Information technology 信息技術(shù)

Cloud atlas

The battle of the computing clouds intensifies—and the battlefield grows more complex

第一段：

How much have you spent on the cloud today? It takes Robert Hodges only a few clicks to find out. He pulls up a dashboard on a computer in his home office in Berkeley, California, which shows cloud spending at his database firm, Altinity, in real time. The cloud represents half of Altinity’s total costs.

你今天在“云”上花了多少錢? Robert Hodges只需點(diǎn)擊幾下鼠標(biāo)就能知道答案。在加州伯克利的家中辦公室里，他打開(kāi)電腦上的一個(gè)“儀表盤‘”，上面顯示了他的數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)公司Altinity在云上的實(shí)時(shí)支出費(fèi)用。云占據(jù)了Altinity總成本的一半。

第二段：

Mr Hodges’s widget is a window onto the future. As bills soar, every firm of any size will need to understand not just the benefits of the cloud, but also its costs. Gartner, a consultancy, calculates that spending on public-cloud services will reach nearly 10% of all corporate spending on information technology (IT) in 2021, up from around 4% in 2017. Plenty of technophile startups spend 80% of their revenues on cloud services, estimate Sarah Wang and Martin Casado of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm. The situation is analogous to a century ago, when electric power became an essential input (and prompted some firms to hire another kind of CEO: the chief electricity officer).

Hodges的產(chǎn)品是一扇通向未來(lái)的窗口。隨著費(fèi)用的飆升，任何規(guī)模的公司都不僅需要了解云計(jì)算的好處，還需要了解它的成本。據(jù)咨詢公司Gartner計(jì)算，到2021年，公有云服務(wù)的支出將占所有企業(yè)花在IT上的支出的近10%，高于2017年的4%左右的數(shù)據(jù)。據(jù)風(fēng)投公司Andreessen Horowitz的Sarah Wang和Martin Casado估計(jì)，許多技術(shù)愛(ài)好者創(chuàng)業(yè)公司將80%的收入投入在云服務(wù)上。這種情況與一個(gè)世紀(jì)前類似，當(dāng)時(shí)電力成為一種必要的投入(這促使一些公司雇傭了另一種類型的CEO:首席電力官)。

第三段：

For cloud companies this has been a bonanza. Giants of the industry, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and, in China, Alibaba and Tencent, have been?adding business briskly. Gartner expects global sales of cloud services to rise by 26% in 2021, to more than $400bn.?But competition is stirring.?On December 9th Oracle, a big software-maker, reported higher revenue than expected, mainly thanks to the rapid growth of its cloud unit. Its market value shot up by over 15%, or nearly $40bn. And a welkin of companies is emerging to help businesses manage their computing loads. One such firm, Snowflake, is worth $108bn. Another, HashiCorp, went public in New York on December 8th and now boasts a stockmarket value of $15bn, three times its last private valuation in 2020.

對(duì)于云計(jì)算公司來(lái)說(shuō)，這是一次發(fā)財(cái)?shù)臋C(jī)會(huì)。亞馬遜AWS、微軟Azure、谷歌云平臺(tái)，以及中國(guó)的阿里巴巴和騰訊等行業(yè)巨頭都在迅速增加業(yè)務(wù)。Gartner預(yù)計(jì)，2021年全球云服務(wù)銷售額將增長(zhǎng)26%，達(dá)到4000億美元以上。但競(jìng)爭(zhēng)也在加劇。12月9日，大型軟件制造商甲骨文公司，報(bào)告了高于預(yù)期的收入，這主要?dú)w功于其云服務(wù)業(yè)務(wù)的快速增長(zhǎng)。其市值飆升了15%以上，即近400億美元。大量的公司正在涌現(xiàn)，幫助企業(yè)管理計(jì)算負(fù)載。其中一家名為雪花(Snowflake)的公司價(jià)值1080億美元。另一家公司HashiCorp于12月8日在紐約上市，目前市值為150億美元，是其去年最后一次私人估值的三倍。

第四段：

The latest cloud formation and the winds shaping it were on full display this month at Re:Invent, the world’s largest cloud-computing conference, held every year in Las Vegas by AWS. Panels discussing “cost optimisation” and “AWSbilling” were among the best attended. The accompanying expo featured booths where startups with names such as CloudFix, Cloudwiry and Zesty were offering to help customers manage their cloud use.

