Microsoft's two growth: Transforming Cloud computing technology company

Today's Microsoft, from the gates era of a successful software company, quietly achieved two growth, transformation into a cloud computing technology company.

2012, belongs to Microsoft. The listing of Windows Phone and Windows 8 has made Microsoft a big earner in the global economy. In fact, beyond the spotlight of Windows Phone and Windows 8, a wider range of changes has been quietly within Microsoft.

September 18, 2012, Microsoft releases Windows Server 2012 in China. Although the conference was officially started 9:30, but Microsoft Greater China Vice President and Marketing strategy Department general manager Shenwey early came to the venue--9 Point, Shenwey on the side of the podium in the corner, pacing, while reciting the presiding word. Shenwey, the chief cloud computing strategist at Microsoft's Greater China region, hosted almost every major cloud-computing product release, but this time it was unprecedented, with 1300 people packed.

"This is the most important milestone in Microsoft's transition to cloud computing. "Microsoft Vice president and server and management global marketing director Michael Park told business value" reporter. Michael Park said the transition began in 2010, and in March 1, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer published "We are all in" speech, opened the Microsoft's product line to the beginning of a comprehensive transition to cloud computing.

To Windows Server 2012, more than two years, Ballmer's goal has been basically achieved, not only office, Hotmail and other Microsoft's traditional products to fully support the cloud services, and its enterprise cloud solution also covers the public cloud, private cloud and mixed cloud and other types of cloud services form. Today's Microsoft, from the gates era of a successful software company, quietly achieved two growth, transformation into a cloud computing technology company.

Overall transformation

In the last 3 years, transformation has been one of the most frequently used keywords in IT industry. The rise of mobile internet and cloud computing is prompting traditional IT industry to shift from "server PC" to "Cloud + End" new era. In order to seize the initiative in the new round of competition, enterprise-class market IT vendors have also begun a collective transformation, although the starting point is not the same, but the end is only one-cloud computing.

"We are at the inflection point of a new computing era. Mobile, social, large data is profoundly changing every enterprise and individual, to C/s architecture as the representative of the traditional infrastructure, has already overwhelmed. Michael Park said. While it vendors are transforming into cloud computing, a new round of IT infrastructure construction and transformation, with cloud computing as its core, is emerging.

A typical user case occurred in Qingdao, Shandong province. Qingdao customs is in a typical process from the traditional IT Architecture Cloud architecture evolution, its bottlenecks are: massive data distribution and upload leads to waste of network and server resources, can not form scale effect, can not give full play to the benefits of virtualization template deployment, a large number of operation and maintenance, management and disaster preparedness pressure. In order to break these bottlenecks, Qingdao customs has to overhaul the traditional it architecture, and turn to the cloud computing architecture to realize the rational distribution of IT resources.

In most of the world's large institutions, are more or less facing the Qingdao customs similar troubles. To address these worries, they have to reinvest their IT infrastructure. According to Gartner, the global cloud computing market reached $91.4 billion trillion in 2011 and will grow 20% to $109 billion this year, to $206.6 billion by 2016.

Some of the leading it vendors in the traditional IT architecture era, in this collective transition to cloud computing, have been successful and some are still confused. Microsoft belongs to the former.

Qingdao Customs is Microsoft's customer, and becomes the first batch of Windows Server 2012 users. Qingdao Customs Dynamic Data Warehouse cloud architect Zhinlin told "business value", through the latest cloud computing technology, not only can the existing server to build a unified resource pool, to achieve the rational allocation of computing resources, but also on the application of virtualization platform to implement business continuity protection and disaster preparedness management, To avoid the risk of interruption of customs business caused by equipment failure, so that the customs integrated business management platform can more calmly cope with the changing development of business needs.

Also in Qingdao, another Microsoft customer is more "thorough" in the deployment of cloud computing. The company, known as Qingdao Zillaua-lin-Shan Marine Diesel Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as QMD), is a joint venture, producing a low-speed two-stroke diesel engine using a large steamer of more than 75,000 tons. Fluctuations in the global maritime market have allowed QMD to get orders for diesel engines. "We are using a manufacturing model of a single production, and if the IT infrastructure is deployed in a traditional way, it investments must be made according to the trough state of the production order, which is bound to waste IT resources." Wang, the company's it head, told business value.

