It giants pinch cloud computing: Security and energy-saving disputes

Where is the cloud? In fact, cloud computing technology in the network services have been everywhere, such as cloud desktop, cloud office, Cloud video, Cloud games, Cloud search, cloud recognition, cloud U disk and so on. Users do not have to understand the operating principles behind it, and do not have to own some hardware and software, you can in the "cloud" free browsing, office or entertainment.

There's a cloud around.

Experience

White Collar 萧潇 (a pseudonym) is difficult to show interest in any technology, "cloud" heard, what? Soon she was in a keen interest in the sale of nearby shopping malls. In fact, like 萧潇, we often enjoy the convenience of the "cloud", but it turned a blind eye to it. Every day, it's all around us.

萧潇 Day to the company's first thing is to sweep a few big portal site News page, Baidu and Google (Micro Bo) in the work is essential, she did not know, in fact, now if the business is large enough to the web, behind all have cloud computing support.

萧潇 hated science, but an Apple fan, all kinds of "apple" readily available. By uploading contacts and photos to the web, whether it's an iphone, an IPad (an Apple tablet) or anything else, she doesn't know it's the concept of cloud storage.

萧潇 of course did not understand, if not with cloud computing, her Taobao experience will be greatly discounted. Open the page time will fall from two seconds to five seconds, each page, there will be no more exquisite pictures, the page will turn over the cramp.

In contrast, white collar cockroach (alias) is a "cloud of talent." Weekend waiting or bus, Xiao Qiang will come up with smartphones, point open "cloud Browser" to understand the day's news, "cloud relay" can save a lot of data traffic. Usually to the work unit located near the great suburban Pavilion Bridge, he often opens a "cloud desktop" developed by a well-known Internet company, which includes microblogs, instant chat tools, cloud storage, mapping tools, and word processing tools, which are implemented entirely in the cloud, You do not have to install these software on your local computer. Back home, if there is leisure, Xiao Qiang can also use the "cloud desktop" free to read a lot of magazines, or play some of the landlords and other games. Xiao Qiang felt that "cloud" to a certain extent to facilitate their work and life.

"I've never lost my personal data, and I haven't backed up a computer, which is the credit of cloud computing," he said. "Jobs once said. That might explain why he was in the "Apple Cloud" press conference when he was seriously ill.

Cloud computing allows small, inexpensive servers to be linked together, but it completes a huge project. The cost of the film and animation industry may be reduced, and the statistics industry will become more relaxed ... These are changing our lives.

Investigation

IS Cloud TV a "cloud"?

In the Wangjing of a home appliance store, "cloud" is a very high frequency of words. Cloud computer, Cloud mobile phone, Cloud TV, Cloud air conditioner, cloud print ... In the promoter's mouth these are "advanced", "high-end" pronoun, but the consumer still some foggy, this red-hot fresh concept, really worth us to spend a big price?

Cloud TV may be the most grounded gas of a cloud application, "my grandmother would not surf the Internet that day unexpectedly asked me how to buy a cloud TV." "A friend is less than said. In the past year, the domestic color TV enterprise Collective "transformation", Haier, Skyworth (Micro bo), TCL (Micro Bo), Hisense, Konka and other manufacturers together Izumo TV. "Cloud" the star of the scientific and technological community has suddenly become a lot of approachable.

However, the reporter yesterday in the home appliances store asked a number of promotional staff, but found that manufacturers for the end of what kind of television can be called Cloud TV, saying a variety of.

"Cloud TV is similar to Smart TV, it can surf the internet. "," can be upgraded online, you buy after you don't have to change TV. "," as long as your mobile phone is a smartphone, you can connect with the television, in the field can also push content to the phone. ”

Although there is no uniform definition, however, cloud products have one thing in common, that is, the price is often higher than the ordinary product section. Take television as an example, the reporter saw yesterday in the store, a 42-inch cloud TV price of nearly 6000 yuan, the same brand of the same size of ordinary TV, the price of 4600 yuan.

