bookmarkrole Chapter 95 Open Platform
Chapter 95 Open Platform
"Everyone, today we'll discuss a new direction."
Zuo Cheng stood in front of the whiteboard in the conference room, holding a marker in his hand. Only four words were written on the whiteboard: Star Alliance Open.
Chen Hao, Ma Hao, Han Lu, and Zhang Lei sat on either side, all looking at the words on the whiteboard.
"Star Alliance is open?" Chen Hao frowned. "Brother Cheng, what are you going to do?"
"An open platform," Zuo Cheng said. "We'll package the core capabilities of Starlink into SDKs and APIs, and make them available to all developers. We want developers across society to use our platform to build applications."
There was a three-second silence in the conference room.
Han Lu was the first to speak: "Let outsiders develop applications using our platform?"
"Yes." Zuo Cheng drew an architecture diagram on the whiteboard. "Starlink now has three core capabilities: edge scheduling, device management, and data acquisition. We've encapsulated these into standard interfaces, so developers don't need to understand the underlying technology; they can simply call the API to connect to the Internet of Things. Like building blocks, we provide the most basic connectivity modules, which developers use to create countless applications."
Zhang Lei frowned even more deeply: "Give up the technology we've worked so hard to develop to others? Isn't that just nurturing a competitor?"
"It's not about nurturing competitors, it's about nurturing an ecosystem." Zuo Cheng wrote two lines below the architecture diagram: "Hardware companies make the equipment, we handle connectivity and scheduling, and developers create the applications. Each of us earns our own money, but none of us can do without the Starlink platform."
"Like Apple's App Store?" Ma Hao's eyes lit up.
"Similar, but at a deeper level," Zuo Cheng said. "Apple controls app distribution, we control device connectivity. Whoever controls connectivity controls the gateway to the Internet of Things. Think about it, how many sensors and smart devices across the country need to connect to the network? All these devices have to go through our platform. This moat is deeper than any application's."
Chen Hao was silent for a moment: "Technically, it's feasible, but why would developers choose us? There are already several IoT platforms on the market."
"Because our edge scheduling capabilities are exclusive," Zuo Cheng put down his marker. "9 milliseconds latency, the lowest in the entire network. Any developer wanting to create real-time IoT applications cannot bypass this number."
Han Lu thought for a moment: "I'll contact a few industrial monitoring startups and invite them to be among the first to do internal testing. I'll offer them three months of free testing to get their applications up and running."
"Okay. The number of developers for the internal testing will be limited to no more than twenty, prioritizing teams with relevant scenarios but lacking technical expertise. Their success stories are our best assets. Ma Hao will lead the SDK development team, Chen Hao will be responsible for the API gateway, and Zhang Lei will handle the hardware access layer encapsulation. The first version will be released in one month."
After the meeting, Zuo Cheng returned to his office. He opened the system panel to check the status of the technology tree. On the branch of the Internet of Things, twelve leaves were neatly arranged, among which the leaf for [Distributed System Architecture Optimization] emitted a soft glow.
Zuo Cheng gazed at the leaf, a clear architecture diagram forming in his mind. The open platform's API gateway needed to handle massive concurrent requests, which traditional architectures struggled to support. However, distributed system architecture optimization offered a dynamic load balancing approach, distributing requests across multiple nodes for independent processing without interference. This meant that regardless of which city a developer accessed the platform from, the response time could remain within 10 milliseconds.
He drew the architecture diagram on paper, noting the key parameters. The passive effect of technological advancements continues to take hold; since the activation of the Internet of Things (IoT) framework, the efficiency of all IoT-related solutions has increased by 20%, which accumulates into a significant advantage. For the same solution, 402's implementation is 20% faster and 20% more performant than others.
Zuo Cheng closed his laptop and sent Yu Ying a message: "Kongkong, what do you think should be the first scenario for the IoT open platform?"
Yu Ying replied instantly: "Industrial monitoring. Factories are most sensitive to latency, and 9 milliseconds offers the most significant advantage."
Zuo Cheng smiled, his judgment was in line with his own.
Great minds think alike.
"Come on, you already know the answer. You're just asking to confirm it with someone."
Zuo Cheng put down his phone and picked up the business card from Xingchen Technology on the table. Strategic Development Department, Zhou Mingyuan. He hadn't arranged a meeting with this person since the press conference; he couldn't delay any longer.
He dialed Han Lu's extension: "Help me arrange a meeting with Zhou Mingyuan from Xingchen Technology, this Friday afternoon at the West City Coffee Shop."
"Okay. When will the open platform press release be issued?"
"About a month after the first version of the SDK was released."
After hanging up the phone, Zuo Cheng looked out the window. 402 was transforming from a project-based company into a platform company, a qualitative leap. The ceiling of a project-based company is manpower; it earns money by completing one project. But the ceiling of a platform company is imagination; every developer on the platform is an extension of 402.
Chen Hao pushed the door open and came in: "Brother Cheng, the technical solution for the SDK is ready. Take a look."
Zuo Cheng glanced through it and noticed that the load balancing part of the API gateway was designed conservatively.
"Let's make a change here. Replace static polling with dynamic allocation, and dynamically adjust request allocation based on the actual load."
Chen Hao's eyes lit up: "Automatically adjust the ratio based on the real-time load of the nodes?"
"Yes, Ma Hao's edge scheduling system already has the monitoring module; we can reuse it."
Chen Hao nodded and left. The ability to optimize distributed system architecture was gradually permeating the 402 technical solution. The team only knew that Cheng Ge could always propose better designs, but they didn't know where the source came from. The technology tree provided the direction; the team was responsible for execution.
At 5 PM, Ma Hao sent a message: "The first version of the SDK's core framework is complete, and both the edge scheduling and data acquisition modules are running smoothly."
"Watch it tomorrow morning, get some rest early tonight."
Zuo Cheng put down his phone. A month later, the Starlink Everything Open Platform would officially launch. From the pilot project in Hangzhou to nationwide deployment and then to the open platform, 402 had taken less than a year. This speed was entirely due to the correct direction provided by the technology tree and the team's exceptional execution capabilities.
He recalled the internet giants who built platforms in his previous life, all of whom started with a single connection and eventually grew into towering trees. In this life, 402 was following the same path.
As Zuo Cheng walked out of the office building, he saw Yu Ying already standing under the sycamore tree by the roadside waiting for him. She was wearing a light blue trench coat, holding two cups of milk tea, and looking down at her phone.
Zuo Cheng walked over and took a cup of milk tea: "Have you been waiting long?"
"No, I just arrived." Yu Ying looked up and smiled at him. "Let's go get hot pot, I'm hungry."
Zuo Cheng took her hand, and the two walked side by side down the street as dusk deepened. Behind them, the lights of office building 402 were still on, and in those lights, a group of young people were burning with passion for the same dream.