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一个逝去的精神依然在激励着我们
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于2011-11-16 22:58:01翻译 | 已有19人浏览 | 有0人评论
在公司创始人在9.11事件中被杀后，公司的业务受到了伤害。Akamai已经滑落到失败的边缘。它还剩下的只有丹尼尔•列文的技术和对未来的预见。
Tags:科技 | 9.11 | Akamai | CDN
第一次尝试翻译，很多地方都翻译的很拙劣，烦请斧正，谢谢！
After its founder was killed on Sept. 11 and its business damaged in the aftermath, Akamai slid to the edge of failure. What it still had were Daniel Lewin’s technology and vision.
在公司创始人在9.11事件中被杀后，公司的业务受到了伤害。Akamai已经滑落到失败的边缘。它还剩下的只有丹尼尔•列文的技术和对未来的预见。
September 04, 2011|By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
2011年9月4日 作者：Hiawatha Bray， 环球员工
Akamai has recovered from the tumultuous days of September 2001, and now delivers 15 to 30 percent of the worlds Web traffic.
Akamai已经从2001年九月那个混乱的日子里恢复过来了，现在正承载着15%到30%的全球网络通信。
At about 9 a.m. on what would be a very bad day, Paul Sagan, then president of Akamai Technologies Inc. of Cambridge, was on the phone with a company attorney who had just been in touch with cofounder Daniel Lewin.
在那个糟糕的日子的上午9点左右，来自剑桥大学、即将接任Akamai科技公司总裁的保罗•萨甘正在和一个律师通话，这个律师刚刚和公司创始人之一的丹尼尔•列文接触过。
Lewin, 31, who had invented technology to help the Internet handle huge amounts of traffic, was flying to Los Angeles to drum up new business, which the company desperately needed. Akamai’s stock was trading at about $3 a share, a sliver of its peak of $328 in 1999, at the height of the Internet bubble.
31岁的列文曾经发明过一种技术来帮助互联网控制巨大的网络通信，当时他正飞往洛杉矶去组织公司迫切需要的新业务。当时Akamai的股票大约是三美元一股，而在1999年互联网泡沫的的高峰时期曾达到328美元。
As Sagan and the lawyer chatted, another Akamai employee called on Sagan’s second line. He had been watching the “Today’’ show and saw that a jumbo jet had slammed into the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight 11. Lewin’s flight.
就在萨甘和律师聊天的时候，一个Akamai的雇员通过另一条线路呼叫萨甘。他刚刚收看“今日”节目的时候看到巨大的喷气式飞机撞击纽约世贸中心北塔。那是美国航空公司的11号航班。列文的航班。
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For a moment, Sagan hoped Lewin had decided to fly a little later in the day. “The airlines would just let you change planes back then,’’ he recalled. But the lawyer said Lewin had called from the plane, hanging up only when a flight attendant ordered him to switch off his phone.
曾有片刻，萨甘希望列文决定乘坐的是当天晚些时候的航班。“有时候航空公司会让你更换航班。”他回忆。但是律师说列文在飞机上给他打过电话，直到一个空乘人员命令他关掉电话，他才挂掉电话。
“So we knew shortly after 9 a.m.,’’ said Sagan. “There was no hope that he was not on that plane.’’
“于是我们在九点之后不久就知道了。”萨甘说，“现在已经不能指望他不在那架飞机上了。”
Daniel Lewin was dead, and nobody knew whether his company would survive.
丹尼尔•列文死了，没有人知道他的公司能否活下来。
Yet Akamai’s most tragic day would also prove its most important. On that day, and in the days that followed, the world turned to the Internet for information as never before. Web traffic for Akamai’s global network of clients, including major news media sites, surged by a factor of five.
尽管如此，Akamai在这个最悲剧的一天同样证明了它的重要性。在那天，和接下来的日子里，世界变得从未如此依赖于互联网来获取资讯。包括主要新闻媒体网站在内的Akamai全球网络客户端的网络通信在五个因素的刺激下急剧上升。
Lewin’s technology managed the spike handily; websites that otherwise might have crashed under the strain continued to offer details about loved ones, rescue efforts, and what went so terribly wrong. “It worked,’’ said George Conrades, Akamai’s chief executive at the time. “It really was designed well.’’
列文的技术处理网络通信高峰得心应手；网站在有可能会崩溃的压力下继续提供有关亲人、救援成果和情况不断变糟的详细信息。“它仍在工作。”Akamai当时的首席执行官乔治•康瑞德说，“它真的设计的非常棒。”
On Sept. 11, 2001, in Akamai’s control room, engineers and technicians worked furiously to direct the crush of Web traffic to every spare server. There was no time to grieve. But then and in the decade since, the thoughts of Akamai employees rarely strayed from Lewin and his technology, and what both had made possible.
在2001年9月11日，Akamai的控制室里，工程师和技术员拼命的引导网络通信到每台备用的服务器上。没有时间伤心。但是在接下来的十年中 Akamai的员工们一刻也没有忘记列文、他所研发的技术以及他们所带来的发展可能。
“The end result is that you and I, without knowing Akamai is involved, get to see our content, and we get it fast, and it comes through clear,’’ said Brian Partridge, vice president of research at the research firm Yankee Group in Boston. “Akamai has had a behind-the-scenes role in the incredible development of the Internet.’’
“最后的结果是，你我都在不知道Akamai涉及此事的情况下，看到了我们的想要看到的网页内容，并且我们以更快的速度得到了它，而它的获取路径变得更加清晰。”在波士顿扬基集团研究中心的研究副总裁 布赖恩•帕特里奇说，“Akamai在以令人难以置信的速度发展的互联网中扮演了一个幕后角色。”
In 1996, when Daniel Lewin, a former Israeli commando with a bachelor’s degree from Technion, Israel’s famed scientific university, began his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, computer scientists already knew the Internet would do a lousy job of managing big spikes in traffic. Companies could prepare only by buying vast numbers of extra servers that would be idle most of the time, a big waste of money.
