VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Storj Labs, the leader in decentralized cloud storage, today announced its Open Source Partner Program, which enables open-source projects to generate revenue when their users store data in the cloud. Unlike most traditional cloud platforms, where the vast majority of open-source usage does not provide direct monetary benefit to the project, the Storj network has been designed to provide a sustaining revenue stream to the open-source projects whose code is used on the network. The Storj network is open source and features an S3 compliant interface, making it easy to incorporate into existing application infrastructure.

The Storj Labs Open Source Partner Program launches in conjunction with 10 partners, including Confluent, Couchbase, FileZilla, InfluxData, MariaDB, Minio, MongoDB Nextcloud, Pydio and Zenko. Program partners will earn revenue every time end-users of their software store data on the Storj platform. Revenue is earned both through new user referrals and by driving incremental cloud storage use with existing Storj customers who deploy the partner's open-source software. Payments to partners are guaranteed for the duration of that customers' use of the network, so as usage increases, so does revenue. Partners will also receive early access to the new V3 Storj network, which is now in private alpha.

"Open source drives a sizable majority of the $200 billion-plus cloud computing market, but very little of that revenue currently makes its way directly back to open-source projects and companies," said Ben Golub, Storj Labs executive chairman and interim CEO. "There is a massive opportunity for decentralized cloud platforms, like Storj, to address that imbalance. By leveraging the unique economic aspects of decentralization, we can enable the projects and companies who build the network to directly derive sustainable revenue from it."

With a strong lineup of partners serving similar users, the Storj Labs Open Source Partner Program can also help companies strengthen relationships with their peers. As more enterprise companies adopt open source into the technology stack, interoperability and integration become evermore critical to a platform's success. Projects that can simply synchronize with one another to create natural suites of products stand to win in the emerging technology landscape where a decentralized, interconnected and open-source internet is the standard.

"The principles of openness and transparency within the decentralization community make it a perfect match for open source," said Shawn Wilkinson, Storj Labs founder and CSO. "We look forward to seeing our new program enable partners to do more within their respective ecosystems and jointly with one another."

The revenue opportunities made possible through the program will also help open-source companies achieve more for their projects. When new users create a Storj account in conjunction with an integrated project, the partner receives a significant percentage of net revenue for all platform usage they generate. If an existing Storj user deploys a partner's open-source software, the partner will also get a share of the revenue generated from the incremental storage and bandwidth usage.

"Decentralized initiatives are a perfect match to open-source projects," said Roberto Galoppini, director of strategy at FileZilla. "The early projects are young and have resources, while mature projects have solid user bases but often lack pathways to revenue. As the saying goes, time is money, and building the right partnership can both reduce time-to-market and create revenue opportunities. Identifying 'twin projects' to leverage complimentary technologies creates an environment where everyone wins. As a Storj board advisor and their longest partner, I look forward to helping them expand their open-source partner network."

Storj Labs will work with launch partners to build connectors that integrate with their respective platforms and track data storage usage over time. They will be given priority helpdesk support, as well as tools and access to test the network's performance and capabilities, before launching it in production with their customers. Partners will also receive assistance and resources for joint marketing efforts that drive usage of both their software platform and the Storj network, leveraging the unique talents of both teams.

"Confluent's mission is to bring data across any platform into a single, central nervous system based on Apache Kafka," said Sid Rabindran, director, partner ecosystem at Confluent. "We look forward to partnering with Storj Labs to give their decentralized cloud storage users that same access to all of their data."

"Decentralization is changing the way organizations build and operate software infrastructure and networks by empowering them to take more control of their data privacy and security," said Matt McDonough, vice president of business development at Couchbase. "Couchbase is pleased to be a part of the Storj Labs Open Source Partner Program, as we are aligned on the three principles of individual control, freedom, and innovative software development, which are crucial components of a successful open-source project."

"Open source and decentralization have many parallels, not the least of which is an opportunity for developers to build sustainable revenue through contribution," said Brian Mullen, VP business development at InfluxData. "Our team is committed to keeping open source open and free and the Storj Labs Open Source Partner Program supports this initiative, extending opportunities for developers and for the future of our platform."

"MariaDB's modern and flexible database architecture is a great fit for technologies in the emerging decentralized cloud storage space, such as Storj's platform," said Nick Stinemates, vice president of business development, MariaDB Corporation. "This partnership gives MariaDB users the ability to unlock new benefits with storage solutions that are breaking the traditional mold. We're also supportive of the collaborative approach taken with this partner program, which aligns with our principles at MariaDB."

"We are excited to collaborate with Storj to give customers even more flexibility with MongoDB Backup solutions," said Sahir Azam, senior vice president of cloud products, MongoDB. "As part of the Storj Open Source Partner Program, we look forward to certifying MongoDB's S3 integration with Storj's decentralized cloud storage network."

"We've been working with Storj for quite some time, supporting their incorporation of the Minio S3 gateway into their platform," said Anand Babu Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of Minio. "The Storj network gives our customers another great option for cloud backups for their on-prem Minio implementations. We look forward to growing this mutually beneficial relationship."

"Security and control over data are key reason for our users to deploy Nextcloud," said Frank Karlitschek, founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. "Storj Labs' decentralized cloud storage platform supports our security and privacy strategy, providing customers a resilient and distributed, strongly encrypted, cost-effective storage platform. Joining their partner program also fits our goal of providing transparent access to data, no matter what storage platform it is on. We look forward to working together."

"Privacy and security have always been the key drivers in the development of our self-hosted file sharing software. Partnering with Storj Labs will enable Pydio users to increase even more data confidentiality by connecting to their decentralized cloud storage platform," said Charles du Jeu, CEO at Pydio. "We look forward to seeing how Storj customers can use Pydio for their file management needs and how Storj's secure and resilient cloud storage can empower our own users."

"Zenko empowers users to pick the best cloud storage for the task and partnering with Storj allows us to add decentralized cloud storage as another option to our community," said Stefano Maffulli, director of Zenko Community. "Storj's affordable and resilient cloud storage will make a great option for cloud backups for Zenko users and we look forward to seeing what other use cases the two communities can address."

Resources

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To read Ben Golub's blog on Storj's partnership program and Shawn Wilkinson's blog on Storj's private alpha, visit our blog.

About Storj Labs

Storj Labs provides secure distributed cloud storage that gives customers control over their data. The company's open-source cloud storage platform utilizes spare disk drive space shared by storage node operators, to create a secure network for developers, operations teams, companies and others in need of secure cloud storage. Using client-side encryption, the Storj network ensures that data can only be accessed by the data owners. The distributed architecture of the Storj network protects against attacks, improves reliability and enhances performance when compared to many traditional cloud storage approaches.

In 2016, the company completed a $30M token sale for its ERC-20 token STORJ. These tokens can be used on the Storj network to purchase services and are also used to pay farmers, who run more than 150,000 storage nodes with over 150PB of capacity in more than 200 countries and territories.

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