就在亞馬遜、微軟和IBM斥資建立覆蓋全球的云計(jì)算數(shù)據(jù)中心之際，該領(lǐng)域的另一個(gè)重要參與者谷歌公司卻鮮有動(dòng)作。原來(lái)，這家搜索巨頭正在執(zhí)行一項(xiàng)秘密的追趕計(jì)劃。

過(guò)去幾個(gè)月，亞馬遜、微軟和IBM輪番在中國(guó)、印度、德國(guó)、英國(guó)、韓國(guó)等地設(shè)立了新的云計(jì)算數(shù)據(jù)中心。但還有一家公共云服務(wù)供應(yīng)商卻奇怪地保持沉默——它就是谷歌。

之所以說(shuō)谷歌按兵不動(dòng)很奇怪，是因?yàn)橐患以品?wù)供應(yīng)商如果想向客戶(hù)特別是企業(yè)客戶(hù)提供云服務(wù)，地理位置是十分重要的。在運(yùn)行中，電腦服務(wù)器和存儲(chǔ)設(shè)備離用戶(hù)越遠(yuǎn)，延遲時(shí)間就越長(zhǎng)。因此在這個(gè)問(wèn)題上，慢絕對(duì)不是一件好事。

不過(guò)，接近谷歌的兩名消息人士表示，谷歌正在考慮一個(gè)有趣的計(jì)劃。

谷歌的云服務(wù)在全球只有四個(gè)地區(qū)性數(shù)據(jù)中心，相比之下，微軟Azure有20個(gè)，亞馬遜AWS有11個(gè)，而且明年還將建成5個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)中心。不過(guò)谷歌在全球各地還建有70個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)高速緩存站，用來(lái)儲(chǔ)存視頻、音頻和熱門(mén)網(wǎng)頁(yè)的緩存文件，這些高速緩存站的位置離目標(biāo)用戶(hù)較近，可以起到加速作用。

這些終端是谷歌所稱(chēng)的“對(duì)等互聯(lián)與內(nèi)容分發(fā)網(wǎng)絡(luò)”的重要組成部分。我們的兩個(gè)消息源都表示，這個(gè)目前還在討論中的理念，旨在給予這些高速緩存站額外的計(jì)算能力，從而使它們扮演微型數(shù)據(jù)中心的角色。

這兩名消息人士都要求匿名，因?yàn)樗麄兯诘膬杉夜径际枪雀璧暮献骰锇椤Ｒ晃还雀璋l(fā)言人表示，她不會(huì)為這些傳聞和推測(cè)發(fā)表評(píng)論。

一名消息人士指出，谷歌計(jì)算引擎團(tuán)隊(duì)（GCE，基本上就是谷歌的云部門(mén)）正在與公司內(nèi)部的基礎(chǔ)架構(gòu)部門(mén)合作，看看是否能讓這些地區(qū)性終端系統(tǒng)具備一定的計(jì)算能力。

但這也可能會(huì)有一定的問(wèn)題。首先，谷歌設(shè)計(jì)出的可能是一個(gè)分層式系統(tǒng)，大量工作還要在谷歌自己的大型數(shù)據(jù)中心里完成。谷歌數(shù)據(jù)中心運(yùn)行著幾十萬(wàn)個(gè)（甚至可能幾百萬(wàn)個(gè)）服務(wù)器，它的計(jì)算能力要超過(guò)內(nèi)容分發(fā)網(wǎng)絡(luò)（CDN）的小型終端節(jié)點(diǎn)。但是相比在GCE自己的數(shù)據(jù)中心里運(yùn)行，這種做法會(huì)在計(jì)算能力上面臨更多的限制。

該消息人士表示：“用戶(hù)可能會(huì)面臨性能上限的限制，而且在這些小型終端點(diǎn)上運(yùn)行的成本也更貴?！?/p>

這個(gè)方案也完全不符合公共云用戶(hù)的預(yù)期——此處所說(shuō)的公共云用戶(hù)，指的就是租用了谷歌、亞馬遜、微軟等企業(yè)提供的計(jì)算、存儲(chǔ)和帶寬服務(wù)的用戶(hù)。他們一般認(rèn)為，自己只要需要的話(huà)，就應(yīng)該可以添加近乎無(wú)限的計(jì)算和存儲(chǔ)能力。所以這個(gè)方案可以利用兩種定價(jià)模式，建立起兩套基礎(chǔ)架構(gòu)。

