Category Archives: Alibaba

Alibaba, Aliyun, Equinix, Infrastructure as a Service, Intel, Meeras, News & Analysis, Raejeanne Skillern, Sicheng Yu

Alibaba announces partner programme to boost cloud efforts

Alibaba's partner programme will help it expand internationally

Alibaba’s partner programme will help it expand internationally

Alibaba’s cloud division Aliyun has launched a global partnership programme aimed at bolstering global access to its cloud services.

The company’s Marketplace Alliance Program (MAP) will see it partner with large tech and datacentre operators, initially including Intel, Singtel, Meeras, Equinix and PCCW among others to help localise its cloud computing services and grow its ecosystem.

“The new Aliyun program is designed to bring our customers the best cloud computing solutions by partnering with some of the most respected technology brands in the world. We will continue to bring more partners online to grow our cloud computing ecosystem,” said Sicheng Yu, vice president, Aliyun.

Raejeanne Skillern, general manager of cloud service provider business at Intel said: “For years Intel and Alibaba have collaborated on optimizing hardware and software technology across the data center for Alibaba’s unique workloads. As a partner in Aliyun’s Marketplace Alliance Program, Intel looks forward to continuing our collaboration to promoting joint technology solutions that are based on Intel Architecture specifically tailored to the rapidly growing market of international public cloud consumers.”

The move is part of Alibaba’s efforts to rapidly expand its presence internationally. This year the company put its first datacentre in the US, and just last week announced Equinix would offer direct access to its cloud platform globally. The company, often viewed as the Chinese Amazon, also plans to set up a joint venture with Meeras in Dubai that specialises in systems integration with a focus on big data and cloud-based services.

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Equinix to offer direct access to Alibaba’s cloud service

Equinix will offer direct links to Alibaba's cloud

Equinix will offer direct links to Alibaba’s cloud

Equinix has signed an agreement with Alibaba that will see the American datacentre incumbent provide direct access to Chinese ecommerce firm’s cloud computing service.

The deal will see Equinix add Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing division, to its growing roster of cloud services integrated with its cloud interconnection service, and offer direct access to Aliyun’s IaaS and SaaSs in both Asia and North America.

Equinix said it’s aiming this primarily at large multinationals looking to expand their infrastructure into Asia.

“Our multi-national enterprise customers are increasingly asking for access to the Aliyun cloud platform, as they deploy cloud-based applications across Asia,” said Chris Sharp, vice president of cloud innovation, Equinix.

“By providing this access in two strategic markets, we’re empowering businesses to build secure, private clouds, without compromising network and application performance,” Sharp said.

Sicheng Yu, vice president of Aliyun said: “Aliyun is very excited about our global partnership with Equinix, who not only has a global footprint of cutting-edge datacentres, but has also brought together the most abundant cloud players and tenants in the cloud computing ecosystem on its Equinix Cloud Exchange platform. Connecting the Equinix ecosystem with our Aliyun cloud services on Cloud Exchange will provide customers with the best-of-breed choices and flexibility.”

The move will see Equinix expand its reach in Asia, a fast-growing market for cloud services, and comes just one week after Equinix announced it would bolster its European footprint with the TelecityGroup merger.

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Meeras, Alibaba form JV to target big data, cloud

Meeras and Alibaba are setting up an IT joint venture in Dubai

Meeras and Alibaba are setting up an IT joint venture in Dubai

Dubai-based investment company Meeras and Alibaba’s cloud computing plant to set up a joint venture firm specialising in systems integration with a focus on big data and cloud-based services.

The yet-to-be named joint venture, headquartered in Dubai, will focus on providing applications development services to private and public sector clients, which includes advising on service oriented architecture strategy and big data analytics application.

Meeras group chairman Abdulla Al Habbai said the move will complement other initiatives aimed at transforming Dubai into a smart city and ICT hub.

“We strongly believe that the new company will alter the information technology landscape of the region,” Al Habbai said. “Alibaba, our chosen partner has an excellent global track record of offering world-class services to clients. Together, we aim to raise industry standards and provide state-of-the-art technology solutions that contribute to translating the objectives of our visionary leadership.”

The joint venture will also see the construction of a local Tier III cloud datacentre to power some of the services the two companies create, as well as at a later point commercial and retail space in the vicinity, in a bid to attract startups and other firms to the region.

