Storj Labs Announces Production Launch and General Availability of Tardigrade, the World’s First Enterprise-grade, Decentralized Cloud Storage Service

Storj Labs announced the formal production launch and general availability of its Tardigrade Decentralized Cloud Storage Service, the world’s first decentralized cloud object storage service backed by enterprise service level agreements (SLAs). Tardigrade offers decentralized cloud object storage that’s S3 compatible, highly performant, easily implemented, exceptionally durable, and highly available-all at a fraction of the price of traditional cloud providers. With end-to-end encryption and a zero-knowledge architecture, Tardigrade offers a superior security model. 

During an extensive beta period with thousands of users and Storage Node Operators worldwide, Tardigrade achieved 100% file durability (with production SLA guarantees at 99.9999999% durability), performance on par or better than S3, and over 99.95 percent availability. To deliver this level of enterprise-grade service for Amazon S3-compatible object storage, while simultaneously leveraging the benefits of decentralization, is a first for the cloud storage industry. Combined with the superior privacy and inherent cross-geography redundancy that comes with decentralized storage, Tardigrade offers an attractive and economical alternative to traditional cloud storage. Users in need of object storage can now begin migrating their production data and backups to Tardigrade today.

“Decentralization benefits the cloud in many ways, and our first customers are already seeing how it improves security, privacy, and resiliency, while also lowering costs,” said Ben Golub, Storj Labs Executive Chairman. “As the first decentralized cloud storage service backed by enterprise SLAs, Tardigrade is poised to make a huge impact on the cloud for business of all types, our partners, customers, and end-users.”

Kafkaesque, Fluree, Verif-y, and CNCTED are among the launch partners to release Tardigrade connectors, which allow users on these platforms to easily start storing data on the decentralized cloud storage service. Through the Tardigrade Open Source Partner Program (OSPP), any open source project with a Tardigrade connector will receive a portion of the revenue generated by those users for their cloud storage bills. This helps address the challenges open source software companies have faced when trying to monetize workloads in the cloud.

“Many open source companies have attempted to address the threat of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google through new licensing models. We feel that the solution is not a new kind of license, but a new kind of cloud,” said John Gleeson, Storj Labs Vice President of Operations. “Over 80 percent of cloud workloads run on top of open source software, however these companies only receive a small percentage of the revenue. We’re pleased to launch Tardigrade into production so our open source partner program members can start generating revenue when their users store data in the cloud.”

Amazon S3-compatible applications can easily use the service by changing a few simple parameters. There is also an extensive library of bindings for some of the most popular coding languages, including Go, Android, C, .NET/Xamarin, Node.js, Swift, and Python. Developers and other cloud storage users who are interested in trying out Tardigrade can get started storing data on the platform by visiting the Tardigrade sign-up page. Users who sign up will receive 5GB of storage and bandwidth free for their first 30 days. After that, users can take advantage of Tardigrade’s affordable storage pricing, which is about half of cloud storage providers’ list prices. Through Tardigrade’s referral program, users can also earn additional credits for their bills. The platform currently has more than 19PB of available capacity, which is hosted by individuals and partners.

“Being able to monetize our underutilized infrastructure on the Storj Network is a huge opportunity for our team and our data centers,” said Frank Caruso, CloudSouth Founder and CEO. “The platform has been easy-to-use and we’re thrilled to see adoption growing, which increases revenue for the hard drive capacity we contribute to the network. The performance, security, and cost benefits delivered by Storj Labs and its Tardigrade service will help us better serve our clients.”

By using client-side encryption by default and spreading file pieces across 80 or more uncorrelated nodes, the Tardigrade platform is more secure and private than legacy cloud storage solutions, giving users the confidence that their data cannot be compromised or mined. The platform’s distributed architecture also makes it more resilient. While most cloud service providers charge a significant premium for providing cross-region support, files stored on Tardigrade are distributed across many regions by default, at no additional charge. Because any 29 of a file’s 80 pieces can be used to reconstitute a file, and since each of the 80 pieces is stored on statistically uncorrelated nodes (with separate power supplies, operators, equipment, and networks), the system is exceptionally resistant to outages or breaches, whether caused by natural disasters, human error, or malicious actors. Because the software behind Tardigrade is open source, users can be confident there are no backdoors or other hidden security vulnerabilities.

“To power the next generation of cloud applications, we need solutions that can stream in real-time, reliability store data, and scale to meet growing demands,” said Chris Bartholomew, Kafkaesque Founder. “Tardigrade combined with Kafkaesque delivers this kind of experience for our joint customers. We’re thrilled to be partnering and look forward to seeing what our users can achieve with decentralized cloud storage.”

With Tardigrade’s Open Source Partner Program, Storj Labs partners are compensated for the traffic they drive to the cloud. Many of these open source partners have seen centralized cloud storage providers use their software as a loss leader to drive business for their cloud infrastructure services. This cuts the creators of the open source software out of many revenue generation opportunities, making sustainability a challenge. Through Tardigrade connectors, usage is tracked and revenue is allocated when users of these open source software platforms store data in the cloud.