Amazon may be first with unlimited online storage... yes Amazon!

Bob Russell · 03-14-2006, 12:07 PM

There have been rumors about various huge online storage services to be offered by Google. In fact, all the online service talk seems to be centered around Google, with surrounding chatter about Microsofts renewed search momentum, and Yahoo's desire to open up its APIs. But everyone has thought Google is the one that can "get 'er done." Recently, there's even talk about how they will open up a marketplace that will render eBay a relic.

According to a Business week blog post, the company is set to make an announcement this morning that will shake things up and could make Amazon one of the contenders for dominance of the online business platform world.

And that's what all these search engine and online applications and portal wars are all about aren't they? Control of the platform where business of the 21st century is conducted. No wonder Microsoft is so worried. Their toe in the search and portal and online application is just the beginning of the related Microsoft initiatives. They have been working for years to take over identity verification systems, and spam control (via identities), and even working really hard to build a development platform for web-based apps. Are those things random efforts, just to follow the current needs. I'd say absolutely not. They want to corner the business platform for the next couple of decades as much or more than Amazon, Google, Yahoo and others.

So out of the blue, we now find that it may be Amazon, not Google, that opens up the doors to an unlimited storage service first. They are likely to be providing services to businesses or consumers that includes both online storage and eventually they are probably aiming to become a one-stop service for all your needs for doing online business. They want to become the business platform on the web.

Can they do it? I don't know, but they are definitely a large-scale web-based successful technology business. And there's a lot at stake. You never know.

Update:It's already announced! See next post in this thread.

Bob Russell · 03-14-2006, 12:11 PM

Looks like it's already announced! Here it is... Amazon S3 Storage Service a "Simple Storage Service for Software Developers" launched by Amazon Web Services.

From that announcement, "Amazon Web Services today announced 'Amazon S3(TM),' a simple storage service that offers software developers a highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage infrastructure at very low costs. Amazon S3 is available today at http://aws.amazon.com/s3.

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It's designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers."

Alexander Turcic · 03-14-2006, 12:53 PM

I haven't read the details yet, but whenever I see "unlimited" I get suspicious.

Bob Russell · 03-14-2006, 01:20 PM

In this case, it's a pay as you go. It will cost you. It really looks like a professional service, not for the "gmail" crowd.

Pricing
* Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee, and no start-up cost.
* $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used.
* $0.20 per GB of data transferred.
(Amazon S3 is sold by Amazon Digital Services, Inc.)

So, let's take a really rough wild guess at typical usage:

If you calculate it out for a year assuming one gig of storage and 2 gig uploaded data writes, plus once to populate it, and downloaded on average one gig every month to read it (usage will obviously vary greatly and you don't usually read every bit, but some get read often), you get something like...

$2.60 / gig / year =
(12 x $0.15) storage + (3 x $0.20) write access + (12 x $0.20) read access

If you really wanted to use this to run a large, but not too high transaction business, maybe you have 1TB for less than $3,000 per year. Depending on your access and what services they provide, that seems like it could be a reasonable alternative for some people.

I didn't read through to check on backup or redundancy or disaster recovery services, but it would be natural to expect those as add-on services.

Anyone out there in charge of corporate storage, who can give us a feel for how the pricing looks?

Alexander Turcic · 03-14-2006, 01:39 PM

Do they guarantee for fail-safe backups?

You can get your own server with a 160GB HDD and 1TB bandwidth/mnth already for around $100/mnth. But it's your responsibility to take care of backing up the data.

cervezas · 03-14-2006, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander

You can get your own server with a 160GB HDD and 1TB bandwidth/mnth already for around $100/mnth. But it's your responsibility to take care of backing up the data.

Plus, how will it scale when you grow to need terabytes of storage or bandwidth? And will it have the up-time guarantee of Amazon? This isn't meant to be a service for running a blog or web forum: it's to enable small software development companies to deliver the kind of reliability/security/fault tolerance/performance for their web services that were previously only available to the Amazons and Googles of the world. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for companies like mine that would rather concentrate on writing interesting software solutions than architecting and administering a server farm.

Alexander Turcic · 03-15-2006, 09:39 AM

Some code samples how to integrate Amazon S3 in your own applications:

http://developer.amazonwebservices.c...?categoryID=47

jas_tech06 · 04-04-2006, 02:40 AM

The common people who need data storage for their ripped CD collections, downloaded music and movies, large image from their digital cameras will not find this solution from Amazon that impressive. I think this solution looks some thing which is tailor made for developers alone. So this cannot be really termed as an online storage service. IBackup has been pretty impressive in this segment. This online storage service has been there from the early dot com days.

rene_tech07 · 04-06-2006, 08:40 AM

I do remember this online storage service.

