Since Jungle Disk was started our plan has been to support multiple online storage providers and give users a choice of where they want to store their data. However until recently there haven’t been any viable alternatives to Amazon S3. We’re pleased to announce that in the next release of Jungle Disk (2.6), we’ll be adding support for Rackspace Cloud Files as an option alongside Amazon S3. Like Amazon S3, Cloud Files is a distributed, replicated, Internet-scale storage service. Rackspace is the world leader in hosting and operates data centers across the US as well as in Europe and Asia.
We’re also excited to announce the pricing for Cloud Files with Jungle Disk. Cloud Files storage will cost $0.15 per gigabyte per month with no additional charges for requests or bandwidth in either direction. You only pay for the storage you use. We expect that this simplified pricing along with Rackspace’s reputation for quality and service will make Cloud Files a great option for many users.
As you may know, Rackspace is also the parent company of Jungle Disk. We’ve heard concerns from some users that supporting Cloud Files would mean dropping support for Amazon S3. That is not the case! In fact, we’re expanding our support for Amazon S3 in Jungle Disk 2.6 with support for optional integrated billing which we announced last October. Cloud Files will support integrated billing as well of course. Both services will be supported with full feature parity in Jungle Disk. In the future we also plan to allow replication between services for the ultimate level of redundancy.
More information about Jungle Disk 2.6 along with the planned release schedule will be available soon.
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EuclidJr said,
February 24, 2009 @ 11:27 am
Excellent news. So many cloud storage service use Amazon on the back end that it is almost impossible to get any kind of redundancy and even brief, unscheduled downtime can cripple a business (as has been seen with the S3 outages last year). Will 2.6 support using both Rackspace and Amazon S3 simultaneously?
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 11:41 am
@EuclidJr Yes, you’ll be able to connect to buckets (now called “Online Disks”) from both services at the same time. Note that automatic replication to both will be coming at a later date, but you can run parallel backups to both services if you don’t mind the extra bandwidth.
Mike Wills said,
February 24, 2009 @ 11:51 am
So will Rackspace allow larger files? I have video files I don’t want to loose, but will not fit on Amazon S3.
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
Currently Cloud Files has a 5GB limit as well, but we are looking to bypass that for both services in the future.
Rich Leland said,
February 24, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Can’t wait for this. The “no additional charges for requests or bandwidth in either direction” is excellent to hear.
Chris H. said,
February 24, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
Are there any plans to offer a “self-hosted storage” option?
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
For now we are just looking to support commercial cloud storage services. There is quite a bit of backup software already designed to work with your own storage / media.
Damien McKenna said,
February 24, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
Jungle Dave: how about an API / SDK to allow 3rd party developers write their own storage plugins?
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
@Damien – Can you give some examples of what you’re considering? For storage backends or frontends?
beq said,
February 24, 2009 @ 4:43 pm
That’s great news. I have so many questions but not sure where to post or if I should just wait for the rollout. BTW is it called Rackspace Cloud Files or Mosso Cloud Files?
I see that they have an arrangement to use Limelight CDN (http://www.mosso.com/cloudfiles.jsp). Does anyone have comparison of the footprint and infrastructure between Amazon S3 and Mosso Cloud Files, and between Amazon CloudFront and Limelight?
It’s funny to read on the Mosso website about applications that Cloud Files are not well suited for (http://www.mosso.com/usingfiles.jsp): native OS support, block-level backups, nested folder structures. Those are the things Jungle Disk provides (thus explaining Rackspace’s acquisition)!
Questions, if they’re allowed:
- Should I register for my own Mosso account now or do you recommend billing everything through you and using Jungle Disk’s Mosso account?
- Mosso’s website still lists outgoing bandwidth (15-22 cents per GB) and request charges. Does this mean the free requests and downloads are only for access via Jungle Disk??
- Will Jungle Disk use standard Mosso containers or be optimized to use its own format of containers (similar to JD 1.0/2.0 buckets vs Compatibility buckets on S3)? As a matter of fact, how will JD Workgroup/Reseller SUB-ACCOUNTS work on Mosso accounts??
- Will we still web access and manage our Mosso files via Jungle Disk website, or will you recommend using Mosso’s own web control panel instead (which looks rather nice based on their demo video)?
