Talked to a startup the other day that looks interesting – Zettar. It wasn’t the name that caught my attention.

Object storage is big in clouds. But objects aren’t compatible with standard apps: Powerpoint expects files, not objects.

Cloudstores like Amazon and Azure aren’t compatible with each other. Lock-in.

And you can’t run an internal cloud that is compatible with them either – they won’t sell you their software.

Double-secret lock-in.

Zettar founder Chin Fang’s idea is 2-fold.

  • A virtual file system that front-ends several cloud services.
  • Software that duplicates server-side cloud storage services.

The pitch:

The Zettar ZCloud Virtual Appliance (ZCloud) enables you to setup an Amazon S3 sandbox instantly on any computer, even a tiny netbook. Developers and QA engineers can use it to prototype, analyze, test, and stage a cloud application locally, before rolling it out onto Amazon Web Services (AWS). Thus, ZCloud can improve, simplify and speed up your development, and minimize AWS S3 development costs.

The StorageMojo take
Seems like a good idea. And Chin’s team did a good job on their web site.

Domesticating cloud storage will be a continuing process for the next 10 years. Zettar’s Z-cloud is a good start.

If you try out their software please tell us how it goes, I’m sure others would be interested.

Courteous comments welcome, of course. Don’t confuse Zettar with cloud NAS provider Zetta a cloud enterprise NAS provider who just raised another $11.5 million. I like them too.