Visit to Tian: The days of the "cloud"

Chaixiaoyan, Yang in late July, Silicon Valley. Broadband Capital chairman, former China Netcom president Tian in Beijing time 2:00 to the domestic more than 150 entrepreneurs and industry friends mass text messages, "from Xiao Early (China Telecom general manager Wang) to Ma Yun (Alibaba President)", Tian said, "I am anxious to communicate with relevant practitioners about the cloud things."　　"At that time, he saw many small companies in the Silicon Valley related to" cloud ", the business area involves chips, switches and so on. "I see that the core technologies associated with cloud computing are mostly in the US, in Silicon Valley," he said.　　The other side of the coin is that the information revolution is entering the fourth phase of cloud computing as it passes through the mainframe era, the personal computer age and the internet age. No one can accurately predict the potential and future of the era of cloud computing, when the information revolution completes from mainframe to personal computers to "new hosts".　　People are putting information on cloud computing platforms, and "Everything is needed" without extra investment in hardware and development platforms.　　As a result, the cloud computing model will greatly improve the overall efficiency of China's manufacturing industry by providing IT services with more reasonable and flexible pricing and more adaptable, while Chinese consumers will enjoy more diverse and efficient IT services in a "Pay-as-you-go" mode. But does this cloud bring only cost reduction and efficiency gains?　　Obviously not. Prior to receiving an exclusive interview with this newspaper, Tian raised such a question: Why did China's economy emerge from the crisis brought about by the financial turmoil, and how to achieve sustainable and stable development of the future economy on the basis of reform and opening-up in the past 30 years? "It is the creation of a personal computer that belongs to China." "Cloud computing will be a disruptive innovation and a huge opportunity for China."　　"The broadband wireless internet, which covers cloud computing, is one of the three areas that the field believes could emerge from this type of innovation." Foucault said, where there is power, there is resistance. Tian that every computer revolution was a process of democratization. The "cloud" of the seeker, all aspire to a "cheaper, easier" New World of beauty.　　In such a world, it can be imagined that people can have supercomputers at the price of books; In such a world, it can be imagined that in the next 3-5 years, China will emerge from Microsoft and Intel's technology siege, based on the "service" sales model of the tens of billions of new IT industry. Broadband paving "21st century": For most people, cloud computing is still a concept. From your perspective, how do we understand it?　　And why is cloud computing so important?　　Tian: It may be easier to understand the cloud from the historical development process of the information revolution. The first stage of the information revolution is the mainframe era, the information is controlled by the central government, the terminal is very stupid, the bandwidth is also very narrow. This is like primitive society, people want to drink water to use a crock to the great rivers and lakes to take. In the second phase, the personal computer age, it is equivalentEach person dug a well in his own home and took it directly from the well when using water. But this model also has the corresponding problem, the water well of each household cannot be shared by others.　　When it came to the "cloud" era, it was like a huge reservoir built in big cities, where users could get what they want from the reservoir through well-developed water networks. As for its importance, I would like to cite another example. In the past, people used to put money on their bed, when the bank appeared, we can withdraw money from the bank when needed, and put the money that we don't need at the bank for the time being.　　The lack of bank transfers and the inability to concentrate on funds have led to the failure of the Industrial revolution. In the information age, "cloud" is equivalent to the role of the bank, can realize the centralized treatment of social information. If the existing data cannot be organized, it cannot become the information, and the information must be analyzed and processed before it can be transformed into a useful knowledge to the society and the people.　　Therefore, the emergence of cloud computing is the inevitable transformation of the information society to the Intelligent Society. "21st century": many people may think that many people have started to say "cloud computing" over the years, including you.　　Is that so?　　Tian: As early as the small netcom, we were thinking about a problem: How do telecom operators avoid the fate of "plumbers" and have their own position at a higher point in the value chain? In this thinking process, I came across the concept of Generation D, which was proposed by Winton Sove (Vinton G. Cerf), the father of the Internet, who worked in MCI at that time. I heard this concept in New York, he said: "The previous operators provided only one network platform, but in fact they could and should have provided a management platform." On this platform, the entire telecommunications network is like a computer, the traditional computer operating system on this management platform into customer management, security management and billing and so on.　　Later, I think the closest thing to this concept is "cloud". During the work of Netcom, I have also tried to make a strategic transition in this regard: we can not only provide bandwidth, we can become a super computer? A computer connected to hundreds of millions of different terminals.　　In which not only to do the network, but also billing, network management, networking security, user authentication, function calls and other series of platforms set up.　　But based on internal communication, technical skills, and a great part of my energy being taken up by transactional work, the effort was unsuccessful and the timing was not right. "21st century": one might ask, why is "cloud" still your target for tracking from Netcom to broadband capital?　　