Abstract: The current cloud development to be a breakthrough is not a technical problem; Why now is the best time for Huawei Cloud; What are the three key starting points for cloud product planning? What ecology means to clouds; Let’s listen to the tech guru talk about the cloud.
This article is shared from Huawei cloud community “Huawei Cloud chief product Officer Fang Guowei: No one has a crystal ball to see the future, how to break through the cloud?” , by Huawei Cloud community Selection.
Huawei has an internal learning program called “Expert Lecture Hall”, and a video of a speech from four years ago is particularly striking. In the past few years, employees have searched and watched and left comments: “Insight! Looking back at the speech, Professor Fang has already made clear some controversies and detours in the cloud service field in recent years.”
With great curiosity, we opened the resume of the public speaking expert Fang Guowei.
Graduated from the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University, he was responsible for building the first cloud computing demonstration center of Microsoft China and the first technical staff of Amazon AWS China. He is one of the earliest practitioners of cloud computing concept, technology and business in China. During the decades of walking with cloud, Fang Guowei was affectionately called “cloud computing elder brother” in the team.
Now Fang Guowei, as huawei cloud chief product officer position. This issue of Huawei cloud community “Cloud enjoy figures · Big face to face”, invited to the technology tycoon, let us listen to him talk about the cloud story.
1, the cloud most to be broken is not technology, but psychological and interests
Once upon a time, some people doubt that cloud services are old wine in a new bottle, and some people think that it is the trend of the future. Ten years river east, ten years river west, when our life has undergone earth-shaking changes at the same time, the cloud has quietly changed the traditional industry. As it turns out, the cloud era is irreversible after all.
Fang Guowei is one of the witnesses and promoters. In the 13 years of ups and downs, he has always believed that cloud computing is the inevitable outcome of economic laws and technology development to a certain stage, is the direction of ICT industry development, is the general trend, in which public cloud will play a dominant role.
In April this year, IDC released the “Global and China Public Cloud Service Market (2020) Tracking” report shows that in 2020, the global public cloud service market size (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) reached 312.42 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 24.1%. The overall market size of China’s public cloud service reached 19.38 billion US dollars, up 49.7% year on year, with the highest growth in all regions of the world.
This is a huge thing with rapid growth and unlimited potential, but even so, many companies are still on the sidelines, afraid to step into the technology river flowing through the future, believing that the business cloud is full of too much uncertainty.
In an interview a few years ago, Fang Guowei once said, “The most important thing to be broken through in cloud computing is not technology, but psychology and interests.” Now he gives the same answer.
The appearance of a new thing is bound to pry the existing pattern of interests. Many traditional enterprises have their own data centers, with an internal team responsible for infrastructure operation and maintenance. Once the public cloud is adopted, the interests of the team itself will be lost, for example, the workload will be reduced or the team will be directly cut off. The interest damage caused by this is the “invisible” obstacle to the cloud.
But another way of thinking about IT is that the redistribution of benefits can lead to better results, as traditional enterprises turn over the underlying IT infrastructure to specialized cloud vendors, and can be freed from the high cost of hardware maintenance. It is a long-term plan with more advantages than disadvantages to let existing manpower concentrate on business innovation at the application layer.
“For example, many people are still skeptical about the security of public cloud and feel less assured than self-built data centers, but in most cases, such cognition is wrong.
Large public cloud vendors tend to have strong security teams to protect customer data and information security and mature security compliance solutions. But for a single enterprise, the resources invested in security are relatively limited. This is mainly a psychological problem that takes time to work through. Just as in the early stage of e-commerce development, buyers would worry that they would not receive the goods after paying for them. In the later stage, the guaranteed payment system solved this problem. Similarly, the psychological doubts of the cloud also need to do more work on technology, which is also cloud manufacturers to consider in the later stage.
In the final analysis, for traditional enterprises, the cloud is a must. Therefore, in the next key node of the development of cloud computing, how to enable these large traditional enterprises to go on the cloud in bulk and rest assured is crucial. Fang stressed that this is the best opportunity for Huawei cloud.
2, Huawei cloud six key genes, really help traditional enterprises on the cloud
“Cloud is essentially ToB’s service, which is exactly what Huawei is best at. From traditional carrier business to enterprise business, it is in our DNA to serve the government and enterprise well.” Fang guowei said these experiences are invaluable, and they can be seamlessly matched to the upper cloud of government and enterprise, for one thing.
In the current public cloud market, Huawei Cloud is neither an e-commerce startup nor a pure Internet software company. Its business conflicts with Shanghai Cloud’s customers and partners are the least. Its positioning of security, neutrality and credibility is its second advantage.
Third, cloud is the development direction of hard and soft body, cloud inside there will be more and more dedicated hardware, the cloud vendors to the underlying hardware and software of the building also have more control over from kunpeng, rising processor, giant accelerator card to other kinds of hardware, huawei had accumulated in the ICT industry hardware innovation experience can be directly through the cloud platform service customers.
