Innovating Web 2.0 Storage: Fabrik CEO Mike Cordano (Part 4)

SM: What was myFabrik.com’s value proposition?

MC: The original value proposition was to create a media management system that would allow users to have all of their media connected to the web. We did it in two forms, a web service and an integrated appliance. Notionally it was an integrated web server. It was an appliance that would simply serve content to the web. We got some very nice initial feedback from the market. Having a centralized location that could intuitively manage all media and be connected to the web was determined to be a very positive value proposition. We also heard that anything that required data migration was too painful to do. An appliance or web service both required data migration.

SM: At that point was your assumption that a network attached server would be sitting in a users home?

MC: That was one of the two versions that we had. Generally speaking, it was very easy to install. It was not a network attached storage experience where you had to set up permissions and everything else. Two things really stopped that initiative. First, remote access required port forwarding, which was a very difficult installation experience for most users.

SM: There are a bunch of issues involved with turning your home into a hosting platform.

MC: Exactly. Not to mention we still faced the data migration issues, and users were not going to go for that. That was the issue that spoke the loudest. It became the fundamental strategy behind where we moved with our service.

The average user has data in his or her own distributed storage network: multiple PCs, perhaps some web-based storage, and perhaps some appliance that sits on the LAN. We moved to a strategy that gives the user the benefit of consolidation without actually having to do it. We have coined this new phrase ‘consumer storage virtualization’. We want to give the user the ease of having their content consolidated while we manage it across the user’s topology. We create an abstraction layer that allows them to interact with their photos, videos and files. That is the real underpinnings of the current service and where we are heading with it.

SM: How do you deal with the data migration aspect?

MC: We are now client and server. We run a client on each of those nodes that allows us to index the content locally. We have a consolidated database and we migrate data on demand. If someone wants to publish data to the web we only publish the data they want to. We are not grabbing 100% of the user’s content and migrating it to some end destination.

SM: You have client side software and the storage is in the cloud?

MC: Correct. We are then able to present an aggregated view, a consolidated view, to the user. The experience is such that the user has a single interface to manage and access all media and files on his or her network, which could include many devices, from a single view.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Innovating Web 2.0 Storage: Fabrik CEO Mike Cordano
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