- If Jungle Disk will use its own Mosso container format and its own web access/control panel, will we still be able to use Limelight CDN (and at the same 22 cents per GB CDN bandwidth)? If not, then will there be another way to offer public file access?
- How will JD Plus/Workgroup features (upload resume, block-level, etc) work for Mosso accounts? Do you have local presence on the Mosso network (maybe via Slicehost or Mosso Cloud Servers)? Will you charge the same $1/mo and $2/mo for Plus/Workgroup users who exclusively use Mosso instead of S3?
- To confirm, JD 2.6 won’t have a way to initiate a direct copy of files from S3 to Cloud Files (without re-uploading from client), until later?
Sorry for all the questions…
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 4:54 pm
On the Limelight / CloudFront comparison, see:
http://blog.mosso.com/2009/01/top-10-reasons-why-cloud-files-limelight-offers-a-better-experience-than-s3-cloudfront/
and
http://blog.mosso.com/2009/02/a-quantitative-comparison-of-rackspace-and-amazon-cloud-storage-solutions/
On your other questions –
Jungle Disk Cloud Files storage and Mosso Cloud Files storage are separate products with separate pricing, although both based on the same Rackspace Cloud Files system. You won’t see Mosso Cloud Files containers in Jungle Disk, or Jungle Disk online disks in Mosso.
As with S3, Jungle Disk isn’t for public file access or CDN management (right now). We may have a separate announcement in that area later
The Jungle Disk Plus features will be available for Cloud Files, just as with S3 with servers running in the Rackspace datacenters. Pricing for plus remains the same, however you won’t pay the Plus bandwidth charges for Cloud Files.
Finally, JD2.6 will not directly copy from S3 to CF without re-uploading. We do plan to offer a migration service later.
beq said,
February 24, 2009 @ 5:06 pm
Ohhh, JD and Mosso are separate, that explains things
I like your smilie about a future announcement regarding public file access and CDN via Jungle Disk… gives me hope.
Double Shot #399 « A Fresh Cup said,
February 25, 2009 @ 6:25 am
[...] Cloud Files support coming soon! – Jungle Disk is getting more flexible. [...]
Todd Vierling said,
February 25, 2009 @ 11:22 am
“Jungle Disk Cloud Files storage and Mosso Cloud Files storage are separate products with separate pricing”
Ah, that explains the difference with lack of bandwidth charges. Mosso Cloud Files does indeed have bandwidth surcharges and requests; it sounds like Rackspace is banking on JungleDisk’s cache mechanism to keep the request count and bandwidth demand down. (Which isn’t a bad thing.)
beq said,
February 25, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
The simplified pricing is certainly a welcome development for consumers. This is not important, but I do wonder if Rackspace is simply positioning the two Cloud Files products for different applications and markets, or if JD and Mosso are in fact separate, competitive internal teams within Rackspace corp (as is the case inside Microsoft).
I also appreciate the helpful info on Limelight vs Amazon CloudFront comparisons. Do similar comparisons exist regarding Rackspace Cloud Files vs Amazon S3 in terms of nodes footprint and bandwidth infrastructure? I only know that the Mosso website advertises three separate locations for Cloud Files, and S3 obviously has separate rates for U.S. and Europe. But more details or latency/throughput benchmarks would be great. Especially relevant because JD users cannot use CDN (yet).
P.S. Since I already use my own S3 account, going forward I guess I will have two billing providers for my Jungle Disk usage, one from Amazon and one from JD/Rackspace. Will the monthly fees for JD Plus and Workgroup/Reseller be included in the Amazon or Rackspace bill?
There also seems to be a paradigm change. With the original S3 buckets, Jungle Disk advertises customers owning their own data account and the possibility to develop or use 3rd party tools to retain access to their existing data in the event of Jungle Disk insolvency. That is obviously not the case with a dedicated JD Cloud Files product which is not offered outside of Jungle Disk (not even via Mosso). But then again the environment has changed. Since Jungle Disk is now part of Rackspace, we can have confidence in the parent company’s longevity just as we do with Amazon…
Brad said,
February 25, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
Nice to see you expanding!