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group said: “As the world evolves, I believe the information technology era is moving towards the data technology era. Dubai’s advanced infrastructure and economic strength is a good match for our technology edge, and with Meraas we will be able to provide local entrepreneurs with the vital infrastructure that will ignite innovation and help them to succeed.”

Alibaba said the move will also help the company capitalise on growth in local IT spending, with the company citing a recent IDC study that suggests regional IT spend reaching $270bn in 2015 and growing at around nine per cent annually, the second-fastest globally.

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Sinopec taps Alibaba for cloud, analytics services

Sinopec is working with Aliyun to roll out a series of cloud and big data services

Sinopec is working with Aliyun to roll out a series of cloud and big data services

Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud services division is working with China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) to roll out a set of cloud-based services and big data technologies to enable the firm to improve is exploration and production operations.

In a statement to BCN the companies said they will work together to roll out a “shared platform for building-based business systems, big data analytics” and other IT services tailored to the petroleum industry.

“We hope to be able to use Alibaba’s technology and experience in dealing with large-scale system architecture, multi-service data sharing, data applications in the large-scale petrochemical, oil and chemical industry operations,” Sinopec said.

The two companies also plan to explore the role of cloud and big data in connected vehicles.

Just last month Aliyun opened its first overseas datacentre in Silicon Valley, a move the Chinese e-commerce giant said will bolster its appeal to Chinese multinational companies.

The company has already firmed up partnerships with large multinationals including PayPal and Dutch electronics giant Philips. The company has five datacentres in China.

It would seem a number of large oil and gas firms have begun to warm to the cloud as of late. Earlier this week Anadarko Petroleum Corporation announced it had signed a five year deal that would see the firm roll out PetroDE’s cloud-based oil and gas field evaluation analytics service.

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Alibaba throws its weight behind ARM architecture standards

Alibaba is joining the Linaro Group, an organisation which aims to eliminate software fragmentation within ARM-based environments

Alibaba is joining the Linaro Enterprise Group, an organisation which aims to eliminate software fragmentation within ARM-based environments

Chinese e-commerce and cloud giant Alibaba announced it has joined the Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG), a group of over 200 engineers working on consolidating and optimising open source software for the ARM architecture.

Linaro runs a number of different ARM-based initiatives  aimed at cultivating software standards for ARM chips for networking, mobile platforms, servers and the connected home. It mainly targets upstream development but also aims to coordinate work that helps reduce “costly low level fragmentation.”

More recently the organisation launched a working group focused specifically on developing software standards for ARMv8-A 64-bit silicon, architecture a number of server vendors and ODMs have started adopting in their portfolios in a bid to test the ARM-based cloud server market.

Alibaba, which operates six cloud datacentres – mostly in China – and recently expanded to the US, said it will collaborate with a range of companies within LEG to optimise the ARMv8-A software platforms.

“Alibaba Group’s infrastructure carries the world’s largest e-commerce ecosystem, in addition to China’s leading cloud services,” said Shuanlin Liu, chief architect of Alibaba Infrastructure Service.

“We need the best technical solutions as we step into the DT (data technology) era. Hence, we’re investing heavily in the innovation of a wide range of technologies, including the ARM architecture. We will continue to work closely with partners to accelerate the development and growth of the ecosystem,” Liu said.

Alibaba said the move may help it deliver cloud services that have been workload-optimised right down to the chip, and help lower the TCO; lower energy usage and higher density are two leading characteristics driving interest in ARM for cloud datacentres. But due in part to x86′s dominance in the datacentre there is a conspicuous lack of ARM-based software standards and workloads, which is what LEG

“As one of the world’s largest cloud operators, Alibaba is continually pushing technology boundaries to efficiently deploy new services at a massive scale,” said Lakshmi Mandyam, director, server systems and ecosystems, ARM. “Their collaboration with the ARM ecosystem will accelerate and expand open source software choices for companies wishing to deploy ARMv8-A based servers. We welcome Alibaba’s participation in Linaro and the new dimension it will bring to an already vibrant community.”

The past couple of years have seen a number of large cloud service providers flirt with the prospect of switching to ARM architecture within their datacentres, most notably Amazon. The latest move signals Alibaba is interested in moving in that direction, or at least  signal to vendors it’s willing to do so, but it may be a while before we see the cloud giant roll out the ARM-based servers within its datacentres.