IBM聯手網絡安全“獨角獸” 挑戰亞馬遜

IBM將聯手十億美元估值的舊金山科技初創公司Cloudflare，為云計算客戶提供一套新的網絡安全產品。

IBM的高管顯然希望，通過這次合作能讓IBM云成為亞馬遜云服務Amazon Web Services（AWS）更有力的競爭者，而AWS是當今云計算領域的領頭羊。達成合作后，IBM可以將多種信息技術安全的功能外包給Cloud flare，同時授權Cloudflare通過簽訂分銷商協議接觸IBM的客戶群。

IBM負責云基礎設施的總經理約翰·康斯戴恩向《財富》雜志表示，產品搭售將“極大簡化終端用戶的工作。”他說，產品一體化之后，IBM的客戶增添Cloudflare的網絡安全產品很容易，包括防御分布式拒絕服務（DDoS）攻擊的工具和過濾互聯網惡意流量的防火墻。

Cloudflare聯合創始人兼首席執行官馬修·普林斯表示，今后IBM的客戶使用IBM云互聯網服務時，就可以用Cloudflare，“多數時候點擊一下儀表盤式界面的按鈕”即可。相關功能定于今年3月19日上線。

這已是近年來Cloudflare與大型云供應商簽訂的第三份第三方經銷商協議。此前該公司已跟谷歌云計算服務Google Cloud和微軟云計算平臺Azure達成類似合作關系（請注意，Cloudflare沒有和亞馬遜合作）。

解釋聯手IBM的理由時，Cloudflare的首席營收官克里斯·梅里特說，“想在市場上推一款產品，最簡單的方法就是讓客戶通過現有的業務關系購買，就像客戶長期與IBM買產品一樣。”

IBM is teaming up with Cloudflare, a billion-dollar tech startup headquartered in San Francisco, to provide a new set of cybersecurity offerings to its cloud computing customers.

Big Blue’s executives no doubt hope the partnership will make IBM Cloud a more compelling alternative to Amazon Web Services, the present-day cloud computing king. The deal will enable IBM to outsource various IT security functions while granting Cloudflare access to IBM’s network of customers through a reseller agreement.

John Considine, IBM’s general manager for cloud infrastructure, tells Fortune that the product bundling will “hugely simplify things for end users.” The integration, he says, will let IBM customers easily add Cloudflare’s defenses, including shields against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and firewalls for filtering out malicious Internet traffic.

IBM customers will be able to use Cloudflare’s services, branded under IBM Cloud Internet Services, by “most of the time just clicking a button in the dashboard,” says Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s co-founder and CEO. Access to the features is set to open on March 19.

For Cloudflare, the deal represents the third reseller agreement it has inked with big cloud providers in recent years. The company already has similar relationships in place with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. (Note Amazon’s absence.)

“The easiest way to bring a product to market,” says Chris Merritt, Cloudflare’s chief revenue officer, describing the reasoning behind the deal, is to have customers “buy through existing relationships, as they’ve had with IBM for long time.”

據今年2月內華達州里諾市市場研究公司Synergy Research Group發布的報告，目前IBM是第三大云供應商，2017年底市場份額約為8％。 亞馬遜仍然占據云計算市場頭把交椅，市場份額約三分之一，微軟市場份額約占13％。

IBM-Cloudflare此次合作之前不久，IBM剛剛宣布很久以來首次實現收入增長，扭轉了過去22個季度的持續下滑趨勢。此次交易宣布之際，恰逢業界出現大量DDoS攻擊，攻擊目標都是存在大量虛假互聯網流量的業務，攻擊對象是web服務器。

普林斯表示，防止業務受此類攻擊是Cloudflare提供的“基本功能”。上個月DDoS強力攻擊法出現后，Cloudflare也是首批呼吁關注的公司之一。

他說：“（正因能洞察先機）所以我們才能幫企業做好防御。”（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審稿：夏林

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IBM was the third biggest cloud provider with about 8% market share at the end of 2017, according to February report by Synergy Research Group, a Reno, Nevada-based market research firm. Amazon claimed the top spot with roughly one-third of the cloud computing market, while Microsoft held about 13%.

The IBM-Cloudflare alliance comes shortly after IBM posted its first revenue growth in long while, reversing a downward trend that afflicted the company for 22 quarters. The deal also comes in the wake of a spate of record-shattering DDoS attacks that targeted businesses with massive floods of bogus Internet traffic aimed at web servers.

Prince says that defending businesses against those types of attacks is an “anchor feature” for Cloudflare, which was one of the first companies to call attention to the new, force-amplifying DDoS attack method last month.

“That’s something that is right in our wheelhouse of being able to stop,” he says.