Kai-fu Lee: Welcome to the era of cloud computing

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With the development of technology, the way ordinary netizens use the internet is also quietly changing. If you're going to turn on the computer, write down your travel plans for the next week in a word processing software, so you might try a new way of editing the document: Open the browser, go to the Google Docs page, create a new document, edit the content, and then share the URL of the document directly with your friend-yes, The entire travel plan is now condensed into a URL that, regardless of where your friend is, can directly open the browser access URL. No matter how many friends you share, they can edit and revise the attractive travel plan with you ... If you like this new editorial experience, congratulations, you are embracing a beautiful web application model-cloud computing.

It's hard to say in a word exactly what the real cloud is. The name "cloud computing" alone is trendy enough to be romantic enough. In fact, we can simply think of the entire internet as a beautiful cloud, now, connected to this cloud of netizens in the world has been more than 1.2 billion. Netizens need to easily connect to any device in the cloud, access any information, need to create content freely and share it with friends. Of course, all of this should be done in a safe, fast and convenient condition. The so-called "cloud computing" is to be based on open standards and services, the Internet as the center, to provide a safe, fast and convenient data storage and network computing services, so that the internet this "cloud" to become the data center of each netizen and computing centre.

For example, if you have a small amount of money to manage, the easiest way to do that is to shove the money under your pillow and write down each entry and expense on your laptop. The drawbacks of this management approach are obvious: your books may be blurred because of damp, you may go out to work because of forgetting to bring the books and anxious, the money placed under the pillow may be thieves stare at the midnight theft ... Of course, you can also buy a safe, and then use the Personal computer spreadsheet software to manage the accounts, but this requires a certain degree of economic strength and relatively deep computer skills. In fact, the best and safest way is to deposit money in a bank, without fear of theft, or at any time using ATM, phone banking or online banking to manage the accounts, and a bank of professionals to help you with your finances. If you put money under a pillow or in a safe, like when we use personal computers to manage information in a stand-alone era, saving money in a bank corresponds to sharing the data and applications with cloud computing in the internet age.

That is to say, in the cloud computing model, the user needs an application that does not run on a user's personal computer, cell phone, etc., but runs on a massive server cluster on the Internet. The data that the user is working with is not stored locally, but is stored in a data center on the Internet. The enterprise that provides cloud computing services is responsible for managing and maintaining the normal operation of these data centers, ensuring sufficient computing power and sufficient storage space for users to use. Users only need to be able to access these services at any time, any location, with any terminal device that can be connected to the Internet. In fact, Google provides the web search function itself, is a typical cloud computing. Other Google services, such as the Gmail,google docs,google Picasa Web, and so on, fully embody the power of cloud computing.

Compared with the traditional stand-alone or network application model, cloud computing has four distinct features.

First, cloud computing provides the most reliable and secure data storage center, and users don't have to worry about data loss or virus intrusion. Many people think that data can only be kept in their own visible, touch the computer is the safest, but it is not. Your computer may be damaged by its own carelessness, or by a virus attack, causing data on your hard disk to fail to recover, and an outlaw who has access to your computer may use every opportunity to steal your data. Before hit's "pornographic" incident reportedly not because of computer repair and caused by personal data leakage? Conversely, when your document is on a Web service similar to Google Docs, when you upload your photos to a web album like Google Picasa Web, You'll never have to worry about data loss or damage. Because at the other end of the cloud, there is the world's most professional team to help you manage your information, with the world's most advanced data centers to help you save your data. At the same time, a strict rights management strategy can help you to share data with someone you specify. This way, you can enjoy the best and safest services without spending money, even more conveniently than saving money in a bank.

