Technology giant arms race: the threshold becomes higher and higher-the Amazon data center, data center-IT information

Foreign media published an article over the weekend, said oil and gas companies invested billions of dollars to the exploration of new oil and gas reserves. Similarly, large technology companies are scrambling to invest construction of complex and sophisticated computing infrastructure through cloud computing for startups and enterprise customers with computing services.

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Last week, Amazon power again. The company announced it will be building data center in Stockholm, Sweden. The next few years, cloud computing market is expected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and companies all want to occupy a leading position in this market.

Amazon and its rivals Microsoft and Alphabet is actively developing so-called "ultra-large-scale computing" technologies, ICTs can according to customer demand for computing power. According to the documentation submitted to regulators for companies, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet last year's capital expenditure and finance lease amounted to 31.54 billion dollars in 2015, representing a growth of 22%.

Not all these companies investments in data centers is to provide "infrastructure as a service", but each company said that cloud computing is a key area of investment. As a leader in the cloud computing market, Amazon hasn't disclosed the Stockholm data center construction costs. Analysts estimate that the costs will reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

Investors also supports technology giant investment in cloud computing, such investments and oil and gas exploration, construction of communication cable and telecom operators is similar. Return on investment is clear. According to Gartner's data, corporate clients last year to compute, storage and database technology investment of approximately $500 billion, in which cloud computing accounted for a significant portion.

Gartner analyst aide·andesen (Ed Andersen) says companies that expenditure is shifting from independent servers to cloud computing, and cloud computing market in "the hands of a few companies."

Analysts at Deutsche Bank Kaer·keersitaide (Karl Keirstead) that the tech giant investing are creating barriers to the cloud computing market, if possible, rivals hope to set foot in this market, then you need to invest billions of dollars to provide unmatched service. He said: "they have dug huge trenches. ”

However, there are still companies unwilling to give up this market, one of them is Oracle. Last summer, Oracle launched a cloud computing infrastructure services, and pronouncements challenge Amazon's lead. However, Oracle cloud computing infrastructure investment is far less than the Amazon, Microsoft and the Alphabet. In the top 4 in the quarter ended in February this year, Oracle's capital expenditure, including data center construction investment, only $1.7 billion.

Senior Vice President, Oracle product marketing shidifu·dahebu (Steve Daheb) pointed out that the capital spending data only and does not reflect the full picture. In his view, Oracle infrastructure services are far better than those of other industry giants, so there is no need for huge investment in data center also has the ability to offer competitive services.

Dahboul said in an e-mail message: "isolated capital expenditure data is very interesting, but it does not derive conclusions. "Oracle's capital spending" in line with our expectations ". There is no doubt that there is still a certain gap between Oracle and industry giants. The most recent quarter, the company's infrastructure as a service revenues grew 17%, to 178 million dollars. Includes infrastructure Amazon AWS services, net revenues grew 47%, to $3.54 billion.

Keersitaide of Deutsche Bank believes that this market "the game is over" and will not have other companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet "universal" cloud infrastructure services. He also said that some enterprise customers may want to run Oracle's database software from independent servers in the move to cloud computing systems, Oracle still have a chance in this field. He pointed out: "If the Oracle narrowed the target, then it is not too late. ”

Dahboul also said that Oracle's traditional and professional aspects of cloud computing will help to attract a wider range of customers.

Early entrants in some industries is changing strategy. In 2015, HP closed the Helion public cloud services revenue in poor condition. IBM acquired SoftLayer Technologies in 2013, tried to challenge AWS. In 2016, the IBM capital expenditures of $3.73 billion. Despite the provision of infrastructure services, but IBM greater emphasis on higher-margin value-added services such as data analysis.

Technology giant data centers and there is no evidence of a slowdown in the pace of the construction. In addition to operating outside the data center in Stockholm next year, Amazon plans to enable in the coming months and Ningxia, China data center is located in Paris. Microsoft is building data centres in France, the United States of Texas and Arizona. Google announced last month in California, Canada, and enable the new data center in the Netherlands.

Building a global network of data centres is a huge investment, but companies rarely disclose investment figures. Last November, James Hamilton, Amazon AWS Vice (James Hamilton) Conference in Las Vegas Amazon gave some data, that Amazon's AWS data center area containing "2 to 5 free zone", and some of the 300,000 sets of custom servers.