本月，AWS在拉斯維加斯舉辦的全球最大云計(jì)算會(huì)議Re:Invent上，充分展示了最新的cloud formation和影響它的一些趨勢(shì)。討論“成本優(yōu)化”和“AWS賬單”的座談會(huì)出席人數(shù)是最多的。與此同時(shí)展會(huì)還設(shè)有一些"攤位"，其中包括CloudFix、cloudiry和Zesty等初創(chuàng)公司將幫助客戶管理他們的云使用。

第五段：

Businesses’ main motive for moving to the cloud was?never about cost but “scalability”: having access to additional computing resources with a few clicks. But cloud bills have grown more complicated as well as higher, sometimes rivalling those from America’s notoriously opaque health-care providers. The AWS bill of even a small customer like the Duckbill Group, another cost-consulting firm, can run to more than 30 pages, listing in detail the cost of every single service it has used, from bandwidth in India ($0.01 per request to its website) to a virtual server in Oregon ($83.59 for “Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud” running open-source software).

企業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)移到云計(jì)算的主要?jiǎng)訖C(jī)不是成本，而是“可擴(kuò)展性”:只需點(diǎn)擊幾下鼠標(biāo)就可以使用額外的計(jì)算資源。但云計(jì)算賬單已經(jīng)變得越來(lái)越復(fù)雜，也越來(lái)越高，有時(shí)甚至可以與美國(guó)眾所周知的不透明醫(yī)療服務(wù)提供商的賬單不相上下。甚至像Duckbill造價(jià)咨詢公司這樣的一個(gè)小的客戶的AWS賬單都長(zhǎng)達(dá)30多頁(yè), 上面詳細(xì)列出每一個(gè)服務(wù)的使用成本, 從印度的帶寬(每請(qǐng)求一次網(wǎng)站0.01美元)到在俄勒岡州一個(gè)虛擬服務(wù)器(運(yùn)行開(kāi)源軟件的EC2 83.59美元)。

第六段：

That is only natural, says Corey Quinn, co-founder of the Duckbill Group. Big cloud providers such as AWS, Azure and GCP are amalgamations of dozens of services. AWS sells more than 200, ranging from simple storage and number-crunching to all sorts of specialised databases and artificial-intelligence offerings. Each is billed according to multiple dimensions, including the number of servers, time used or bytes transferred. Then come the discounts and special offers.

Duckbill集團(tuán)的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人Corey Quinn表示，這是很正常的。像AWS、Azure和GCP這樣的大型云服務(wù)提供商提供許多混合的服務(wù)。AWS銷售超過(guò)200種，從簡(jiǎn)單的存儲(chǔ)和數(shù)字密集運(yùn)算到各種專業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)和人工智能產(chǎn)品。每一種服務(wù)都要根據(jù)多個(gè)維度計(jì)費(fèi)的，包括服務(wù)器數(shù)量、使用的時(shí)間或傳輸?shù)淖止?jié)數(shù)。然后是折扣和特價(jià)。

第七段：

Ms Wang and Mr Casado have suggested that firms should think about?building their own private clouds to keep costs down. So far few firms have opted for such “repatriation”, which is both pricey and makes it harder for businesses to enjoy the benefits of essentially unlimited computing resources in the public cloud. Rather, businesses are trying to professionalise their “cloud financial operations” (or Fin Ops in the compulsory tech shorthand), for example tying bonuses of executives responsible for cloud usage to cost control.

Wang女士和Casado先生建議公司應(yīng)該考慮建立自己的私有云以降低成本。到目前為止，很少有公司選擇這樣的“回流”方式，這很昂貴而且又使企業(yè)難以享受到公有云非常無(wú)限的計(jì)算資源帶來(lái)的好處。相反，企業(yè)正試圖使它們的“云成本管理”(或者用強(qiáng)制的技術(shù)術(shù)語(yǔ)簡(jiǎn)稱為Fin Ops)專業(yè)化，例如將負(fù)責(zé)云業(yè)務(wù)的高管的獎(jiǎng)金與成本控制掛鉤。

第八段：

For the time being, gauging the cloud’s financial impact is an arduous manual process. As cloud use grows, it will need to be automated, says Lydia Leong of Gartner. Some will probably be outsourced to upstarts of the sort thronging Re:Invent. A number sell a mix of consulting and software tools to assess cloud use and offer advice on how to lower costs. CloudFix, which unveiled its service in Las Vegas, charges a subscription to run a customer’s configuration through software?that optimises the client’s cloud performance.

