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The IT cloud 云計算 Silver linings 一線曙光 Banks big and small are embracing cloud computing 大大小小的銀行都在轉(zhuǎn)投云計算 Jul 20th 2013 |From the print edition  1 “I’VE only got one IT guy,” says Segun Akintemi, the chief executive of Renaissance Credit, a Nigerian moneylender that opened for business in October 2012 and signed up about 3,000 customers in its first six months. “Whenever I walk past his desk he is surfing the web.” That the firm has just one bored computer specialist is not a sign of backwardness. On the contrary, Renaissance Credit is ahead of its time when it comes to technology. Its information processing takes place in the “cloud”, the term for software and services delivered over the internet. 晉新信貸（Renaissance Credit）2012年10月才在尼日利亞投入運營，頭六個月就發(fā)展了3000名左右的簽約客戶。這家信貸機構的總經(jīng)理Segun Akintemi曾說：“我只有一名IT雇員。每次我從他的工位旁邊經(jīng)過，都看到他在瀏覽網(wǎng)頁”。只擁有一名無所事事的計算機專業(yè)人員并不意味著這個企業(yè) 很落后。恰恰相反，晉新信貸在技術方面說得上是領先于時代的。這家企業(yè)的信息處理在“云”里完成，“云”是指通過互聯(lián)網(wǎng)提供軟件和服務。 2 The emergence of cloud-based banking promises to affect banks big and small. Banks are expected to spend almost $180 billion on IT this year, according to Celent, a consultancy. For the moment cloud-based services make up a tiny fraction of this amount, but by some estimates spending by financial-services firms on the cloud will total $26 billion in 2015. This increase should lower barriers to entry for newcomers, which can rent modern IT infrastructure at monthly fees of less than $10,000 rather than having to invest tens of millions of dollars upfront to build their own secure data centres. And it should also enable big banks to become much more cost-efficient. 基于“云”的銀行服務的興起將影響大大小小的銀行。根據(jù)咨詢公司Celent估算，今年所有銀行花 在信息化上的支出將近1800億美元，其中基于“云”的服務只占其中的很小一部分。然而有人預測到2015年金融企業(yè)在“云”上開銷將達260億美元。這 種變化將降低金融市場的準入門檻，讓新進入者可以以每月不到10，000美元的成本租用現(xiàn)代化的信息基礎設施，省得要花好幾千萬美元去建一個自己的安全數(shù) 據(jù)中心。大銀行也可以通過這種方式提高成本效益。 3 Small firms, without legacy computer systems to constrain them, are the fastest movers. Renaissance Credit’s embrace of cloud computing has been almost total. Its employees type documents, run spreadsheets and read e-mails in the cloud. Its banking software, which keeps track of clients, payments and loans, runs on a cloud-computing platform using off-the-shelf banking software provided by Temenos, a specialist provider. 由于沒有老舊計算機系統(tǒng)的約束，小型企業(yè)的遷移動作最快。晉新信貸幾乎是全面投向了云計算：其雇員在“云”中輸入文檔，運行電子表格和閱讀電子郵件。該銀行用于跟蹤客戶、支付和貸款的業(yè)務系統(tǒng)軟件由專業(yè)軟件提供商Temenos提供，運行在“云”計算平臺上，打開就能用①。 4 By using standard software and running it in existing data centres, the firm has dramatically cut its start-up costs; it pays a fee based on the number of clients it has and can simply keep scaling up as it grows. It has also been able to get off the ground quickly. It took just two months to go into operation after signing contracts with its suppliers. Despite outsourcing all its IT activities, it still needs at least one geek on hand. His main job, Mr Akintemi says, is to take new computers out of their boxes and plug them in. 通過使用運行在現(xiàn)有的數(shù)據(jù)中心之上的標準化軟件，該銀行大幅削減了啟動成本。相關費用按照用戶數(shù)收 取，系統(tǒng)規(guī)模能夠隨著業(yè)務成長而輕松擴展。晉新信貸的啟動速度非?？?，和供應商簽訂合同之后只過了兩個月，它就開始投入運營了。雖然它把所有的信息技術工 作全部外包了，但還是聘請了一位技術高手。Akintemi說，他的主要工作就是把計算機從盒子里拿出來并接好線。 5 Big banks have generally migrated less of their activity to the cloud than newer, smaller ones. This is partly because of legacy systems, partly because of regulatory concerns about data security and privacy. But the pressure to reduce spending is likely to force the pace of change. Simon Samuels of Barclays notes that whereas revenues at big European banks rose by 18% a year on average before the financial crisis, they have shrunk in recent years. One way of improving cost-income ratios is to lob activities into the cloud. 和才成立不久的小型銀行相比，大銀行已遷移到“云”中的業(yè)務通常比較少。一方面原因是老的系統(tǒng)還在 使用，另一方面對數(shù)據(jù)安全和保密還有管理上的顧慮。然而削減開支的壓力估計最終會加快他們的遷移步伐。巴克萊銀行的西蒙·塞繆爾斯指出，歐洲銀行在經(jīng)濟危 機之前營業(yè)收入平均每年增長18%，而這幾年以來收入一直在下降。要改善成本收入比率，把業(yè)務遷移到“云”是一種選擇。 