“Partner cloud is a very unique model for us. It’s a model that almost no other cloud vendor is doing.”
In the early years, Huawei has explored cooperation with customers to build private clouds, which is also the basis for partner clouds. Nowadays, Huawei Cloud can deploy the full stack capability of public cloud to customers’ local areas and provide them with cloud services through online centralized operation and maintenance (O&M) or localized operation and maintenance (O&M), which is an extension of Huawei cloud service capability in customers’ computer rooms.
Fang Guowei explained in detail, with Huawei cloud as the core, build a cloud platform covering different scenarios, radiating to partners, edge side, customer side and so on. Huawei big cloud is used to connect various partner clouds and edge clouds, and finally realize the distributed cloud alliance with unified experience. For example, when you go on a business trip abroad, although you hold a Mobile phone of a Chinese operator, it is actually provided by a local operator, which is completely insensitive from the perspective of usage.
Another example is Huawei cloud’s proprietary cloud solution, which can physically isolate exclusive resource pools in the public cloud so that computing and storage resources can be exclusively used by customers. These are innovative optimization for customer specific scenarios, flexible matching of government and enterprise organizational structures and business processes, with innovative technical means, to achieve a cloud from the user’s perspective, better meet their needs, rest assured on the cloud.
In addition, huawei cloud is unique in its global business deployment capability and mobile capability in collaboration with consumer cloud.
However, opportunities and challenges always coexist. When Huawei cloud has both public cloud and partner cloud, the corresponding r&d and product management coordination is a challenge. Fang Guowei is also thinking about how to make good coordination from the product perspective and give full play to the traditional advantages of ToB.
3, all from the user’s appeal, no crystal ball can see the future
One of fang Guowei’s most important work in Huawei is the planning of cloud products, which is both macroscopic and specific. “No one has a crystal ball to see the future,” he said of the “daunting” task. “But you may be able to make some judgments about trends based on what users want.”
Just as Bezos did when he thought about e-commerce, he didn’t need to think hard about what would happen in the future, but what was constant, and that constant was what people wanted: more product choices, faster delivery, cheaper prices.
This concept also applies to cloud products, fang Guowei believes that the development of cloud products is to meet:
1. From the perspective of product planning, solve the problem that all large enterprises’ business needs to go to the cloud;
2, people are lazy, cloud products should be designed to be more useful, such as writing less code, configuration more automatic;
Cheaper or better cost performance is an eternal proposition.
The emergence of Serverless, and the popularity of low-code tools, attest to these features. Therefore, in the process of product planning, if we can firmly grasp these three points, we can more flexibly adapt to the needs of customers in the cloud service market.
Last year, Huawei Cloud first introduced the concept of cloud native 2.0 to the industry, which is one of the key plans that Fang is pushing forward. Slightly different from CNCF’s definition of cloud native, he believes that the original meaning of the term refers to applications or services designed and built on the cloud platform from the very beginning, i.e., “born in the cloud, grown in the cloud”, in this case the cloud-based platform is the products and services provided by the cloud platform. From this point of view, the use of containers, Kubernetes and other technologies is not the key criteria for judging cloud native.
In an article on Huawei’s Intranet, Fang Guowei further explained the concept: “Now we talk about cloud native architecture, network and hardware are designed and built for cloud scenarios or cloud environments, thus differentiating the previous enterprise IT scenarios and requirements. For example, traditional box firewall products are weak in cloud scenarios because cloud platforms require higher scalability, multi-lease, dynamic configuration adjustment, and distributed deployment capabilities.
So cloud primitive 2.0 means that in addition to containers and Kubernetes, which can provide finer granularity and more flexible resource scheduling, there are a lot of services on the cloud platform that can help users quickly build applications, such as services that help users manage and mine data intelligence, and services that help build the Internet of everything. Now cloud native is to make full use of the various services on the cloud, cloud platform to the “application-centric” stage.
The concept of fashion is not only the exclusive of Internet enterprises, traditional enterprises can completely get rid of the burden of history, according to the actual situation to the cloud native mode change. Fang Guowei believes that through Cloud native 2.0, more government and enterprises can become new Cloud native enterprises, gradually transform from “ON Cloud” mode to “IN Cloud” mode, and complete the goal of digital transformation and transformation.
Native 2.0 based on the cloud, he stressed that huawei cloud will increase spending on Serverless follow-up, and the cloud native 2.0 and distributed cloud, combining the edge of the cloud, from the very beginning entirely based on resources concentrated at the center of the cloud model toward the edge of cloud synergy distributed cloud model, let cloud better satisfy customers in the time delay, network costs and the need for data security. At the End of September 2021 Huawei Fully Connected Conference (HC), Huawei Cloud will also release some related products around cloud native 2.0.
Another battleground: ecology and developers
Talking about the competition of future cloud vendors, Fang Guowei spread out his hands and smiled, but he was not very worried.
