Nirvanix Blog

PATRICK HARR WARNS ARCHIVING TO TAPE IS PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Marketing — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:44:00 GMT

Today’s Storage Delivery Network offers companies better protection, online access and cost savings compared to archaic removable, offline tape

SAN DIEGO – June 13, 2008 – Patrick Harr, CEO of Nirvanix, the premier “Cloud Storage” platform provider, today warned that companies still using tape-based backups for long-term archive of business-critical information are playing “Russian Roulette” by entrusting recoverability to failure-prone and cumbersome media that can potentially expose sensitive financial and personal data if it winds up in the wrong hands after loss or theft.

Backing up data to tape is only half the battle. That information may become worthless if it isn’t available when it needs to be recovered. Companies using tape as their primary archive medium report failure in 20 to 50 percent of restore incidences. Media is vulnerable to conditions such as heat and humidity. These same companies are reporting retrieval costs in the thousands of dollars per incidence when this offline and off-site data cannot readily be restored. Tape drives and platform-specific software need to be maintained and kept on site in order to read outdated generations of media. All of which are small bumps on the road if this already-vulnerable data archive method results in tapes that are lost or stolen.

The latest example of data loss due to missing or stolen tapes is the University of Utah, which last week acknowledged that backup tapes containing 2.2 million patient billing records, including Social Security numbers of the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, were stolen from the car of a courier service employee. As a result the university will be notifying all patients by mail and offering them free credit-monitoring services.

“The major advantage of backing up to tape is the portability in being able to remove this information to an off-site location but it is also the technology’s major liability,” said Harr. “As incidents of unrecoverable data continue to be reported, either by unreadable tapes or media that is lost or stolen, the chance of your company’s information meeting the same fate are increasingly becoming a ‘when’ not an ‘if’ proposition. Advances in data storage, such as keeping information safeguarded on a highly scalable online storage and delivery platform, make tape-based archiving an archaic solution by all standards anyway. Companies have better options to reduce exposure to data misuse and minimizing potential financial liability than entrusting records to tape.”

Standard practice for many organizations is to store backup tapes at off-site facilities as part of a recovery plan in the event of disasters such as fire, flood or earthquakes. But with an online storage platform, such as the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network, data can be stored on various geographically dispersed storage nodes, ensuring maximum uptime and availability of billions of files without compromising quality or reliability.

Built-in enhanced security capabilities such as SSL, strong password authentication and de-identified physical file information prevents access to data without a three-step key. A 256-bit AES encryption client is offered for additional security. Additionally, access to the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Cloud can be made through virtual NAS mounts using either CIFS or NFS protocols.

Nirvanix offers Service Level Agreements with up to 100 percent uptime guarantees depending on business requirements. Services are monitored in the company’s Network Operations Center 24/7. Availability is ensured through an architecture that eliminates a single point of failure across the Storage Delivery Network worldwide.

The Cloud Rains on the Box- An IT Inflection Point (From the CEO)

Marketing — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:46:00 GMT

There is currently about $55B spent on storage and storage services annually. Much of this is spent on what I call the storage box – hardware and storage software that stores data of all types. Due to often inaccurate capacity planning and non-centralized storage across multiple divisions, departments, and workgroups , the current rates of utilization for these storage boxes are at a shockingly low 10-12%. Couple this with the exponential growth in data, particularly unstructured, which has put severe pressure on already strained IT budgets and staffs. Companies simply can’t keep up with the explosive data growth, let alone the costs of storage without altering their practices and finding a new more efficient model. The archaic box model of storage is now extinct.

As a result, we are seeing the emergence of a new IT inflection point in storage – the shift from the box to the Cloud. No longer will companies buy boxes and rack, stack, power and manage them. Companies will simply plug into to the Cloud and receive benefits beyond the box. These benefits will include breakthrough economics, on demand global scale, and guaranteed security and availability. As such, a minimum of 50% of the current $55 Billion annual expenditures in storage and storage services will shift to the Cloud within the next 5 to 7 years. Companies will shift from managing their explosive storage costs and growth, to managing their businesses.

There are three necessities occurring within the industry which will drive the move to the Cloud:

#1 Economics, Economics, Economics
If you look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) associated with storage, particularly the cost of buying the hardware, then managing it, growing it, and planning capacity expansion, you can quickly see how inefficient the old model is. I have seen companies that are buying, racking, stacking, powering and managing their own storage and can end up paying as much as $3 per GB/month. This price model should now be obsolete. Companies will end up saving a minimum of 50% off their total costs for storage once they make the move to the Cloud. Instead of investing in those non-core competencies that don’t add value to their business, companies should be investing in building out their business and fostering partnerships and customer relationships.