在 1996年，当前以色列突击队员丹尼尔•列文带着以色列著名科技大学——以色列技术研究所的学士学位开始了在麻省理工学院的学习时，计算机科学家已经知道互联网在网络通讯高峰时的管理工作将会很糟糕。企业只能靠购买大量的多余的服务器来做准备，而这些服务器在大多数时候都会闲着，这是一笔巨大的浪费。
Lewin was already hungry for a challenge like that. “Danny had the kind of mind that comes and says, ‘Well, this is a big problem. Why shouldn’t there be a solution?’ ’’ recalled his MIT professor and Akamai cofounder, Tom Leighton. “And sure enough, he figured out a solution.’’
列文对于这样的挑战已经迫不及待了。“丹尼尔是那种会过来说‘好啊，如果有个问题，为什么没不来个解决方案呢’的人。”他在麻省理工学院的教授、Akamai的创始人之一汤姆•莱顿回忆说，“可以确信的是，他想到了解决方案。”
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The Internet needed a better way to instantly locate vast amounts of quickly changing data stored on computers all over the world, and send it to anybody, anywhere. What Lewin and Leighton invented was a mathematical scheme called “consistent hashing’’ that radically sped up the process. Just as important, the system could “scale’’- meaning it would work even as many more people used it. It made possible the advanced Internet services we use today.
互联网需要一种更好的方式来即时定位储存在全世界电脑中的大量快速改变的数据，并发送给任何地点的任何人。列文和莱顿发明的是一种被称作“一致性哈希”的数学规划，这可以从根本上提高进程的速度。同样重要的是，这个系统可以“扩展”——这表示不管有多人在使用，它都能正常工作。它使我们今天使用的先进的互联网服务变为现实。
Lewin’s innovation allows millions of users to watch streaming video simultaneously, for example, and keeps news websites online during global crises as viewers rush for the latest information.
列文的创新使得上百万的用户得以同时观看流媒体，并保持新闻站点在出现全球危机的时候在线以提供读者需要的最新信息。
At MIT, Lewin stood out. He was a gym rat, a fanatical weight lifter who had once been Mr. Teenage Israel. “He was 180 degrees from the computer nerd you might imagine,’’ said his friend Marco Greenberg. “I remember this 16-year-old squatting 375 pounds.’’
列文在麻省理工学院就已经脱颖而出。他是一个健身房的常客，一个狂热的举重运动员，曾一度被评为以色列先生。“他和你想象中的学计算机的书呆子完全是180度相反”，他的朋友马可波罗•格林伯格说，“我还记得他十六岁的时候375磅的样子。”
Born in Denver, Lewin was deeply unhappy with his parents’ decision to move the family to Israel when he was 14. “He was brought to Israel kicking and screaming,’’ Greenberg said.
列文出生在在丹佛，他对在他十四岁的时候父母把家搬到以色列的决定很不高兴。“他又踢又叫的被带到了以色列。”格林伯格说。
But he changed. Lewin’s brother Michael credits his mandatory service in the Israeli military. Lewin volunteered for the toughest, most dangerous branch of the service: the Sayeret Matkal, specialists in antiterrorist operations. He became “much more focused in achieving his goals,’’ said Michael, a financial services entrepreneur who lives in Israel. “When he came out, he was a man.’’
但是他改变了。列文的兄弟迈克尔把这归功于强制服兵役。列文自愿服务于最艰难、最危险的部门：总参侦察营，反恐行动中的专家。他变得“更关注于他达成他的目标”，一个住在以色列的金融服务业企业家迈克尔说，“当他回来的时候，他成为了一个真正的男人。”
Akamai’s Sagan recalls an executives-vs.-employees paintball bout, where Lewin’s military training made him unbeatable. But when he saw that Sagan couldn’t keep up, “he literally picked me up like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and carried me around,’’ Sagan said. “Literally, like I was nothing.’’
Akamai的萨甘回忆起在一场高管对员工的彩弹射击比赛上，列文的军事训练让他变得无可匹敌。当他看到萨甘无法跟上的时候，“他就如字面上所说的，像一包土豆一样捡把我抗在了肩上。”萨甘说，“如字面上所说的，好像我不存在一样。”
Shortly after 8:14 a.m., onboard Flight 11, two flight attendants called American Airlines and said that hijackers had stabbed two other flight attendants and a passenger.
上午8点14分后不久，11号航班上的两名空乘人员呼叫美国航空公司，汇报说有劫机者已经刺伤了另两名空乘人员和一名乘客。
The terrorists breached the cockpit somehow, and the one trained to fly a jet, Mohamed Atta, moved to take control of the plane. And it may be at that point that Lewin tried to stop the hijacking, according to the government commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
恐怖分子们不知是如何破坏了驾驶室，其中一名受过驾驶喷气飞机训练的名叫默罕默德•阿塔的恐怖分子去接管飞机的控制。根据美国政府委员会对9.11袭击的调查，可能就是在这个时候列文试图阻止劫机。
He had the training for it, but he never had a chance. One of the terrorists was seated behind Lewin and stabbed him, possibly in the throat. Lewin was one of the first of many to die on Sept. 11.
