Application of cloud computing in shipping enterprises

1 Characteristics of the shipping market

A major feature of the shipping market is the volatility of the market and the unpredictable profit and loss. With the increasing trend of global economic globalization, the competition of shipping market is fiercer. The shipper will offer higher and more personalized requirements to the carrier, and the carrier will provide better service to meet the shipper's personalized and specialized transportation needs.

2 Proposed cloud computing

Facing the increasingly fierce international maritime market competition and taking the initiative to deal with the global economic crisis, shipping enterprises should speed up information construction and take "informatization to drive the modernization of shipping management" as an important means to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises and promote the sustainable development of enterprises. In view of the characteristics of shipping enterprise customers, large volume, timeliness, and agent globalization, its information system construction requires the diversification of information sources, the globalization of Information network and the individuation of information service to realize the efficient operation of shipping enterprises and provide quality service for customers.

Cloud computing is a web-based, different systems to provide services to each other, to achieve data, software, equipment, platform and other services to share. The shipping enterprise can integrate all kinds of application system through the cloud computing platform, make full use of the resource advantage of each system, and control the decentralized system such as ERP, financial fund settlement, Human Resources, collaborative Office, website portal, overall budget management and so on. And through the decision analysis tools and data mart technology with the advantage of decision analysis, the comprehensive utilization of various kinds of business data is used to analyze the enterprises ' attention to the shipping hotspots, to pay attention to the shipping risk, to pay attention to the fluctuation of tariff, to pay attention to the global capital security, to pay attention to the Pay attention to corporate culture, focus on logistics operations, pay attention to external competition and other information.

3 Classification of cloud computing

Cloud computing can be categorized from two aspects, one from the three-tier application service model of its architecture, and the other from its three-way deployment.

3.1 By service type

Categorized by service, cloud computing can be divided into three types of infrastructure, service (IaaS), Platform as Service (PaaS), Software as service (SaaS).

3.1.1 Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a way of providing virtual storage on the network, and customers can pay for the actual storage capacity. Its advantage is that users need only low-cost hardware, on-demand rental of the corresponding computing capacity and storage capacity, greatly reducing user input on the hardware.

The 3.1.2 Platform is a service (PaaS) that provides the development environment as a service.

3.1.3 Software as a service (SaaS), is the application of the unified deployment of the software on the server, users in accordance with the need to order through the network to vendors, manufacturers according to the number of user-defined software, types and other charges, and through the network to provide customers with software. This way users can use the Internet as long as they can.

3.2 Classification by deployment

3.2.1 Public cloud, is provided by the third party cloud service, outside the company firewall, has the cloud service provider completely to carry and manages.

3.2.2 Private Cloud, is the enterprise provides the cloud service, inside the company firewall, manages by the enterprise itself.

The 3.2.3 Hybrid cloud is a mix of public and private clouds that is created by the enterprise but managed jointly by the Enterprise and the public cloud provider.

4 Cloud computing Platform technology

Cloud computing platform utilizes a number of key technologies, including: platform management, data management, data storage, virtualization and so on. This highlights the virtualization technology.

Virtualization technology is one of the main technical means of cloud computing in practical application, and it is the key technology to fully integrate computing and storage resources, and realize the advantage of cloud computing to improve the flexibility of deployment. Virtualization technology is mainly divided into the following categories:

4.1 Platform Virtualization

Mainly refers to the implementation of virtualization on the basis of a single operating system kernel instance, and clones produce multiple operating systems.

4.2 Hardware Virtualization

Refers to the storage, memory, CPU, network and other hardware devices virtualization, you can install different operating systems on virtual hardware devices.

4.3 Application Virtualization

The application is loosely coupled to the operating system, providing a virtual running environment for the application so that the application does not need to be installed and used directly.

5 Characteristics of cloud computing

5.1 Data safe and reliable

Cloud computing provides the most reliable and secure data storage center, and users don't have to worry about data loss or virus intrusion.

5.2 Low Client investment

Cloud computing requires minimal user-side equipment and requires no user input to a large number of hardware devices.

5.3 Share all kinds of data

Cloud computing can easily realize the sharing of data, platform and software between different devices, and give full play to the advantages of cloud.

5.4 Highly flexible

Can be compatible with different hardware manufacturers, compatible with low configuration machines and peripherals to obtain high-performance computing.

6 The significance of cloud computing in shipping enterprise application

For shipping enterprises, how to effectively and rationally carry out information investment is a problem that every leader must consider. Large liner companies around the world, but also the distribution of their own agent points around the world, which requires the enterprise's information network globalization.

With the rapid development of network technology, cloud computing subvert the traditional business model, using the Internet as the base platform in the shipping industry in the application of a revolutionary leap in the breadth and depth greatly expanded, and the development of shipping enterprises played a vital role.