Google Senior Vice President of technology infrastructure wuersi·huoerze (Urs Holzle) said, Google's data center construction cost of US $300 million to 600 million. But that does not include maintenance costs, electricity and hardware upgrade costs. He said: "this is an ongoing process. ”

科技巨头的军备竞赛：数据中心门槛越来越高 - 亚马逊,数据中心 - IT资讯

国外媒体周末刊文称，石油天然气公司投入了数十亿美元去勘探新的油气储备。与此类似，大型科技公司也在争相投入巨资，建设复杂而精密的计算基础设施，通过云计算为创业公司和企业客户提供计算服务。

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上周，亚马逊再次发力。该公司宣布，将在瑞典斯德哥尔摩建设数据中心。未来几年，云计算市场的规模预计将达到数千亿美元，而多家公司都希望在这一市场占据领先地位。

亚马逊及其竞争对手微软和Alphabet正在积极发展所谓的“超大规模计算”技术，这类技术可以根据客户需求迅速提供计算能力。根据各家公司提交给监管部门的文件，亚马逊、微软和Alphabet去年的资本支出和融资租赁总额达到315.4亿美元，较2015年增长22%。

这些公司对数据中心的投资并不都是为了提供“基础设施即服务”，但每家公司均表示，云计算是重点投资领域。作为云计算市场的领先者，亚马逊并未披露斯德哥尔摩数据中心的建设成本。分析师估计，该项成本将达到数亿美元。

投资者也支持科技巨头对云计算的投资，这样的投资与油气勘探，以及电信运营商建设通信光缆类似。投资回报显而易见。根据Gartner的数据，去年企业客户对计算、存储和数据库等技术的投资约为5000亿美元，而云计算在其中占相当一部分。

Gartner分析师埃德·安德森（Ed Andersen）表示，企业的这笔支出正在从自主服务器向云计算转移，而云计算市场掌握在“少数公司手中”。

德意志银行分析师卡尔·克尔斯泰德（Karl Keirstead）表示，科技巨头的大举投资正在给云计算市场制造壁垒，如果可能的竞争对手希望涉足这一市场，那么需要投入上百亿美元，才能提供相匹敌的服务。他表示：“它们已挖掘了巨大的壕沟。”

不过，仍有公司不愿放弃这一市场，其中之一是甲骨文。去年夏季，甲骨文推出了云计算基础设施服务，并豪言将挑战亚马逊的领先地位。然而，甲骨文对云计算基础设施的投资规模要远小于亚马逊、微软和Alphabet。在截至今年2月的前4个季度中，甲骨文的资本支出，包括数据中心建设投资在内，只有17亿美元。

甲骨文产品营销高级副总裁史蒂夫·达赫布（Steve Daheb）指出，仅仅资本支出数据并不能反映全貌。他认为，甲骨文的基础设施服务要远好于其他行业巨头，因此不需要巨额投资数据中心也有能力提供具有竞争力的服务。

达赫布在电子邮件中表示：“孤立的资本支出数据很有趣，但并不能据此形成结论。”而甲骨文的资本支出“符合我们的期望”。毫无疑问，甲骨文与行业巨头之间仍有一定差距。最近一个季度，该公司的基础设施即服务营收同比增长17%，至1.78亿美元。而包含基础设施即服务在内的亚马逊AWS净营收同比增长47%，至35.4亿美元。

德意志银行的克尔斯泰德认为，这一市场的“游戏已经结束”，不可能再有其他公司提供类似亚马逊、微软和Alphabet的“通用”云计算基础设施服务。他同时表示，一些企业客户可能会将运行甲骨文软件的数据库从自主服务器搬迁至云计算系统中，甲骨文在这一领域仍有机会。他指出：“如果甲骨文缩小目标，那么为时不晚。”

达赫布也表示，甲骨文在传统计算和云计算两方面的专业性将有助于吸引更广泛的客户。

某些行业的早期进入者正在转变策略。2015年，惠普关闭了营收状况不佳的Helion公有云服务。IBM于2013年收购了SoftLayer Technologies，试图挑战AWS。2016年，IBM的资本支出为37.3亿美元。尽管也提供基础设施服务，但IBM更强调数据分析等高利润率的增值服务。

科技巨头建设数据中心的步伐并没有放缓的迹象。除了明年投入运营的斯德哥尔摩数据中心以外，亚马逊计划未来几个月启用位于巴黎和中国宁夏的数据中心。微软即将在法国、美国德克萨斯州和亚利桑那州建设数据中心。谷歌上月宣布，将在加州、加拿大和荷兰启用新的数据中心。

建设全球数据中心网络的投资十分巨大，但相关公司很少披露具体投资数据。去年11月，亚马逊AWS副总裁詹姆斯·汉密尔顿（James Hamilton）在拉斯维加斯的亚马逊大会上给出了一些数据，即亚马逊AWS数据中心地区包含“2到5个可用区域”，而其中一些由30万台订制服务器构成。

谷歌技术基础设施高级副总裁乌尔斯·霍尔泽（Urs Holzle）则表示，谷歌的数据中心地区建设成本为3亿至6亿美元。而这其中尚未包括维护成本、电费，以及硬件升级等费用。他表示：“这是个持续的过程。”