Second, cloud computing has the lowest requirements for client devices and is the most convenient to use. Everyone has the experience of maintaining a wide variety of applications on PCs. In order to use the latest operating system, or to use the latest version of a software, we must constantly upgrade our computer hardware. In order to open a document in a form that a friend sent, we had to frantically look for and download an application. To prevent the introduction of viruses during downloading, we have to repeatedly install antivirus and firewall software. All these troubles add up to a nightmare for a novice who just touches a computer and just touches the web! If you can no longer tolerate such a computer experience, cloud computing may be your best bet. As long as you have a computer with Internet access and a browser you like, all you have to do is type the URL in the browser and enjoy the endless fun that cloud computing brings to you. You can directly edit the document stored at the other end of the cloud in the browser, you can always share information with friends, no longer worry about whether your software is the latest version, no longer need to be infected with the software or documents to worry about. Because at the other end of the cloud, there are professional IT staff to help you maintain your hardware, install and upgrade your software, protect you from viruses and various cyber attacks, and help you do everything you've done on your PC.

In addition, cloud computing makes it easy to share data and applications between different devices. You may wish to recall how your own contact information was saved. One of the most common scenarios is that your phone has hundreds of phone numbers of contacts stored in your personal computer or laptop and hundreds of e-mail addresses. To make it easier to send emails on business trips, you have to synchronize contact information regularly between your PC and your laptop. When you buy a new phone, you have to sync the phone number between your old phone and your new phone. Yes, and your PDA and the computer in your office. Given the variety and complexity of data synchronization methods for different devices, you have to pay a hard time and effort to keep and maintain the latest contact information between many different devices. At this point, you need to use cloud computing to make everything simpler. In the Cloud computing Network application model, the data is only one copy, kept at the other end of the "cloud", all your electronic devices only need to connect the Internet, you can access and use the same data simultaneously. Still take the management of the contact information as an example, when you use Web services to manage all your contacts, you can use any computer to find the e-mail address of a friend, call a friend's phone number directly on any phone, or quickly share a contact's electronic Business card with several friends. Of course, all of this is done under a strict security management mechanism, and only people who have access to the data can use or share the data with others.

Finally, cloud computing provides an almost limitless number of possibilities for us to use the web, provides almost unlimited space for storing and managing data, and provides almost unlimited computing power for our various applications. Imagine when you're driving a car, as long as the mobile phone connected to the network, you can directly see the location of their own satellite map and real-time traffic conditions, you can quickly find their own preset route, you can ask the network friends recommend the best nearby scenic spots and restaurants, can quickly book the destination of the hotel, You can also share your photos or video clips that you've just taken to friends and relatives far away ... Leaving the cloud, we can't enjoy the convenience of using a PC or a client application on a mobile phone alone. PCs or other electronic devices are unlikely to provide unlimited storage space and computing power, but at the other end of the cloud, a huge cluster of thousands of, tens of thousands of, or more servers can easily do this. The capacity of individuals and individual devices is limited, but the potential of cloud computing is almost limitless. When you put the most commonly used data and most important features in the "cloud", we believe that your understanding of computers, applications and even the network will be a great change, your life will be changed.

The spiritual essence of the Internet is freedom, equality and sharing. As one of the most embodiment of the internet spirit of the computing model, cloud computing will be in the near future to show a strong vitality, and will change from a number of aspects of our work and life. Whether it is an ordinary network user or a corporate employee, whether IT managers or software developers, they can experience this change firsthand.

If you're an average user, imagine a scenario like this: to prepare for the weekend party, you connect Google Docs on your PC, write lists of invitees, items you need to buy, and then share documents directly with your friends, Let them help you with your staff. Your friends can chat with you online while editing the document until you are satisfied. You then use Google Calendar to mark the time and place of the party and send the invitation directly to all of the invitees ' Gmail boxes, which can also be accompanied by Google Maps's road map. On the day of the party, you and your friends will certainly not forget to use their mobile phones to take photos and videos as a good memory. At this point, you can upload photos or videos directly to Google Picasa Web or YouTube site, so that more friends to share the good times ... All of this needs to be done in the browser, all data is stored in the cloud, such as document editing, scheduling, photo processing, and so on, the "cloud" has a powerful computing capacity of the server cluster is responsible for, as an ordinary user, you only need to enjoy the "stroll in the cloud" romantic and comfortable.

