Backup storage provider Backblaze brought its new cloud storage service out of beta today, making the service commercially available to enterprises for the first time. The cloud storage service, dubbed B2, includes a number of new features, including a service level agreement for 99.9 percent uptime per month, support for file transfers of up to 100 MB, and a 10 TB maximum file size for uploading and downloading.

“The Backblaze B2 beta was announced last September, and the response was immediate and enormous as over 15,000 developers, IT personnel, and other interested parties signed up to be part of our closed beta program,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the service’s commercial availability. “In December, Backblaze opened the beta to the public, and another 15,000 users joined in.”

Undercutting the Competition

Although Backblaze's B2 lacks some of the heavy-duty functionality offered by the solutions of other cloud storage providers, the company seems to be targeting the lower end of the market with a no-frills solution that is significantly cheaper than the competition. B2 cloud storage costs only $0.005/GB/month, with the first 10 GB each month offered free. That’s up to four times cheaper than other cloud storage providers such as Microsoft Azure, which can charge $0.022/GB/month.

Uploading data is free, while it will cost companies $0.05/GB to download their data, with the first gigabyte of data per day free. The company said there are also additional small transaction fees.

Backblaze is also offering a number of integrations with other service providers with the goal of offering enterprise clients business-class level functionality. Synology’s Network Attached Storage service, for example, is making Backblaze B2 available as a cloud storage destination on its Cloud Sync app.

“Many individual and SMB Synology NAS users will find this integration allows them to easily take the critical files they have centralized and stored on their NAS device and sync them with Backblaze B2,” Backblaze said. “In addition, B2 alerts can be set at specific storage limits to ensure a customer stays within budget while having the peace of mind that their critical data is stored off-site.”

Backup and Hybrid Cloud Management

Cloudberry Lab, a company that provides cloud-based backup and file management services to small and mid-size businesses, will integrate the B2 service into its CloudBerry Backup for Windows Servers tool. Users will be able to encrypt data from a Windows server and back it up directly to B2 using the Cloudberry tools.

Meanwhile, Cubix, a software platform that controls and monitors media workflow such as post-production, broadcast, and archiving tasks, has also integrated B2 into its software. As a result, Cubix users can automatically route digital media assets directly to B2 for archiving. And OpenIO, a hybrid storage tool, will allow organizations to manage petabytes worth of data between B2’s cloud storage and local and onsite storage.