他受过这方面的训练，不过从没有机会尝试。一个坐在他后边的恐怖分子刺伤了他，很可能是刺在喉部。列文可能是9.11众多死难者中的第一个。
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There were four airliners hijacked that day; two of them, Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, left from Logan International Airport. At 8:46 that morning, Atta flew Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
在那天有四架航班被劫持，其中的两条，11号航班和联合航空公司的175号航班，从洛根国际机场离开。在上午八点四十六分，阿塔驾驶着11号航班撞向世贸大楼北塔。
Lewin’s loss was even more difficult for Akamai because on the day he died, there was record demand for the Internet as the world went online to follow news of the attacks. At their monitors in the company’s network information center in Cambridge, Akamai technicians, in shock from the loss of their revered colleague, watched as hits on their customers’ websites surged beyond anything they’d seen before.
列文的殒命对Akamai而言是雪上加霜，因为在他死的那天互联网产生了创纪录的需求，全世界都赶着上网寻找关于袭击的新闻。在剑桥网络信息中心的显示器前，Akamai的技术员们为令人崇敬的同事的殒命而震惊，眼睁睁的看着他们客户的网站点击率上升超过了他们所曾见过的任何一次。
Sagan knew he had to take command. “I had been a TV producer in my past life,’’ he said, “so I was used to high-pressure deadline situations, where you just totally focus on making all these little decisions in front of you.’’
萨甘知道他已经接过了指挥权。“我过去曾经做过电视制片人。”他说，“所以我已经习惯了高压期限的环境，这种环境下你只是完全的关注做出你摆在你面前的这些小决定。”
He quickly addressed the company’s technicians and engineers. “Whatever you do, keep your eye focused on the network,’’ he told them, “because traffic’s going to go crazy.’’
萨甘迅速的对公司里的技术员和工程师进行了一次演讲。“不管你做什么，让你的眼睛集中在网络上。”他对他们说，“因为拥堵将会变得更加疯狂。”
Then Sagan gave one more instruction: Lewin would insist the company rise to the occasion. Do what he would do.
接下来萨甘做出了更多的指示：列文在这种时候会坚持为公司挺身而出。去做他所做的。
And they did. “Sort of through the fog and the shock,’’ said Sagan, “we just worked feverishly to run the business.’’
他们这么做了。“摸索着通过了迷雾和震荡。”萨甘说，“我们只是狂热的工作来经营业务。”
Don Marks, an Akamai engineer, spent Sept. 11 reconfiguring servers to build capacity on websites for organizations like the Red Cross and American Airlines. “All of these guys’ websites were getting completely overloaded,’’ Marks said. “It was only at the end of the day when I had a chance to breathe.’’
Akamai的工程师丹•马克思耗费了9月11日一天重新配置服务器，以提供红十字会和美国航空公司这样的组织建立网站的能力。“这些网站全都超载了。”马克思说，“一直到这一天结束我才有机会歇口气。”
Although Akamai made it through the day, the company’s financial problems were about to get worse.
尽管Akamai坚持过了那天，但是公司的财务问题仍在变得更糟。
The Internet bubble that had floated Akamai through its founding in 1998 and its initial public offering the following year had burst. The dot-com businesses that spent millions with the company were going bust. Akamai tried to reinvent itself as an Internet services supplier to the Fortune 500 - big, stable companies that pay their bills. Akamai needed to “start adding real new customers before all the other ones went away, and we ran out of money,’’ Sagan said.
让Akamai从1998年成立到次年首次公开募股不断上浮的互联网泡沫破裂了。网络行业那些花费了上百万的公司即将破产。Akamai尝试将自己重塑成网络服务提供者，为财富五百强名单上那些稳定的大公司服务。Akamai需要“在花光所有的钱、员工和投资者都离开之前找到真正的新顾客。”萨甘说。
The Sept. 11 attacks further depressed the US economy, eating into Akamai’s revenues. Investors lost confidence in the company, fearing that the loss of Lewin was irreparable. “Everyone then wrote us off completely,’’ Sagan said.
9.11恐怖袭击事件进一步削弱了美国经济，蚕食着Akamai的收入。投资者担心列文的殒命是无法弥补的，进而对Akamai公司失去了信心。 “紧接着每个人都跑来彻底的销账。”萨甘说。
Executives started citing a metric they called “quarters to live’’: how many more quarters could Akamai stay in business? The company laid off 250 workers about a month after the terrorist attacks, driving its head count down to 900. A year later, Akamai’s stock had fallen to 56 cents a share, and it cut another 145 jobs.
管理层开始使用一个被称作“季度生活”的度量标准：Akamai的业务还能维持多少个季度？公司在恐怖袭击之后的大约一个月时间里裁员了250名工人，总人数下降到900。一年后，Akamai的股票已经下跌了56美分每股，而它又削减了145个工作岗位。
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“We had to make just horrendous choices,’’ said Sagan.
“我们不得不做出一个可怕的决定。”萨甘说。
But the survivors were determined. Akamai’s Internet-boosting technology was too good of an idea to give up on. Just as important, it was Lewin’s idea. “We stayed out of stubbornness and pride at that point,’’ said Sagan. “We owed him an enormous debt for trying to be a hero. And so that’s why we all hung around.’’
但是幸存者下定了决心。Akamai的网速提高技术作为一个被放弃的想法实在是太好了。同样重要的是，这是列文的想法。“我们在这一点上都没有固执和虚荣。”萨根说，“在成为一个英雄这一点上我们都欠他一个巨大的债务，所以这就是为什么我们都挂着他的肖像。”
Lewin had left behind one more gift for Akamai, a new product he helped develop called EdgeSuite, which powered websites that were “dynamic.’’ Early Web pages were static; like a printed page, they were assembled beforehand, and everybody who clicked on them saw the same thing. Dynamic websites are put together on the spot. Click on a dynamic news site, and it will pull together a custom page from different stories, images, and ads, that changes the next time you click.