顯然，谷歌需要盡快著手在全球覆蓋上有所動(dòng)作。目前公共云基礎(chǔ)架構(gòu)領(lǐng)域的領(lǐng)頭羊是亞馬遜，據(jù)高德納公司去年預(yù)測(cè)，亞馬遜的計(jì)算能力，超過(guò)了排在它后面的14家云計(jì)算競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的總和的10倍。而微軟則重點(diǎn)把精力放在了企業(yè)客戶(hù)上。

為了加速流入和流出云端的流量速度，谷歌近日與CDN市場(chǎng)的領(lǐng)頭羊阿卡邁公司建立了合作伙伴關(guān)系，以將谷歌自己的CDN網(wǎng)絡(luò)直接與阿卡邁CDN網(wǎng)絡(luò)進(jìn)行互聯(lián)。今年9月，谷歌還與Cloudflare、Fastly、Level 3 Communications和Highwinds四家CDN服務(wù)供應(yīng)商簽訂了類(lèi)似協(xié)議。但這些協(xié)議只是整個(gè)藍(lán)圖的一小部分。

谷歌擁有極強(qiáng)的技術(shù)實(shí)力，去年谷歌向云計(jì)算市場(chǎng)投出了一顆大炸彈，宣布下調(diào)存儲(chǔ)和計(jì)算等一系列核心服務(wù)的價(jià)格，此舉也打了亞馬遜一個(gè)措手不及，因?yàn)閬嗰R遜歷來(lái)不習(xí)慣讓其他公司主打價(jià)格牌。然而谷歌在向企業(yè)用戶(hù)銷(xiāo)售云服務(wù)方面卻并不是一帆風(fēng)順，因?yàn)楹芏嗥髽I(yè)用戶(hù)并不確定，作為一家在線(xiàn)搜索和廣告巨頭的谷歌會(huì)不會(huì)真正關(guān)心云服務(wù)。（當(dāng)然，谷歌自己總是宣稱(chēng)自己非常重視云服務(wù)。）

為了扭轉(zhuǎn)客戶(hù)的這種認(rèn)知，谷歌最近任命VMware公司前CEO黛安?葛琳負(fù)責(zé)公司云計(jì)算部門(mén)。她的到來(lái)使谷歌云服務(wù)對(duì)客戶(hù)來(lái)說(shuō)增添了一定的可靠性。當(dāng)然，谷歌的另一個(gè)產(chǎn)品——谷歌應(yīng)用引擎出現(xiàn)的問(wèn)題，可能會(huì)不利于吸引潛在商業(yè)用戶(hù)。但要強(qiáng)調(diào)的是，亞馬遜AWS和微軟Azure服務(wù)也都出現(xiàn)過(guò)一些小問(wèn)題。

Battery Ventures風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司科技研究員、前Netflix公司云計(jì)算專(zhuān)家亞德里安?科克羅夫特表示，他沒(méi)有聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)谷歌有這樣的計(jì)劃，但他認(rèn)為，考慮到谷歌的確需要大面積的地緣覆蓋和快速的性能，這個(gè)計(jì)劃也是合情合理的。

科克羅夫特通過(guò)電子郵件對(duì)《財(cái)富》表示，如果谷歌云團(tuán)隊(duì)真的想到了如何將這些CDN節(jié)點(diǎn)轉(zhuǎn)變成一個(gè)個(gè)迷你數(shù)據(jù)中心，那么這意味著他們聽(tīng)取了企業(yè)客戶(hù)的要求。

科克羅夫特表示：“從技術(shù)的角度看，這還意味著他們找出了如何將云服務(wù)進(jìn)行壓縮和包裝，用于小型區(qū)域性部署的辦法?！痹谶@方面，微軟和另一家公共云服務(wù)公司Ocean已經(jīng)走在了前面，而且科克羅夫特認(rèn)為，隨著時(shí)間的推移，亞馬遜的AWS也將在這方面做得越來(lái)越好。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：樸成奎

審校：任文科

Over the past few months, while Amazon, Microsoft and IBM took turns unveiling new cloud computing data centers in China, India, Germany, the U.K., South Korea, and elsewhere, one public cloud provider remained eerily silent: Google.