QMD is an early user of Microsoft's virtualization products, and QMD moved the system to the cloud platform after Microsoft's cloud computing offerings. "Now, we will be based on the next year's sales plan, anticipate the production plan of the necessary IT resources, on-demand purchase." The private cloud we deployed makes it easy to operate. "Wang said. The production of large ship engines is a serious process of it resource consumption, and only the design drawings of each engine require 100G of storage space. However, unlike some other cloud-computing companies, QMD's cloud computing has been deployed more thoroughly--almost all of the company's servers are rented on demand. This has saved 37% of it costs, Wang said.

For QMD, a combination of private cloud and public cloud, Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Global Server and Development Tools Division, believes that each CIO needs to implement the maximum "cloud" effect with minimal input based on the specifics of his system.

Satya Nadella also mentions that a mix of private and public clouds can solve security problems, Microsoft's experience is that storing sensitive data in a private cloud will require applications that cover more consumers or external partners to be placed in the public cloud, while encrypting the data on the public cloud, placing the key in a private cloud, China Telecom, for example, uses a mix of private cloud and public cloud deployment strategies.

By the end of 2011, Microsoft had provided users with more than 200 cloud services, including Bing, Hotmail, MSN, Office 365, Xbox Live and Windows Azure platform, with a total service population of over 1 billion, Service of more than 20 million enterprises. In fiscal 2011, Microsoft's server and Tools division, one of the most important sectors of Microsoft's strategy to drive cloud computing, grew 11%, the fastest growing segment of Microsoft's 3-strong software product line in the last 5 years.

Although the transition to cloud computing was not announced until 2010, Microsoft has managed to catch up with the change in the IT industry by tilting its core resources into cloud computing. In May 2011, Microsoft CEO Ballmer in Beijing that cloud computing is the most important technological change in the next decade. Microsoft's 75% of employees at Microsoft's Asia-Pacific Research and Development group revolve around the research and work of Microsoft's cloud computing technology. Microsoft's investment in research and development in 2011 amounted to 9.5 billion dollars, and 90% of that cost to cloud computing.

Last kilometer

In the last 5 years, the total it investment of the Amber Education group has not increased significantly, but it has supported the explosion of the number of employees from 200-5000. The only way to meet this rapid scale expansion with a small budget is because Amber managed the private cloud and the public cloud, and now 80% of it has been implemented in the cloud.

However, the Amber Education Group senior Vice president and CTO Gu Yish is still very dissatisfied with the progress of cloud computing applications in China, "Why look, in the huge education industry is to find a complete cloud computing overall solution to solve all or most of our needs?" The ancient thought threw this question directly to Satya Nadella. It was the morning of September 26, when Satya Nadella a small-scale CIO breakfast in Beijing, hoping to listen to China's top CIO for a real view of Microsoft's cloud computing offerings.

As a platform provider, Microsoft has always been adept at achieving the ultimate in a platform that supports the common functions of vertical applications. But in the specific industry solutions, it is inevitable that some weak, this is undoubtedly the Microsoft Cloud Computing Transformation Plan of the last kilometer.

However, this situation is improving, Satya Nadella said, in China, Microsoft China in September launched a 5-year "Microsoft China Business Expansion Plan" program, the next year, Microsoft will recruit 1000 new employees in China, the annual research and development investment of more than 500 million U.S. dollars, And will be in the field of cloud computing investment in huge resources, together with partners, the cloud truly landed into the key industries.

Mobile internet and cloud computing in the IT industry to open the "cloud + END" of the dual, Microsoft is a rather special IT company. Not only is the product line across "cloud" and "end", and whether in "cloud" or "End", Microsoft wants to succeed, must play the core role of ecosystem. In Mr Ballmer's view, however, this seems to be a promising prospect. "This is a real new era for Microsoft," Ballmer said at the end of an open letter to investors dated October 10 this year. Microsoft faces unprecedented opportunities, both this year and for a long time to come. ”

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)