In the cloud computing environment, shipping companies can provide customers with the help of public services, such as: sailing inquiries, electronic booking, freight inquiries, real-time tracking, online services and so greatly improve the efficiency of transport services. Through cloud computing, shipping enterprises can more timely, accurate and comprehensive access to all kinds of market information, so that timely adjustment of routes, schedule, stowage, freight and other information to improve efficiency, reduce costs, to obtain greater benefits.

7 The competitive advantage that cloud computing brings to shipping enterprises

7.1 Reduce initial investment

No matter from the application platform, system software, hardware input, shipping companies use cloud computing, in the early stage does not need to carry out a huge one-time investment, eliminating the purchase, installation, management costs.

7.2 Reduce operating costs

Shipping companies to use cloud computing resources, than the independent system can provide and manage the resources cheaper, reduce the management costs and application costs, in accordance with the actual use of pay, to avoid the waste of investment.

7.3 Increase Scalability

Cloud computing can be based on the business needs of shipping enterprises, rapid deployment, flexible expansion of applications, at any time to increase the cloud in accordance with demand, improve the shipping industry to respond to market changes and customer response speed.

7.4 Low-carbon Environmental protection

Cloud computing can virtualize and share resources among different systems, improve server utilization, reduce the number of servers, reduce resource consumption, space use, and reduce pollution emissions.

7.5 Enhance competitiveness

Through cloud computing, the most effective, most advanced and most powerful technology can be shared, and the cost is much lower than the shipping enterprise own independent construction, so that enterprises have the most advanced management mode, so that enterprises have more energy for industry innovation and provide quality customer service, thereby improving the core competitiveness of enterprises.

7.6 Optimization of industrial layout

For the entire shipping industry, after entering the era of cloud computing, enterprises from the mode of self-sufficiency into a data center with scale effect, so as to provide more professional, more characteristic, more comprehensive services.

8 Effects of cloud computing on shipping companies

8.1 The network, openness and global characteristics of cloud computing provide the basis for shipping enterprises to create more trade opportunities and build a global service platform.

8.2 Cloud computing improves the quality of service, provides personalized service, greatly improves the operational efficiency of the business, thus improving the competitiveness of enterprises.

8.3 Cloud computing improves enterprise data security, compensates for security flaws, reduces system single point failure rate, and ensures continuous and stable operation of the system.

8.4 Cloud computing on the one hand break the barrier of time and space, on the other hand provides a wealth of information resources for customer service to provide more possibilities, and even affect the social economic layout and structure.

8.5 Cloud computing enables enterprises to obtain all kinds of shipping information in a timely manner, and according to the shipping market information timely adjustment strategic direction, route layout, freight system, Proxy point settings.

9 Application cases of cloud computing in shipping industry

China Shipping Information System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: CSCL) is the Chinese maritime Group is mainly engaged in professional information services, it enterprises, focused on shipping industry-related application software development and solution research and development. Company to China Shipping as a strong backing, through years of practice and unremitting efforts, and gradually formed a deep industry experience accumulation, exercise a senior professional team, set up a mature and complete product system, to provide users with High-quality, multi-directional, in-depth industry solutions and integration Services.

From 2010 onwards, the China Sea information will be the cloud computing virtualization platform to promote the use of the Chinese shipping group gradually. China Shipping Group has hundreds of servers in the computer room, covering the group's business management system, many servers due to the age of purchase and use of different, performance difference is huge. Over time, the server's hardware aging, data security and operational performance, as well as the resulting high maintenance and maintenance costs. China Sea information will be front-end server resources, storage resources, network resources, are integrated into a virtual resource pool, the data center resources for automated management, can truly realize the resource scheduling, for the China Sea Group IT platform architecture has a highly expanded capacity of a system with a benign resource cycle.

The platform supports all the business systems in the group, improves the utilization rate of the equipment, enhances the data security, improves the operation efficiency of the system, avoids the single point of failure, reduces the investment of the equipment, reduces the space and energy consumption. This platform breaks through the traditional decentralized, high-energy, high equipment investment, realizes the equipment centralized control, the resource sharing, saves the space and the energy consumption, has promoted the system security, the operation ability and the continuous running time comprehensively.

10 Summary

This paper analyzes and studies the shipping enterprise reduces the cost through the cloud computing, eliminates the security hidden danger, enhances the operation efficiency, the security and the expansibility. In practical applications, we must continue to promote cloud computing in the shipping enterprise's extensive application, make full use of network resources, cloud computing and virtualization technology, and continue to explore and optimize in practice, this is conducive to the promotion of services and market development for shipping enterprises to create higher quality, greater efficiency.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)