of cloud computing and the big data age, and explained the relationship between Gartner ' s Hype Cycle and venture capital.

Internet: Resource pooling and cloud services

The existence of the Internet has prompted a sharp increase in data volumes, generating cloud computing on the basis of large data volumes, so Qintie that the cloud computing revolution had existed ten years ago. He says the big data has four main factors: computing resources, storage, bandwidth, and the growth of Internet access.

Why do large internet companies use cloud computing first? Qintie is explained in the following ways:

In the case of large data growth, how to deal with large data effectively becomes a very realistic problem. In the traditional way, the cost of processing these large data is very expensive, its processing data volume is very large, and many data need to deal with real-time needs: such as the user has a variety of needs, an account of multiple access, anywhere online, content (data) in the cloud, on-demand ordering, online payment and so on. This requires the Internet company's computing resources and storage requirements of large-scale, so as to promote the high concentration of resources and data. The point of demand is a large-scale, high-density, low-power hardware infrastructure, that is, the data center. After the hardware problem is resolved, there is a need for efficient and efficient hardware management software. He thinks these software has six features: transparent, dynamic, flexible, rental nen, universal, security, so as to meet the needs of a new generation of hardware.

Big trends: cloud computing and the transformation of large data

The internet is or will bring more exciting products and services under the change of big data of cloud computing. Qintie that there will be many new technologies and products in the personal, corporate and social public areas.

Personal aspects

Now the Internet has access to information, social, shopping, entertainment, remote Soho, learning, financial and other online personalized life and work mode; multi-and real-time social communication; location-based services for shopping, leisure, social experience, online access, storage, and management of personal data.

In the cloud era and large data era, the future may belong to personal proprietary, customized cloud, to meet individual office. Entertainment, mobile and other needs, remote control, self-management and state optimization of home appliances, smart home will appear, Online Identity, human-machine natural communication, the real world and the virtual world of integration, new learning methods, including human-computer interaction and knowledge organization.

Business aspects

Now large internet companies have begun to build mega-scale data centers characterized by modularity, high density, low energy consumption, and a maturing of the IaaS service model, which began to be widely accepted, such as Amazon's cloud model; in the big data age, internet companies are using big data began to impact traditional industries, such as finance (the most typical example is Ali financial small loan business), precision marketing and large data-driven product rapid iteration, the transformation of enterprise it, from the provision of computing and storage wait until the provision of data, from the provision of information to provide value, enterprise it consumption.

In the next five or ten years, it is possible for all businesses to use the cloud, private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid cloud. In addition, most IT products are delivered in the form of services, and customer management based on behavioral analysis becomes commonplace. Therefore, the data will become the core strategic assets of the enterprise, the data operation becomes the key of the enterprise competition and growth.

Social and public aspects

The impact of cloud computing and large data, education, medical, transportation and other industries have been a variety of related applications, such as a number of data, social and new media platform, intelligent transportation and urban digital supervision; A more specific example is the German Ministry of Labour, which has been unifying data platforms across the country since 05, according to large data mining, to predict under what circumstances the unemployed will be the easiest to find a job. It saves 9 billion euros a year for Germany.

In the next few years, with the help of cloud computing and big data, social public domain, such as smart grid will use large data mining for its data collection, power grid operation and optimization of the great role; medical treatment, can give data to the medical user for new drug development, or personal health insurance plan; The public facilities in the city can be managed intelligently. Further speaking, the government can set up an open government data platform, so as to achieve public affairs, civic participation and other effects.

Investment opportunities in venture capital

When it comes to risk investment in cloud computing and large data areas, Qintie that the key technologies (hardware, software), Solution/platform services, and new business models can be considered in three aspects.

Key technology (Hardware, software): At present, the use of mobile hard disk, Low-power CPU and new mobile terminals, voice and action video, multi-screen interactive hardware and related software is increasingly popular. In addition, new data centers will adopt a large number of new technologies, such as new refrigeration technology, distributed storage and so on. What is more, the future of intelligent terminals into wearable equipment, such as watches, glasses and so on. In terms of hardware and software, Qintie believes that a large number of applications may be produced after 34.

Solutions: IaaS and SaaS services are already in use in E-commerce or other industries, and various software solutions on mobile terminals, including industry applications and enterprise mobile platform solutions, are being adopted by enterprises. In the future, PAAS, corporate social networks and other services will be very popular, and the financial industry, medical field, etc. will be more professional large data solutions.

The new business model: It will bring new marketing methods, and affect business, society, education and other industries. such as mobile learning, the revision of the habit of learning. Qintie that the original E-commerce model is very traditional, users actually have more personalized requirements, in the next three years they will be very large data processing. Therefore, in the future there will be companies to outsource the processing of data, resulting in outsourcing processing business. With more technology and applications, the future of human-computer interaction will lead to new business models.

Risks and problems

Risks and problems are problems that come with investment opportunities, and investors need to think about them seriously. In this regard, Qintie listed investors need to consider the issue.

• Industry solutions Domain Knowledge:big data is not just mapreduce and Hadoop, business goals and service content is more important.

· Cloud Infrastructure:iaas Market, who can be the last winner?

• Basic software and hardware: Intellectual property protection, product development and industrial chain issues.

· Business-to-business business model: Customer access to high cost and customization restrictions on product standardization, Chinese characteristics?

• The charging mode of Internet service: Advertising mode and net bottle of back charge?

• The incompleteness of the domestic media market: content for the king and free content?

• Humanistic and localized nature of social networking: foreign culture? Elite culture? or cock-and-silk culture?

• Innovation accelerated plagiarism also accelerated: The business model of the homogenization of competition, in the Internet application services reflected the most obvious.

• Internet giants: Curbing innovation or quitting opportunities?

• Venture capital speculation VS. Cooling: Casting or not?

• Long-term venture capital vs. short-term: The Patience of RMB Fund LP.

• Long-term venture capital: who will educate the market? The risk of government guiding fund and venture capital?

What is the best chance to get into and invest in cloud computing and investing in big data? Qintie said that from Gartner's Hype cycle, every revolutionary product from the start to the mass market will have a basic experience of five stages: technology climbing, peak expectations, disillusionment (bubble burst), dawning, and then reaching the mature market stage in these stages, Qintie that the first thing to do is to see the project or product at that stage of the entire curve, and then to see which team is going to be the last. Generally speaking, at the beginning of the technology stage, bubble burst, Shuguang gentle slope of these three stages is more suitable for investment.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)