目前，評(píng)估云的財(cái)務(wù)影響是一個(gè)費(fèi)力的人工過(guò)程。Gartner咨詢公司的Lydia Leong說(shuō)，隨著云計(jì)算使用的增長(zhǎng)，它將需要自動(dòng)化。其中一些可能會(huì)被外包給蜂擁至Re:Invent的初創(chuàng)公司。一些公司出售咨詢以及軟件工具的組合，以評(píng)估云計(jì)算的使用，并就如何降低成本提供建議。CloudFix在拉斯維加斯推出了它的服務(wù)，通過(guò)優(yōu)化客戶云性能的軟件向訂閱用戶收取運(yùn)行客戶配置的費(fèi)用。

第九段：

The big cloud companies have taken note, both of the upstarts and of the growing customer grumbles. Just before the Las Vegas event AWS announced that it would start charging less for data transfers to the internet, lowering the bills of millions of customers. It also helps them identify savings, for instance by offering a “Simple Monthly Calculator” (though it looks rather complex and sports a web interface straight out of the late 1990s).

大型云計(jì)算公司已經(jīng)注意到初創(chuàng)企業(yè)以及日益增長(zhǎng)的客戶的抱怨。就在拉斯維加斯活動(dòng)之前，AWS宣布，它將開(kāi)始降低向互聯(lián)網(wǎng)傳輸數(shù)據(jù)的費(fèi)用，從而降低數(shù)百萬(wàn)用戶的賬單費(fèi)用。它還可以幫助他們確定節(jié)省的費(fèi)用，例如提供一個(gè)“簡(jiǎn)單的月度計(jì)算器”(盡管它看起來(lái)相當(dāng)復(fù)雜，并帶有一個(gè)完全就是20世紀(jì)90年代末的web界面)。

第十段：

At Microsoft, Azure cloud costs are often rolled into the “enterprise agreements”, all-encompassing subscriptions that big companies typically sign up to. GCP, being the smallest of the top three, “strongly believes” in the “multi-cloud”, says Amit Zavery, a senior executive. In other words, it aims to enable customers to choose the best and cheapest cloud services from different providers (thus making it easier for them to pick Google).

在微軟，Azure云成本經(jīng)常被納入“企業(yè)協(xié)議”，即大公司通常簽署的包羅一切的訂閱協(xié)議。GCP是這三家公司中規(guī)模最小的，其高管Amit Zavery說(shuō)，GCP“強(qiáng)烈相信”“多云”的未來(lái)。換句話說(shuō)，它的目標(biāo)是讓客戶從不同的提供商那里選擇最好和最便宜的云服務(wù)(從而使他們更容易選擇谷歌)。

第十一段：

Yet the big providers are not making life easier for customers everywhere.?Having customers pay only for the IT they use, while combining different services as needed, is the whole point of cloud computing.?At AWS the complexity is seen as a competitive advantage. Its assortment of services is mostly created by independent teams that can innovate faster (including by changing how clients are charged). “We decided to let our developers build what they build—and unleash their creativity,” says Matt Garman, who heads sales and marketing at AWS.

