INTRODUCING ALIBABA CLOUD Introducing Alibaba Cloud MORE THAN JUST CLOUD 2018 alibabacloud.com © Alibaba Cloud 2018 All rights reserved Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud ii CONTENTS Mission and Background Supporting Business Transformation 1 5 Leaders in Technology Products and Solutions 11 15 Getting Started with Alibaba Cloud Summary 22 23 alibabacloud.com Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This whitepaper will introduce you to Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing division of Alibaba Group. We will take a look at the company’s background, explore how Alibaba Cloud has evolved as it has become increasingly established and see how it is facilitating digital transformation and opening up the Chinese market for many businesses. We will cover how Alibaba Cloud supports business growth through partnerships and competitions, and discuss its unique range of tools and services. This whitepaper will introduce you to a number of Alibaba Cloud’s key products and take you through how to get started on the platform, where you can find additional support as well as gain certificates and accreditation. We will also cover some of what makes Alibaba Cloud stand out in the marketplace, such as powering major shopping festivals, innovative payment methods and big data analysis. And we will look at how your business can benefit from the innovation that runs through the company, helping business from small and medium enterprises through to large multinational corporations to benefit from impressive tools and services including machine learning, elastic computing and a powerful and secure cloud platform. Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 1 MISSION AND BACKGROUND Alibaba Cloud is one of a number of business units that form part of Alibaba Group, helping companies to transform the way that they market, sell and operate. Alibaba Group, headquartered in Hangzhou, China, is on a mission to make it easy to do business anywhere. It has ambitious growth goals, and aims to help to solve problems for billions of people as it expands. MISSION Alibaba provides vital technology infrastructure and marketing capabilities to help businesses to grow their products and services online. The group spans commerce, cloud computing, digital media $25BN and innovation. For example, AliExpress is our global consumer marketplace, Alipay is our mobile and online payment platform and Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing arm and business THE USD AMOUNT unit of Alibaba Group. And perhaps you’ve heard of 11-11, our PROCESSED IN groundbreaking international shopping festival known as Singles Day, SALES DURING LAST which processed over USD $25BN in sales last year in a single day. YEAR’S SINGLES DAY SHOPPING Alibaba announced in 2017 that it is investing $15BN in research FESTIVAL and development up to 2020, including creating the DAMO Academy in 2017. The DAMO Academy has research labs in seven cities around the world, looking into topics including data intelligence, the Internet of Things, fintech, quantum computing and human-machine interaction. The Academy will help Alibaba to be “future-oriented to solve the problems of the future,” according to Alibaba’s founder and chairman Jack Ma. He challenged the Academy to help 100 Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 2 million companies create opportunities and help solve to problems for billions of people. By doing this, DAMO Academy has the target of growing to become equal in value to the world’s fifth-largest economy by 2036.1 BACKING BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Alibaba enables businesses to transform the way they market, sell and operate, providing the fundamental technology to help merchants, brands and other businesses leverage the power of the Internet to engage with their users and customers. ALIBABA CLOUD’S BACKGROUND Alibaba Cloud is the group’s cloud computing arm. It was established in September 2009 as Aliyun, developing cloud computing services that would provide the infrastructure to support Alibaba’s vision of making it easy to do business anywhere. Now, Alibaba Cloud’s highly scalable cloud computing and data management services is China’s largest public cloud service provider3 and has the third largest share of the cloud computing market globally, according to Gartner.4 It offers cost-effective solutions that help businesses meet their networking and information needs, and provides them with an easy way to integrate with other Alibaba products and services. We are China’s largest cloud provider, offering access to China’s most advanced cloud network. Alibaba Cloud has an international network of 18 data centers, including access to Mainland China. Security and reliability are paramount to Alibaba Cloud’s offering, and we will cover those aspects in more depth later in this whitepaper. Alibaba’s vast online and mobile commerce ecosystem – including the incredible amount of transactions that take place every year on 11-11 – is also powered by Alibaba Cloud. Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 3 Alibaba Cloud is dedicated to becoming a world-leading global cloud services provider. Our top-class infrastructure and expanding global presence has helped to establish partnerships and attract over 2.3 million customers worldwide, including over 1 million paying customers. And, in 2017, we were named as a visionary in Gartner’s ALIBABA CLOUD prestigious Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for HAS 18 DATA Analytics. Our strong performance in data management solutions CENTERS in China and our investment in new markets were acknowledged as making Alibaba Cloud an emerging global player.5, 6 Alibaba Cloud’s international operations are registered and headquartered in Singapore, and the company has teams stationed in Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, San Mateo, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, driving this international growth. This whitepaper will help you discover more about what makes Alibaba Cloud unique and introduce you to our key products and services. Keep reading to learn how Alibaba Cloud can support your business’ cloud computing goals, enable digital transformation and help your company to grow. ALIBABA CLOUD ET BRAIN Through initiatives like this, Alibaba Cloud is helping our society to become more sustainable, efficient, and interconnected. From agriculture to manufacturing and city management, we are committed to making the world greener, safer, and more productive. For example, our ET Brain uses our ultra-intelligent technology to solve complex problems in business and society. The ET Brain can create accurate simulations, come up with solutions in real time, and perpetually innovate, thanks to machine learning. For example, we have put some of this powerful technology to work supporting smart cities. Alibaba Cloud’s City Brain2 project in Malaysia is working in partnership with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation to help the government process data and make smarter decisions based on ET Brain’s insights. The ET Brain can create accurate simulations, come up with solutions in real time, and perpetually innovate, thanks to machine learning. Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 4 Real time information is collected from roadside video cameras in congested cities such as Kuala Lumpur, then analyzed by computer vision and used to improve the flow of vehicles by changing traffic signals, and to spot traffic accidents, so that emergency vehicles can get to accidents in the shortest possible time. ET Medical Brain is working to solve the healthcare industry’s biggest problems, such as introducing a smart scheduling platform to Hangzhou Children’s Hospital, and making advances in gene sequencing that enable precision medical treatment. The ET Industrial Brain builds smart algorithms that improve modelling, the accuracy of predictions, regulation enforcement, and emergency response, while our ET Agricultural Brain can use visual recognition, voice recognition and environmental recognition to monitor crops and livestock, reducing disease and improving farming efficiency. By facilitating access to smart emerging technologies, Alibaba Cloud enables businesses and people to build a more inclusive world. Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 5 SUPPORTING BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION True to our mission, Alibaba is an expert in digital transformation. Alibaba Cloud technology, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analysis, is used to power innovations in retail, finance and manufacturing around the world. Analyzing how we currently work allows business and society to solve complex problems. Bringing data together with smart tech, such as our AI Platform, can lead to actionable recommendations that will help businesses to become more efficient and cut waste from their production and operating processes. This section of the whitepaper will cover how Alibaba Cloud facilitates international expansion, particularly entry into Mainland China, how it supports digital transformation and how it helps startups and SMEs to grow and globalize. GATEWAY TO CHINA Expanding internationally is a key part of becoming a global business, and establishing your company in China could be an important aspect of that. Consultancy McKinsey predicts that by 2020, there will be 400 million consumers with incomes of between $16,000 and $34,0007 amongst the country’s population of 1.4 billion. This group will have disposable incomes that will enable them to afford family cars and small luxury items, setting consumption standards around the country. INFRASTRUCTURE IN CHINA AND CHINACONNECT Alibaba Cloud is the leading public cloud vendor in Mainland China, with the country’s most advanced cloud network, including seven data centers Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 6 and over 1100 CDN nodes. It received China’s first IDC license in 2013 and now has a 40% share of the local market with a full ecosystem of products to support different aspects of business, providing access to China under one single global account. Alibaba Cloud’s channel, ChinaConnect, offers advice and support for international companies spanning a range of industries and across all business units and doing business in China. It covers everything from website hosting, online payments and offline logistics, as well as ICP registration. ICP REGISTRATION An Internet Content Provider (ICP) license is a state-issued registration number that allows you to host your website on a server inside Mainland China, a rule that is enforced at the hosting level and an essential element for any digital business. The application comes after selecting hosting and domain, but before a site can go live. Alibaba Cloud provides ICP support here: https://www.alibabacloud.com/icp Alibaba Cloud received China’s first IDC license in 2013 and now has a 40% share of the local market ALIBABA’S ECOSYSTEM Business units throughout Alibaba Group work to make it easier to do business anywhere, whether that’s through logistics, payments or international trade, particularly helping companies to gain a foothold in Mainland China. Alibaba Cloud provides the vital technology infrastructure that powers the group’s products and services. We constantly develop these to help companies do more and discover new opportunities. Let’s look at some of the business units in our ecosystem, and see how they work together to power logistics, payments, e-commerce, supporting businesses in China and beyond. Alibaba Cloud | Introducing Alibaba Cloud 7 LOGISTICS Cainiao Network is our logistics data platform operator that provides real-time access to information for both buyers and sellers, helping them to improve the efficiency of their delivery services. Its fulfilment network has grown by 170% year-on-year, and it enables CAINIAO 24-hour domestic delivery and 72-hour international delivery.8 ENABLES 24- HOUR DOMESTIC FINANCE DELIVERY AND 72-HOUR Alipay facilitates online, mobile and in-store payments and has over INTERNATIONAL 520 million users. Users have a digital wallet and can make payments DELIVERY direct from their mobile phone, without the need for cash. Alipay is integrated into a range of financial services, from investments and insurance through to credit ratings and loans. RETAIL Taobao is an e-commerce and content app that is redefining the shopping experience through innovative content and smart, personalized recommendations. In the year ending March 31, 2018, the app had 552 million active annual consumers9 and approximately 1.5 million content creators produced short-form videos and live-broadcast events, encouraging dwell time and brand engagement on the app. Tmall is a business-to-consumer e-commerce platform, that allows merchants to reach new customers and gain data insights. It hosts 70,000 online brand stores, including H&M, Nike and Samsung, serving 400 million online customers.10 SINGLES DAY The most exciting day of the year for our company is 11-11 or Singles Day, a global shopping extravaganza that tests Alibaba’s cloud computing processing, payment infrastructure and logistics networks NOVEMBER 2017: to the limits and provides retailers with an annual opportunity to sell ALIBABA CLOUD their products and stand out to consumers. PROCESSED OVER 325,000 Data Development At the 2017 festival, Alibaba Cloud processed over 325,000 orders ORDERS PER per second at peak, and 1.5 billion Alipay transactions in total, SECOND AT PEAK achieving over $25BN of gross merchandise volume (GMV) for retailers.11 Data production Data collection Data analysis and Data extraction Data presentation and storage processing and sharing