Box.com Outage No Impact on Antradar Storage December 16, 2023

Box.com's recent major outage highlights Antradar's preference for Microsoft SharePoint for production-level reliability, with OneDrive and Dropbox positioned as less critical, consumer-grade alternatives, despite Box.com's integration with Antradar's platform.

Antradar has strategically implemented an abstraction layer to enhance interoperability with third-party storage products. This connector, utilized notably in several Gyroscope products, accommodates the distinct implementations and unique requirements of each storage service. Among the storage solutions supported, Antradar works with SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box, each to varying degrees.

The selection of these platforms was not based on their infrastructure. Rather, Antradar focused on aspects like user identity models and authentication flows. SharePoint, for instance, aligns well with Gyroscope's framework due to its shared drive feature and individual OAuth flows, fitting seamlessly into Gyroscope's model of user grouping and resource sharing.

OneDrive, identified as a platform for "personal assets", is recommended by Antradar for automating private storage in Gyroscope, outside a sharing context. This choice reflects Antradar's commitment to "Taxonomical Truthfulness" in product design. Dropbox's support stems from its vast consumer user base, despite having a complex asset ownership model that makes it challenging to integrate.

Box.com, with its well-designed API, has seen slower adoption within Antradar for several reasons. It lacks the infrastructural support of Microsoft and the widespread popularity of Dropbox. A critical factor in its limited integration is Box.com's unique refresh token handling in its OAuth process. While this approach is more secure, it poses limitations in environments with multiple servers or API clients due to the singular issuance of refresh tokens and the resultant complexities in maintaining a continuous "Refresh Chain".

In a strategic move, Antradar developed its own large-scale file storage system in the summer of 2023, a significant technological advancement for the company. Currently, this advanced storage solution is being utilized in specific Gyroscope projects, reflecting Antradar's commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology for specialized storage needs.

Despite this development, Antradar does not plan to offer this system as a general-purpose, context-free cloud drive to the wider market. Instead, the company is focused on incorporating and perfecting essential components within its targeted projects. These components encompass features such as large file uploads, authenticated streaming of file fragments, and compliance with POSIX standards for network storage. By integrating these sophisticated features into select projects, Antradar is reinforcing its dedication to improving the storage capabilities and overall efficiency of its Gyroscope platform.