Cloud Native Infrastructure - Apsara 2022

Date: Oct 1, 2022

In 2010, Paul Fremantle first mentioned Cloud Native in a blog post, when cloud native specifically refers to the way of writing applications that fits the cloud computing model. At the time, Paul Fremantle would not have thought that, ten years later, cloud native would lead a new wave of IT transformation Apsara conference 2022.

Since its development in 2006, cloud computing has experienced the process of infrastructure cloudification and cloud nativeization, and has continuously enriched its application forms in combination with new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. As the infrastructure of the cloud computing digital base, how to help customers continue to innovate their business in the cloud native era and operate with high efficiency and low cost? At the "Apsara conference 2022" technology main forum held on the morning of the 20th, Alibaba Group Vice President, Zhou Ming, head of cloud infrastructure, gave an answer from three perspectives: stability and security, self-research innovation and green future with the title of "Infrastructure born from the cloud Apsara conference 2022".

Stable and safe: multi-point combination interlocking

Reliability, stability, and security are the most important and most difficult requirements for infrastructure operations. Zhou Ming believes that the stable operation of the infrastructure business is not a single point, but the result of the interlocking and comprehensive operation of different businesses in terms of stability Apsara conference 2022.

For example, adding information detection points in the data center to improve the information alarm detection rate. At present, Alibaba Cloud data center has deployed more than 20 million information detection points, which can quickly respond to situations that do not meet expectations. In order to reduce the predictable downtime rate of the server, various workload detection tests are carried out on the server design and components. Today, the downtime rate of Apsara conference 2022 servers has reached a few ten thousandths per day, which is 50% ahead of the industry average. In order to quickly discover, locate, and recover network faults, through self-developed DC brains, we propose "three one-minute" goals, namely "fault detection in one minute, fault location in one minute, and fault recovery in one minute". Now, Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure has achieved "second-level fault detection, minute-level location and recovery" in terms of network stability Apsara conference 2022.

With the increasing popularity of cloud computing applications, users no longer only consider "how to go to the cloud", but are more concerned about "how to go to the cloud safely". Faced with the common needs of data sharing and data privacy protection, how to realize data sharing in a zero-trust environment? The Alibaba Cloud infrastructure team has developed a data security computing card, which can effectively solve the problem of trusted computing execution in data sharing, and has been certified by the China Financial Certification Center Apsara conference 2022.

Self-research and innovation: build a deep foundation and continue to make breakthroughs Apsara conference 2022

Innovation is not the purpose, but to provide users with highly competitive products and high-performance value through innovation and continuous innovation Apsara conference 2022.

Cloud computing has released a lot of innovation opportunities for hardware, especially when intelligent application scenarios are increasingly rich and thousands of industries are moving towards digital transformation, it is necessary to continuously strengthen the digital base capability, and a sufficiently powerful self-developed product system is the strong support for this base Apsara conference 2022.

In 2020, Apsara conference proposed to "develop the foundation", increase self-research efforts in data centers, servers, switches and other fields, and build a complete set of basic systems based on the characteristics of the cloud. In terms of servers, continuous R&D and innovation from chips, components to complete machine systems has been achieved, including the self-developed "Panjiu" server family and self-developed storage hardware Aliflash, which was recently released at this Apsara conference 2022 and is oriented to the next-generation cloud-native architecture. And Alibaba Cloud Heterogeneous Computing Acceleration Platform, through the overall promotion of Alibaba Cloud's new generation of cloud-native hardware architecture and the development of new server products, it builds core technology competitiveness from chips to basic software systems for Alibaba Cloud products Apsara conference 2022.

In the network field, self-developed network protocols and corresponding high-performance network accelerator cards solve the problem of low network latency, adopt top-level architecture design, equipment white box, and end-network integration collaborative innovation, greatly improving network stability and operational efficiency, and Optimize costs. In July 2019, Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure network has all adopted self-developed switches, and based on the self-developed switches, a new generation of multi-plane and scalable ultra-large cluster network architecture has been constructed. A single cluster can support more than 100,000 servers. On the basis of large-scale deployment practice, at the same time, it actively contributes to the open source ecological community, actively promotes SRv6 in the SONiC community, promotes the open source S³IP project of equipment white box software and hardware standards, promotes the development of domestic white box ecology, and lowers the entry threshold for domestic chips.

A Green Future: Accelerating Clean Energy Use

Today, "advanced technology" and "green and low carbon" have become the key words for new data centers. Zhou Ming introduced that Alibaba Cloud integrates AI applications such as low-carbon site selection, clean energy, and liquid cooling technology to accelerate the innovation and iterative upgrade of green energy-saving technologies, so as to "use less electricity, make better use of electricity, and use green electricity." For example, in terms of layout, Zhangbei, which is rich in wind energy resources, is selected; in terms of green technology, since 2015, Alibaba Cloud Data Center has begun to explore the practice of liquid cooling technology. Rows of servers are immersed in insulating coolant, resulting in The heat can be directly absorbed by the cooling liquid into the external circulation cooling, the energy consumption for heat dissipation in the whole process is almost zero, the energy saving effect exceeds 70%, and 100% of the data center has no mechanical cooling. Alibaba's Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center, which opened in September 2020, has deployed the world's largest liquid-cooled cluster. The data center PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness, the same below) can be as low as 1.09. It not only reaches the international leading level, but can also be deployed in any meteorological region in the world. Preliminary estimates show that if all data centers across the country adopt liquid cooling technology, the amount of electricity saved in one year is equivalent to two-thirds of the annual power generation of the Three Gorges Power Station in 2020.

After years of "green IT" research and development, Alibaba Cloud has reduced the comprehensive energy consumption of data centers by more than 70%, making it the first cloud vendor in China to fully meet the national green data center standards. At the same time, clean energy is actively used, and the transaction of clean electricity and carbon emission reduction ranks first in the national Internet industry. Among them, the data center in Heyuan will use 100% clean energy as soon as next year, and more Alibaba Cloud super data centers will use clean energy in the future. .

"Green is the gold standard for testing data centers." Zhou Ming said that Alibaba Cloud will continue to increase investment in green self-research technology innovation, actively carry out clean energy power transactions, and promote carbon emission reduction in data centers.

"The future has come, it is born from the cloud". Cloud integration is the future, cloud native is the future, green energy saving is the future, and facing the future, Alibaba Cloud infrastructure will continue to provide the cloud with green, stable and cost-effective cloud resources with hard core capabilities, and support Alibaba Cloud to provide customers with the most complete cloud resources. Cloud-native technical solutions and product systems drive business iteration and innovation. Whether it is technological competitiveness or cost competitiveness, inclusive society.