阿里巴巴雲計算有多強大？

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has a growing cloud computing business and a hunger for American companies. And soon, it will most likely have a large amount of cash. Will it take on the American cloud giants?

中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴的雲計算業務正不斷擴張，收購美國企業的慾望又十分強烈。而且幾乎可以肯定，它不久之後就能獲得大量現金。阿里巴巴會對美國的雲計算巨頭構成威脅嗎？

It would be an amazing change from the way cloud computing seems to be developing. Public cloud computing is the rental of infrastructure, like raw computing power and online data storage, and sophisticated applications. It is a multibillion-dollar business, expected to grow much bigger, and is currently led by Amazon Web Services, or AWS; Google; and Microsoft Azure. IBM and others also have designs on the market.

與雲計算目前的發展態勢相比，這將是一個令人驚奇的轉變。公共雲計算指基礎設施的出租，包括計算能力和網絡數據存儲空間，以及複雜的應用程序。這是一項價值數十億美元的業務，預計還將進一步增長。目前在該領域處於領先地位的是亞馬遜網絡服務（Amazon Web Services，簡稱AWS）、谷歌(Google)，以及微軟(Microsoft)的Azure。IBM等公司也有相關規劃。

To date, all of the big global players are United States companies. In a recent evaluation of the cloud infrastructure business, analysts at the technology research firm Gartner counted 15 companies. Just two, Dimension Data and Fujitsu, were not American firms. There was no mention of Alibaba.

迄今爲止，國際上的大型雲計算公司都來自美國。在最近的一份對雲基礎設施產業的評估中，科技研究公司高德納(Gartner)的分析師統計了15家公司的數據。只有兩家公司不是美國公司，它們是達科(Dimension Data)和富士通(Fujitsu)。這份評估中沒有提及阿里巴巴。

Yet according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of Alibaba's proposed public offering, Alibaba had revenue of $102 million from cloud and infrastructure sales last year. That was an increase of 26 percent from a year earlier. That is not the 50 percent annual growth seen at AWS, perhaps, but not bad.

然而在阿里巴巴申請上市之時，向美國證券交易委員會（Securities and Exchange Commission，簡稱SEC）提交的文件顯示，阿里巴巴去年有1.02億美元（約合6.3億元人民幣）的收入來自雲服務和基礎設施銷售，較上年增長了26%。這或許比不上AWS較去年提高50%的增幅，但也並不算差。

So why isn't Alibaba an international cloud contender? Particularly since, as The New York Times reported last week, it has sunk a fortune in American tech companies. Not to mention that at least one of the companies high in Gartner's estimation, Rackspace, told the S.E.C. in May that it had hired Morgan Stanley to find it a partner or acquirer.

那麼，阿里巴巴的雲服務爲什麼沒有參與國際市場的競爭？尤其是考慮到《紐約時報》上週報道，它還拿出了大筆資金來收購美國的科技公司。此外，在高德納給出較高評價的公司中，至少有一家公司，Rackspace，曾在5月份告訴SEC，已經聘請摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)爲其尋找合作伙伴或收購者。

A spokesman for Alibaba, citing the company's quiet period ahead of its I.P.O., declined to comment on its plans. But people with knowledge of the company said that Alibaba, like other possible Chinese contenders, seemed to have its hands full just handling its China business.

阿里巴巴的一位發言人以公司IPO前的靜默期爲由，拒絕談論公司的計劃。但瞭解該公司的人透露，就像其他可能的中國競爭者一樣，阿里巴巴的精力似乎只能應付在中國的業務。

Alibaba's cloud business was formed in 2009. Like AWS, it began as a way of serving the company's own online commerce and payment businesses. Its external customers are mostly small and medium Chinese companies.

阿里巴巴的雲服務業務創立於2009年。就像AWS一樣，它最初的目的是爲本公司的電子商務和支付業務提供服務。其外部客戶主要是中國的中小型企業。

The Chinese website for the service, , lists mostly Chinese mobile and gaming companies as customers. It also provides online stores for Microsoft and Apple in China. In all, Alibaba says that one million customers tap into its cloud, either directly or through a reseller of computing services.

阿里巴巴雲服務的中文網站顯示，其客戶主要是中國的移動和遊戲公司。它也爲微軟和蘋果(Apple)提供在中國的網上商店。阿里巴巴說，總共有100萬客戶使用其雲服務，一些是直接使用，另一些是通過其計算服務經銷商使用。

In other ways, however, the company is a laggard, with just three large data centers in China and a smaller one in Hong Kong. AWS, by comparison, has 25 core regional data centers globally, which are backstopped with 52 smaller “edge locations” around the world. Another regional facility is being developed in China.

不過，阿里巴巴在其他方面卻有些落後，它在中國內地只有三個大型數據中心，另外在香港設有一個規模較小的數據中心。相比之下，AWS在全球擁有25個核心的地區性數據中心，而且在世界各地還有52個較小的“邊緣節點”爲它們提供支持。

In terms of performance, Alibaba cannot come close. For a Chinese site, it does impressive work, handling $5.8 billion in commerce on China's heaviest shopping day. The Alibaba S.E.C. filing says its cloud does 3.6 million computing transactions a minute. That sounds like a lot, until you consider that the AWS databases alone handle 1.5 million transactions a second.

在性能方面，阿里巴巴也無法與頂級對手相競爭。作爲一家中國網站，阿里巴巴的表現令人印象深刻，它在中國最繁忙的購物日，處理了58億美元的交易。阿里巴巴在提交給SEC的文件中稱，其雲服務每分鐘可以處理360萬次計算請求。這聽起來彷彿很多，但是要知道，單是AWS的數據庫，每秒鐘就能處理150萬次請求。

Like Baidu and Tencent, two other big Chinese online companies with cloud businesses, Alibaba's focus for now seems to be on mainland China, possibly as a place to learn the business before moving farther out.

就像另外兩家擁有云計算業務的中國互聯網企業百度(Baidu)和騰訊(Tencent)一樣，阿里巴巴目前的關注點似乎在中國大陸，可能是想先在這裏充分掌握這項業務，然後再向外拓展。

Like Alibaba, Tencent recently opened a data center in Hong Kong. Politically, Hong Kong is China's special administrative region; practically, it can be a midway point between international and domestic commerce. From there, the probable growth would be in Asia, where China has many existing commercial relationships, or Africa, still mostly open territory for cloud computing.

與阿里巴巴一樣，騰訊最近也在香港設立了一個數據中心。在政治方面，香港是中國的特別行政區；實際上，它則可以成爲國際和國內商業活動之間的中點。從這裏開始，雲計算的增長潛力將在亞洲，因爲中國已經與亞洲有了很多商業往來，或者是非洲，那裏基本上沒有云計算業務。

In other words, the American cloud companies should not have to worry in the short term. Further out, however, it's likely that the Chinese clouds will have a lot of paying customers in the domestic market to fuel additional expansion.

換句話說，美國的雲計算公司在短期內應該無需擔憂。然而，從長遠來看，中國的雲服務企業可能會在國內市場擁有大量付費客戶，爲進一步的擴張提供動力。