
Introducing Object Storage - rsivapr
https://www.digitalocean.com/products/storage/object-storage/
======
zedpm
Slowly, very slowly, DO is creeping towards having enough features to peel
users off of AWS and GCP. Block storage, load balancers, and now blob
storage...if you don't need managed queues or databases, you can probably save
some serious coin by running services on DO.

S3 sets a high bar in terms of durability and availability, so it will be
interesting to see how well DO can compete, and it will take a long time to
gain the same level of trust that S3 has earned.

~~~
Arcsech
I wouldn't be surprised to see DO either roll out DaaS next or partner with
someone (Compose.io?) to do it. That's one of two things (the other being VPC,
which I know they're working on per HN posts elsewhere) that make AWS/GCP
tempting over DO for me.

That said, I kind of hope it's not Compose.io - they seem ridiculously
overpriced for PostgreSQL compared to AWS's and GCP's offerings.

~~~
tedmiston
VPC on DO is the #1 feature request that stops my team from considering it.

I use DO personally for small things and like it a lot, but VPC is a hard
requirement for company work.

~~~
raiyu
We're actively building VPC =]

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setq
If there's anything I've learned about object storage over the last year, it
is: don't use object storage unless you need it for a particularly narrow use
case of silly data volumes or CDN storage for a massively distributed content
network. Anything else, forget it.

It rarely if ever works properly with standard Linux or Windows tools (s3), it
has a rat's nest of arbitrary restrictions which require a language lawyer to
decypher (s3/iam/vpc/roles), the APIs are vendor specific and sometimes even
region specific (s3), the APIs are obtuse (s3 multipart), the clients are
buggy (boto/boto3), suddenly you inherit extra costs and configuration
requirements if you want to do something like expose it over http
(route53/cloudfront/s3), credential storage is a nightmare for distribution
compared to rsync/ssh etc. Ugh.

Please note I have used Google Storage as well and all of the above also
apply.

The only thing that is positive is capital expenditure is low.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
> credential storage is a nightmare for distribution compared to rsync/ssh.

I don't understand this argument. Why is it harder to store credentials for S3
or GCS than it is to store credentials for rsync or ssh?

~~~
setq
Because everything has no ownership, no standard place to put things and no
logical consistency.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
I think I'm even more confused now. If you're going to have an app ssh or
rsync, it's going to have a password or a private key to use that will be
associated with some account, right? And if you want to use cloud storage,
you'll also need a credential or a private key to use that will be associated
with some account, right? What's the difference?

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ocean11
There's pretty much zero information on that page, so why should I care?

~~~
raiyu
We roll out a public beta test with existing customers to ensure performance
and reliability before doing a GA release. This allows customers to use the
new product and provide feedback as well as help us to ensure a great level of
service when the product goes full GA. So it's really a way for customers to
test out new products early, but the specific details are specifically light
so that if there are any major changes in the beta period we can roll them
out.

~~~
fredsted
I think it's a little weird to say "Introducing Object Storage" when you're
not introducing anything at all. There's zero information about it!

Is it S3 compatible? Does it compete with S3? Does it supports static file
hosting? How do permissions work?

I think it would make more sense to communicate that you're looking for beta
testers for an object storage service.

~~~
raiyu
Certainly the GA release will have all of that information, but given that
large product releases like this are about a year of work, and part of the
release schedule for us is a beta test with existing customers the
introduction is basically to invite customers into the beta if they want to
participate, and also that is the final step before GA release.

Customers who want to be a part of the beta are using the actual product that
we are developing, but we don't commit to specifics publicly incase things
change, which is why it's a beta release, not GA.

------
acrosync
I'm the developer of Duplicacy
([https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy)),
a new generation cloud backup tool based on the idea of Lock-Free
Deduplication([https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/DESIGN....](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/DESIGN.md)).
Currently Duplicacy supports many cloud storages (S3, Azure, GCP, B2, etc),
and I would be very interested to build one for DO Object Storage.

Is it possible to get early developer access to the API?

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sandeep048
Incase anyone missed the recent cloud firewall announcement
[https://blog.digitalocean.com/cloud-firewalls-secure-
droplet...](https://blog.digitalocean.com/cloud-firewalls-secure-droplets-by-
default/)

This might be possible because of the advances in software defined networking.
Cloud firewall removes the hassles of setting up complex iptables in the name
of network security and frees those extra cpu cycles and memory utilization.

DigitalOcean is getting better at solving common VPS use cases. I like it :)

------
ctrlrsf
Anybody have or see pricing after early access period?

~~~
raiyu
We aren't providing pricing information till full GA which is later in the
year. All beta users will be given 1TB of free object storage during the beta
period.

~~~
justrobert
I think the lack of a pricing model and how short the free period is (until
Oct 2017) makes it hard for many users to even justify testing it.

For me it seems if a developer has to spend more than an hour testing this new
product they are better off using S3.

~~~
raiyu
Certainly if you are considering moving a production workload, then a beta
test, regardless of the company, may not be an ideal fit.

Object storage has been a highly requested feature by our customers and now
that we are getting closer to GA we want to ensure that customers get a chance
to use the product and provide feedback on usability, bugs, performance, and
etc.

~~~
justrobert
I wasn't even discussing moving production environments, just the beta test
seems to highly favor DO in terms of cost.

But that is fine, if enough users are willing to front the cost of testing.

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megamindbrian
Um. Ok, something is wrong with your UI. There is no options to use Object
Storage after signing up and required to enter a credit card. The drop down
menu font is blurry. Support page takes about 30 seconds to load.

~~~
raiyu
This is an invitation for beta access, you sign up to request access and then
and invitation to be a part of the beta access will be emailed separately.

~~~
megamindbrian
I already cancelled my account.

~~~
Tostino
I'm sure they're mourning the loss of you as a "customer".

------
pramodliv1
I wonder what technology they use under the hood. Ceph? GlusterFS? Custom
software?

~~~
safeharbourio
they chose to make their own stack afew years ago instead of going with the
already available and business friendly openstack, going by the same reasoning
and the long amount of time they took to reach here, it highly likely to be a
custom thing.

~~~
pinewurst
If OpenStack is "business-friendly" then it's very particular about who its
friends are.

~~~
zuzzurro
Can you expand?

~~~
pinewurst
My comment was a play on an old joke about Unix. My personal experience with
OpenStack is that it's a moving target, complex and unstable, a combination of
over- and under- engineering. The two large corporations that I know using it
have required almost superhuman effort to keep their OpenStack environments up
and running.