In the online open market competition, it is difficult to have a real monopoly. All products and services are purchased and used on the table, and some may enter the market early to seize the early flow dividend. “But the cloud covers a wide range of products, and the competition tends to be integrated rather than a single point.” Fang guowei listed several key points: user experience, data security, compliance and governance, reliability and stability, cost control, service level, ecology (including partner ecology and developer ecology).
For example, large enterprises may be more sensitive to stability, while small enterprises pay more attention to cost control and whether there are automated services. People’s considerations are different. But the best cloud vendors, just like the top ones in school days, have almost no subject shortfalls and have balanced and excellent development in all aspects.
It is also the comprehensive competitiveness, the breakthrough of new technology is difficult to bring subversive market changes. As Fang Guowei said, “Although the breakthrough of a single technology can help improve the competitiveness, cloud is a new service mode. The launch of new technologies and applications will only enrich cloud services, and the essence of cloud mode will not change in the short term.”
One of them has to mention is ecological construction. After going to the cloud, in addition to consuming computing resources, more and more users will use cloud software services, including storage, database, IoT, AI and so on. Behind these products are ordinary developers. Therefore, the minimalist development tools, efficient and convenient development process, is also the battlefield of cloud manufacturers competition.
Fang Guowei bluntly said, “Shangyun’s partners are most concerned about whether they can make money in this ecosystem.” Similarly, Huawei Cloud can transfer the experience system of ToB’s hardware ecosystem from offline to online, and do a good job of coordination and integration with the existing consumer cloud ecosystem.
“So, we’re going to pay more attention to ecology and developers.” It will provide support and enable services for specific scenarios of specific industries to improve the efficiency of developers and help them develop applications quickly.
Fang Guowei revealed that there will be some big releases during HC. For example, some traditional enterprises need to develop live streaming APP, and we will support the Internet application development of these traditional enterprises through mature products.
Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg, below the surface of the surprise, you can stay tuned.
Good wind by force, times make people, people also achieve times
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, in the classic opening passage of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. The former applies to companies that embrace the cloud. The latter applies to companies that are too old to turn around.
But for developers, the cloud is the best of times. “Two things drive human society forward. One is energy and the other is information. In the information age, the value of information has been greatly demonstrated. I think now and in the foreseeable future, it is the spring of technology people, we can produce great value to promote social progress.”
Fang Guowei’s own experience is the best footnote, in the torrent of technology, with the trend, to become a cloud witness, is also a key participant in the leader, and the cause of love all the way.
So, how should developers seize the opportunities of The Times as individuals driving the development of the cloud?
“Pick the right trend, pick the right track, and then you have to have a skill, or the ability to make a breakthrough.” Now the right time and the right place are available, it depends on whether a skill can be fully developed. At this point, Fang Guowei also talked about three key abilities of technicians beyond technology:
The first is to cultivate the ability to see problems from a business sense perspective. It is necessary to understand and accept that technology in an enterprise essentially serves the business and that technology matches the business. Therefore, it is necessary to correct the mentality. For example, business is different from school, because in business, the company pays you to do technology, while in school, you pay for technology.
The second is the ability to communicate. It is generally believed that good communication ability is the ability to speak fluently in daily life. However, in addition to oral expression, writing emails, reports and even speeches are all manifestations of communication ability. Talent through products, and then by a variety of communication channels to express the presentation.
The third is empathy, which is essentially the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes or empathize with others. It can help us deal with daily problems, better understand customer needs, and improve communication.
In the decade of rapid development of cloud, the industry has gone through rounds of shuffling. Between ups and downs, each individual in the technological wave, whether individual or enterprise, has to step out of the comfort zone, dare to self-revolution, and create a second growth curve.
At the end of the interview, Fang Guowei concluded modestly, “I am very lucky to play my strengths and do what I like in the wave of cloud computing.”
The age makes man, and man makes the age.
eggs
“Exercise is exercise for the body. Reading is exercise for the brain.” Fang Guowei has been keeping fit for more than 20 years, and his mental state and body management are very good in our opinion.
As for reading, he explains: “For a computer to work, it needs: algorithms + data. The human brain is a biological, carbon-based computer. Some algorithms are hardwired (inherited in our DNA) and some algorithms have to be built. Learning, thinking is the process of building this algorithm. I believe in lifelong learning, and reading is the cheapest and most convenient way to learn.”
I also recommend Why We Sleep, a book he is currently reading, by UC Berkeley professor Matthew Walker. “There is one thing that will improve your memory and increase your attractiveness; Let you keep slim, reduce appetite; Protect you from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease; Keep you from colds and colds; Lower your risk of heart disease, heart attack and diabetes. It makes you feel happier, less depressed, less stressed.”
“Everyone knows that the body is a 1 and the other is a 0, but most people spend a lot of time on 0, spend a lot of time on 1 and pride themselves on not sleeping much. This book can change some of our misconceptions and give us a correct understanding of sleep.
Wish you all good health.”
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