Being on the geekier side of the spectrum (as my wife is happy to remind me as I am hooking a Mac Mini up to our TV), I really like hearing about the inner workings of the software that we use. Too often things are dumbed down so much that they aren’t actually saying anything.
SpiderOak, an online backup and sync provider that I mentioned before, has no such problem on their blog.
Take for example their most recent post: Why and How SpiderOak architecture is different than other online storage services: The surprising consequences on database design from our Zero-Knowledge Approach to privacy.
It goes to great length talking about why they designed the system like they did, and what some of the advantages and disadvantages are. How often do you hear about software companies bringing up their disadvantages?
That said, a surprising benefit is the implications for total service cost. You may have noticed that SpiderOak offers some of the best pricing per gigabyte for online storage available anywhere. There are other factors contributing to this, but it definitely helps that SpiderOak clients handle most of the database work. The server’s role is mostly relegated to data storage and retrieval. This lets us focus on building servers with very dense storage without the need for high speed databases and lots of system memory to run them in. (Although some of those needs reappear for servicing functions like Web-Access and SpiderOak Shares.)
For us, regardless of the advantages and drawbacks of the decisions we made, the choice has always been clear. We set out to build a backup system we ourselves felt comfortable using which is why zero-knowledge privacy was always the right path for us.
The post is a good read and gives the impression (hopefully true) that SpiderOak knows what they are doing.
Anyone else have any geeky software company blog posts they want to share? Let us know in the comments.