Where is the "domestic cloud"?

Six years after Google first proposed the concept of "cloud computing" (Cloud Computing), cloud computing has not only launched a new round of it competitions around the world, but has also spread across the sea in China. In particular, through the first year of China's cloud computing 2012, not only the Ministry of Science and Technology issued a ministerial-level cloud planning "China Cloud Technology Development" Twelve-Five "Special Plan", the cloud computing development to a new height, and there are several predicted, during the "Twelve-Five" period (2011 ~2015 years), The domestic cloud computing industry chain scale can reach 750 billion yuan to 1 trillion yuan.

China's cloud computing development no two, not only to get local government support, industrial chain parties are also motivated to create "domestic cloud", accelerate the cloud landing. However, in the domestic cloud computing booming momentum, the industry began to smell a trace of "smoke" flavor, this flavor from the foreign it giants with products, technology in the Chinese market, and local enterprises in the "domestic cloud" manufacturing process of friction.

Although in the interview process, from the local equipment provider, top of the service providers have said that the current domestic cloud computing development is still in the early stage, domestic enterprises and foreign enterprises in the cloud computing market is not just competition, more cooperation, but the industry has a general consensus, domestic enterprises in the technical products compared with foreign and 2~ 3 years of Lag. According to the Law of market development, although in the initial stage, the technical problems will not become the main contradiction of the development of domestic cloud computing, but whether domestic enterprises can seize the development window period, successful catch-up, in the cloud computing market can still gain a par with foreign manufacturers or more prominent competitive advantage? This is precisely the "smoke" caused by the worries, Such concerns are not unfounded, in the current performance of some key technologies in cloud computing in China.

The virtualization of giant entrenched

In the past IT resources belong to the "household", one of the advantages of cloud computing comes after the realization of resource dynamic and sharing, and its foundation is virtualization, and virtualization is also the industry seems to be a necessary step towards cloud computing.

Global server virtualization and Desktop virtualization sales will grow by 43% in 2012 and output will reach $2.7 billion trillion, according to a recent report by Gartner, a market research institute. By 2013, 60% of the world's servers will deploy virtualization solutions that will reduce the number of physical servers to the existing 10% by consolidating physical servers.

And in the context of global large-scale deployment virtualization, the reality of the current domestic virtualization is "low prevalence". Jin, Gartner's chief analyst, said that while most enterprises used virtualization technology, in terms of usage, at present, domestic large enterprises have almost no virtualization of key applications, core applications, the actual degree of cloud is low.

Such a situation, on the one hand, with the domestic enterprises cautious attitude, on the one hand, and the market to choose products related.

Currently in the virtualization market, almost all of the presence of foreign manufacturers, including VMware is the monopoly of most of the virtualization market, and has been leading the development of virtualization technology.

VMware Trends in the field of server, storage virtualization, its main focus on the virtualization market has more than more than 10 years of history, technology accumulated deep. Both storage Area network (SAN) vendors, server vendors, and network vendors are associated with VMware. VMware since 2007 in the Chinese market, as of May 2012, VMware Company in China's market share has been as high as 80%.

Another virtualization plant Shangshijie is focused on desktop virtualization, and Microsoft's Hyper-V provides a holistic set of virtualization solutions for users, and IBM continues to provide virtualization solutions for minicomputer. At the same time, open source products Xen and KVM split up the rest of the market share, the former Yusijie firmly mastered, the latter by Red Hat sponsorship.

For domestic enterprises, exclusively foreign products are not good enough to meet some of the local customization needs, while high prices also let some companies have doubts. So open source has become the fastest way for most manufacturers to attack the cloud computing market, in response to the demand for virtualization in most of the domestic enterprises.

"At present the domestic enterprise launches the virtualization product, most are based on the mature open source virtualization product to carry on two times development." Industry expert Zhang Yunfan said. The lack of mastery of virtualization core technology by domestic enterprises so that its products will rely on products such as Xen to improve themselves, and open source products require the manufacturer's continued contribution to technology, as well as the subsequent version of the update, the need for deep technical accumulation, and lead manufacturers in the direction of technology and innovation are different insights, in the final analysis, Technology is still in the hands of several foreign manufacturers. Especially in the area of important server virtualization, Shanghai Telecom expert Liu also said: "The domestic current lack of the combination of server and virtualization capabilities, most enterprises have chosen two development routes, this is the development of our cloud computing in the technical level and foreign gap." ”

Foreign manufacturers in this area has a long-term accumulation, even in the cloud has not yet arisen when the core technology has been completed. For domestic manufacturers, the development of virtualization products requires a large number of virtualization theory and technology base, its product development cycle is long, the technical threshold is higher, at the same time also requires huge resources input. But as the basic support of cloud computing, "in terms of national science and technology strategy, this part must be mastered by local enterprises and cannot rely on foreign countries." "The reporter interviewed some of the domestic equipment providers, which have shown that virtualization as a key technology, foreign enterprises dominate, there are still many domestic enterprises worth learning and learn from the place, and some domestic manufacturers and key colleges and universities have been aware of this problem, is crucial to shorten the gap between domestic and foreign.