A clean migration path to Cloud Files that does not require me to re-upload all of my data would be very very important if I am to ever consider switching.
Also, a way to replicate my backup (preferably a selected portion only) to both would be very appealing.
Jungle Dave said,
February 25, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
@beq – The CloudFiles usage charges will be on the same Jungle Disk bill as JD+ and Workgroup subscriptions.
Also, we are still planning on releasing code to let you get to your JD files on Cloud Files outside of Jungle Disk, although I would agree that the insolvency concern should be significantly lessened now.
Mosso: The Hosting Cloud » Blog Archive » Welcome to the Jungle! The Rackspace Cloud Welcomes Jungle Disk to the Family said,
February 25, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
[...] president of Jungle Disk, posted the first public announcement about this release yesterday on the Jungle Disk Blog. With this release, Jungle Disk customers will soon be able to select between Amazon S3 and [...]
Luka Kladaric said,
February 25, 2009 @ 11:40 pm
“Pricing for plus remains the same, however you won’t pay the Plus bandwidth charges for Cloud Files.”
does that mean you get Plus features for a flat fee of $1/mo? so the *complete* monthly bill is $1 + storage used @ $0.15/GB ? that sounds too good to be true :/
I like the “Previous Versions” functionality, tho I have not actually tried it… where can one see which “previous versions” are being kept for his data set, and track storage use by those previous versions? I’m a bit worried they might secretly rack up the bill… :S
is the 2.6 release days or weeks away? (yes, patience is NOT one of my virtues)
P.S: bought JD over a year ago, misunderstood the properietary format (wanted to use it to quickly share files with others), was disappointed and forgot about it… glad to try it again because i’m *VERY* impressed now… can’t wait for 2.6
Jungle Dave said,
February 26, 2009 @ 11:29 am
@Luka – Yes, that’s correct on the pricing.
You can find the previous versions under the ~VersionArchive directory on the root of your drive, and manually remove files if desired (beyond the automatic cleanup settings).
We haven’t announced a schedule for the 2.6 release, it will depend on how testing goes, but the software is now in private beta.
qwik3r said,
February 27, 2009 @ 12:56 am
With the addition of cloud support will this then compare to dropbox or sugarsync in which we have a virtual drive that syncs across multiple platforms? I desperately wanted to keep jungledisk for this purpose since I already am paying for amazon s3, i just wished that jd didn’t charge for requests, but with this new addition it sounds great, please correct me if i am wrong in understanding this future update.
Keng said,
February 27, 2009 @ 11:17 am
MAN!!! How exciting! I’m totally moving my stuff to the JD-CF and dumping my Amazon account! I’ll also be using the USB version much more since I don’t have to worry about the bandwidth charges just the bandwidth speed!
thanks!
Mark said,
February 27, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
Will this be encrypted as Amazon is?
Jungle Dave said,
February 27, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
@qwik3r – The Jungle Disk virtual drive is already kept in sync between multiple computers. Note that it doesn’t sync copies of the files to your local drive like those other products, it’s a true virtual drive.
@Mark – Yes, absolutely. Same options as with S3.
beq said,
February 27, 2009 @ 4:47 pm
What’s the naming convention for JD Cloud Files online disks, and will it share the same namespace as JD/S3 buckets? I ask for both JD/JD+ and JD Workgroup accounts.
Jungle Dave said,
February 27, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
Internally, the JD Cloud Files support uses the same object naming scheme as the JD2.0 format used with S3.
Potential customer said,
February 28, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Will European online disks be supported with Cloud Files + JD? (Just like with Amazon)
Jungle Dave said,
February 28, 2009 @ 2:46 pm
Currently Cloud Files only has US endpoints, but once they add European datacenters we will support it there as well.
Jon Tara said,
March 1, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
Jungle Dave said,
February 24, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
“For now we are just looking to support commercial cloud storage services. There is quite a bit of backup software already designed to work with your own storage / media.”
That’s too bad, as I think you miss the point.
Why have two backup solutions? It’s more desirable to have one.
Everybody in the cloud space seems to have a tight focus on “what’s cool” and ignores “what’s practical”.
