--- title: "Introducing SOS" description: "SOS - simple object storage - is an S3 compatible and let you architecting applications with better reliability, and speed than just the filesystem." date: 2014-11-06 author: "Pierre-Yves RiĘŚchard" tags: ["S3","storage"] url: https://www.exoscale.com/blog/introducing-sos/ --- # Introducing SOS **Quick summary of this article** - Exoscale launched SOS, an S3 compatible object store emphasizing simplicity, scalability, and safety. - SOS is built on pithos and supports common S3 clients like s3cmd, ownCloud, and wal-e. - Buckets allow unlimited objects, making SOS suitable for static assets, backups, logs, and media. - Data is hosted in a highly secure Swiss mountain data center providing excellent connectivity and cooling. - Service is available in beta with CHF 0.05 per GB pricing and increased maintenance windows. Today we're excited to announce the release of SOS, the simple, scalable and safe S3-compatible object store. Object storage has been an oft-requested feature for a long while and we've taken the time to build a solution tailored to our customer base while keeping an attractive price-point of CHF 0.05/GB. With this new service, our [blazing fast VMs](https://www.exoscale.com/pricing/) and [updated template catalog](https://www.exoscale.com/blog/coreos-available-on-exoscale-swiss-cloud/) featuring CoreOS and Ubuntu Utopic, we're confident you'll have a solid foundation for your infrastructure and products on Exoscale. ### What do we mean by S3-compatible The object store landscape is somewhat different than the cloud server landscape. While there is no clear API standard for launching VMs, automation tools usually relying on libraries able to talk to several APIs, object storage has a single standard: S3. We built our underlying storage technology, pithos with this in mind and have done extensive testing to make sure commonly-used clients would work seamlessly. Whether you want to store your personal data with [owncloud](https://owncloud.com/), use [s3cmd](https://s3tools.org/s3cmd) to interact with your storage space or even push snapshots of your database with [wal-e](https://github.com/wal-e/wal-e), we have you covered. Of course, client libraries also exist if you need to embed interaction with your storage space from your applications directly. What's more, if you need to have a similar deployment locally for test purposes you can use the same software than what we are building the service on top of. ### What do we mean by scalable The S3 protocol organizes files within *buckets*, storage pools which give you a destination for an arbitrary number of objects. While not giving you access to a full-fledged filesystem, *buckets* impose no limitation on the number of objects created. This makes *sos* the perfect candidate to store static assets, uploaded media, [backups](https://www.exoscale.com/backup/), logs, and much more. ### What do we mean by safe We know how important safety is to our customers, we host machines that run critical infrastructure for them. Storing critical data takes it a step further, which is why we upped our game and built this service in a state of the art datacenter located in a repurposed swiss army fort, deep within a mountain. This exceptional facility offers great connectivity, natural and water cooling as well as off-the-charts physical security. ![seelisberg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Vue_de_Seelisberg_et_du_lac_des_Quatre_Cantons.jpg/1920px-Vue_de_Seelisberg_et_du_lac_des_Quatre_Cantons.jpg) Upside of safe location, scenic drives to the datacenter! (attribution: Oblic, CC-BY-SA-3.0) ### Get started now! Sign-in or register and start using *sos* now, we can't wait to see what you build with it. Have any questions on the service? Reach out through our interface and we'll help you make the best of it. The service is in beta for now, which means we will have a higher-than-average number of maintenance windows (don't worry, we'll do our best to stay out of your way), you should follow our [status updates](https://exoscalestatus.com/) for details. ### About Exoscale Exoscale is a simple, scalable and safe cloud hosting provider and provides the best platform to host SaaS applications and to enable developers and sysadmins. Providing datacenters zones in Switzerland, Exoscale is since 2011 ideally located at the heart of Europe for fast response time. Best suited for SaaS providers and all data sensitive applications, the offering is built by a highly experienced and committed team.