列文给Akamai留下了不止一件礼物，他参与开发的一个叫EdgeSuite的新产品给网站提供了“动态”的能力。再起的网页都是静态的，就像是一页打印出来的书，都是事前组合好的，每个人点击上的时候看到的都是一样的东西。动态网站是把网页都放在一起，当你点击动态新闻网站的时候，页面会变成一个由不同的故事、图片和广告组成的自定义页面，当你再次点击的时候又会发生新的改变。
EdgeSuite was a winner. Akamai picked up clients like retailer Target Corp. and computer maker Apple Inc., which in 2003 adopted it for the immensely popular iTunes online music store. In 2004, Akamai posted its first annual profit, and it’s been profitable every year since.
EdgeSuite是一个成功的产品。Akamai收回了一些客户，如零售商塔吉特公司和在2003年为极受欢迎的iTunes在线音乐商店使用它的电脑制造商苹果公司。在2004年，Akamai公布了它的首份年度盈利报告，从那开始它每年都盈利。
Akamai survived because of Lewin’s vision for the Internet, one he laid out in the company’s earliest days: Its technology would speed up Web pages, deliver streaming video, accelerate applications, and change the Internet as people knew it, and for good.
Akamai能存活下来得益于列文早期在公司奠定的对互联网的预测：Akamai的技术能够提高网页、流媒体的速度，为应用程序加速，改变我们所知的那个互联网，将它变得更好。
The shame is that Lewin never lived to see that last goal realized. But everyone at Akamai believes his example made it possible to build the Internet we know today - dynamic, fluid, packed with video and images, and reaching every corner of the earth.
遗憾的是列文没能活着看到最后的目标变为现实。但Akamai的每一个人都相信是他的榜样将互联网变成了我们今天看到的样子——动态、流动、由视频和图像组成的包，到达地球的每一个角落。
In the decade since Lewin’s death, Akamai has not forgotten him. His portrait, painted by the mother of an employee, hangs in the lobby of Akamai’s headquarters at 8 Cambridge Center. There’s also a plaque listing every winner of an annual award named for Lewin, and presented to employees who demonstrate his motivation and spirit - who have shown, as the award states, “the ability to move mountains.’’
在列文死去之后的十年里，Akamai从没有遗忘过他，由一位雇员的母亲绘制的肖像就悬挂在位于剑桥中心八号Akamai总部的前厅里。每一个获得了以列文的名字命名的年度奖的人的名字都被列在一个名牌上，这个奖被颁发给那些展示了其行动力，并拥有奖杯上所声明的、列文一样“移山的能力”的精神的雇员。
Marks, the engineer, was among four winners this year. So was Parimal Pandya, a global sales service executive based in Bangalore, India.
工程师马克思是这个奖今年的四个得主之一。在印位于度班加罗尔总部的全球销售服务执行官帕瑞玛•潘迪亚也名列其中。
“I met so many people who wanted to make Akamai successful for Danny,’’ said Pandya, who never met Lewin. “No challenge was too big for anybody to take on.’’
“我遇到过很多想要为了丹尼让Akamai取得成功的人。”从没有见过列文的潘迪亚说，“对于一个勇于担当的人来说，没有任何无法战胜的挑战。”
There’s a conference room at the headquarters that has the word “obstreperous’’ - one of Lewin’s favorites; it means loud and stubborn - painted on the wall, complete with definition. Another Lewinism, describing someone who did a really good job, is now the name of the online portal for Akamai’s salespeople: Titan.
在Akamai的总部有一个可以用“喧嚣”来形容的会议室，而这正是列文最喜欢的，在墙上写着它的定义：响亮和固执。另一个充满列文色彩是Akamai销售人员的在线门户网站的名字“泰坦”，这个词被用来形容某人的工作完成的非常好。
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A block away, near the MIT computer labs where Lewin and Leighton worked out their early algorithms, the intersection of Main and Vassar streets was named Danny Lewin Square in 2002, to mark the first anniversary of the attacks. That day, a tree was planted in a grassy area outside Akamai’s offices. It’s flourishing now, and there, the company marks each anniversary of Lewin’s death with a memorial service.
在一个街区之遥的麻省理工学院计算机实验室里，列文和莱顿制定了其早期的算法。离实验室不愿的缅因街和瓦萨街的交叉路口在2002年被命名为丹尼•列文广场，以纪念9.11袭击一周年。在命名那天，一棵树被种在了Akamai办公室外的草地上。这棵树茁壮成长的树记录着每年Akamai公司为纪念列文而举行的仪式。
Akamai is now under pressure again, though not nearly as severely as in 2001. Rivals have begun to match the capability of its core products, driving prices and profit margins lower. The company’s stock has declined by more than 50 percent since the start of this year.
尽管不如2001年那次严重，Akamai现在又面临压力了。竞争对手们已经开始获得与其核心产品相匹敌的能力，这降低了价格和利润率。自今年年初以来，该公司的股票已经下降了50％以上。
But there are new opportunities, as well: Akamai is bringing its customers into cloud computing, mobile computing, data security, and the delivery of HD video. And with 95,000 servers in 72 countries, and 2,200 employees, the company delivers 15 to 30 percent of all Web traffic worldwide.
不过，还有新的机会：Akamai正在帮助它的客户引入云计算、移动计算、数据安全和高清视频传输业务。凭借72个国家的95000服务器，2,200名员工，Akamai的传输服务承载了全球15％到30％的网页流量。
When he died, Lewin left Akamai a legacy of strength. “Danny changed the lives of countless people,“ said Greenberg, his friend. ”He made a lot of people rich. In every way.“
当列文死的时候，他给Akamai留下了一份强大的遗产。“丹尼改变了无数人的生活。”格林伯格说，“他让很多人变得富有。通过各种方式。”
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at [email protected].