White-collar workers who work hard in the office can also experience the joys of cloud computing. In the past, if you were to edit a marketing slide with an electronic presentation software on your personal computer, most of the time you would need to send the slides stored in your PC as email attachments to your co-workers to revise them. Each co-worker may work on a separate copy of the slide and then summarize the changes to you. At this point, you need to open several modified slides at the same time, and then carefully merge each of your colleagues ' changes into the main document. This kind of manual labor is inefficient, not easy to understand the version of the document evolution process, if combined with manager approval process, the entire slide editing process will probably make you miserable. Now, all you have to do is switch to cloud computing and use online document editing tools like Google Docs, whether it's editing, sharing, annotating, reviewing, or versioning or revision management, that can be easily done in a browser. Editing and sharing slides is as easy as surfing the web. More conveniently, with the help of cloud computing, traditional slide files are now a simple URL, and you can even use your laptop when you're on a business trip. At the lecture site, the slides appear in front of the audience as long as the URL is connected through a browser on any computer.

IT executives in the enterprise may be more appreciative of the ease with which cloud computing brings them. For every IT manager, it is not easy to build and maintain the corporate Web site, e-mail system, scheduling system, and document sharing system for a long time. Now, with the cloud computing platform, IT managers can "outsource" these complex tasks to providers of cloud computing services. For example, use Google Sites to build websites, use Gmail to provide corporate mail services, use Google Calendar to manage schedule information, and use Google Docs to share corporate internal documents. IT managers no longer have to worry about how to build and maintain the server environment, how to purchase and upgrade the system software, application software and even antivirus software, how to prevent hacker intrusion ... Whether it is a data service or an application calculation, everything is obtained directly from the network. It's like when we use water and electricity, end users can access and enjoy services simply by turning on switches or taps, while power plants and waterworks with huge resources are responsible for providing the most professional production and maintenance at the other end of the cloud. Everything becomes so simple and natural, because your business is already connected to the cloud.

For software developers or computer science majors, the impact of cloud computing may be more far-reaching. Previously, a student who wanted to become a qualified engineer needed to learn how to write a program that would run on a single computer to accomplish a particular task. Now, to get the most out of cloud computing, most engineers should master the fundamentals and methods of distributed computing, have the ability to master protocols or languages for distributed computing, and develop applications that run on hundreds of, thousands of, or even tens of thousands of computers, The program is used to manage the mass storage devices distributed in different data centers. In other words, if a traditional software engineer works with a computer and a limited amount of storage, engineers in the cloud should adapt as quickly as possible to a cluster of computer clusters that cannot be expected, as well as storage capacity. In this regard, the Google-developed GFS (Distributed File System), MapReduce (Distributed Computing Systems) and BigTable (distributed storage systems) play a leading role in the wave of technology, The distributed processing model represented by these systems has become the most advanced and dynamic technology in the field of software development.

Cloud computing is the technical commanding point that emerged in the network era. Just take the pulse of cloud computing and see it farther in the internet age. Hope that Chinese computer science or related majors, as well as the vast number of software developers will be more thorough understanding of cloud computing, using cloud computing, to develop newer, better network applications. Hope that the vast number of corporate users and individual users can experience the advantages of cloud computing, and in the process of experience love cloud computing, embracing cloud computing.

In the network era, every major technological change is indicative of the future evolution of the Internet industry pattern, at least will also lead to the mainstream network enterprises reshuffle. China's internet industry has experienced many opportunities and missed many opportunities. Perhaps, a strategic vision of the rise of cloud computing can see the opportunity to occupy the commanding heights of the market. Perhaps, internet companies that embraced cloud computing earlier can give users an unusual network application experience and take advantage of the market.

Cloud computing is a beautiful picture, and cloud computing is the change that is happening around us. Cloud computing can make internet users more relaxed and happy, so that companies can better run, let engineers play more potential, so that Chinese companies and engineers have the opportunity to enter the global arena. What are we waiting for? Let's meet the cloud computing era and experience the joys of "Walking in the Clouds"!