云計算如何應對新冠疫情

阿德里安·布里奇沃特

The COVID-191 （Coronavirus2） contagion has resulted in a global pandemic3 with cities in lockdown and national governments being placed in crisis mode. As workers in many industries are now faced with the challenge of working from home， how will our IT frameworks be able to adapt to a ‘new shape of data flows being created？

Our always-on mobile-centric increasingly cloud-native existence has created a world where access to data services is fundamentally important to keeping business moving. While panic buying in supermarkets continues （at the time of writing） in many world cities， we need to consider whether a commensurate4 level of ‘panic provisioning5 has been going on inside the cloud datacenters that provide us with our central data infrastructure.

Provisioning procedures

Datacenter provisioning involves the preparation of the ‘server real estate base to make sure that we have enough processing power， enough memory and storage， enough connectivity （connection gateways wide enough to cope with the input/output of data） and enough ancillary6 services such as access to big data analytics engines and so on to cope with demand generated by users and （increasingly today） by intelligent machines.

Sometimes this means moving data around to clear the way for anticipated data spikes， sometimes this means putting some data and applications in locations where they can be more efficiently and cost effectively delivered… and， ultimately， sometimes this means purchasing new server units to build a bigger datacenter.

Even the cloudiest clouds

“While many customers have the ability to manage their workloads remotely， datacenters are nevertheless physical entities and even the ‘cloudiest clouds require servers to be rebooted and cables patched， by a human being. So it is worth recalling why hybrid cloud computing is so compelling; it represents the ability and choice to increase and decrease （‘spin up and ‘spin down7） data processing and storage in a flexible on-demand manner. As the crisis deepens， the challenge to the industry is whether this flexibility is delivered when and where it is needed，” said UK managing director for Interxion Andrew Fray.

As any country attempts to move towards becoming a remote working nation， Fray advises that organizations may still have to re-evaluate how theyve designed their network and applications.

“As many more thousands or even millions of remote workers try to connect from unfamiliar locations， it is inevitable that there will be some communication pinch points8. When your entire workforce is geographically remote， the network architecture and cloud architecture need to be able to cope with a diverse workload [by using Software-Defined Networking9 （SDN） technologies] so that you are not hitting the same entry point10 and negatively impacting performance，” added Interxions Fray.

Autonomous advantage

As the peak of the Coronavirus pandemic approaches， will we be able to turn back and rely on all the advances in autonomous11 computing and Artificial Intelligence （AI） that populated so many headlines prior to the outbreak？ Back in September 2019 we noted that Oracle was building in layers of IT autonomy into its database12 to reduce human error. Cant the systems just get on with it by themselves now and allow us to stay at home， self-isolate and drink lots of fluids？

“The beauty of todays fully-managed cloud database is that it can be deployed and managed from anywhere with very little intervention needed by the end user. Happily， this is all by design i.e. some fully-managed cloud databases are fault-tolerant， auto-updating， self-healing， elastic-scaling and provide automated proactive management， which benefits end-users immensely as it frees them from the operational chore and costs of learning and maintaining their database infrastructure，” said Jeff Morris， VP product and solutions marketing at open source document-oriented database company Couchbase.

Can some good come from bad？

Although this discussion is clearly meant to concentrate on the data backbone impact of Coronavirus， there is an argument here to suggest that it could be part of the drive that takes us towards a more cloud-first always-virtualized world of computing. There may arguably be some good in that push i.e. cloud evangelists13 would argue that we need to ‘let go and regard the keyboard as nothing more than a conduit channel to the deeper IT services that lie within the cloud itself.

“I believe any time you have this type of scenario， be it a pandemic， 9/11， or a massive natural disaster， business priorities take on a new focus. One will certainly be about business continuity as people focus on enabling remote work from anywhere. This experience will be a stronger accelerant to a cloud-first world and a SaaS-first world that will put further pressure on the traditional datacenter world [as it] becomes part of companies architectural postures，” said Patrick Harr， CEO of Panzura， a specialist in collaborative file and data management.

With a few hiccups， coughs and glitches （hand over your mouth please） the cloud should carry us through much of the COVID-19 pandemic， computationally speaking at least. Now， please wash your hands.

