Backblaze has added Event Notification data change alerts to its cloud storage so that such events can be dealt with faster by triggering automated workflows.
The fast-growing B2 Cloud Storage provides S3-compliant storage for less money than Amazon S3 and with no egress charges. AWS offers a Simple Queue Service (SQS) designed for microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications, enabling customers to connect components together using message queues. An S3 storage bucket can be configured to send notifications for specific events, such as object creation, to SQS and so on to SQS queue-reading services, which in turn can inform upstream applications to trigger processing.
Gleb Budman, Backblaze CEO and chairperson, said: “Companies increasingly want to leverage best-of-breed providers to grow their business, versus being locked into the traditional closed cloud providers. Our new Event Notifications service unlocks the freedom for our customers to build their cloud workflows in whatever way they prefer.”
This statement was a direct shot at AWS, as evidenced by an allied customer quote from Oleh Aleynik, senior software engineer and co-founder at CloudSpot, who said: “With Event Notifications, we can eliminate the final AWS component, Simple Queue Service (SQS), from our infrastructure. This completes our transition to a more streamlined and cost-effective tech stack.”
Event Notifications can be triggered by data upload, update, or deletion, with alerts sent to users or external cloud services. Backblaze says this supports the expanding use of serverless architecture and specialized microservices across clouds, not just its own.
It can trigger services such as provisioning cloud resources or automating transcoding and compute instances in response to data changes. This can accelerate content delivery and responsiveness to customer demand with automated asset tracking and streamlined media production. It also helps IT security teams monitor and respond to changes, with real-time notifications about changes to important data assets.
Event Notifications is now available in private preview with general availability planned later this year. Interested parties can join a private preview waiting list.
