LongJump, an SaaS offering that enables ordinary people to build and customize database-centric applications (for sales, marketing, IT, HR, finance, etc.), has launched a new offering dubbed “Database-as-a-Service (DaaS)” that allows the more technically literate to build applications with databases in the “cloud” (i.e. stored on LongJump’s servers).
The company is comparing its new offering to Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service, because both remove the burden of having to maintain servers locally. In LongJump’s own words, DaaS shines by “cutting the costs and easing the hassles for entrepreneurs and developers who would otherwise have to purchase a database server, provision it, address data access and availability issues, manage backup and replication issues, and tackle security and data protection.”
Most of LongJump’s value has hitherto been relevant for the type of people who don’t have the expertise or initiative necessary to develop applications the old fashion way (i.e. actual programming), so it’s interesting to see the company introduce a service intended for precisely the opposite sort of person. The DaaS service can be used either to design applications that use the same data accessed by LongJump applications themselves, or it can be used apart from such applications to deploy wholly disconnected projects.
LongJump, with access to its REST-based API included, costs $24.95 per user per month, or $19.95 per user per month with a 12-month commitment. Competitor SalesForce has a similar type of API but one which is SOAP-based. LongJump’s offering differs from Amazon’s newly released SimpleDB service by functioning as a MySQL-based relational database service, whereas SimpleDB possesses its own architecture. For more information on LongJump’s API, check out the company’s API guide.
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I’m not sure why LongJump decided to launch this service, is it as a complimentary service for its App creation focus? or does LongJump intend to compete with Amazon on providing the backbone for developers?
If it does intend to compete with Amazon, what will be its differentiator? is it lower costs? simpler interface? more reliable service?
It has to come up with an attractive offering, because Amazon is now dubbed as a de-facto standard for the new generation of bootstrapping developers.
My post about it http://technozzle.com/?p=27
getting a 404 on the linked diagram in the article… Cheers
Are they offer free trial?
Who is acquiring them?
The LongJump offering looks more functional than Amazon’s SimpleDB beta, at first glance.
Picking on a very specific aspect of the query language that annoyed me about SimpleDB - the most flexible string predicate it offers is ’starts-with’, whereas LongJump offers ‘contains’.
For me, it’s that sort of thing that makes the difference between a service that’s useable and one that just doesn’t cut it.
This is interesting news. Amazon’s SimpleDB announcement of a few weeks ago benefits the startups in this space by raising the awareness to the problems a straightforward, simply implemented database as a service can solve. This is an innovative space that’s finally getting some overdue interest and attention. QuickBase has been around for a number of years. DabbleDB launched in the summer of 2006. Zoho DB and CogHead entered the space within the last year. blist will join the mix soon. Prevailing wisdom is that applications sell databases and databases need to be behind the firewall. The innovators in this new category are recognizing that mainstream audiences understand the benefits a database provides and that for many database driven applications, consuming database as an Internet-based service frees them of the muck of running a database locally. This space is sure to become even more interesting in 2008.
Their logo looks like someone hurdling rather than long jumping. Whatsup with that?
NextDB.net is a true hosted relational database.
http://www.nextdb.net
Note that Amazon (and Google with bigtable) are working on systems that can truly scale; LongJump and presumably NextDb cannot; throwing enough data at them in a relational manner will make them fail (will get very very slow probably or even simply deny it) as it would violate the CAP (Brewer) principle. As Longjump seems to be clustered MySQL, all disadvantages of that are known. This is ok for most applications, but SimpleDB and Bigtable are made for infinite growth while these are not (as that is impossible using a
relational model).
Then there is the pricing; it is difficult to put a price tag on this kind of thing and considering the pricing for longjump here I would say they are either denying large setups or they are insane; I would require from such a service that they can show some sustainable business model which I really don’t see here. $20 / month is nice for very small apps (the kind you make with the Longjump dev system) but after that they are losing money. SimpleDB has a sustainable model.
And agree with the logo; it looks like someone taking hurdles
Mark, thank you for the article. The LongJump team really enjoys getting featured in TechCrunch. Besides a nice bump in traffic, we also think your readers provide unmitigated and thoughtful conversations around new technologies and business offerings. It’s a tremendous service to companies.
I just want to address the comments made by “frank.” Obviously, relational data models are not the end-all for databases. The comparison to SimpleDB is primarily around the ready-provisioned, hosted DaaS infrastructure that the world is gravitating towards. Of course, there are times when the application you are building will need a flat database, a data warehouse, or a relational database. Each has their purpose.
What we find is that the majority of business applications have a relational model where data is organized into objects that have schemas that emulate the attributes of the real world. Even when they are tracking their business in a spreadsheet, these business teams’ needs grow to eventually become more and more relational in nature based on all the different business processes that involve that data. That’s because the idea is not to have an infinite list of data, but to actually get to the data you need to do your job in a structured, predictable fashion. Relational data allows you to reduce replication of information, enable records to have traceability and ownership, and enables you to logically connect objects together and form even deeper relationships between the data. (Anyone who’s ever played an MMORPG can see the object-oriented benefits of a relational model). Lastly, relational databases allow independent records to be “the center of their universe” with a 360-degree view across all their related data, and that is a big deal for many business functions.
As to the pricing of our service, are you saying that we are undercharging? If that’s the case, everyone should sign up today because it must be a bargain.
And lastly, regarding the logo… yes (secret’s out) it is a hurdler, but if you’ve ever seen how awkward a longjumper looks in profile you would think longjumping is very difficult (which it is). But our LongJump logo is partly a metaphor for us. We enable you to make long jumps in an easier, less awkward fashion.
Derek Cheng
Marketing Director
LongJump
Just responding to the post about the importance of flexible string comparisons. With NextDB, you get a powerful string comparison capability, as part of NextQuery, that is much like SQL:
//exact match against runtime-supplied parameter
user.name = ${name}
or you can do:
//ends-with runtime-supplied parameter
user.name LIKE ‘%’ || ${name}
or you can do
//starts with runtime-supplied parameter
user.name LIKE ${name}|| ‘%’
or you can do
//contains runtime-supplied parameter
user.name LIKE ‘%’ || ${name} || ‘%’
NextQuery has a good mix of expressiveness, security, and simplicity. With NextDB.net we are trying to give you many of the features of a relational database combined with a “built for the web” experience.
I notice that Derek’s response to frank does not address the key issue of scalability and performance of the service. Given the price point and the silence on this issue, we are left to believe that this service is primarily intended for applications with minimal scalability and performance requirements. Derek, can you comment on how to quantify these limitations to help guide prospects in choosing the right service?
Thanks!
Thanks for the comment, Harley.
I felt that frank’s comments were around the philosophical issue of relational databases in general. Our relational model is actually very scalable and we work very closely with our hosting provider to add infrastructure when we need to.
I will also say that our core database platform has been running since 2003 with an estimated 10 million user-hours logged into it in the form of our parent company Relationals. We know the platform is solid.