COVID-19（新冠病毒）的蔓延已經在全球范圍內引發疫情大流行，各大城市進入封鎖狀態，諸國政府正處于危機模式。許多行業的工作者都面臨著在家辦公的挑戰，而我們的IT框架又該如何適應由此而生的“新數據流形式”？

如今，我們已然生活在一個永遠在線、以移動設備為中心、云原生程度不斷加深的新世界當中。在這個世界里，訪問數據服務對維持業務發展至關重要。在筆者寫作的此刻，許多國際都市的超市正上演著恐慌性的搶購。與此同時，我們也要思考一下，在為我們提供中央數據基礎設施的云數據中心，是否也正在經歷著與之程度相當的“恐慌性配置”。

配置程序

數據中心配置涉及“服務器資產”的基建，以保障我們有充足的處理能力、內存容量、網絡連通性（連接的網關帶寬足以應對數據的輸入/輸出）以及足夠的輔助性服務（如對大數據分析引擎的訪問等）來應對用戶需求和如今與日俱增的智能設備需求。

有時，這意味著我們得遷移數據來給可以預見的數據激增騰出道路;有時，這意味著我們要將一些數據和應用存放在能使交付更高效、更劃算的位置……而最終，這可能也意味著我們需要購置新的服務器單元來構建更大的數據中心。

即便是最“云”的云

Interxion英國區董事總經理安德魯·弗雷表示：“雖然很多客戶具備遠程管理工作負載的能力，但數據中心畢竟仍是實體存在，即便最‘云的云也需要人工對服務器進行重啟和線路接插。因此，我們有必要回顧一下混合云計算為什么能夠得到強烈的認可——它讓我們有能力且可以選擇以靈活按需方式來增加或減少（加速或減緩）數據處理、數據存儲。隨著疫情危機的加重，云計算行業面臨的挑戰是，能否在需要它的某時某地展現這種靈活性?！?/p>

鑒于各國都在努力實現遠程辦公，弗雷建議各個組織仍須對其網絡和應用設計進行重新評估。

他補充道：“當幾千甚至幾百萬的遠程工作人員嘗試從各個陌生的地點互聯，其中勢必會出現一些通信窄點。當你所有的員工都距離遙遠時，網絡架構和云架構就需要有能力應付不同的工作負荷（通過使用軟件定義網絡技術），這樣你就不會重復接入同一個入口點，對性能造成負面影響。”

自主化的優勢

隨著新冠病毒疫情高峰的逼近，我們能否回頭仰賴于疫情暴發前曾屢次占領新聞頭條的自主計算和人工智能先進技術？早在2019年9月，我們注意到甲骨文公司正將多項IT自治功能植入其數據庫以減少人為錯誤。難道這些系統就不能乖乖地保持自我運行，讓我們能好好待在家里自我隔離、多喝喝水嗎？

Couchbase是一家面向文檔的開源數據庫公司，其產品與解決方案營銷副總裁杰夫·莫里斯表示：“今天全托管式的云數據庫，其美妙的地方在于它可以在任何地方進行部署和管理，極少需要終端用戶的干預。令人高興的是，這些都被提前設計好了，譬如一些全托管式的云數據庫可以容錯、自動更新、自我修復、彈性伸縮，提供自動化的主動式管理，這些讓終端用戶受益，令其從日常運營事務中脫身，也無須再為學習和維護數據庫基礎架構投入成本?！?/p>

壞事是否也有好的一面？

雖然本文的主題是新冠病毒對數據主干網帶來的沖擊，但現在就有一種觀點認為，新冠病毒也可能促使我們走向一個更加以云為先和虛擬常態化的計算世界。這當中或許可以說不全都是壞事，譬如云技術的布道者們就會說，我們應該“看開點”，把鍵盤僅僅看作是一個導入更深層IT服務的通道，而這一服務就蘊藏在云技術中。

Panzura公司的首席執行官帕特里克·哈爾是一名協同文件和數據管理的專家，他表示：“我相信，無論是全球流行病還是9·11事件，抑或是一場大規模的自然災害，遇到任何類似情況，企業首要考慮的事項都會發生變化。當中一項無疑是保持業務的持續性，因為人們會專注于能在任何地方開啟遠程辦公模式。這種經歷將會成為更強的催化劑，促使我們走向一個以云為先、以軟件即服務為先的世界。隨著遠程辦公模式成為公司架構的一部分，數據中心的傳統世界會感受到更大的壓力?！?/p>

雖然可能存在一些小問題，就像人會打嗝、咳嗽或有些小病恙（請用手捂嘴），但至少從計算層面來說，云計算應該能幫我們挺過此次新冠疫情。還有，記得洗手哦。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）