Simplyblock's blog brings you the latest of storage, cloud, and thought leadership
Rob PankowSep 22nd, 2025 | 8 min read
I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about bridging the gap between MVP and production for AI applications, which eventually inspired this article. In the post, I said: “The gap between idea → MVP and
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Rob PankowSep 22nd, 2025 | 8 min read
I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about bridging the gap between MVP and production for AI applications, which eventually inspired this article. In the post, I said: “The gap between idea → MVP and
Chris EngelbertSep 18th, 2025 | 19 min read
Building multi-tenant applications requires developers to ensure correct queries at every step along the way. Typically, we’d fall back on using WHERE clauses and pass along necessary constraint
Chris EngelbertAug 28th, 2025 | 10 min read
TLDR; Database change management process is a great solution to keep track and automatically apply database schema changes. This process doesn’t eliminate the human factor, though. When writing
Rob PankowAug 19th, 2025 | 8 min read
Every CTO knows this story. The release passes every automated test, the staging sign-off is green, and confidence is high. Yet hours after deployment, dashboards flare red. Performance tanks, custome
Chris EngelbertAug 14th, 2025 | 9 min read
TL;DR: Mock databases are great for quick unit tests, but they fail to catch the real-world issues from production environments. For reliable database testing, you need database clones that mirror you
Chris EngelbertAug 07th, 2025 | 7 min read
When we talk about storage performance, we typically think of IOPS and throughput. In the best case, we also talk about average or best-case access latency. However, tail latency, the high-percentile
Chris EngelbertJul 24th, 2025 | 9 min read
As storage demands scale and workloads become increasingly performance-sensitive, the right infrastructure choices can drive massive gains in both throughput and efficiency. At simplyblock, we set out
Chris EngelbertMay 22nd, 2025 | 13 min read
TLDR: Many factors influence benchmarks for network-attached storage. Latency and throughput limitations, as well as protocol overhead, network congestion, and caching effects, may create much better
Chris EngelbertMay 15th, 2025 | 4 min read
We’re excited to congratulate our friends over at Xata on a significant milestone for developer infrastructure: Xata’s new PostgreSQL support is now backed by simplyblock’s NVMe/TCP software-def
Chris EngelbertMay 09th, 2025 | 10 min read
TLDR: Simplyblock delivers 4x performance with 25% of the resources compared to Ceph. When it comes to software-defined storage (SDS), performance is more than just a technical metric—it’s the fou
Rob PankowApr 15th, 2025 | 6 min read
When I wrote “Why Companies Are Ditching the Cloud: The Rise of Cloud Repatriation” last year, the idea of moving workloads off the public cloud still felt somewhat radical in mainstream infrastru
Chris EngelbertApr 13th, 2025 | 5 min read
On April 10, 2025, the Apache Software Foundation released version 5.0.4 of Apache Cassandra, bringing significant performance optimizations for all users—but especially for those relying on remotel
Chris EngelbertApr 10th, 2025 | 14 min read
Whether you’re building a high-performance cloud-native app or running data-heavy workloads in your own infrastructure, persistent storage is necessary. In Kubernetes, this means having storage
Rob PankowFeb 20th, 2025 | 11 min read
NetApp has been a dominant player in the enterprise storage market for over two decades, offering feature-rich SAN and NAS solutions but it’s time for an alternative. The landscape of enterprise
Chris EngelbertFeb 19th, 2025 | 16 min read
TLDR: Choosing the right Kubernetes Storage isn’t easy. As a guideline for the selection, make sure you have the best of hyper-converged (co-located) and disaggregated setups. Also, make sure that y
Rob PankowFeb 04th, 2025 | 9 min read
Discover practical strategies for data center carbon footprint reduction and storage optimization in the cloud infrastructure.