6 Banks in the rich world have started outsourcing the processing of data that does not involve sensitive client information but does require massive computing resources, says Colin Kerr, who heads Microsoft’s banking business. These include tasks such as “Monte Carlo” simulations in which banks run calculations millions of times over, each with slightly different variables, to assess what may happen to the prices of their assets or derivatives if markets move suddenly. 微軟公司的銀行業(yè)務部門領導科林·克爾說，富裕國家銀行已經(jīng)開始把不包含客戶敏感信息而又需要海量 計算資源的數(shù)據(jù)處理任務外包出去，其中包括“蒙特卡羅”模擬。這種模擬用于評估如果市場突然出現(xiàn)變化，對銀行所持有的資產(chǎn)或金融衍生品的價格會有什么樣的 影響。同一模擬銀行可能會重復運算上百萬次，每次只會有幾個變量有所不同。 7 Bankinter, a tech-savvy Spanish bank, runs its complex credit-risk simulations on Amazon’s cloud platform. Calculations that previously took more than 20 hours to complete on the bank’s own systems are now done in 20 minutes. Big banks are also renting resources in the cloud when they need safe test environments in which they can mirror their own computer systems and then make changes or updates without the risk of crashing the entire bank. 技術領先的西班牙銀行Bankinter目前在亞馬遜的云計算平臺上進行復雜的信用風險模擬分析。 以前用銀行自有系統(tǒng)來計算的時候，這個分析需要20個小時才能完成，而使用亞馬遜平臺20分鐘之內(nèi)就可以得出結果了。大型銀行在需要安全測試環(huán)境的時候， 也會租用“云”資源。這樣他們可以系統(tǒng)的鏡像建立到“云”里面，在鏡像上做修改或升級，以避免讓整個銀行系統(tǒng)崩潰的風險。 8 Many banks are reconfiguring their own computer systems into private clouds, a hybrid step in which they have sole use of a data centre (these are shared in the “public cloud”), but derive some efficiencies from using the software and systems that run public clouds. Bank SinoPac, a Taiwanese lender, will cut its IT infrastructure costs by almost half by moving from a mainframe computer to a private cloud. Barclays and Deutsche Bank have moved some functions into private clouds. 許多銀行正在重新配置自有的計算機系統(tǒng)，將之改造為私有云。這是一個混合式的階段，銀行在獨占的數(shù) 據(jù)中心上（共享的數(shù)據(jù)中心屬于“公共云”）運行和公有云一致的軟件和系統(tǒng)以獲得效率上的一定提升。臺灣永豐商業(yè)銀行是一家貸款機構，它通過把業(yè)務系統(tǒng)從大 型機上遷移到私有云中，差不多能減少一半的信息技術基礎設施成本。巴克萊銀行和德意志銀行已經(jīng)將某些業(yè)務遷移到了私有云中。 9 There are, however, impediments to the wide adoption of cloud computing. One is the worry over security and data protection. For small banks with limited resources, the large data centres provided by firms such as Amazon or Microsoft are probably safer and more reliable than any that they could build themselves. Large banks, many of which have already built their own bomb-proof secure data centres, are reluctant to hand over client data to outsiders. The theft of data or a major systems failure by a bank with its operations in the cloud would doubtless prompt regulators to slam on the brakes, too. 然而，云計算的普及仍存在障礙。其中一點是銀行對數(shù)據(jù)能否妥善、安全地保存抱有疑慮。對于資源有限 的小銀行來說，亞馬遜或微軟提供的大型數(shù)據(jù)中心可能比自己投錢去建的還要安全可靠。而許多大銀行已經(jīng)建造了連炮擊都不怕的安全數(shù)據(jù)中心，所以不愿把客戶數(shù) 據(jù)外移。如果銀行把業(yè)務遷移到“云”中之后出現(xiàn)數(shù)據(jù)失竊或重大系統(tǒng)故障，那么監(jiān)管者無疑將會對此叫停。 You cannot be cirrus 要動真格？② 10 Some countries insist that client data are not allowed to leave their national borders, which could force cloud-computing firms to build small data centres in many markets, reducing the scope for cost savings. Many regulators also want to be able to inspect and, in the words of one IT specialist, “put their hand on” the computer server holding client data. Providers of cloud services can be reluctant to allow inspections because they try to keep the locations of server farms secret. “The more you open up your data centres, the more vulnerable you make them,” says one. 一些國家嚴格禁止把銀行客戶數(shù)據(jù)存儲在國外，云計算公司不得不在這些國家里建設規(guī)模較小的數(shù)據(jù)中 心，這樣一來能夠利用規(guī)模效應節(jié)約下來的成本也就少了。許多監(jiān)管機構還要求能夠?qū)?shù)據(jù)進行檢查，用信息專業(yè)人士的話來說，這叫“把手放在”保存客戶數(shù)據(jù)的 計算機服務器上。云服務提供商可能并不想讓人來檢查，他們不希望公司以外的人員知道服務器所在的物理位置。有個人是這樣說的“數(shù)據(jù)中心越開放，越容易受到 攻擊?！?br> 11 These problems may change the pace but not the direction of travel. The cost advantages of cloud computing mean that banking services are likely to move inexorably into the ether. If so, the staff in banks’ IT departments will have more time to brush up their solitaire skills. 諸如此類的問題可能會影響云計算的普及速度，但不會改變普及的大趨勢。云計算的成本優(yōu)勢意味著銀行服務融入“云”的過程可能將不以人的意志為轉(zhuǎn)移。如果真是這樣，銀行信息部門的員工將會有更多的時間去刷新他們的“單人紙牌”游戲記錄了。 譯者注： ① 在云技術的SaaS（軟件即服務）模式下，軟件已經(jīng)在“云”中安裝配置好，打開就能用。 ② 根據(jù)Jess大拿的鑒定You cannot be cirrus其實就是You cannot be serious。Cirrus最常見的含義是“卷云”。 |
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