When we posted our ParaScale Fact Check blog post earlier, it was specifically oriented to a situation where there were specific, unsupported claims by ParaScale.
A fact check should be based on facts, not marketing claims or opinions.
The claim that ParaScale offers Web services APIs, among other claims, initiated our response. Now, ParaScale not only does not have them, but claims that you should not use them, unless and until there are S3 APIs. Furthermore, they have now initiated a Mezeo fact check. Except they are making marketing claims, they do not, nor can they offer "facts" that are claims by Mezeo that are not in fact true.
Here are their claims and our responses:
Mezeo does not give you the storage economics to compete with Amazon.
Mezeo response: ask our many customer references in the hosting industry, they are competing and winning against Amazon. By the way, we came from the hosting industry, and we know how much it costs to host storage. They don't state a fact, this is their opinion, and it is unsupported by facts.
Mezeo is not adaptable to your customer's data access needs of standard protocols.
Mezeo response: We have offered WebDAV support since Q1 of this year, our Windows Native client has been available since we launched our company, as well as REST APIs. CIFS and NFS are easily with the scope of our capabilities, and we will be advising our customers and prospects of our plans in this area. It is unclear to me that this demonstrates a "lack of adaptability".
It is simply proprietary REST API with custom clients.
Mezeo response: This is not a fact. In fact, we now have to fact check ParaScale again. The Mezeo platform offers significant, extensible services that go beyond those on competitive public cloud offerings. These include secure sharing, public sharing, collaboration, tagging, notifications, permissions, and numerous other services that make Mezeo a desired platform for Web developers. Our SPML based provisioning integration; APIs for billing and bandwidth utilization, and Acceptable Use Management further differentiate the offering. Many consider our ability to accommodate both industry standard file systems and clustered file systems (like ParaScale, for example) for the storage target of a Mezeo based cloud as an advantage. You can mix and match storage offerings in a Mezeo cloud to achieve different offerings of price, performance and availability, all on a single infrastructure. Finally, access, via APIs, WebDAV and our white label clients are a critical differentiator, and we deliver all of this today!
PROPRIETARY REST API: With an understanding of REST and APIs, you understand that this is not the critical issue. The critical issue is that Web developers want to develop against platforms that offer REST APIs. The minimal changes required on the APIs to move from one cloud to another has never been raised as an issue of significance, versus the services and features of specific clouds.
To this very point, Lydia Leong of Gartner, in a recent blog post, asks the question: Are Multiple Cloud APIs Bad?
Mezeo is also engaged with the SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Working Group (I talk about the group here) to work with the industry to sort out the requirements for APIs that will allow for transportability, and there are other vendors that build wrappers that provide for easy portability amongst APIs.
Finally, here's an opinion: if I were calling myself cloud storage for the IT hosting industry, and I did not offer REST Web Services APIs, I would likely argue that they are not needed, or at least that they are the wrong ones if they are not like S3. When I am with my colleagues in the Web Hosting Industry, they find this argument against APIs amusing to say the least, and that's a fact you'll have to accept my opinion on!
A fact check should be based on facts, not marketing claims or opinions.
The claim that ParaScale offers Web services APIs, among other claims, initiated our response. Now, ParaScale not only does not have them, but claims that you should not use them, unless and until there are S3 APIs. Furthermore, they have now initiated a Mezeo fact check. Except they are making marketing claims, they do not, nor can they offer "facts" that are claims by Mezeo that are not in fact true.
Here are their claims and our responses:
Mezeo does not give you the storage economics to compete with Amazon.
Mezeo response: ask our many customer references in the hosting industry, they are competing and winning against Amazon. By the way, we came from the hosting industry, and we know how much it costs to host storage. They don't state a fact, this is their opinion, and it is unsupported by facts.
Mezeo is not adaptable to your customer's data access needs of standard protocols.
Mezeo response: We have offered WebDAV support since Q1 of this year, our Windows Native client has been available since we launched our company, as well as REST APIs. CIFS and NFS are easily with the scope of our capabilities, and we will be advising our customers and prospects of our plans in this area. It is unclear to me that this demonstrates a "lack of adaptability".
It is simply proprietary REST API with custom clients.
Mezeo response: This is not a fact. In fact, we now have to fact check ParaScale again. The Mezeo platform offers significant, extensible services that go beyond those on competitive public cloud offerings. These include secure sharing, public sharing, collaboration, tagging, notifications, permissions, and numerous other services that make Mezeo a desired platform for Web developers. Our SPML based provisioning integration; APIs for billing and bandwidth utilization, and Acceptable Use Management further differentiate the offering. Many consider our ability to accommodate both industry standard file systems and clustered file systems (like ParaScale, for example) for the storage target of a Mezeo based cloud as an advantage. You can mix and match storage offerings in a Mezeo cloud to achieve different offerings of price, performance and availability, all on a single infrastructure. Finally, access, via APIs, WebDAV and our white label clients are a critical differentiator, and we deliver all of this today!
PROPRIETARY REST API: With an understanding of REST and APIs, you understand that this is not the critical issue. The critical issue is that Web developers want to develop against platforms that offer REST APIs. The minimal changes required on the APIs to move from one cloud to another has never been raised as an issue of significance, versus the services and features of specific clouds.
To this very point, Lydia Leong of Gartner, in a recent blog post, asks the question: Are Multiple Cloud APIs Bad?
"... I believe that it's too early in the market to seek commoditization. Universal commitment to a particular API at this point clamps standardized functionality within a least-common-denominator range, and it restricts the implementation possibilities, to the detriment of innovation. As long as there is rapid innovation and the market continues to offer a slew of new features -- something which I anticipate will continue at least through the end of 2011 and likely beyond -- standardization is going to be of highly limited benefit."
Mezeo is also engaged with the SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Working Group (I talk about the group here) to work with the industry to sort out the requirements for APIs that will allow for transportability, and there are other vendors that build wrappers that provide for easy portability amongst APIs.
Finally, here's an opinion: if I were calling myself cloud storage for the IT hosting industry, and I did not offer REST Web Services APIs, I would likely argue that they are not needed, or at least that they are the wrong ones if they are not like S3. When I am with my colleagues in the Web Hosting Industry, they find this argument against APIs amusing to say the least, and that's a fact you'll have to accept my opinion on!
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