Rob PankowJan 28th, 2025 | 7 min read
As of 2025, over 90% of enterprises have adopted Kubernetes. The technology has matured, and the ecosystem around containerization technologies is richer than ever. More platform teams are realizing t
Rob PankowJan 21st, 2025 | 9 min read
TLDR: Storage and storage limitations have a fundamental impact on database performance, with access latency creating a hard physical limitation on IOPS, queries per second (QPS), and transactions per
Chris EngelbertJan 17th, 2025 | 5 min read
There is one question in life that is really hard to answer: “What is your actual AWS EBS volume usage?” When talking to customers and users, this question is frequently left open with the note th
Chris EngelbertJan 08th, 2025 | 15 min read
TLDR: In a direct comparison of NVMe over TCP vs iSCSI, we see that NVMe over TCP outranks iSCSI in all categories with IOPS improvements of up to 50% (and more) and latency improvements by up to 34%.
Rob PankowDec 23rd, 2024 | 10 min read
What is Kubernetes Storage? Kubernetes storage is a sophisticated ecosystem designed to address the complex data management needs of containerized applications. At its core, Kubernetes storage provide
Chris EngelbertDec 17th, 2024 | 16 min read
TLDR: Data At Rest Encryption (DARE) is the process of encrypting data when stored on a storage medium. The encryption transforms the readable data (plaintext) into an encoded format (ciphertext) that
Chris EngelbertDec 11th, 2024 | 13 min read
TLDR: Horizontal scalability (scale out) describes a system that scales by adding more resources through parallel systems, whereas vertical scalability (scale up) increases the amount of resources on
Chris EngelbertNov 27th, 2024 | 8 min read
The marriage of NVMe storage and Kubernetes persistent volumes represents a perfect union of high-performance storage and modern container orchestration. As organizations increasingly move performance
Sanskar Gurdasani (Guest Author, CloudRaft)Nov 25th, 2024 | 13 min read
This is a guest post by Sanskar Gurdasani, DevOps Engineer, from CloudRaft. Maintaining highly available and resilient PostgreSQL databases is crucial for business continuity in today’s clo
Chris EngelbertOct 23rd, 2024 | 13 min read
The use of serverless infrastructures is steeply increasing. As the Datadog “State of Serverless 2023” survey shows, more than half of all cloud customers have already adopted a serverless environ
Rahil ParekhOct 22nd, 2024 | 5 min read
Introduction: In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob Pankow interviews Elias Schneider, founder of Codesphere, about his journey and the evolution of developer platforms at scale. With a backgro
Rob PankowOct 17th, 2024 | 12 min read
Leveraging NVMe-based storage for databases brings whole new set of capabilities and performance optimization opportunities. In this blog we explore how can you adopt NVMe storage for your database wo
Rahil ParekhOct 14th, 2024 | 5 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify, iTunes/Apple Podcasts, and our show site. In this episode of the Cloud Frontier&nbs
Chris EngelbertOct 10th, 2024 | 12 min read
“Cloud is expensive” is an often repeated phrase among IT professionals. What makes the cloud so expensive, though? One element that significantly drives cloud costs is storage over-provisioni
Rob PankowOct 03rd, 2024 | 4 min read
What is the Best Storage Solution on AWS? The debate over the optimal storage solution has been ongoing. Local instance storage on AWS (i.e. ephemeral NVMe disk attached to EC2 instance) brings remark
Chris EngelbertOct 02nd, 2024 | 21 min read
Running PostgreSQL in Kubernetes When you need a PostgreSQL service in the cloud, there are two common ways to achieve this. The initial thought is going for one of the many hosted databases, such as
Rahil ParekhSep 20th, 2024 | 4 min read
Introduction: In this episode of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, host Chris Engelbert interviews Michael Schmidt, co-founder of simplyblock. Michael shares insights into the evolution of storag
Michael SchmidtSep 19th, 2024 | 10 min read
When operating your stateful workloads in Amazon EC2 and Amazon EKS, data is commonly stored on Amazon’s EBS volumes. AWS supports a set of different volume types which offer different performance r
Rahil ParekhSep 18th, 2024 | 8 min read
In preparation for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, we at simplyblock figured it was essential to create a guide beyond the conference halls, highlighting the best spots to truly experience Salt Lake City. A
Rahil ParekhSep 17th, 2024 | 4 min read
Introduction: In this episode of the Cloud Frontier Podcast, Marc Austin, CEO and co-founder of Hedgehog, explores network infrastructure for AI. He covers the need for high-performance, cost-effectiv
