Alibaba Cloud in Asia Pacific with Yu Sicheng
Yu Sicheng, Vice President International, Alibaba Cloud (aka Aliyun) under the Alibaba Group, joined us in a conversation to discuss the popular cloud computing services from China and its plan to expand their offerings across the geographies outside China. In the conversation, Sicheng shared the success stories on Alibaba Cloud in China where it powered Sina Weibo (aka the “Twitter” of China) & predicting the winner of the “I am a Singer” in China with their artificial intelligence (AI) capability. He also offered how the Alibaba Cloud international team has expanded the cloud computing services from China to the rest of the world since last July and the partnerships formed across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Last but not least, Sicheng shared his perspectives on the important trends of cloud computing across the region and the best practices in how CIOs of the Asia corporations need to think about in moving their services to the cloud.
Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):
- Story of Yu Sicheng, Vice President, Alibaba Cloud International (@Alibaba_cloud, Facebook)
- How did he get started on a career in technology? [0:57]
- From your previous roles in enterprise technology to Alibaba Cloud, what are the interesting career lessons he can share? [1:39]
- What is his current role for Alibaba Cloud and what are the areas of coverage? [2:15]
- Alibaba Cloud (Alibaba Cloud) in Asia Pacific [2:33]
- History of Alibaba Cloud aka Aliyun in China, as part of Alibaba Group. [2:40]
- Established in September 2009, Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Group’s cloud computing arm, develops highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and data management. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support participants of Alibaba Group’s online and mobile commerce ecosystem, as well as other third-party customers and businesses. Alibaba Cloud is a business within Alibaba Group.
- Alibaba Cloud serves more than 1.8 million customers worldwide directly and indirectly through independent service providers
- Alibaba Group reported that its revenue from cloud computing and Internet infrastructure in the quarter ended December 31, 2015 was RMB 819 million (US$126 million), an increase of 126% year-on-year. Alibaba Cloud has made significant progress in the development of customers, products, technology and an ecosystem of more than 20,000 developers. [3:50]
- Any interesting success stories of Alibaba Cloud in China? [4:15]
- Sina Weibo (“Twitter” of China) [4:20]
- 12306, China’s top train ticketing system. [4:45]
- Alibaba’s AI predicts 100% of winners in Chinese TV singing contest “I am a Singer“. [5:15]
- Are there any new services that will be brought out of China, for example, big data and the recent quantum computing initiative announced last year in Hangzhou China? [5:37]
- The Alibaba Group has invested US$1B to take Alibaba Cloud international since July 2015 and subsequently opened their international HQ from Singapore, how has Alibaba Cloud expanded so far? [7:00]
- Alibaba Cloud has over 10 data centers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the U.S., with upcoming nodes in regions including the Middle East, Japan and Europe.
- What are the countries which you have expanded to so far? Any major partners to Alibaba Cloud who you want to share? [7:47]
- Alibaba Cloud announced its Marketplace Alliance Program (MAP) on June 8, 2015. The initial Alibaba Cloud MAP partners are some of the world’s leading technology brands, including American multinational technology company Intel, Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel, Dubai holding company Meraas Holdings, Equinix, a U.S. provider of data centers and Internet exchanges, Hong Kong telco and information technology company PCCW, French website hosting and cloud services provider LINKBYNET, and Hong Kong public utility Towngas.
- What are the services (elastic computing, storage) that Alibaba Cloud provide to businesses out there? [10:08]
- A record amount of traffic and transactions occurred on November 11, 2015, during Alibaba Group’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which saw peak order creation volumes of 140,000 orders per second. [11:01]
- Are there any new services which distinguish Alibaba Cloud from other cloud services in the areas of security? [11:25]
- Who are the customers for Alibaba Cloud that you are focusing on? [13:05]
- Can Alibaba Cloud International help customers to go from the rest of the world into China? [14:33]
- Alibaba Cloud is also focused on helping startups to grow in their respective ecosystem, what are the services that startups can get access to in Alibaba Cloud? [15:10]
- What are the international standards for Alibaba Cloud in meeting certification? [18:10]
- In 2013, Alibaba Cloud was awarded the world’s first gold certification for cloud security by the British Standards Institute (BSI) and also received ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security management. In 2014, Alibaba Cloud was listed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as a trusted cloud service provider. In 2016, Alibaba Cloud became the first Chinese cloud computing company that attained ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011, the latest certification for IT service management standards.
- History of Alibaba Cloud aka Aliyun in China, as part of Alibaba Group. [2:40]
- Thought leadership on cloud computing in Asia Pacific
- What are the interesting trends that you are observing cloud computing in Asia Pacific? [18:46]
- What are the best practices for CIOs who are considering cloud services like Alibaba Cloud should be thinking about? [21:45]
- Ding Ding or Ding Talk (iTunes, Google Play – Android)
Author’s disclosure: Alibaba is a major investor to the SingPost Group which BL works in. The information on the podcast are publicly known and the focus of this episode is to understand the Alibaba Cloud business in Asia Pacific, and all the opinions expressed are mainly of his own and does not represent any organisations he worked or invested in.
Podcast Information:
The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Aspirus Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Aspirus and sign up for their mailing list.
