Eh?
At what point does it become a wise idea to add a whole load of possible networking issues (on networks you don't have control over) into managing the storage inside your own business?
Seriously? Who dreams this lunacy up.
Mystery storage startup Exablox has finally uncloaked its secret project - which turned out to be a simple scale-out filer managed through a cloud-based utility. The product is called OneBlox and is managed through OneSystem, a utility service in the cloud; there is no onboard management software. The OneBlox appliance, or …
Yeah, it sounds almost as bad as managing your network security in the cloud (*coughciscocough*). Seems to be just a cheap hack that avoids rolling out proper remote administration infrastructure and lowers the hardware requirements for their boxes. Just spin the UI to the cloud and remove any meddlesome hardware that assists in local administration.
I presume it was because everything thing this product offers storage wise can be done better with Zfs at the block level for free. Replicating block level incremental snapshots to other servers (nodes), for example. Joking aside, I have no idea what, if any, advantages a object data security methodology brings to the table.
They've spent too much time and money making the rack mount appliance look pretty - well, imo, any time/money spent making it look sexy is a waste. It could be a bog standard supermicro chassis, but no, it's gotta look sexy for the brochure. Never mind it will sit in a cabinet and never (hopefully) be touched or looked at again. Adds thousands to the cost, adds nothing to the quality.
Reaaly so I try to sell storage in a market trying to change by doing exactly what everyone else has been doing for years but show how great I am by adding the latest buzz word in called "Cloud" remove some of the control the customer would have and sell it at a price too high for anyone who does not care about all this.
Maybe if they just sold the software cheaply then they would do ok? but even that model is becoming popular. I seriously cannot figure out what their plan is entering the already saturated filer market with no innovation.