It has the ability to stream and play your media files directly from the online account. It also has some useful features like the “Image Gallery” by which you can view your photo images as thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnails takes you to an enlarged view of the same image. Another important feature is that you have options to generate secure share links of your files and mail them across to share with your friends and partners.

This service is really fast and reliable to go with. Try do have a free trial.

03-14-2006, 12:07 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Amazon may be first with unlimited online storage... yes Amazon! There have been rumors about various huge online storage services to be offered by Google. In fact, all the online service talk seems to be centered around Google, with surrounding chatter about Microsofts renewed search momentum, and Yahoo's desire to open up its APIs. But everyone has thought Google is the one that can "get 'er done." Recently, there's even talk about how they will open up a marketplace that will render eBay a relic. According to a Business week blog post, the company is set to make an announcement this morning that will shake things up and could make Amazon one of the contenders for dominance of the online business platform world. And that's what all these search engine and online applications and portal wars are all about aren't they? Control of the platform where business of the 21st century is conducted. No wonder Microsoft is so worried. Their toe in the search and portal and online application is just the beginning of the related Microsoft initiatives. They have been working for years to take over identity verification systems, and spam control (via identities), and even working really hard to build a development platform for web-based apps. Are those things random efforts, just to follow the current needs. I'd say absolutely not. They want to corner the business platform for the next couple of decades as much or more than Amazon, Google, Yahoo and others. So out of the blue, we now find that it may be Amazon, not Google, that opens up the doors to an unlimited storage service first. They are likely to be providing services to businesses or consumers that includes both online storage and eventually they are probably aiming to become a one-stop service for all your needs for doing online business. They want to become the business platform on the web. Can they do it? I don't know, but they are definitely a large-scale web-based successful technology business. And there's a lot at stake. You never know. Update:It's already announced! See next post in this thread.

03-14-2006, 12:11 PM	#2
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Amazon Announcement Looks like it's already announced! Here it is... Amazon S3 Storage Service a "Simple Storage Service for Software Developers" launched by Amazon Web Services. From that announcement, "Amazon Web Services today announced 'Amazon S3(TM),' a simple storage service that offers software developers a highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage infrastructure at very low costs. Amazon S3 is available today at http://aws.amazon.com/s3. Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It's designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers."

03-14-2006, 01:20 PM	#4
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Amazon S3 Pricing In this case, it's a pay as you go. It will cost you. It really looks like a professional service, not for the "gmail" crowd. Pricing * Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee, and no start-up cost. * $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used. * $0.20 per GB of data transferred. (Amazon S3 is sold by Amazon Digital Services, Inc.) So, let's take a really rough wild guess at typical usage: If you calculate it out for a year assuming one gig of storage and 2 gig uploaded data writes, plus once to populate it, and downloaded on average one gig every month to read it (usage will obviously vary greatly and you don't usually read every bit, but some get read often), you get something like... $2.60 / gig / year = (12 x $0.15) storage + (3 x $0.20) write access + (12 x $0.20) read access If you really wanted to use this to run a large, but not too high transaction business, maybe you have 1TB for less than $3,000 per year. Depending on your access and what services they provide, that seems like it could be a reasonable alternative for some people. I didn't read through to check on backup or redundancy or disaster recovery services, but it would be natural to expect those as add-on services. Anyone out there in charge of corporate storage, who can give us a feel for how the pricing looks?

04-04-2006, 02:40 AM	#8
jas_tech06 Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 12 Join Date: Apr 2006 Device: Nokia 6610	is that online storage? The common people who need data storage for their ripped CD collections, downloaded music and movies, large image from their digital cameras will not find this solution from Amazon that impressive. I think this solution looks some thing which is tailor made for developers alone. So this cannot be really termed as an online storage service. IBackup has been pretty impressive in this segment. This online storage service has been there from the early dot com days.

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03-14-2006, 12:53 PM	#3
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	I haven't read the details yet, but whenever I see "unlimited" I get suspicious.

03-14-2006, 01:39 PM	#5
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Do they guarantee for fail-safe backups? You can get your own server with a 160GB HDD and 1TB bandwidth/mnth already for around $100/mnth. But it's your responsibility to take care of backing up the data.

03-15-2006, 09:39 AM	#7
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Some code samples how to integrate Amazon S3 in your own applications: http://developer.amazonwebservices.c...?categoryID=47

04-06-2006, 08:40 AM	#9
rene_tech07 Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 12 Join Date: Apr 2006	I do remember this online storage service. It has the ability to stream and play your media files directly from the online account. It also has some useful features like the “Image Gallery” by which you can view your photo images as thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnails takes you to an enlarged view of the same image. Another important feature is that you have options to generate secure share links of your files and mail them across to share with your friends and partners. This service is really fast and reliable to go with. Try do have a free trial.

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