可以通过[email protected]联系到HiawathaBray 。
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于2011-11-16 22:58:01翻译 | 已有19人浏览 | 有0人评论
在公司创始人在9.11事件中被杀后，公司的业务受到了伤害。Akamai已经滑落到失败的边缘。它还剩下的只有丹尼尔•列文的技术和对未来的预见。
Tags:科技 | 9.11 | Akamai | CDN
第一次尝试翻译，很多地方都翻译的很拙劣，烦请斧正，谢谢！
After its founder was killed on Sept. 11 and its business damaged in the aftermath, Akamai slid to the edge of failure. What it still had were Daniel Lewin’s technology and vision.
在公司创始人在9.11事件中被杀后，公司的业务受到了伤害。Akamai已经滑落到失败的边缘。它还剩下的只有丹尼尔•列文的技术和对未来的预见。
September 04, 2011|By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
2011年9月4日 作者：Hiawatha Bray， 环球员工
Akamai has recovered from the tumultuous days of September 2001, and now delivers 15 to 30 percent of the worlds Web traffic.
Akamai已经从2001年九月那个混乱的日子里恢复过来了，现在正承载着15%到30%的全球网络通信。
At about 9 a.m. on what would be a very bad day, Paul Sagan, then president of Akamai Technologies Inc. of Cambridge, was on the phone with a company attorney who had just been in touch with cofounder Daniel Lewin.
在那个糟糕的日子的上午9点左右，来自剑桥大学、即将接任Akamai科技公司总裁的保罗•萨甘正在和一个律师通话，这个律师刚刚和公司创始人之一的丹尼尔•列文接触过。
Lewin, 31, who had invented technology to help the Internet handle huge amounts of traffic, was flying to Los Angeles to drum up new business, which the company desperately needed. Akamai’s stock was trading at about $3 a share, a sliver of its peak of $328 in 1999, at the height of the Internet bubble.
31岁的列文曾经发明过一种技术来帮助互联网控制巨大的网络通信，当时他正飞往洛杉矶去组织公司迫切需要的新业务。当时Akamai的股票大约是三美元一股，而在1999年互联网泡沫的的高峰时期曾达到328美元。
As Sagan and the lawyer chatted, another Akamai employee called on Sagan’s second line. He had been watching the “Today’’ show and saw that a jumbo jet had slammed into the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight 11. Lewin’s flight.
就在萨甘和律师聊天的时候，一个Akamai的雇员通过另一条线路呼叫萨甘。他刚刚收看“今日”节目的时候看到巨大的喷气式飞机撞击纽约世贸中心北塔。那是美国航空公司的11号航班。列文的航班。
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For a moment, Sagan hoped Lewin had decided to fly a little later in the day. “The airlines would just let you change planes back then,’’ he recalled. But the lawyer said Lewin had called from the plane, hanging up only when a flight attendant ordered him to switch off his phone.
曾有片刻，萨甘希望列文决定乘坐的是当天晚些时候的航班。“有时候航空公司会让你更换航班。”他回忆。但是律师说列文在飞机上给他打过电话，直到一个空乘人员命令他关掉电话，他才挂掉电话。
“So we knew shortly after 9 a.m.,’’ said Sagan. “There was no hope that he was not on that plane.’’
“于是我们在九点之后不久就知道了。”萨甘说，“现在已经不能指望他不在那架飞机上了。”
Daniel Lewin was dead, and nobody knew whether his company would survive.
丹尼尔•列文死了，没有人知道他的公司能否活下来。
Yet Akamai’s most tragic day would also prove its most important. On that day, and in the days that followed, the world turned to the Internet for information as never before. Web traffic for Akamai’s global network of clients, including major news media sites, surged by a factor of five.
尽管如此，Akamai在这个最悲剧的一天同样证明了它的重要性。在那天，和接下来的日子里，世界变得从未如此依赖于互联网来获取资讯。包括主要新闻媒体网站在内的Akamai全球网络客户端的网络通信在五个因素的刺激下急剧上升。
Lewin’s technology managed the spike handily; websites that otherwise might have crashed under the strain continued to offer details about loved ones, rescue efforts, and what went so terribly wrong. “It worked,’’ said George Conrades, Akamai’s chief executive at the time. “It really was designed well.’’
列文的技术处理网络通信高峰得心应手；网站在有可能会崩溃的压力下继续提供有关亲人、救援成果和情况不断变糟的详细信息。“它仍在工作。”Akamai当时的首席执行官乔治•康瑞德说，“它真的设计的非常棒。”
On Sept. 11, 2001, in Akamai’s control room, engineers and technicians worked furiously to direct the crush of Web traffic to every spare server. There was no time to grieve. But then and in the decade since, the thoughts of Akamai employees rarely strayed from Lewin and his technology, and what both had made possible.
在2001年9月11日，Akamai的控制室里，工程师和技术员拼命的引导网络通信到每台备用的服务器上。没有时间伤心。但是在接下来的十年中 Akamai的员工们一刻也没有忘记列文、他所研发的技术以及他们所带来的发展可能。
“The end result is that you and I, without knowing Akamai is involved, get to see our content, and we get it fast, and it comes through clear,’’ said Brian Partridge, vice president of research at the research firm Yankee Group in Boston. “Akamai has had a behind-the-scenes role in the incredible development of the Internet.’’
“最后的结果是，你我都在不知道Akamai涉及此事的情况下，看到了我们的想要看到的网页内容，并且我们以更快的速度得到了它，而它的获取路径变得更加清晰。”在波士顿扬基集团研究中心的研究副总裁 布赖恩•帕特里奇说，“Akamai在以令人难以置信的速度发展的互联网中扮演了一个幕后角色。”
In 1996, when Daniel Lewin, a former Israeli commando with a bachelor’s degree from Technion, Israel’s famed scientific university, began his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, computer scientists already knew the Internet would do a lousy job of managing big spikes in traffic. Companies could prepare only by buying vast numbers of extra servers that would be idle most of the time, a big waste of money.