#2 On Demand Global Scale
There has been a large mass-scale growth in unstructured data and content storage. This huge growth in unstructured data presents an exponentially increasing problem. As the amount of unstructured data continues to grow there is a severe pressure on IT environments to quickly deploy and manage globally accessible scalable storage. Applications and users can no longer be locked to a single location, and in many cases must scale to meet what the Internet demands. Instead of focusing on managing storage, which doesn’t give you a competitive edge, you can focus on managing and growing your business.

#3 Guaranteed Security and Availability
Part of the resistance to Cloud storage has been around trust and reliability. Moving data into the Cloud is more secure and allows more persistent data availability than current paradigms. For example, if you look at tape archiving, where you are shipping off a tape on a truck to an external environment, in many cases Iron Mountain, what if something happens to that truck? An obvious question, but a valid concern presented when there are people processes associated with that data. Not only is it simple to put data in the Cloud, but that data is also encrypted before it ever leaves the four walls, in flight, and at rest. Additionally, with a fully redundant network, in which data is replicated to multiple nodes, data availability and security can be guaranteed at 100%.

THE RESPONSE
Historically speaking, there is always a new kind of company that emerges on the other side of that IT inflection point. When the industry realizes the points of concern, and the potential benefits to remedying those concerns, there will be a major shift within the market. Some preexisting companies will undoubtedly modify their current services or pull a marketing veil over out-dated technologies. However, there will also be new, legitimate companies and services that will emerge, which will not deal with the legacy approaches or the cannibalization of existing out-dated products. These revolutionaries will build new DNA from the ground up, optimized for that new model. In the case of Cloud Storage, I am confident that Nirvanix will be that company. Built from the ground up for better economics, unlimited scalability, and 100% guaranteed security and reliability.

Through innovation and unparalleled dedication to customer support Nirvanix’s unique solution, the Storage Delivery Network™ (SDN), will lead the forefront of the Cloud Storage movement. Since launch in October 2007, we have signed major Fortune 50, large media, entertainment, and well known PC software companies that depend on us every day to store, manage, and deliver their data worldwide. We have maintained 100% uptime availability since launch while growing 10 fold in 6 months. We are uniquely positioned with our SDN and our differentiation will continue to grow as we accelerate innovation in key areas including expansion of our multipetabyte global storage network, pioneering secure and easy access methods through standard storage protocols, and delivering advanced data security and reliability policies unrivaled in the industry. The box is dead, long live the Cloud!

Best Regards,

Patrick Harr | Founder & CEO

BREAKING NEWS- THE BOX IS DEAD!

Marketing — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:14:00 GMT

San Diego, CA –Tuesday, February 12^th, 2008 - The cumbersome and costly Storage Server, otherwise known as The Box, is dead. Investigators presume foul play, and believe that this case can be linked to a recent string of related incidents. There have been reports of numerous slayings across the globe, with all victims being members of the Storage 1.0 clan. Recent fatalities include EMC, NetApp, and Isilon, among others. The police investigation into these deaths has led authorities to a unified conclusion, and they have made public the name of their top suspect: Nirvanix.

Investigators claim that Nirvanix is guilty of coercing customers into committing these violent acts. An internal source recently captured this footage of one of the most notorious Nirvanix customers, Michael Witz, founder and CEO of Free Drive, brutally demolishing The Box. That same source also provided video evidence containing Nirvanix CEO, Patrick Harr, and his accomplice, Michael Witz, destroying The Box in front of an audience at a recent speaking engagement, DEMO 08.

According to industry insiders, there has been surprisingly little tumult in reaction to these passings. Instead, a subdued celebration has been taking place, a muted rejoice in reaction to the near-extinction of the Storage 1.0 clan. One source, who chose not to be identified, stated, “We feel liberated now that the Storage 1.0 clan has experienced their downfall. All of us in the storage circle, both beginning developers, like myself, and some of the more established online business owners, are embracing the Storage 2.0 revolution. Once we kill The Box, we can save the time and money we were spending to build and manage data centers and just plug our applications into the Nirvanix SDN.”