This is odd because, when it comes to delivering cloud services to customers—especially business customers—location matters. The further away the computer servers and storage are, the longer the lag time, or latency, in operations. And slow is definitely no good in this context.

But two sources close to Googlesaid the company is considering an interesting plan.

Google’s cloud services operate out of four data center regions worldwide compared with 20 for Microsoft Azure and 11 for Amazon Web Services (AWS) with five more due in the next year. But Google also has 70 data caching stations around the world that store copies (or caches) of video, audio and popular web pages close to their likely audiences to speed their delivery.

Those endpoints are key pieces of what Google calls its “peering and content delivery network.” The idea, which both sources said is under discussion, calls for these Google outposts to be outfitted with additional computing capacity so they would become sort of mini data centers.

Both sources requested anonymity because their companies work with Google. A Google spokeswoman would not comment on what she called rumor and speculation.

One source noted that the Google Compute Engine (GCE) team—basically the cloud group—is working with the company’s broader internal infrastructure groups to see if it can put small pods or clusters of computing power into these regional endpoints.

There could be wrinkles. For one thing this could end up being a tiered system, with big jobs running on Google’s own massive data centers which run hundreds of thousands (millions?) of servers that could outstrip the capabilities of the smaller end-point nodes of the CDN. If they were to do that, there’s more limited capacity than for the stuff running in GCE’s own data centers, he said.

“Users might be given a cap and it would be more expensive to run” in these smaller clusters, the source said.

That scenario flies in the face of the expectation of public cloud users—customers who rent out computing, storage and bandwidth run by Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc.—who think they can add nearly unlimited computing and storage capacity as needed. So this scenario could set up a two sets of infrastructure with two pricing models.

But it is clear Google needs to do something about global coverage soon. Amazonis the leader in public cloud infrastructure, running what Gartner last year estimated to be 10 times more computing capacity than the next 14 cloud competitors combined. Microsoft MSFT -2.19% is making a play especially with business customers.

To help speed traffic flow into and out of its cloud, Google and Akamai [Fortune-stock symbol=”AKAM”], the CDN market leader recently announced a partnership to directly link to Google’s own CDN interconnect with Akamai’s CDN. In September it announced a similar deal with four other CDN providers: Cloudflare, Fastly, Level 3 Communications and Highwinds. But those deals are just a piece of the overall puzzle.

Google has great technical smarts, and entered the fray with a bang last year with a series of price cuts on key storage and computing services in a move that seemed to flummox Amazon, which is not used to other companies driving the price agenda. But it has struggled to sell its cloud to business users, many of whom are not totally sure that Google, the online search and ad giant, really cares about cloud services. (For the record, it always said it does.)

To counter that perception, Google recently put former VMwareCEO Diane Greene in charge of its cloud unit. She brings added credibility to the push with business customers. (Of course, this week’s snafu with Google App Engine, anohter of Google’s cloud offerings, probably won’t help its case with prospective business users, but then again AWS and Azure have also had hiccups.)

Adrian Cockcroft, technology fellow at Battery Ventures, and former cloud guru at Netflix NFLX -3.25% , said he has not heard about this Google plan but he that it would make sense given businesses needs for lots of geographical coverage and fast performance.

If the Google cloud team has figured out how to convert those CDN nodes into far-flung mini-data center pods, it means they have listened to what enterprise customers have requested, Cockcroft told Fortune via email.

“From a technology point of view, it also means they have figured out how to scale down and package their cloud for small regional deployments,” Cockcroft said. That is something Microsoft and Digital Ocean, another public cloud company, have already done and something he thinks AWS will get better with over time.