在 1996年，当前以色列突击队员丹尼尔•列文带着以色列著名科技大学——以色列技术研究所的学士学位开始了在麻省理工学院的学习时，计算机科学家已经知道互联网在网络通讯高峰时的管理工作将会很糟糕。企业只能靠购买大量的多余的服务器来做准备，而这些服务器在大多数时候都会闲着，这是一笔巨大的浪费。
Lewin was already hungry for a challenge like that. “Danny had the kind of mind that comes and says, ‘Well, this is a big problem. Why shouldn’t there be a solution?’ ’’ recalled his MIT professor and Akamai cofounder, Tom Leighton. “And sure enough, he figured out a solution.’’
列文对于这样的挑战已经迫不及待了。“丹尼尔是那种会过来说‘好啊，如果有个问题，为什么没不来个解决方案呢’的人。”他在麻省理工学院的教授、Akamai的创始人之一汤姆•莱顿回忆说，“可以确信的是，他想到了解决方案。”
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The Internet needed a better way to instantly locate vast amounts of quickly changing data stored on computers all over the world, and send it to anybody, anywhere. What Lewin and Leighton invented was a mathematical scheme called “consistent hashing’’ that radically sped up the process. Just as important, the system could “scale’’- meaning it would work even as many more people used it. It made possible the advanced Internet services we use today.
互联网需要一种更好的方式来即时定位储存在全世界电脑中的大量快速改变的数据，并发送给任何地点的任何人。列文和莱顿发明的是一种被称作“一致性哈希”的数学规划，这可以从根本上提高进程的速度。同样重要的是，这个系统可以“扩展”——这表示不管有多人在使用，它都能正常工作。它使我们今天使用的先进的互联网服务变为现实。
Lewin’s innovation allows millions of users to watch streaming video simultaneously, for example, and keeps news websites online during global crises as viewers rush for the latest information.
列文的创新使得上百万的用户得以同时观看流媒体，并保持新闻站点在出现全球危机的时候在线以提供读者需要的最新信息。
At MIT, Lewin stood out. He was a gym rat, a fanatical weight lifter who had once been Mr. Teenage Israel. “He was 180 degrees from the computer nerd you might imagine,’’ said his friend Marco Greenberg. “I remember this 16-year-old squatting 375 pounds.’’
列文在麻省理工学院就已经脱颖而出。他是一个健身房的常客，一个狂热的举重运动员，曾一度被评为以色列先生。“他和你想象中的学计算机的书呆子完全是180度相反”，他的朋友马可波罗•格林伯格说，“我还记得他十六岁的时候375磅的样子。”
Born in Denver, Lewin was deeply unhappy with his parents’ decision to move the family to Israel when he was 14. “He was brought to Israel kicking and screaming,’’ Greenberg said.
列文出生在在丹佛，他对在他十四岁的时候父母把家搬到以色列的决定很不高兴。“他又踢又叫的被带到了以色列。”格林伯格说。
But he changed. Lewin’s brother Michael credits his mandatory service in the Israeli military. Lewin volunteered for the toughest, most dangerous branch of the service: the Sayeret Matkal, specialists in antiterrorist operations. He became “much more focused in achieving his goals,’’ said Michael, a financial services entrepreneur who lives in Israel. “When he came out, he was a man.’’
但是他改变了。列文的兄弟迈克尔把这归功于强制服兵役。列文自愿服务于最艰难、最危险的部门：总参侦察营，反恐行动中的专家。他变得“更关注于他达成他的目标”，一个住在以色列的金融服务业企业家迈克尔说，“当他回来的时候，他成为了一个真正的男人。”
Akamai’s Sagan recalls an executives-vs.-employees paintball bout, where Lewin’s military training made him unbeatable. But when he saw that Sagan couldn’t keep up, “he literally picked me up like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and carried me around,’’ Sagan said. “Literally, like I was nothing.’’
Akamai的萨甘回忆起在一场高管对员工的彩弹射击比赛上，列文的军事训练让他变得无可匹敌。当他看到萨甘无法跟上的时候，“他就如字面上所说的，像一包土豆一样捡把我抗在了肩上。”萨甘说，“如字面上所说的，好像我不存在一样。”
Shortly after 8:14 a.m., onboard Flight 11, two flight attendants called American Airlines and said that hijackers had stabbed two other flight attendants and a passenger.
上午8点14分后不久，11号航班上的两名空乘人员呼叫美国航空公司，汇报说有劫机者已经刺伤了另两名空乘人员和一名乘客。
The terrorists breached the cockpit somehow, and the one trained to fly a jet, Mohamed Atta, moved to take control of the plane. And it may be at that point that Lewin tried to stop the hijacking, according to the government commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
恐怖分子们不知是如何破坏了驾驶室，其中一名受过驾驶喷气飞机训练的名叫默罕默德•阿塔的恐怖分子去接管飞机的控制。根据美国政府委员会对9.11袭击的调查，可能就是在这个时候列文试图阻止劫机。
He had the training for it, but he never had a chance. One of the terrorists was seated behind Lewin and stabbed him, possibly in the throat. Lewin was one of the first of many to die on Sept. 11.