Rahil ParekhSep 13th, 2024 | 5 min read
Introduction: In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Commute podcast, host Chris Engelbert sits down with Jove Zhong, co-founder of Timeplus, a streaming analytics platform. The discussion delves in
Rob PankowSep 12th, 2024 | 13 min read
Databases can make up a significant portion of the costs for a variety of businesses and enterprises, and in particular for SaaS, Fintech, or E-commerce & Retail verticals. Choosing the right data
Rob PankowSep 12th, 2024 | 7 min read
Migrating to the cloud can be daunting, but it becomes a manageable and rewarding process with the right approach and understanding of the storage perspective. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a compr
Rob PankowSep 12th, 2024 | 6 min read
What is the AWS Workload Migration Program? The AWS Workload Migration Program is a comprehensive framework designed to help organizations migrate their workloads to the AWS cloud efficiently and effe
Michael SchmidtSep 10th, 2024 | 5 min read
In 2023, the number of victims of Ransomware attacks more than doubled, with 2024 off to an even stronger start. A Ransomware attack encrypts your local data. Additionally, the attackers demand a rans
Rahil ParekhSep 06th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Com
Michael SchmidtSep 06th, 2024 | 6 min read
When disaster strikes, a great recovery strategy is required. Oftentimes, deficiencies are only discovered when it’s already too late. Simplyblock provides comprehensive disaster recovery support fo
Rob PankowSep 06th, 2024 | 7 min read
Introduction When it comes to container orchestration on AWS, two primary services come to mind: Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) . Both offer robust
Rahil ParekhSep 04th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Fr
Rahil ParekhSep 02nd, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Commute podcast, Chris Engelbert sits down with Michael Schwarz, a prominent researcher in cloud security, to discuss side-channel attacks and Ca
Rob PankowAug 27th, 2024 | 7 min read
Storage and particularly block storage is generally easy to migrate. It doesn’t create vendor lock-in, which is very different from most database systems. Therefore, it’s worth to briefly line out
Rahil ParekhAug 23rd, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Com
Chris EngelbertAug 22nd, 2024 | 7 min read
On August 13, the Kubernetes team released Kubernetes 1.31, a release also known as “Elli”. The release follows about a month after the release of 1.30 (Uwubernetes) which also marked the
Rahil ParekhAug 21st, 2024 | 12 min read
Introduction: the Importance of Functional Testing As developers, it’s crucial for us to ensure that our applications function as intended. Functional testing, in the past, often referred to as
Rahil ParekhAug 21st, 2024 | 10 min read
Introduction: the Importance of Clear Box Testing As developers, we play a crucial role in ensuring that applications run smoothly and meet user expectations. Clear box testing, also known as white bo
Rahil ParekhAug 20th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Fr
Rahil ParekhAug 16th, 2024 | 7 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Co
Rob PankowAug 12th, 2024 | 10 min read
Managing storage costs in AWS environments has become increasingly critical as organizations scale their cloud infrastructure. With storage often representing 20-30% of cloud spending, AWS storage opt
Rahil ParekhAug 09th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Co
Rob PankowAug 07th, 2024 | 9 min read
Introduction to AWS Marketplace Overview of AWS Marketplace AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog that allows customers to find, buy, and deploy software and services that run on Amazon Web Services (A
Rahil ParekhAug 06th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Fr
Rahil ParekhJul 26th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify, iTunes/Apple Podcasts, and our show site. In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Commut
Chris EngelbertJul 26th, 2024 | 9 min read
When using persistent storage on cloud providers, there are two options: locally attached (like AWS’ Instance Store or GCP Local SSD) or remote (like Amazon EBS or Google Persistent Disks). Bot
Rob PankowJul 24th, 2024 | 6 min read
The Rockset Transition: what you need to know On June 21, 2024, Rockset announced its acquisition by OpenAI , setting off a countdown for many organizations using their database. If you’re a Roc
Rob PankowJul 22nd, 2024 | 8 min read
