Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

"The party of the poor in the west is the first to open the Hongmeng in the east. "Huainan King Liu An wrote such a sentence in Huainan Zi. Opening Hongmeng means opening up the beginning of chaos, and poverty means exploring the distant sky. In the world outlook of Chinese classical philosophy, the desire to explore and conquer unknown fields is the original driving force for the development of human civilization.

Of course, today, people have a new understanding of the word "Hongmeng"_Huawei's microkernel-based full-scene distributed open source OS.

The whole society's concentrated discussion of the operating system seems to have started with the launch of Hongmeng OS. However, Hongmeng OS is obviously not a "wartime plan" under the game of great powers. As the overall R & D plan of Hongmeng OS gradually emerges, we can find that Huawei has been engaged in the research in the field of operating system since the last century, and its achievements span terminal products, server products, cloud computing products and so on. In addition to "self-research," there is a second keyword_open source. The open source of an operating system extends its influence from the product to the platform and ecosystem, so that the entire industry can benefit from it.

Recently, it has been reported that Huawei's server operating system derived from Linux kernel development will soon usher in open source. This heavy news undoubtedly means that Huawei is "poor" after "opening Hongmeng." Today, we might as well try to index Huawei's trajectory on the server operating system, how the opening of the server operating system will play a key role in Huawei's Kunpeng computing ecosystem, and how this move will affect China's computing industry.

From Linux: Why does the Chinese computing industry need its own server operating system?

When it comes to server operating systems, I have to mention Linux. As a freely available and freely distributed Unix-like operating system, coupled with the efficiency and simplicity of the core firewall components, Linux has become an extremely popular operating system in the server world.

However, with the increasing popularity and innovation of IT infrastructure, servers have higher and higher requirements for operating systems: higher security, more stable software systems, more convenient management methods, and richer application requirements... relying solely on a group of developers pursuing software freedom and ideals in the open source community, it is obviously impossible to provide sufficient "productivity", let alone meet the needs of many enterprise users. So since the 1990s, some vendors have started releasing commercial versions of server operating systems on top of Linux, packaging open source technologies as enterprise services. One of the most typical is Red Hat, which has been acquired by IBM. Enterprises such as Red Hat not only provide more complete server operating system services for customer needs, but also provide more complete technical support for customers. Of course, these vendors who distribute commercial server operating systems will also give back their technical research results to the Linux community to further expand the influence of Linux.

Although there are already many mature commercial server operating systems on the market, and the technical ecology of Linux is becoming more and more complete, for the Chinese computing industry, the server operating system still poses some obstacles.

At its most basic, the computing industry's quest for server operating system capabilities, including security, reliability, compatibility, and so on, must be endless. The data shows that Huawei has contributed more than 3500+ patches in the Linux Kernel community; among more than 400 contributors, Huawei ranks in the top 10. It can be seen that Huawei's ability to accumulate on the server operating system is deep, and opening up these energies can enable the entire computing industry to climb up more powerfully.

At the same time, the upgrade of digital infrastructure brought about by intelligent technology means that more and more enterprises and even traditional enterprises will build and update their own digital infrastructure, thus generating more demand for server operating systems. Vendors who do not have sufficient experience in large enterprise services and a solid technology base have difficulty providing server operating systems suitable for them, which also makes it difficult for the computing industry to grow its business.

Furthermore, with the general upgrade of enterprise digital infrastructure in the future, it is obviously unrealistic for every enterprise to configure a professional IT team. Relying on overseas operating systems, it is likely to encounter various difficulties in follow-up support services due to work efficiency and even time difference problems. The server operating systems that run the enterprise's core infrastructure clearly require better and more reliable services.

It can be seen that China's server operating system market can be satisfied by self-built teams or other means, but if we want to make the computing industry grow better, our own server operating system is indispensable. Now Huawei's open source server operating system is about to assume this important task.

Before open source: key skills of Huawei server operating system

The topic goes back to the protagonist. Like many enterprises, in order to better control the hardware such as servers, Huawei has been promoting the adaptation of server operating systems and its own hardware since 2010. At present, Huawei server operating systems have covered most of Huawei's own products, storage, wireless controllers, telecom NFV and recently launched TaiShan servers.

In fact, Huawei is by no means the only developer of server operating system technology in China. What can make Huawei server operating system have an impact on the whole computing industry is naturally not a factor of "open source."

The so-called strong people follow, Huawei server operating system itself is excellent quality is the premise of everything. According to the information obtained so far, Huawei server operating system originates from Linux Kernel, which has the traditional advantages of Linux such as strong performance, high openness, security and stability, scalability, etc. At the same time, it can be highly compatible with Huawei's self-developed processor in the ecosystem, and supports common hardware architecture platforms such as Kunpeng and X86. For compiler integration, it can also facilitate developers to develop in multiple languages.

