Why does the Apple cloud fall into Guizhou? The choices made under China's regulatory policy

Data map. Liao, Journalist of China New Society

Why Apple Cloud is falling in Guizhou

Hot behind

From February 28 onwards, China's icloud services will be transferred from the cloud on the Guizhou large data Industry Development Co., Ltd. is responsible for operations. This means that more than 200 million Chinese "fruit powder" will face the "move cloud." In the "Move Cloud" process, the data security can be guaranteed. In this respect, the cloud on the Guizhou company said "no problem", and said it is in accordance with Apple icloud existing service standards, improve the relevant hardware and software facilities.

Security Program Approved

According to the agreement between the two sides, from February 28 onwards, cloud Guizhou company will be Apple's mainland China icloud business "only partner" in mainland China to operate icloud services. At that time, icloud service will be in China using Apple and cloud Guizhou company dual brands to provide services to users, Apple will provide technical support.

In order to facilitate this cooperation, the cloud on the Guizhou company and Apple launched the difficult negotiations for nearly two years. Among them, the two sides dispute the most intense is, can give cloud on Guizhou company icloud business of "The only partner" treatment. It is not easy for Apple to accept such exclusivity terms. Guizhou, on the cloud, insists that such a large project, if not exclusive, will face enormous risks. Eventually, after repeated consultations, Apple compromised.

Why Apple from January 10 began to issue a circular, and until February 28 officially will icloud service to cloud Guizhou company operations. In this respect, Hu Haibo, deputy director of the Institute of Industry and Planning in China's Institute of Information and Communications, said in an interview with the science and technology daily that this was to make the user ready and, of course, technical considerations.

As of July 2017, the mainland has become the world's largest market for Apple handsets, with a whopping 243 million mobile subscribers, Hu Haibo said. Since February 28, 2018, the new users of Apple mobile phone data storage and management business will be responsible for the cloud in Guizhou.

Hu Haibo said the "move Cloud" is particularly high in terms of security requirements. Fortunately, Apple and cloud Guizhou Company has a solution, the program has been recognized by the relevant national ministries.

At present, Apple has registered entity companies in the new area of Guizhou province, and will jointly build a large data center in the new area with Cloud Guizhou company.

The information from the large data office of the new district, the data center investment amounts to 1 billion U.S. dollars, covers an area of 1000 acres, will be divided into two phases of construction, has now completed the site selection work, has not yet started. Construction is expected to commence this year and will be available by early 2020. At that time, all data from icloud users in mainland China will be relocated from overseas to data centers operated by Guizhou companies in the cloud.

Hu Haibo revealed that in the transitional period, cloud Guizhou Company will work with the three major domestic operators, the use of rental cloud, for Apple icloud to provide operational services.

The butterfly effect is showing.

In fact, holding hands Cloud Guizhou company, is Apple in China under the supervision of the choice made.

According to the relevant domestic regulatory requirements, the personal information and important data collected and generated by the operators of key information infrastructures in China shall be stored in the country. And China has restarted its licensing of IDC (Internet Data Center) a few years ago, not allowing foreign companies to involve data center operations.

So it is almost impossible for Apple to build and operate data centers in China alone. The only solution is to have IDC business license with the domestic enterprises to cooperate.

The official said that Apple finally chose Cloud Guizhou Company, and in recent years, Guizhou's large data industry ecological development has a great relationship. In addition to cool weather, stable geological conditions and adequate electricity and a sound network infrastructure, after more than 4 years of development, Guizhou has a good foundation of large data industry, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Foxconn, Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and other enterprises have invested in Guizhou, a large number of big data enterprises have emerged. In particular, it has been approved to build the first national large data comprehensive test area, so that Guizhou can gain more support from the national level in developing large data.

Hu Haibo that the cooperation between Guizhou Company and Apple in the cloud is the innovation case of the country opening to the outside world. According to Hu Haibo estimates, only icloud operation of this business, each year will give Cloud Guizhou company more than 1 billion dollars of stable income. The future, the two sides or will further deepen cooperation, the scope of cooperation is expected to expand to other service areas.

For Guizhou, the Apple project is the largest investment project since the development of the big Data strategy in Guizhou Province, it will be a huge leading role in the cloud computing industry of the whole province. It is said that the "landing" of the butterfly effect is emerging, other world-class technology giants also come to the hope of cooperation with Guizhou.

Dedicated to improving the user experience

On the cloud, the announcements from Guizhou and Apple all point to the same goal: improving the user experience.

As early as 2011, Apple officially launched the icloud service. Since then, users can upload photos, documents, memos, contacts and other content to icloud, and on all Apple devices to maintain automatic updates, if necessary, can also be data recovery.

But previously, as icloud services did not have a data center in China, users visited icloud to connect to Apple's data center in Becalerona, USA, before jumping back to China. Between China and the United States, distant. This distance produces not beauty, but a variety of network delays, timeouts, and inaccessible.

After the operation of icloud Guizhou company, all Chinese users of icloud documents will be relocated to the country. This means that in the future when users visit icloud, the network will be more stable, download faster, packet loss and network latency will be significantly reduced.

Clearly, Apple's establishment of a data center in the new district will not only improve the performance of icloud, but also reduce the cost of data storage and transmission. In the future, we do not rule out the possibility that Apple will cut icloud related service fees. (Responsible editor: Wang Yinyu)