As cloud computing continues to transform how businesses operate, Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the largest cloud provider globally, offering scalable and cost-effective solutions for organization
Chris EngelbertJul 19th, 2024 | 16 min read
Rahil ParekhJul 19th, 2024 | 6 min read
Introduction: This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of simplyblock’s Cloud Co
Chris EngelbertJul 15th, 2024 | 9 min read
Introduction: In the era of big data, managing complex relationships is crucial. Neo4j , a leading graph database, excels at handling intricate data connections, making it indispensable for modern app
Rahil ParekhJul 12th, 2024 | 26 min read
Introduction This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Frontier Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this episode of the Cloud Commute podcast
Rob PankowJun 28th, 2024 | 10 min read
The AWS Marketplace is a comprehensive catalog consisting of thousands of offerings that help organizations find, purchase, deploy and manage third-party software and services to optimize their cloud
Chris EngelbertJun 27th, 2024 | 25 min read
Introduction This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , and our show site . In this insightful video, we explore the cutt
Chris EngelbertJun 20th, 2024 | 23 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify, iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment, weR
Rob PankowJun 18th, 2024 | 11 min read
AWS Credits are cash credits provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help offset the costs of using AWS cloud services. These credits can be applied to a wide range of AWS services, such as compute,
Chris EngelbertJun 14th, 2024 | 18 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment of
Rob PankowJun 13th, 2024 | 8 min read
What is the AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP)? The AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) is a discount initiative designed for organizations spending at least $1M per year on AWS cloud services an
Chris EngelbertJun 12th, 2024 | 11 min read
Storage management in Kubernetes can be complex, especially for teams running stateful workloads like databases. While K8s excels at container orchestration, its default ephemeral storage isn’t
Chris EngelbertJun 07th, 2024 | 23 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment of
Chris EngelbertJun 06th, 2024 | 10 min read
A Postgres Operator for Kubernetes eases the management of PostgreSQL clusters inside the Kubernetes (k8s) environment. It watches changes (additions, updates, deletes) of PostgreSQL related CRD (cust
Rob PankowJun 05th, 2024 | 7 min read
When evaluating software-defined storage, Simplyblock and Ceph stand out as two major contenders. While Ceph has long been a default choice for many cloud and enterprise environments, its architecture
Chris EngelbertMay 31st, 2024 | 19 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment of
Chris EngelbertMay 29th, 2024 | 8 min read
Software-defined (block) storage solutions, or SDS, decouple the software storage layer from the underlying hardware. This allows for centralized management and automation of storage resources through
Chris EngelbertMay 24th, 2024 | 23 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment of
Michael SchmidtMay 22nd, 2024 | 11 min read
Modern cloud applications demand more from their storage than ever before – ultra-low latency, predictable performance, and bulletproof reliability. Simplyblock’s software-defined storage
Chris EngelbertMay 17th, 2024 | 21 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment of
Chris EngelbertMay 15th, 2024 | 8 min read
The term Block storage describes a technology that controls how data is stored on storage devices. The name is derived from the fact that block storage splits any kind of information, such as files or
Chris EngelbertMay 10th, 2024 | 20 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment of
Chris EngelbertMay 08th, 2024 | 9 min read
NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Express, is a modern access and storage protocol for flash-based solid-state storage. Designed for low overhead, latency, and response times, it aims for the highest achie
Chris EngelbertMay 02nd, 2024 | 15 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment of
Rob PankowApr 30th, 2024 | 11 min read
AI workloads bring new requirements to your AI storage infrastructure, marking a significant change compared to the “ML era” of Big Data storage. The average scale of an AI dataset is multiple tim
Chris EngelbertApr 26th, 2024 | 21 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock’s Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment of
Chris EngelbertApr 24th, 2024 | 14 min read
