Storage Company Ewesion Leverages Filecoin Network for Data Preservation

Key highlights:

• Beijing Yiweishi Network Technology Company, Ltd. (commonly referred to as Ewesion) is one of China’s fastest-growing online hosts of photographs, illustrations, and vector files.
• Ewesion’s library currently uses around 1EB of storage in the public cloud. That number is set to increase even further as the company expands into audio and video capabilities.
• Ewesion is working closely with ByteBase, a decentralized storage provider in the Filecoin network, to leverage the power of both Filecoin’s blockchain-based technology and its cost-effective storage solution.
• The benefits Ewesion is seeing by adopting the Filecoin network include lower-cost for storage while maintaining ease of image retrieval for customers; security and peace of mind for its business partners (photographers, illustrators, and designers) in terms of copyright and data ownership challenges; and longer-term storage solutions for the current client base.
• Ewesion has found the Filecoin network to be “a very multifunctional solution” for its business and plans to utilize the network more as it reaches new markets such as audio and video.

Fast Growth & Expanding Storage Needs

Founded in 2019 by Benny Li, Ewesion is a platform for creative artists that serves everyone from large and medium-sized enterprises to media and individual users.

Ewesion is the largest picture provider for the Tencent public cloud today. It provides functional design and editing tools to its users as well as secure storage of their final creations. It is quickly becoming the image repository of choice, aiming to power and preserve content to elevate visual communications.

While Ewesion is just a few years old, it is growing rapidly. In fact, the company has added more than 20 people to its staff in the past 6 months and plans to expand its storage capabilities to audio and video by the end of 2022.

Opening New Doors

ByteBase, a storage provider in the Filecoin network, helped Ewesion grasp the application and potential of blockchain, helping the company realize how decentralized technology could benefit its unique business model.

Ewesion’s library of images currently uses around 1EB of storage, and the need for secure storage–that also allows for easy retrieval of customer pictures–is increasing. Prior to leveraging the Filecoin network, Ewesion was storing its data only on public clouds — namely, Tencent and Ali Cloud, two of the most popular cloud storage solutions in China. However, the cost of maintaining public cloud storage is a challenge, especially as the business expands.

The company needed a solution that would be both cost-effective, but also secure and long-term in order to propel its business forward.

“Filecoin network is a very multifunctional solution for our business. At Ewesion, our main goal is to ensure data is safe and easily accessible for our customers’ needs. With ByteBase and through the Filecoin ecosystem, we are not only doing that — we are future-proofing our operations, ensuring we continue to hold the highest storage standards as we grow.’ — Benny Li, CEO, Ewesion

With decentralized storage, the Ewesion team can protect their customers with the right tools. In addition, the blockchain component acts as copyright protection since it provides what in China is called “electronic evidence,” which in turn gives end-users peace of mind knowing their data is protected.

A Partner for Growth

Ewesion was able to leverage ByteBase API to upload data into the Filecoin network and has already started to see the benefits.

One of the priority needs was reducing costs, and with ByteBase’s privacy storage SaaS solution, Ewesion can provide more cost-effective and reliable storage for its customers following a “pay-as-you-use” model. The company no longer has to worry about paying for storage space that it didn’t use.

In addition, Filecoin’s decentralized storage helps secure storage, protecting data and data ownership for customers. For Ewesion’s B2B2C business, data ownership is paramount, as Ewesion aims to protect enterprises’ data while also protecting individual users.

And, the Filecoin network provides Ewesion with enhanced data storage capabilities for the long term. Ewesion has the ability to move large quantities of files or back them up offsite faster, maintaining the ease-of-use their customers require.

In partnership with ByteBase, Ewesion found that being able to handpick its data center also helped reduce costs and maintain an agile business model.

“At the foundational level, Ewesion needed a solution that would decrease costs and help keep their data safe. The Filecoin network does this very well.” — Eric Liu, Director of Ecosystem, IPFS at ByteBase

What the future holds for image, video, and audio storage

With ByteBase, Ewesion enjoys collaborating with a provider that is local to its own operations. This partnership, which started in 21st May 2021, has shown fruitful already. In the past few months, the company has moved 27.5TiB data to the Filecoin network and has the expectations of 180TiB by the end of the year. It also plans to expand its content offering to audio and visual files in the coming year to be the leader of creative repositories in Beijing, China.

To learn more about Filecoin, storage providers, and developer use cases, please visit: Filecoin.io or fil.org.