Backblaze S3 Compatible APIs and Free Cloud to Cloud Migration From Amazon S3

By Ahin Thomas, VP marketing, Backblaze, Inc.

How to Leave AWS: Backblaze S3 Compatible APIs & Free
Cloud to Cloud Migration

Spoiler alert: At the end of this post, we announce our Cloud to Cloud Migration program-an offer to pay the transfer costs for customers that want to migrate their data from Amazon S3 to Backblaze B2 cloud storage.

YWe’re so confident in our service that we’ll pay for you to save 75% of your cloud storage bill. If you want to stop reading and start saving: Click here.

On May 4t, we released the beta version of our Backblaze S3 Compatible APIs. It was our most requested feature. We knew it was something our customers wanted. But what we’ve seen has been simply incredible – thousands of customers uploading petabytes of data to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. Today, we’re moving those S3 Compatible APIs out of beta and into availability (GA), as we continue to remove the barriers that are keeping your data locked within the cloud oligarchy.

Very compatible
Whether it’s our Storage Pod, Reed-Solomon erasure coding, or our S3 Compatible APIs, when we release something to the public, our sense of craftsmanship demands that it should work.

By moving our S3 Compatible APIs into GA, we’re announcing that you can expect a bug free, functional, and stable experience.

Our functionality and associated infrastructure is ready for global, EB scale business. Nick Craig-Wood, founder, rclone, put it well. Our Backblaze S3 compatible layer is not just compatible-according to him, it’s Very compatible.

‘Very Compatible’ means it works with your workflows
The testing suites are helpful, but what matters most is the actual experience customers are having. During the beta period, more than 1,000 unique S3-compatible tools were used by customers to interact with  Backblaze S3 compatible layer. We know this because of something called a user agent-an identifier that tells our servers what tool is being used to upload data. Our monitoring looks at the system as a whole as well as at user agents to make sure things are performing as planned.

Tools like CloudBerry, MinIO, and Synology are among the third parties that had pre-existing integrations with Backblaze but now also have customers uploading through our S3 Compatible APIs. Perhaps more notably, customers brought a variety of tools that we had not previously seen upload data to Backblaze. User agents from Commvault, Cohesity, and Veeam all register now in our internal reporting. As do many AWS SDKs and even AWS Lambda.

The recurring theme? Customers can point their existing workflows and tools at Backblaze B2 and not miss a beat.

What it means for our customers
During the beta period, we’ve seen thousands of success stories. One of our favorites comes from a company called CloudSpot, Inc., a SaaS platform offering photographers an easy way to share their work online.

CloudSpot, Inc.‘s storage infrastructure is a critical component of both their product and P&L. But, with his company scaling, Gavin Wade, CEO, realized that his data (and company) were captive to Amazon S3. As CloudSpot grew, his storage related costs threatened to turn his business upside down.

With over 700TB stored and data transfer fees starting at 9 cents/GB, he felt stuck inside of Amazon. He had to start cutting back valued functionality for his customers simply because the AWS pricing was untenable.

With B2 Cloud Storage-which is one-fourth of the cost of Amazon S3-Gavin has slashed his cloud bill, freeing up cash for critical investments in his business and team. After seeing a seamless transition for his active workflows, he migrated over 700TB from Amazon S3 to B2 Cloud Storage in less than six days. Most importantly, there was no service disruption.

“With Backblaze, we have a system for scaling infinitely. It lowers our breakeven customer volume while increasing our margins, so we can reinvest back into the business. My investors are happy. I’m happy. It feels incredible.” said Wade, founder and CEO, CloudSpot.

The CloudSpot story is a good one, but it’s just one of the many from our beta period. Customers are tired of being taxed to use their data and need a platform that will not punish them for scaling. We’re grateful that these customers are migrating to Backblaze and have accelerated the month over month growth rate of B2 Cloud Storage by more than 25%. Today, we’d like to encourage you to join those that have liberated their data while reducing their costs.

Transcend cloud oligarchy: Backblaze will pay for you to move your data
People want storage that will empower their business and they want a provider that doesn’t try to hide fine print or surprise fees. With our S3 Compatible APIs now available, they can have both, all while knowing that their tools and workflows will integrate with Backblaze B2.

But customers still need a solution for the excessive fees the cloud oligarchy charges for migrating to a cloud that is better for the customer’s business.

Today, we remove the last obstacle between you and shaving 75% off your cloud storage costs: Cloud to Cloud Migration.

And for customers that don’t want to commit to storing it for twelve months? No problem, you can still use our service to directly transfer your data from Amazon S3 to Backblaze B2 for 4 cents/GB. By month three, your storage savings will have paid for the migration.

To try Backblaze first, create an account is free, your first 10GB of storage are free, and there’s never been a better time to start.