Another Rackspace Customer Does Storage on Amazon's S3

• By Isabel Wang on December 06, 2006

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TechCrunch reports that Smartsheet.com, a web-based project management service, is about to release new Amazon S3-powered storage capabilities:

"Previously, the company's server was located in Dallas, Texas but with the new capability to share files and send attachments, Smartsheet needed horsepower from Amazon. S3 gives developers access to storage to run their own global network, which Smartsheet needed for its December release. The new version allows users to attach documents from a hard drive or server, and send emails updates about any changes made to a document."

Where in Dallas, you ask? I did a traceroute, which terminated at Rackspace. (Just last week, I read that Webmail.us, another Rackspace customer, is also using S3 for storage.) According to Smartsheet developer Todd Fasulo:

"To clarify, we have integrated the S3 service for doc storage to our existing SAS-70 certified environment in Dallas, TX. The S3 service is used to store documents attached to Smartsheets. (It's really fast...)"

Bill Boebel from Webmail.us says he loves Rackspace. I'm sure Todd from Smartsheet does too. I was once a Rackspace customer, and their service is totally outstanding. But is Fanatical Support enough? Bill insists that his use of S3 demonstrates Amazon's success but absolutely not Rackspace's failure. On the other hand, he acknowleges in the same blog post that "yes, our use of Amazon S3 displaced our use of Rackspace's managed backups".

Yes, Bill signed up with Amazon mainly for its web services stack, an offering that's not within Rackspace's core competency. In which case, should Rackspace partner with Amazon and get a cut on these deals?

PS - Another TechCrunch reader commented that "I wish someone would start web hosting based on Amazon S3. The same pricing with CPanel, FTP, etc." That actually isn't possible. S3 offers only storage with no processing power. But apparently utility pricing does have appeal. So might it make sense for Mosso to offer pay-per-use pricing on "the system"?

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