他受过这方面的训练，不过从没有机会尝试。一个坐在他后边的恐怖分子刺伤了他，很可能是刺在喉部。列文可能是9.11众多死难者中的第一个。
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There were four airliners hijacked that day; two of them, Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, left from Logan International Airport. At 8:46 that morning, Atta flew Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
在那天有四架航班被劫持，其中的两条，11号航班和联合航空公司的175号航班，从洛根国际机场离开。在上午八点四十六分，阿塔驾驶着11号航班撞向世贸大楼北塔。
Lewin’s loss was even more difficult for Akamai because on the day he died, there was record demand for the Internet as the world went online to follow news of the attacks. At their monitors in the company’s network information center in Cambridge, Akamai technicians, in shock from the loss of their revered colleague, watched as hits on their customers’ websites surged beyond anything they’d seen before.
列文的殒命对Akamai而言是雪上加霜，因为在他死的那天互联网产生了创纪录的需求，全世界都赶着上网寻找关于袭击的新闻。在剑桥网络信息中心的显示器前，Akamai的技术员们为令人崇敬的同事的殒命而震惊，眼睁睁的看着他们客户的网站点击率上升超过了他们所曾见过的任何一次。
Sagan knew he had to take command. “I had been a TV producer in my past life,’’ he said, “so I was used to high-pressure deadline situations, where you just totally focus on making all these little decisions in front of you.’’
萨甘知道他已经接过了指挥权。“我过去曾经做过电视制片人。”他说，“所以我已经习惯了高压期限的环境，这种环境下你只是完全的关注做出你摆在你面前的这些小决定。”
He quickly addressed the company’s technicians and engineers. “Whatever you do, keep your eye focused on the network,’’ he told them, “because traffic’s going to go crazy.’’
萨甘迅速的对公司里的技术员和工程师进行了一次演讲。“不管你做什么，让你的眼睛集中在网络上。”他对他们说，“因为拥堵将会变得更加疯狂。”
Then Sagan gave one more instruction: Lewin would insist the company rise to the occasion. Do what he would do.
接下来萨甘做出了更多的指示：列文在这种时候会坚持为公司挺身而出。去做他所做的。
And they did. “Sort of through the fog and the shock,’’ said Sagan, “we just worked feverishly to run the business.’’
他们这么做了。“摸索着通过了迷雾和震荡。”萨甘说，“我们只是狂热的工作来经营业务。”
Don Marks, an Akamai engineer, spent Sept. 11 reconfiguring servers to build capacity on websites for organizations like the Red Cross and American Airlines. “All of these guys’ websites were getting completely overloaded,’’ Marks said. “It was only at the end of the day when I had a chance to breathe.’’
Akamai的工程师丹•马克思耗费了9月11日一天重新配置服务器，以提供红十字会和美国航空公司这样的组织建立网站的能力。“这些网站全都超载了。”马克思说，“一直到这一天结束我才有机会歇口气。”
Although Akamai made it through the day, the company’s financial problems were about to get worse.
尽管Akamai坚持过了那天，但是公司的财务问题仍在变得更糟。
The Internet bubble that had floated Akamai through its founding in 1998 and its initial public offering the following year had burst. The dot-com businesses that spent millions with the company were going bust. Akamai tried to reinvent itself as an Internet services supplier to the Fortune 500 - big, stable companies that pay their bills. Akamai needed to “start adding real new customers before all the other ones went away, and we ran out of money,’’ Sagan said.
让Akamai从1998年成立到次年首次公开募股不断上浮的互联网泡沫破裂了。网络行业那些花费了上百万的公司即将破产。Akamai尝试将自己重塑成网络服务提供者，为财富五百强名单上那些稳定的大公司服务。Akamai需要“在花光所有的钱、员工和投资者都离开之前找到真正的新顾客。”萨甘说。
The Sept. 11 attacks further depressed the US economy, eating into Akamai’s revenues. Investors lost confidence in the company, fearing that the loss of Lewin was irreparable. “Everyone then wrote us off completely,’’ Sagan said.
9.11恐怖袭击事件进一步削弱了美国经济，蚕食着Akamai的收入。投资者担心列文的殒命是无法弥补的，进而对Akamai公司失去了信心。 “紧接着每个人都跑来彻底的销账。”萨甘说。
Executives started citing a metric they called “quarters to live’’: how many more quarters could Akamai stay in business? The company laid off 250 workers about a month after the terrorist attacks, driving its head count down to 900. A year later, Akamai’s stock had fallen to 56 cents a share, and it cut another 145 jobs.
管理层开始使用一个被称作“季度生活”的度量标准：Akamai的业务还能维持多少个季度？公司在恐怖袭击之后的大约一个月时间里裁员了250名工人，总人数下降到900。一年后，Akamai的股票已经下跌了56美分每股，而它又削减了145个工作岗位。
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“We had to make just horrendous choices,’’ said Sagan.
“我们不得不做出一个可怕的决定。”萨甘说。
But the survivors were determined. Akamai’s Internet-boosting technology was too good of an idea to give up on. Just as important, it was Lewin’s idea. “We stayed out of stubbornness and pride at that point,’’ said Sagan. “We owed him an enormous debt for trying to be a hero. And so that’s why we all hung around.’’
但是幸存者下定了决心。Akamai的网速提高技术作为一个被放弃的想法实在是太好了。同样重要的是，这是列文的想法。“我们在这一点上都没有固执和虚荣。”萨根说，“在成为一个英雄这一点上我们都欠他一个巨大的债务，所以这就是为什么我们都挂着他的肖像。”
Lewin had left behind one more gift for Akamai, a new product he helped develop called EdgeSuite, which powered websites that were “dynamic.’’ Early Web pages were static; like a printed page, they were assembled beforehand, and everybody who clicked on them saw the same thing. Dynamic websites are put together on the spot. Click on a dynamic news site, and it will pull together a custom page from different stories, images, and ads, that changes the next time you click.