While most are rallying behind Nirvanix, as their Storage Cloud model overthrows The Box, there still remains some hesitance in the air. Some can not accept the inevitable demise of The Box, and are exhibiting signs of denial. Nirvanix advocates are guiding these individuals through the coping process and helping them Experience Nirvanix.

One advocate explained that once application developers and business owners free themselves of their infatuation with The Box they will then begin to Experience Nirvanix. He described the state of Nirvanix as “an enlightened state of being which produces peace of mind, a mind that has come to a point of perfect lucidity and clarity due to the absence of archaic storage models. An individual who enters the state of Nirvanix will reach their highest level of storage optimization, the natural result that accrues to one who integrates their application virtually and conducts their business with an intelligent Storage Delivery Network (SDN). Such a service dissolves the unpredictable storage needs of user-generated content (UGC) applications that otherwise keep beings forever wandering through the impermanent and suffering-generating realms of unscalable storage, unreliable delivery of content, and time consuming management.”

Nirvanix has gone so far as to make a public statement and invited all members of the storage circle to witness scheduled destructions of The Box. All future fatalities are listed on their News & Events page.

*Rachel Brown*

DEMO 08- The Box is Dead!

Marketing — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:33:00 GMT

Last week the Nirvanix team headed out to Palm Desert to attended DEMO 08, a conference that focuses on emerging technologies and new products. DEMO hand-selected the 77 companies that spoke at this year’s conference, and among those speakers was our CEO, Patrick Harr. DEMO organizer Chris Shipley invited Patrick to speak because she believed Nirvanix had a ground-breaking announcement, worthy of being heard by the sold-out DEMO audience.

If you haven’t already heard, Nirvanix’s DEMO announcement included the recent expansion our Storage Delivery Network to include European and Asian storage nodes, which enables the intelligent storage and movement of files and guarantees the best end user experience on a global scale. Also introduced were our new Media Services including transcoding, video frame extraction, and image manipulation.

With these launches, Nirvanix continues to raise the bar for premium storage services, especially in the user-generated content sector.

This latest launch once again proves our dedication to making integration and management of scalable storage for user-generated content driven applications headache-free. In that vain, we announced audio and video transcoding, photo/video thumbnail extraction, photo resizing, and the ever-so-handy integration of tag and meta data search. Not only do these new facets of the Nirvanix SDN allow for simple control, but most importantly, they will help developers and business owners save valuable time and money. Just plug into the SDN and go!

Nirvanix is leading the pack in the outsource storage movement, and eliminating the need for complicated software and cumbersome storage devices, otherwise known as “boxes”. The expression 'The box is dead' will be the moniker of 2008, as more services move to the cloud. So, not only did we announce network additions and new functionality at DEMO, but we also announced the death of the box. We thought there would be no better person to help us kill the box than one of our valued and, apparently, most aggressive customers: Michael Witz of FreeDrive. So we armed Michael with a sledgehammer and he destroyed a server on stage at DEMO. The Nirvanix team also created a video clip of Michael pummeling another box, which Byte and Switch called “reminiscent of 1960s pop-art campus flicks”.

Check it out:

6-minute presentation by Patrick and Michael at DEMO 08—click here.
1-minute video: The Box is Dead!—click here.
6-minute interview with Patrick Harr: The SDN explained— click here.

To see all future events that Nirvanix will be attending, and register to attend, please visit our News & Events page.

*Rachel Brown*

Nirvanix Marketing Associate

Intel investment and Byte & Switch Product of the Year 2007

Marketing — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:13:00 GMT

Earlier this week, we announced our newest investment partner, Intel Capital (http://www.intel.com/capital/) to our investor base. The investment will allow for faster advancement of the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN) continuing our commitment to providing the most reliable, scalable and highest performance service possible. We are especially thrilled because this serves as further validation of our technology, indicating a movement for businesses around the world from purchasing and managing costly storage equipment to outsourcing storage needs. The investment also displays the level of trust Intel has in Nirvanix technology. This is a direct result of our focus on providing a best in class service partnered with unparalleled customer support.

In addition to the investment news we are pleased to announce that we are one of Byte & Switch’s top storage products of 2007. We are honored by the recognition and see this as an indication in things to come. (http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=141765&page_number=7). This recognition confirms what we have done in 2007 and we look forward to continuing to provide you with stellar service and technology that helps reduce your time to market and provide the best possible experience for your customers.
I want to extend my gratitude to our customers, investors and supporters for making this a great year.

