Report: Nirvanix customers have two weeks to get data out of cloud
- 17 September, 2013 22:12
Nirvanix, a cloud storage company, is shutting down, according to multiple media reports that have cited reseller partners of the company.
The Wall Street Journal Bits and CRN each cited multiple Nirvanix partners who reported they have been told that the company is closing its offerings and that customers have two weeks to vacate their data from the company's cloud.
[MAKING MONEY:15 Richest techies]
Nirvanix was one of the original pure-play cloud storage providers that followed Amazon Web Services to the market, says Forrester analyst Henry Baltazar, who said he has independently heard from a reseller that Nirvanix is closing.
As other big-name cloud storage vendors like Microsoft, Google and Rackspace got into the market after Nirvanix, a pricing war started, Baltazar says.The cloud storage market became one of "cheap and deep" services, he says, meaning low-cost and multiple types of offerings, from file storage or block storage. "That makes it a difficult market for a venture-backed startup to compete in," Baltazar says.
Adding to the company's struggles, he says, is the fact that Nirvanix focused solely on cloud storage, and never expanded to incorporate cloud compute offerings. The real value-add for storage, he says, is being able to run applications on top of that storage. Nirvanix did have an agreement at one time with IBM to provide back-end storage, but Big Blue's acquisition of SoftLayer may have reduced the company's usefulness to IBM, Baltazar notes.
So what does it mean for the rest of the market? Not much, he says.
"Amazon's not going away, Microsoft and Google are not going away," he says, easing concerns that some may raise about the viability of cloud storage.
But, Nirvanix is reportedly giving customers two weeks to get data out of their cloud. Baltazar says that's "ridiculous" given the magnitude of data that will have to be migrated from the company's offerings. He says it spans seven collocation sites across the country, with more than 1,000 customers.
According to CrunchBase, the company has received $70 million in venture financing, including a C round in May.
Nirvanix officials did not respond to a request for information on Tuesday.
Senior Writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing for Network World and NetworkWorld.com. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW. Read his Cloud Chronicles here.