IOPS, throughput, and latency are interrelated metrics that provide insight into the read, write, and access performance of storage entities and network interconnects. Measuring the performance of a s
Chris EngelbertApr 19th, 2024 | 19 min read
In this installment of the podcast, we talked to Nicolas Fränkel (X/Twitter) from API7.ai, the creator of Apache APISIX, a high-performance open-source API gateway, discusses the significance of choo
Rob PankowApr 17th, 2024 | 8 min read
If you have services running in the AWS, you’ll eventually need block storage to store data. Services like Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Storage) provide block storage to be used in your EC2 instances,
Chris EngelbertApr 12th, 2024 | 17 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment of the pod
Chris EngelbertApr 10th, 2024 | 10 min read
Kubernetes has pretty much become synonymous with container orchestration, and all competition is either assimilated (or rewritten to be based on Kubernetes, see Openshift), or basically disappeared i
Chris EngelbertApr 05th, 2024 | 25 min read
In this episode of the Cloud Commute podcast, Chris Engelbert is joined by Álvaro Hernández Tortosa, a prominent figure in the PostgreSQL community and CEO of OnGres. Álvaro shares his deep insight
Chris EngelbertApr 03rd, 2024 | 8 min read
A persistent volume is a slice of storage provisioned by a Kubernetes administrator that can be attached and mounted to pods. Like everything in Kubernetes, it is a resource inside the cluster, and it
Steven Sklar (Guest Author, QuestDB)Mar 29th, 2024 | 14 min read
If you work with persistent storage in Kubernetes, maybe you’ve seen articles about how to migrate from in-tree to CSI volumes, but aren’t sure what all the fuss is about? Or perhaps you&#
Chris EngelbertMar 28th, 2024 | 3 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment, we’r
Chris EngelbertMar 27th, 2024 | 8 min read
Containerized services must be stateless, a doctrine that was widely used in the early days of containerization, which came hand-in-hand with microservices. While it makes elasticity easy, these days,
Chris EngelbertMar 22nd, 2024 | 25 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify, iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Samsung Podcasts, and our show site. In this installment, we’re ta
Chris EngelbertMar 20th, 2024 | 6 min read
During the last decade containerized services have emerged as the game-changer in terms of deployment simplicity, scalability, and componentization or modularization. Kubernetes is at the forefront of
Chris EngelbertMar 15th, 2024 | 19 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment , we’
Rob PankowMar 13th, 2024 | 7 min read
What is Storage Virtualization? Storage virtualization, as a concept, has been around for about 60 years now. However, it became more prominent and practical with the advancement of computing technolo
Chris EngelbertMar 11th, 2024 | 16 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment , we’
Chris EngelbertMar 08th, 2024 | 22 min read
This interview is part of the simplyblock Cloud Commute Podcast, available on Youtube , Spotify , iTunes/Apple Podcasts , Pandora , Samsung Podcasts, and our show site . In this installment , we’
Chris EngelbertMar 06th, 2024 | 9 min read
Erasure Coding (erasure code) is a data protection mechanism that protects against data loss by breaking data items, such as files, into fragments, calculating additional data pieces (parity informati
Chris EngelbertFeb 28th, 2024 | 9 min read
In the vast landscape of cloud computing, Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) stands out as a crucial component for storage in AWS’ Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service), as well as other AWS
Rob PankowApr 05th, 2023 | 4 min read
Introduction At simplyblock.io we have recently conducted a performance test on our NVMe-oF storage solution on AWS. The results showcase remarkable performance capabilities, solidifying its position
Rob PankowApr 05th, 2023 | 3 min read
Simplyblock has recognized the limitations of conventional cloud storage services, specifically AWS Elastic Block Storage (EBS) , and has introduced a groundbreaking alternative. This whitepaper prese
Rob PankowApr 05th, 2023 | 2 min read
Introduction We have recently conducted a demo showcasing capabilities of simplyblock’s high-perfromance block storage on the AWS platform. The demo offers a glimpse into the seamless integratio
Rob PankowFeb 27th, 2023 | 5 min read
The benefits of a hybrid cloud operating model are obvious: take the best of both worlds . Flexibility, fast time-to-market, cost-effective high availability and a huge variety of great platform servi