EdgeCast Announces Online Storage Service

EdgeCast Networks Inc. announced its cloud storage solution, a scalable online storage offering built on the company’s distributed storage platform. The company also said it is waiving storage and transfer fees throughout the beta period.

The service enables customers to store, retrieve, secure, and serve (whether publicly or privately) data on a no-commitment, pay-as-you-go basis. It allows customers to serve their stored content using their own URLs (or EdgeCast URLs), offers many options for ingest (such as FTP and HTTP), and provides a robust security layer for private content. The service can be accessed via a user-friendly, web-based control panel.

"Building a CDN business has given us many years of experience deploying, managing, and optimizing online storage," said James Segil, co-founder and president of EdgeCast Networks. "For us, a logical next step was to open the storage platform to our customers in an easy-to-use, flexible way that saves them money and hassle."

While EdgeCast has set its initial cloud storage prices very low – the median rate is 7.5 cents per gigabyte per month – it is also waiving storage and transfer fees throughout the public beta.

The service aims to provide customers with a solution to increasing storage needs without the need to purchase, manage, or maintain drives and other devices. It is also extensible with the company’s developer-friendly REST API, enabling integration to other applications and workflows.

During the beta period, which will end no sooner than November 30, 2010, the EdgeCast Cloud Storage service is free.

While the company doesn’t anticipate doing so, it reserves the right to set storage and traffic limits.