I’m looking for a good cross-platform backup solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux. First, CrashPlan looked great. I can backup to their (proprietary) server, to my own server, or to a friend’s server. Only one catch – no backup sets. You select ONE set of files to backup, and it is sent to ALL of the destinations you select.
That’s not practical. I don’t want to back-up hundreds of gigabytes to a cloud server. I want to back-up hundreds of gigabytes (my media files) locally, and maybe a couple of gig (my user directories sans media, my SVN data, etc.) to a cloud.
So, I discovered JungleDisk. Backup sets, great! Only I can’t backup locally, just to the cloud.
Again, not practical.
These products all sound great until you dig into the details. Then, they don’t deal well with practical, everyday situations. They are focused on one thing: they are a hammer for the nails the publisher sells. Guess what? You can’t build a house out of nothing but nails, and you can’t do it with just a hammer, either.
The only thing I’ve found that will do what I want is Zmanda. But that’s some pretty costly Enterprise software. (The “community” Amanda doesn’t do cloud backup).
Since I do basically have only two backup sets I can get away with using both CrashPlan and JungleDisk. But it’s a ridiculous kludge. It would be fairly easy for either publisher to provide a solution for this, and I don’t think my situation is unique at all – in fact, I think it is close to the norm. It’s just that everybody has an axe to grind, and it isn’t one that’s useful to anybody else.
Jon Tara said,
March 1, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
Jungle Dave said,
February 27, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
“The Jungle Disk virtual drive is already kept in sync between multiple computers. Note that it doesn’t sync copies of the files to your local drive like those other products, it’s a true virtual drive.”
Another example of tunnel-vision thinking. How about notebooks? How about notebooks when you are off the net? How about notebooks when you’re on the net but in a particular place where you are saddled with a slow connection?
How hard would it be to provide an option? Sync or virtual? (Or cached).
Jungle Dave said,
March 1, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
@Jon – If there was sufficient demand for adding local backup as well we might consider it, but to date we have gotten very few requests in that area.
On the otherhand, offline support for the virtual disk as well as two-way sync are features we’ve gotten many requests for and are considering adding in a future release.
Jungle Disk isn’t a static product – it will continue to grow based on user feedback, and we appreciate your insight.
Mark Barnes said,
March 4, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
@Jungle Dave: This is great news, but similar to Jon Tara, I’d like to request FTP and network drive support. For example, at work I currently use BeyondCompare to backup workstations to the server, and then JD to backup the server to S3. I’d switch to JD for Workgroups if I could use JD to backup to a network share in addition to S3.
Similarly, at home I backup locally to an NAS device (using GoodSync), and to S3 for redundancy/offsite. I’d rather not use two programs, and it would be great to have changed/deleted files backup up locally, too. I also backup some files to an FTP server because I have 50GB unused FTP space, so it saves my S3 bill. Again, I’d love to use JD to do this, but can’t.
David McGregor said,
March 6, 2009 @ 1:48 am
@Jungle Dave: Hi, I’d also like to request the option to do a local backup as I currently use two backup programs (including jungledisk) as well.
Will said,
March 6, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
@Jungle Dave -
I’m anxiously awaiting Mosso support. When’s it gonna release? Been kept in anticipation for a few months now
BobJ said,
March 12, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
if one starts an account is there a way to speed up the initial backup by sending a had drive or tape?
Robert said,
May 19, 2009 @ 12:22 am
I like the idea, but will it come to the WHS version?
Chad said,
September 13, 2009 @ 11:36 am
I would also be very interested in local backup options as well. I am a home user with 50GB being backed up to S3 using Jungle Disk. I also have roughly 5TB that I backup locally using SyncBackSE. I much prefer the backup/restore interface of Jungle Disk and would love to be able to use it to backup to multiple local drives as well. For example, I would like to mirror each drive (with versions) to a local drive and an have an off-site backup of truly important files. This would make restorations much easier as well since I wouldn’t be digging through the version history in two different programs trying to decide which one I want to restore.
Please consider this for the near future as I think it would help a lot of people accomplish what they need.
Jason said,
September 23, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
Ditto on the desire for local backup option. What you currently have is great, but you’re missing a key function. I’m shopping around and that is important. If you guys had this I’d already be a user.