Alibaba Cloud Launches Nine Products to Support Global Digital Transformation Across Different Industries

BW Online Bureau Aug 16, 2018

Alibaba Cloud launched a new suite of product offerings for the global market in the areas of cloud architecture, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and security. These products will meet the needs of the retail industry in the region who are looking to digitize their operations under the New Retail concept that marks the seamless integration of online and offline. Alibaba Cloud is poised to strengthen its collaboration with customers and partners across different industries with these new offerings.

The launch of ASEAN Partner Alliance Programme is another highlight at Alibaba Cloud Summit – Infinity 2018. The alliance aspires to develop a sustainable ecosystem to empower more technology vendors, service providers, system integrators, ISVs and start-ups to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. The program aims to recruit 150 solution partners and to train 600 sales and technology personnel in the next 12 months to fuel the growth of the ecosystem.

Derek Wang, Chief Solution Architect, Alibaba Cloud International said: “Asia Pacific is a unique market, and as a global cloud services provider with an Asian origin, we are committed to leverage our knowledge and experience to build a sustainable regional ecosystem and enrich our offerings to meet the needs of our customers in this digital age. This new suite of offering includes products that are highly efficient, cost effective, and some of them are the first of their kind in the industry.”

The new products fall into a number of inter-related categories. In relation to data technology and AI, Alibaba Cloud is launching two key products – Data Lake Analytics is an effective serverless service for customers to turn their cloud storage data into insights in Data Lake scenario; PAI is Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary machine learning platform that enables customers with limited AI background easy access to Alibaba Cloud’s AI capabilities. IoT Platform, a platform and toolkit will also be introduced to the global market.

Infrastructure and security will continue to be crucial as the fundamental consideration for enterprises undertaking cloud migration. In view of this, Alibaba Cloud will launch Anti-Bot Service, which is a software solution that protects users from online scalpers and crawlers. Hybrid Backup Recovery is a cost-effective, easy-to-use online backup service to protect critical business data while Dedicated Host provides customers with regulatory, stability and business standard requirements to enjoy a dedicated hosting service on a public cloud.

Alibaba Cloud’s partner network is an important strategic asset, as shown by the number of new offerings. With China Unicom Global, Alibaba Cloud is launching Smart Access Gateway that supports a multiple location enterprise network. Others are Apsara Stack, the next generation hybrid cloud solutions for Asia Pacific, delivered in collaboration with HPE, and Elasticsearch, which is an open source tool developed by Elastic and available on Alibaba Cloud.

“These products all have specific features that meet an identified need within the flourishing retail market in Asia Pacific region. E-commerce is witnessing considerable growth and Alibaba Cloud, leveraging Alibaba Group’s development, can offer a mature ecosystem to support the regional retail sector. Using these products will help merchants deploy their resources more effectively, and gain deeper consumer insights. The technology available can also give our consumers better protection against fraud and an improved shopping experience,” added Wang.

Alibaba Cloud invested significant resources in the global market especially Asia Pacific to support the region’s digital transformation, offering a larger range of solutions to local businesses and SMEs. Last month, the company launched the second Availability Zone and the first cloud based Anti-DDoS Scrubbing Center in Malaysia, providing customers with new levels of protection against DDoS attacks.

Highlights of the nine products launched by Alibaba Cloud at the Singapore Cloud Summit:

Product	Feature	Retail sector application
Smart Access Gateway	In co-operation with China Unicom Global, this market-leading software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) helps enterprise customers, especially rapid developing businesses, to build low-cost network with free maintenance across regions. The product is also user-friendly, and has a shorter investment cycle.	Smart Access Gateway helps retailers to connect their data from different shops to one cloud platform, which enable them to manage it more effectively especially during data surge scenarios such as in store promotions.
Apsara Stack	Apsara Stack provides a wide range of cloud services including IaaS, big data, middle platform, and security. It is supported by the same technology that runs Alibaba Cloud, and can be deployed in customer’s own data center in the form of a hybrid cloud or a private cloud.	Apsara Stack enables retail clients to develop an integrated data and business middle platform that integrates multiple data sources such as CRM and supply chain systems. It also supports the streamlined cross-functional business processes such as transactions, logistics and marketing.
Elasticsearch	An open source offering developed by Elastic that enables distributed, multi-tenant and full text search.	Elasticsearch system will be able to remind retailers to restock popular products timely, and provide information such as the quantity of stock and the nearest location to find them.
Hybrid Backup Recovery	A simple and cost-effective Backup as a Service (BaaS) solution. It protects customer data in a number of scenarios: enterprise data centers, remote and branch offices, or on the cloud.	Retailer data are protected in a secured environment of the Dedicated Host while Hybrid Backup Recovery will prevent data loss from accidents or attacks.
Dedicated Host	Tailored for customers who require dedicated hosting service either due to regulatory requirements, e.g. financial institutions, saving license cost (Bring-Your-Own-License), or a higher demand for host stability, e.g. gaming companies. Customers are allowed to make adjustments to the hosting service that cannot be performed on a shared host.
Anti-Bot Service	All-round protection for online business against scalpers, crawlers, auto-refresh spam and hacking of user information.	Anti-Bot Service protects against crawlers that take up available commercial resources online, such as airline tickets and hotel rooms that need to be reserved via vendors’ website.
Data Lake Analytics	Data Lake Analytics is a server-less, high performance and interactive query service hosted on the Alibaba Cloud platform and is powered by Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) architecture. It turns their cloud storage data into insights in Data Lake scenario.	Retailers can leverage Data Lake Analytics to analyse historical inventory and sales data, and turn the data into consumable insights
PAI	PAI is China’s first publicly available machine-learning platform. It offers a suite of tools and AI software algorithms that allows businesses without an AI background to make practical use of Alibaba Cloud’s AI program.	With PAI, retailer will be able to recommend the most suitable products and services to customers based on their pre-set preference.
IoT Platform	Alibaba Cloud’s IoT platform and tool kit.	The IoT platform links all the software and hardware in the shop to create a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience for the consumers.