DreamObjects, DreamHost’s scalable cloud storage solution built atop Ceph, is now available to the general public. DreamObjects offers APIs compatible with Amazon S3 and Swift, making data migrations (in or out) fairly easy. And to celebrate the announcement, DreamHost is offering introductory pricing for new customers.
The normal cost of DreamObjects is $0.07 USD per gigabyte of storage, plus $0.07 USD per gigabyte transferred out; but new customers can get 100GB of storage and 100GB of outbound transfer for free for 30 days. Customers who elect to pay for a year of storage, as opposed to a month-by-month plan, can get a 50 percent discount. Also of note is that DreamObjects imposes no charges on API requests.
And interestingly, if you sign up for DreamHost’s multi-factor authentication, you’ll get 1GB free storage added to your account. One gig might not seem like much, but I really like the idea of rewarding customers for choosing enhanced security options for their accounts.
DreamHost’s strategy with DreamObjects is an interesting one. On one hand, the storage technology in Ceph is extremely interesting, but they’re not making too big a deal about that. Instead, DreamHost is really pushing the easy-to-understand pricing model, and comparing it to their competitor’s more complex pricing plans. For casual developers, or people just looking for a bucket to store data, this seems like a good strategy.