Specifically, Huawei server operating system has the following characteristics.

First, security.

Intel's chip vulnerability incident last year reminded us that security problems often happen inadvertently. At present, Huawei server operating system is one of the most secure operating systems on the market, which can provide various security technologies to prevent intrusion and ensure system security.

Second, performance.

As one of the few manufacturers capable of modifying the operating system kernel in China, Huawei server operating system can better meet the demanding workload requirements of users through mass optimization of compilation system, virtual storage system, CPU scheduling, IO driver, network and file system.

Third, safeguards.

As mentioned earlier, server operating system assurance, availability, and reliability are important to enterprise customers. As a senior service provider in the telecommunications field, Huawei's server operating system has also experienced the rigorous test of reliability and availability in the telecommunications field.

These three features have become Huawei's key technologies, confirming the comprehensive capabilities of Huawei's server operating system and making it a prerequisite for building an open source ecosystem.

When Kun Peng has both core and soul

To better understand Huawei's server operating system, we not only need to understand the ins and outs of its birth vertically, but also need to place the server operating system in the entire computing industry ecosystem in order to better understand the significance of server operating system open source.

In recent years, Huawei's layout pace for the computing industry has become closer and clearer: Huawei's TaiShan server based on Kunpeng 920 and Shengteng processor based on Da Vinci architecture are constantly breaking through the limits of computing performance. The launch of Atlas artificial intelligence computing platform points to the increasing AI computing needs of enterprises. The introduction of GaussDB, an AI native database, redefines the data infrastructure by merging data with intelligent concepts in the era of diversity computing. Nowadays, the open source of server operating system connects this series of software and hardware platforms together to complete the key link in Kunpeng ecosystem.

Previously, the industry mentioned the obstacles to the development of IT industry, often using the word "lack of core and soul." A lack of core meant a lack of chips, while a lack of soul meant an imperfect operating system. The reason why "core" and "soul" are compared is because they have always been classic combinations in the scientific and technological world. From Windows and Intel's Wintel system to Android and ARM's AA system, and then to Apple's self-developed computer chip news in recent years, we can see the effect of the combination of the two cards.

The combination of chip and operating system can break through obstacles and optimize technology ecology, so that relevant enterprises can continuously realize innovation climbing. Only when enterprises grow can the entire computing industry be stronger and play its due role in social and economic growth.

Now that the demand for computing industry is growing, does Huawei's layout of "core and soul" on Kun Peng mean that there will be a classic combination like Wintel and AA in the computing industry? Especially on the premise that Huawei will accumulate open source in the field of server operating system instead of Wintel-style monopoly, more benefits and enablement for industry partners and developers may make Huawei server operating system become Android in computing industry. With the hardware and software layout of processors, servers, databases, etc., Huawei servers may release power in the computing industry beyond Android to mobile devices.

Future Atlas: How will server operating systems change the computing ecosystem?

At the Kunpeng Industry Development Summit in July this year, Xu Zhijun, Huawei's rotating chairman, said: The Kunpeng software and hardware ecosystem established by Huawei is opening up to the whole industry, providing IT infrastructure and industry applications based on Kunpeng and Shengteng processors for all walks of life. It is reported that Huawei server operating system will not only release commercial version, but also support partners to release commercial version. At the Kunpeng Industry Development Summit, Huawei plans to invest RMB 3 billion in the next five years to develop the Kunpeng industry ecology. It is believed that a large part of these funds will also be invested in the ecological construction of the server operating system.

In this way, we can also make some "irresponsible" predictions about the future of Kunpeng computing ecology.

For example, the open source of server operating systems will stimulate the development of server application ecosystems. With the activation of the technology community and the reduction of application development costs of server manufacturers, more and more people will participate in the application development of the server side, making the application software part of the Kunpeng computing industry ecosystem more active.

For example, as the technical capabilities of server operating systems improve, security will also increase. More and more enterprises or businesses in more and more fields can access the Kunpeng computing industry and obtain full enablement in ICT layout. The basic disk of Kunpeng computing industry will be further expanded as a result.

In this way, with the addition of server operating system, Huawei has finally drawn a "star map" about the future of computing industry, so that Kun Peng can better find the direction to explore the stars.

concluding remarks

The actual news about Huawei server operating system open source, said to be "explosion," but also in people's expectations.

With the continuous open source of Hongmeng OS and Internet of Things operating system LiteOS, Huawei's goal in the underlying software infrastructure industry has been revealed. Like the Mobile device, Huawei's participation in the ICT industry is also better penetrating the whole upstream and downstream through the combination of chips and operating systems.

Open Hongmeng, poor and dark. Huawei's direction is incomparably clear: to the unreached, to the no-man's land.

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