然而，大型云服務(wù)提供商并沒(méi)有讓世界各地客戶的日子好過(guò)一些。讓客戶只為他們使用的IT付費(fèi)，同時(shí)根據(jù)他們需要，組合不同的服務(wù)，這就是云計(jì)算的全部意義。在AWS，復(fù)雜性被視為一種競(jìng)爭(zhēng)優(yōu)勢(shì)。它的多樣的服務(wù)大多是由獨(dú)立團(tuán)隊(duì)創(chuàng)造的，這些團(tuán)隊(duì)能夠更快地創(chuàng)新(包括改變客戶的收費(fèi)方式)。AWS的銷售和營(yíng)銷主管 Matt Garman說(shuō)：“我們決定讓我們的開(kāi)發(fā)者構(gòu)建他們構(gòu)建的東西，并釋放他們的創(chuàng)造力”。

第十二段：

The three big providers also have a habit of making it cheap and easy to transfer data onto their clouds but pricey to move them out again. Critics accuse AWS, and to a lesser extent Azure and GCP, of being a digital “Hotel California”, where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Locking customers in like this may push them to use other services. Mr Garman counters that the higher price of moving data off a cloud (“egress” in the jargon) reflects the higher costs of that exercise. Almost by definition, customers leave with more data than they entered with.

三大提供商也有一個(gè)習(xí)慣，就是讓數(shù)據(jù)傳輸?shù)剿麄兊脑粕献兊帽阋撕腿菀?，但把?shù)據(jù)轉(zhuǎn)移出去卻很昂貴。批評(píng)者指責(zé)AWS，以及（較小程度上指責(zé)）Azure和GCP，是一個(gè)數(shù)字“加州旅館”，你想要從酒店退房隨時(shí)都行，但你永遠(yuǎn)都無(wú)法離去[隱藏的意思是“即便你離開(kāi)這兒，你的心也將永遠(yuǎn)留在這里了”]。這樣困住客戶可能會(huì)促使他們使用其他服務(wù)。Garman先生反駁道，將數(shù)據(jù)移出云端(行話叫做“出口費(fèi)用”)的成本越高，反映了這種操作的成本越高。幾乎從定義上講，客戶離開(kāi)時(shí)攜帶的數(shù)據(jù)比他們上傳時(shí)還要多。

第十三段：

Whatever the truth, cloud providers’ fat gross-profit margins—more than 60% in AWS’s case, according to Bernstein, a broker—are attracting competition. In September Cloudflare, which helps clients serve up online content and deflect digital attacks, launched a new data-storage service which does not charge for digital outflows. Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s boss, says this should “unlock the true potential of the cloud”, by allowing businesses to mix and match services from different providers. “Each cloud provider has different strengths and weaknesses,” says Mr Prince. Investors still see CloudFlare’s strengths: despite a recent slide amid a general cooling on upstart tech stocks, the firm’s market value of $45bn is eight times what it was after its initial public offering in September 2019.

不管真相如何，云服務(wù)提供商豐厚的毛利正在吸引競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手。Bernstein經(jīng)紀(jì)公司的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，AWS的毛利超過(guò)了60%。9月，幫助客戶提供在線內(nèi)容并抵御數(shù)字攻擊的Cloudflare公司推出了一項(xiàng)新的數(shù)據(jù)存儲(chǔ)服務(wù)，該服務(wù)不對(duì)數(shù)字出口收費(fèi)。Cloudflare的老板Matthew Prince表示，通過(guò)允許企業(yè)混合和匹配來(lái)自不同提供商的服務(wù)，這將“釋放云計(jì)算的真正潛力”。Prince表示:“每家云服務(wù)提供商都有不同的優(yōu)勢(shì)和劣勢(shì)?！?投資者仍然看到了CloudFlare的優(yōu)勢(shì): 盡管在新興科技股普遍降溫的情況下，該公司最近出現(xiàn)了下滑，但該公司450億美元的市值是2019年9月IPO后的8倍。

第十四段：

If bets like Mr Prince’s pay off, the industry will become more competitive. As for Altinity, its dashboard is an outgrowth of its product—a cloud-based database that lets users sift through information, including bills, in real time. It is considering releasing the dashboard’s code for anyone to use and adapt. Fair weather to it.

如果像Prince這樣的選擇獲得了回報(bào)，這個(gè)行業(yè)的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)將會(huì)更加激烈。至于Altinity，它的"儀表盤“是其產(chǎn)品的副產(chǎn)品, 其產(chǎn)品是一個(gè)基于云的數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)，可以讓用戶實(shí)時(shí)篩選信息，包括賬單。它正在考慮開(kāi)源“儀表盤”的代碼供任何人使用和調(diào)整。對(duì)它來(lái)說(shuō)，可是好事兒。