Scality S3 Server Open Source Software Into Ring V6

Scality, Inc. announced the availability release of its S3 Server software, an open source version of its S3 API.

S3 Connector and RING for secure, scalable storage for range of applications

Packaged as a Docker container to be deployed on a single server, the S3 Server will enable developers to code to the S3 API locally, and even to extend the API should they need it.

Enterprises can leverage the S3 Server to accelerate time-to-market of cloud applications without having to first decide where the application will be deployed in production. Applications developed with the S3 Server will be freely deployable on premises, on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Cloud, or both – without changing a line of code.

“S3 has become the de-facto standard API for digital business applications to store unstructured data, but until now there was no easy solution to locally develop and test an application that can be deployed at web-scale,” said Jérôme Lecat, CEO, Scality. “This version of our S3 API has been packaged as an S3 Server in a Docker container and is extremely easy to deploy, even on a laptop. The Scality S3 Server is the same code as the version that can be deployed in production for billions of objects and petabytes of storage with the Scality RING Version 6.”

“Scality is at the forefront of enabling storage for the digital transformation. The new Scality S3 Server is a great entry point into that transformation,” said Travis Vigil, executive director, Dell, Inc. storage. “Dell works with Scality to deliver the Dell SD7000-S – the only and densest purpose-built appliance for Scality’s object storage solutions. The Scality S3 Server is a simple and free way to get started with object storage. When they’re ready for production, users can easily repoint their applications to Dell’s solution for continuous data availability, non-disruptive upgrades, and linear scaling up to dozens of petabytes.”

The S3 Server is written in Node.js and offers rich S3 API features and fast bucket listing. It offers S3 API compatibility, allowing application developers to utilize the full set of AWS S3 language-specific bindings and wrappers, including SDKs for Java, .NET, Javascript, and Go, to simplify coding. The new offering uses Docker volumes for storage, and can be used for pilot and production deployment of several hundreds of terabytes. Both free and paid support options are available on Docker Hub and Github, and at the S3 Server portal. For companies that require a commercially supported version of the Scality S3 Server, the Enterprise Edition is available as a subscription for $950 per month, per server.

“We have been using the Scality RING in production for close to 6 years. To date, when we had applications that needed storage, we would typically target a file system. With the S3 Server we now have a simple way to help develop applications that work with S3 and object storage, which will give us more business and deployment flexibility,” said Stef Van Dessel, chief engineer, Telenet.

“Design new applications with RESTful Web services in mind even if you start off using traditional protocols for unstructured data to incorporate a shared-nothing approach to application scalability and bimodal IT,” recommended Raj Bala, research director, Gartner, Inc.*

“We decided to open source the code of our S3 server implementation so that developers around the globe can benefit from an instant S3 test and dev environment either directly on their laptop or running on a container service in the cloud. We are convinced that this server software will be used by the creative community in many ways that we have not envisioned, and which in turn will develop the value and accessibility of object storage,” said Giorgio Regni, CTO, Scality.

* Gartner, Choosing the Right Storage for Cloud-Native Applications, Raj Bala, 06 July 2015 (5 pages, $195)