What is the link between "cloud" and broadband capital? Tian: I left netcom to do broadband capital, I hope that through the capital to the "cloud" concept slowly rolled out. The next major investment of broadband capital will be "cloud" as the core to build investment value chain, from infrastructure, operating system, software to application, content. The data center is a kind of infrastructure, it is also facing the challenges from the cloud era; content, the media is a very importantClass content. Whether it is netcom or broadband capital, broadband is fundamental.　　And broadband is the root of "cloud", like the water network of the reservoir, the user. The introduction of the "cloud", the emergence of broadband network is the most important reason.　　Since the advent of broadband networks solves two problems, the first is that information can be obtained at any time, and second, this access to information is highly efficient.　　The reason for this concept is that, first of all, because of the significant bandwidth changes, now the advent and popularization of broadband so that a large number of data acquisition, storage and processing can be carried out smoothly. 21st Century: As you mentioned earlier, the "cloud" practice in the Netcom period has not been launched, which is a very important part of the technical factors.　　Until now, in addition to the change in bandwidth, is there any other objective conditions? Tian: Yes. In addition to bandwidth, the emergence of a new generation of software is also a very important driver of the cloud.　　The so-called next-generation software, the most important thing is the so-called virtual software, it makes the cup in different places can join together to process information. At the same time, the demand of a large number of applications makes the appearance of "cloud" become a reality.　　In the past, supercomputers were so powerful in computing power, but the market was limited to the military, the oil industry and the like. It's different now. The first is that everyone has more terminals, in addition to personal computers, now mobile terminals have become popular, there will be a TV terminal, there may be more terminals.　　These terminals in the future even if the directory, address, such as simple applications, if there is no "cloud" information concentration ability, I am afraid can not be managed. On the other hand, due to the advent of the Internet and large amounts of data, the data that needs to be analyzed is transformed from the original structural data to the increasingly individual data. For example, Internet advertising audience analysis, telecommunications billing data and so on real-time analysis, these quantities are too big to imagine.　　Without "cloud", even a large number of mainframe computers is difficult to solve the problem. The Gift of Heaven "21st Century": "Cloud" in China is a particularly big opportunity.　　How do you understand this? Tian: Just now we analyzed some of the objective conditions of the cloud: bandwidth, software, and requirements. We have also analyzed that the most direct benefit of the cloud is cheap. Whether from the point of view of demand or result, "cloud" is most suitable for China.　　It can be said that "cloud" is a gift given to us by God. Chinese and Chinese companies demand cheap services. The personal computer is now everywhere and looks beautiful, but there is an objective fact-it's really expensive. The business model in this industry is very interesting. When the personal computer first appeared, it was about 1000 dollars, and now it is about 1000 dollars. How can Chinese farmers afford it?　　Cloud computing may solve the problem: the future, no matter what terminals, should have the same ability as supercomputers, but the price of books. From a demand point of view, China has a large number of applications, and we are extremely sensitive to costOf。 "21st Century": you previously wrote in a speech to the "Internet Tomorrow from Cloud technology" conference, said: A new technological change has begun in the depths of the economy, changing the traditional IT and telecommunications infrastructure ..., which will make structural changes to chips, servers, storage, and routing exchanges.　　How does China's entire IT sector face significant opportunities for the cloud?　　Tian: The development of the PC industry has been dominated by alliances between Microsoft and Intel, and the development of the cloud is likely to break the "power" pattern and create new opportunities. Take the CPU as an example, Intel is going the way is more computational power, the single core can go double core, but never price. In the internet age, however, the demand for computers has shifted from the initial solution of computational problems to data processing. So the next generation of "cloud" to adapt to the CPU, should reduce the computational function and improve data processing capacity. As a result, the personal computer will soon be cheaper, followed by better operation, while the processing of large amounts of data, storage, while reducing power consumption.　　Changes in the structural requirements of the core components of the computer may enable Chinese enterprises to find opportunities, such as Granville. Microsoft's impact on the PC industry may also be weakened by the cloud.　　In the "cloud" era, the terminal will need a large open source network operating system, even if the terminal operating system may be more open source things.　　"21st century": So what about carriers? Tian: I've always thought that China's telecoms operators should turn into a supercomputer.　　In a way, operators should be seen as the biggest providers of cloud. In this process, the operators are full of challenges and opportunities, and this challenge will reverse the progress of technology. For example, the operator's data center, energy consumption in the past is particularly large, to solve the problem of heat dissipation, reduce energy consumption is a big problem. In the "cloud" era, the new data Center processing volume, how to solve this problem? For example, someone is doing it now. Concentrate hundreds of CPUs on a single board, using ice water to solve the heat dissipation problem on a plate covered with a special film, greatly reducing energy consumption.　　This is a kind of attempt. In promoting the development of the cloud, I believe that operators will play a very important role and should be the participants and providers of technological innovation.