Lack of cloud computing public service and management platform

On the other hand, for domestic cloud computing, whether it is internet companies, government-invested industrial parks, or operators to carry out cloud services, is currently focused on the IaaS level, "in the PAAs, SaaS layer compared to foreign countries," Zhang Yunfan said, The most basic of cloud computing should be based on the concept of distributed computing and providing network services, while the existing mature cloud platform is less, while the core technology of distributed computing such as Hadoop, domestic enterprises in the technical mastery is still relatively backward.

The current mature PAAs platform is mainly Microsoft Windows Azure, Google's app engine and Salesforce.com's force.com platform, in which Microsoft Windows Azure is the United century interconnection in 2012 landing in China, Become the first foreign enterprise to obtain the public cloud operation qualification in China.

It is reported that Windows Azure includes Windows Azure operating system, SQL Azure database platform and AppFabric application service platform, not only the database, development tools, middleware integration into a development environment, but also provide virtual host services, Also good for cross-domain migrations. and domestic enterprises are rarely able to provide such services, and service scale is small, it is difficult to form a competitive situation.

At the same time in the cloud management platform, Liu that foreign enterprises because of their own virtualization products to do the basis, so in the building of cloud management platform is relatively easier. And it points out that the more important feature of cloud management platform is the integration of IT infrastructure including storage, network, server resources, cross-domain migration, and the current performance of ICT enterprises both at home and abroad is not very good in this field. From this point of view, Chinese companies still have a lot of catch-up opportunities.

Pain in the technology

In fact, there are many problems in the development of cloud computing in China, which include both technical problems and industrial chaos. For example, some local governments are chasing political performance to invest in "cloud real estate", where there is a waste of resources, and Gartner expects 70% of government cloud projects to fail in the ~2016 years of 2015. Jin also said that some local governments should shift their role away from investor status, and then develop regulatory markets such as cloud computing development regulations.

But in the macro environment small step adjustment trend industry healthy development at the same time, for the manufacturer, also should be aimed at cloud computing flourish behind the emerging technical difficulties to conquer. After all, China is one of the largest and most important markets in the world, and the industrial environment is conducive to the innovation of technology by the State when it attaches importance to the development of cloud computing technology.

The current cloud market in the "Warring States era" is also the fact that enterprises can do a lot of cloud computing, but do a good job is very little. In the view of H3C, the Minister of Network Development of the operator, this is mainly the lack of basic research and development of cloud computing in China. In addition, Liu also said that now whether it is foreign IT companies or domestic ICT manufacturers, many have the ability to provide end-to-end cloud computing solutions, the service products offered by foreign vendors are better in terms of stability and openness, but the prices are high; domestic manufacturers ' services are cheap, but in such areas as cloud management platforms, There is no open interface, although it is in the open source product to do two times development, in fact, openness is not superior to foreign products.

Despite the fact that technology is lagging behind, but it is gratifying to be in the domestic many companies interviewed, it has revealed the hope that the technology to do a solid, catch up with foreign vision. It is understood that a communications equipment provider, over the past few years, it has organized thousands of of people's research and development teams, from a number of aspects of cloud computing core technologies and product development, and focus on the virtualization platform and management systems, desktop cloud, data center management, integrated cloud infrastructure including servers, networks, storage and so on.

In addition, although foreign it vendors in some core technology to grasp the market and the grasp of the advantages, however, from several it wave development, our country and the international advanced level of technology lag less and less, "in the new wave of cloud computing, we can basically say that we have stood at the forefront of the tide," Li Ming said. Li Ming pointed out that cloud computing includes all aspects of the technology is needed to master local manufacturers, while cloud computing has been expanded from the point and face, and a large number of cloud computing projects are not only a huge market opportunity, but also the opportunity for technological innovation. Especially for us, such a large country, cloud computing can help improve the efficiency of social operation, energy consumption and sustainable development. And for domestic enterprises, "we shoulder the mission!" Said Li Ming.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)