列文给Akamai留下了不止一件礼物，他参与开发的一个叫EdgeSuite的新产品给网站提供了“动态”的能力。再起的网页都是静态的，就像是一页打印出来的书，都是事前组合好的，每个人点击上的时候看到的都是一样的东西。动态网站是把网页都放在一起，当你点击动态新闻网站的时候，页面会变成一个由不同的故事、图片和广告组成的自定义页面，当你再次点击的时候又会发生新的改变。
EdgeSuite was a winner. Akamai picked up clients like retailer Target Corp. and computer maker Apple Inc., which in 2003 adopted it for the immensely popular iTunes online music store. In 2004, Akamai posted its first annual profit, and it’s been profitable every year since.
EdgeSuite是一个成功的产品。Akamai收回了一些客户，如零售商塔吉特公司和在2003年为极受欢迎的iTunes在线音乐商店使用它的电脑制造商苹果公司。在2004年，Akamai公布了它的首份年度盈利报告，从那开始它每年都盈利。
Akamai survived because of Lewin’s vision for the Internet, one he laid out in the company’s earliest days: Its technology would speed up Web pages, deliver streaming video, accelerate applications, and change the Internet as people knew it, and for good.
Akamai能存活下来得益于列文早期在公司奠定的对互联网的预测：Akamai的技术能够提高网页、流媒体的速度，为应用程序加速，改变我们所知的那个互联网，将它变得更好。
The shame is that Lewin never lived to see that last goal realized. But everyone at Akamai believes his example made it possible to build the Internet we know today - dynamic, fluid, packed with video and images, and reaching every corner of the earth.
遗憾的是列文没能活着看到最后的目标变为现实。但Akamai的每一个人都相信是他的榜样将互联网变成了我们今天看到的样子——动态、流动、由视频和图像组成的包，到达地球的每一个角落。
In the decade since Lewin’s death, Akamai has not forgotten him. His portrait, painted by the mother of an employee, hangs in the lobby of Akamai’s headquarters at 8 Cambridge Center. There’s also a plaque listing every winner of an annual award named for Lewin, and presented to employees who demonstrate his motivation and spirit - who have shown, as the award states, “the ability to move mountains.’’
在列文死去之后的十年里，Akamai从没有遗忘过他，由一位雇员的母亲绘制的肖像就悬挂在位于剑桥中心八号Akamai总部的前厅里。每一个获得了以列文的名字命名的年度奖的人的名字都被列在一个名牌上，这个奖被颁发给那些展示了其行动力，并拥有奖杯上所声明的、列文一样“移山的能力”的精神的雇员。
Marks, the engineer, was among four winners this year. So was Parimal Pandya, a global sales service executive based in Bangalore, India.
工程师马克思是这个奖今年的四个得主之一。在印位于度班加罗尔总部的全球销售服务执行官帕瑞玛•潘迪亚也名列其中。
“I met so many people who wanted to make Akamai successful for Danny,’’ said Pandya, who never met Lewin. “No challenge was too big for anybody to take on.’’
“我遇到过很多想要为了丹尼让Akamai取得成功的人。”从没有见过列文的潘迪亚说，“对于一个勇于担当的人来说，没有任何无法战胜的挑战。”
There’s a conference room at the headquarters that has the word “obstreperous’’ - one of Lewin’s favorites; it means loud and stubborn - painted on the wall, complete with definition. Another Lewinism, describing someone who did a really good job, is now the name of the online portal for Akamai’s salespeople: Titan.
在Akamai的总部有一个可以用“喧嚣”来形容的会议室，而这正是列文最喜欢的，在墙上写着它的定义：响亮和固执。另一个充满列文色彩是Akamai销售人员的在线门户网站的名字“泰坦”，这个词被用来形容某人的工作完成的非常好。
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A block away, near the MIT computer labs where Lewin and Leighton worked out their early algorithms, the intersection of Main and Vassar streets was named Danny Lewin Square in 2002, to mark the first anniversary of the attacks. That day, a tree was planted in a grassy area outside Akamai’s offices. It’s flourishing now, and there, the company marks each anniversary of Lewin’s death with a memorial service.
在一个街区之遥的麻省理工学院计算机实验室里，列文和莱顿制定了其早期的算法。离实验室不愿的缅因街和瓦萨街的交叉路口在2002年被命名为丹尼•列文广场，以纪念9.11袭击一周年。在命名那天，一棵树被种在了Akamai办公室外的草地上。这棵树茁壮成长的树记录着每年Akamai公司为纪念列文而举行的仪式。
Akamai is now under pressure again, though not nearly as severely as in 2001. Rivals have begun to match the capability of its core products, driving prices and profit margins lower. The company’s stock has declined by more than 50 percent since the start of this year.
尽管不如2001年那次严重，Akamai现在又面临压力了。竞争对手们已经开始获得与其核心产品相匹敌的能力，这降低了价格和利润率。自今年年初以来，该公司的股票已经下降了50％以上。
But there are new opportunities, as well: Akamai is bringing its customers into cloud computing, mobile computing, data security, and the delivery of HD video. And with 95,000 servers in 72 countries, and 2,200 employees, the company delivers 15 to 30 percent of all Web traffic worldwide.
不过，还有新的机会：Akamai正在帮助它的客户引入云计算、移动计算、数据安全和高清视频传输业务。凭借72个国家的95000服务器，2,200名员工，Akamai的传输服务承载了全球15％到30％的网页流量。
When he died, Lewin left Akamai a legacy of strength. “Danny changed the lives of countless people,“ said Greenberg, his friend. ”He made a lot of people rich. In every way.“
当列文死的时候，他给Akamai留下了一份强大的遗产。“丹尼改变了无数人的生活。”格林伯格说，“他让很多人变得富有。通过各种方式。”
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at [email protected].
可以通过[email protected]联系到HiawathaBray 。
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