E-tailer Amazon has launched a web-based storage service, which has received a warm welcome from many channel watchers.

Amazon claimed that S3, which operates through the online giant’s Web Services division, enables software developers to take advantage of a low-latency data storage facility from anywhere on the internet.

Andy Jassy, vice-president of Amazon Web Services, said: “It [S3] helps free developers from worrying about where they are going to store data, whether it will be safe and secure, the costs associated with server maintenance, or whether they have enough storage available.”

The service enables end-users to write, read and delete objects containing between one and five gigabytes of data each, while the number of objects that can be stored is un-

limited. Each object is also stored and retrieved via a user-assigned key. Jassy added that Amazon S3 is based on the idea that ‘quality’ internet-based storage should be taken for granted.

Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst firm Quocirca, said: “An online storage facility is a great idea that will sit well with the consumer and SME sectors.

“Some VARs have already tried this idea, but storage speeds over the internet have been a problem in the past. Resellers should give online storage a second chance, but look closely at data storage and transfer speeds to ensure they satisfy end-user requirements.”

Adriaan Serfontein, chief technical architect at storage integrator and consultancy VAR Posetiv Computing, said: “Amazon’s model is probably best-suited to consumers and SMEs. From a VAR perspective, online storage would be best-suited to a different type of data from that stored on tape or disk.”

james_sherwood@vnu.co.uk