In addition, the reporter found that most of the main push cloud products for domestic brands, Samsung (Micro-Bo), LG, Panasonic, Sony and other foreign brands in the product publicity, have not used the "cloud" concept. A foreign television sales staff said, "The current market of cloud TV is actually connected to the network, the real meaning of the cloud TV functions far more than these." ”

A store staff told reporters that although the cloud television has become a high-end television products, but these products have not formed a real sales hot spot, as the cloud concept by more and more enterprises use, product prices have shrunk. "When the product was launched, the 46-inch TV price will be nearly million, but now the 47-inch new product prices are less than 8000 yuan." ”

View

Abuse or trends

"The cloud needs strong computing power to support a single point, like a water supply, a faucet and a water pipe, and a user can turn on the tap to get water." The resources in the cloud should be unlimited for users, readily available, on demand, and paid for using. But now many enterprises have just made a drop of water, it is not realistic to put a cloud on his hat. Luo Qingxi, a senior director of Paller Consulting, told reporters yesterday that more companies are now taking the cloud as a tool for value-added products, but it has not given users a real cloud experience and the concept has been abused. Television products, for example, now many domestic launch of the cloud TV, in fact, is a common television set with a computer, up to two years ago, the Internet television upgrade. Some "cloud TV" only support a few built-in pages, and not as a home computer to swim unlimited internet, and some Internet mode or mobile phone network mode.

Bowser Network (Weibo) vice President Pengliang also on the market is not optimistic about cloud products, "the implementation of the cloud needs a lot of bandwidth, server cluster technology, for manufacturers, is a big challenge." "At present the domestic network current situation is the family network broadband is not widespread, mostly between 2m-4m, even smaller, the network environment is not stable enough, these will greatly affect the user actual use feeling, restricted the terminal related product development."

However, Skyworth Group Vice President Yang Dongwen has a more optimistic view. In an interview with reporters, Yang Dongwen said that the cloud product market does exist a certain bubble, but also do not look too heavy, "everyone's direction is not wrong, cloud is the general trend, enterprises actively involved, in turn, will promote the network broadband and other environmental development." ”

Problem

Security and energy-saving disputes

Cloud computing has become a strategic direction for the future development of information industry in the world, and China is pushing the cloud from concept to application as countries carefully study the changes that cloud computing will bring to social and economic development models and deploy national strategies.

At present, China has identified five cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Wuxi as the pilot model city for developing cloud computing innovation. It is expected that the 2015 national "cloud computing" industry chain scale may reach 750 billion to 1 trillion yuan, is expected to account for the 2015 strategic emerging industries more than 15% of the output value scale.

But cloud computing is not so perfect.

The discussion of security has never stopped. Users are skeptical about the security of cloud services, because many of them may not know where their data, data, and trade secrets are in the cloud, who will illegally acquire them, and if they are lost, where to find them and who to take responsibility for. To solve these problems, it involves the complex problems of public trust, system, technology, law and even supervision.

Perhaps there is a more severe test for China.

There have been statistics that a cloud computing server consumes about 5000 yuan a year of electricity, if the construction of a 1 million-machine cloud computing Center, only electricity costs will be 5 billion yuan, this in the energy-intensive China, is clearly a big problem.

In the US, some cloud-leading companies, such as Google, have entered the energy sector and, in addition to developing green energy, have taken stakes in energy companies to better manage their energy supplies. "But in China, policy is not yet open to that level. "A staff member of the Cloud platform service said to reporters.

But some analysts believe that cloud computing can save a lot of enterprise hardware and software costs, and cloud computing servers should not consume more energy than a large number of enterprises save energy.

Speculative

What is "cloud"?

Early in the development of the Internet, technicians are accustomed to drawing the internet into a "cloud", simplifying the technical details and complex mechanisms to discuss new technologies to be more convenient. The technician's little romance, which has been given great significance after many years, is now the hottest word.

What is "cloud"? There is a less rigorous but ambitious explanation: get everything on the web and get everything on the web. "Cloud" is the network.

To put it simply, cloud computing is a super computing model based on the Internet. In a remote data center, tens of thousands of or even tens of millions of computers and servers are connected to one another, relying on collective intelligence to play the role of "super computer". Users through the computer, notebook, mobile phone and other means of access to the data center, according to their own needs for storage, operation.

You may be no stranger to this, we sometimes upload files and photos to e-mail, let the network for our custody and liberate our hard drive. Yes, this is the small application of cloud theory, but the mighty "cloud" can do much more than that.

Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and chief executive of the Innovation Workshop, used the "bank and the banks" to make a metaphor: the first people just put money under the pillow, then there is a bank, very safe, but it is more troublesome to cash. It is now developed to take money from any of the bank outlets, even through ATM (ATMs). Now that the Internet has more than 10 trillion computing power per second, let us rupees, computer host may disappear, mobile phone, car, TV, watch also can surf the Internet, all you need is a screen.

It is also believed that the cloud will share the hardware and software resources and information on demand for the user, the whole operation mode is more like the power grid, from the old single generator mode to the power plant centralized power supply mode, computing capacity can also be used as a commodity circulation, like gas, water and electricity, easy to use, low-cost. This may change the rules of the game in the technology world.

There is much more to the cloud, but are they becoming reality or will they become "myths"?

Review

How did this cloud form?

--Take Google as an example

The sound of the mysterious "cloud", in Google's famous "20% Time" for the first time showed the shape. "20% Time" is the time Google assigns to employees for independent development projects, and they can do what they are interested in during that time. In the fall of 2006, engineer Bisilia launched Google's new strategy, "cloud", under Google's chairman, Schmidt, in its 20%-time project, "Google 101".

At that time, a university entered Google's Bisilia every day to take a shuttle bus to Google, for 10 hours of search algorithms to write work. His real idea, however, was to go back to school and work with his mentor. Bisilia for this application to start a course at his alma mater, to guide students in accordance with Google's thinking programming development, learn how to deal with the vast numbers of data.

This may just become an educational project, but the changes in market relations and the technological environment seem to have foreshadowed the Bisilia of a future technology beacon.

At that time, in almost every field, a large amount of data was drowning scientists. Most scientists lack the equipment to store and screen them. Bisilia that the industry's thinking has changed, the amount of data on the internet will increase by thousands of times, the original calculation mode and even data centers are unsustainable. When large-scale computers form clusters, they retrieve answers or instructions faster than any single machine in the world.

Who has a larger scale of data and can harness them, and who can provide a broader and deeper message service, compared to the impact of software and hardware narrowing.

Bisilia began to build his computer and group. He Xianzhanhouzou, buying 40 computer groups at a reasonable price, and then began to consider how to pay for the servers. Luckily, no one objected when he went to the manager for approval with a large bill.

Lee has since said that Google has developed new technology to buy the worst computer, the cheapest server, but also flew to the "cloud." After all, according to a high-end server 40,000 dollars, to buy hundreds of thousands of units, even Google will be bankrupt. The compression of cost makes it possible for this server cluster to become the core technology.

Google's device-centred "cloud computing" fully conforms to the ambitious vision of the company's founder, Sergey and Larry Page, 10 ago: "Build information across the world for people to access anytime, anywhere." ”

Now, the technology giants have been squeezed into the "cloud" of the world. Companies such as Britain, IBM (International Business Machine), Dell (micro-blog), Hewlett-Packard (Weibo), Amazon (Weibo), and so on, integrate IT systems, databases and other basic equipment, and separate them into different space for leasing. Google, Microsoft (Weibo), Apple and Yahoo are building programs to develop platforms and operating systems that allow developers to write programs through the Web, where consumers can execute programs.

Sample

Three kinds of "cloud"

Representative: Google

Similar to Microsoft, Google wants to guide users through a variety of applications on the Web. For example, before, users need to install Word, Excel on the company's computer to write reports, if you want to bring home the work, the computer in the home to install these applications, but with the "cloud", users no longer need to install the various programs on their own devices, all work can be done online.

Representative: IBM

As the originator of the computer, IBM in the early 2009 put forward the "wisdom of the Earth" and "smart city" concept. With cloud computing, IBM has progressively realized "smarter cities" by helping cities establish real-time urban management, integrated public services, efficient traffic management, and reliable security monitoring systems. Governments are major clients of IBM, and IBM has worked with many cities and enterprises in China to build a "smarter City".

Representative: Amazon

The ecommerce-born Amazon had a distress. At the peak of Christmas, the company had to add a lot of servers to cope with the surge of orders, but after Christmas, the servers were useless and wasted a lot of resources. Amazon's cloud ideal is to lease the remaining computing power.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)