Thanks Again,

Patrick Harr

President and CEO
Nirvanix Inc.

FreeDrive and Ogrant choose the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network

Marketing — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:27:00 GMT

Nirvanix will be entering the New Year while welcoming two new members to our family of applications. Silicon Valley-based FreeDrive (www.freedrive.com) and Toronto-based Ogrant (www.ogrant.com) are a couple of the most recent and cutting-edge applications that Nirvanix is proud to be partnering with.

Here at Nirvanix, we’re excited that our Storage Delivery Network is providing a platform for some of the more unique and influential applications in the market. These websites are enabling new forms of communication, revolutionizing media sharing capabilities, and will likely be a part of the changing landscape of online interaction.

FreeDrive is a digital locker and content sharing service that enables users to upload and store or share all types of content including photos, videos, music, documents, and just about anything you can think of. In addition to their website, they have recently launched an application for the increasingly popular social networking site Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/freedrive/); which the entire Nirvanix team uses religiously.

Ogrant is an organization that gives students the opportunity to fund their education through creativity and collaboration. Instead of bland essays, transcripts and reference letters, O grant allows students to post images, video, and other media on their site to apply for grants funded by Ogrant’s partnering corporations.

According to the FreeDrive and Ogrant teams, Nirvanix provided key support throughout their development process. Nirvanix gives large businesses and small operations the valuable and easy-to-use tools that make every step from integration to usage control and management simple and painless. With our dedicated staff and customer support team, we enable every type of developer to successfully launch their application in minimal time. Nirvanix continues to give web-based services the ability to reach globally, whether it be California, Canada, or Cambodia. Our unlimited scalability is perfect for start up companies like FreeDrive and Ogrant who often experience exponential growth and unpredictable storage needs.

Here at Nirvanix we are proud to have helped with the development process of these applications and we are honored that the Nirvanix SDN is providing a platform for the progressive ideals of FreeDrive and the compassionate causes behind Ogrant.

To see what FreeDrive and Ogrant are saying about their experience with the Nirvanix SDN check out our customer gallery (http://www.nirvanix.com/customers.aspx)

*Rachel Brown*

Nirvanix Marketing Associate

From the CEO

admin — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:36:00 GMT

Welcome to Nirvanix

We recently launched our new B2B storage and delivery service to strong reception and now have over 40 beta customers both large and small that have been integrating their media-based web applications and services. These applications include: mobile digital lockers, social networking sites, mashables, photo and video sharing sites, next gen YouTubes, mobile content delivery networks, next gen SmugMugs and new backup and archival solutions to name a few. The Nirvanix SDS was built from the ground up to support Internet-scale media storage requirements and remove the hassles of building, managing and storing billions of files for millions of users. The Nirvanix SDS is available through a rich web services API and delivers developers the first true Internet file system, advanced media services (transcoding, image manipulation, streaming and large file support), a guaranteed SLA and 24x7 support. Our patent-pending Internet Media File System is the underpinning of the service and delivers unmatched performance, scalability and reliability. In addition, it is the backbone of our media storage delivery network that we are building globally with multiple nodes in the United States, Europe and Asia. By intelligently moving storage uploads, downloads and media processing closer to applications and their users we deliver guaranteed performance and reliability that applications require and the optimal experience that users demand.

We founded Nirvanix in 2007 after seeing a tremendous need to provide Internet storage in the cloud for emerging web business as well as those traditional enterprises that were moving to embrace the web 2.0 model. We designed the service on five fundamental principles:

World-class customer service and support
Guaranteed availability and reliability of data
Global scalability and industry-best performance
Richest media processing and storage services
Breakthrough economics

With the launch of the Nirvanix SDS, we have delivered on these key principles. Nirvanix is the only provider of live 24x7 phone, email and chat support, guaranteed data availability and reliability with our IMFS clustered file system that utilizes multi-node file storage, RAID 6, backup and archival and fully redundant infrastructure. In addition, with our patent-pending clustered node architecture and inter- and intra-node geographic load balancing, we have delivered the industry’s best performance and global scalability for the web’s most demanding applications. Finally, we have delivered the only media-optimized storage service that enables developers to create the richest web experiences for their users at a price point significantly cheaper than building their own storage infrastructure. Nirvanix is the nirvana of media storage.

As always, I encourage everyone to try the service and I personally welcome any and all comments at 619-764-5650 x500.

Best regards,

Patrick Harr

President and CEO
Nirvanix, Inc.