Nirvanix (formerly Streamload) was one of the first Internet storage services (garnering multiple awards) and is now a cloud storage provider. Its current flagship product, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network or Nirvanix SDN is a 'web-based platform for developers enabling quick and easy integration of scalable storage and delivery into any application'. They also have a product called CloudNAS which is currently in beta.

The company is positioning itself in competition with Amazon Simple Storage Service, claiming to be 200% faster and easier to integrate, albeit more expensive. Both services now offer a Service Level Agreement but Nirvanix were the first to do so. The forthcoming CloudNAS product will further ease integration efforts by making CIFS, NFS and FTP interfaces available, thus appearing like a virtual Network Attached Storage device to end users.

The original Streamload service was renamed to MediaMax before being spun off in July 2007, and again to The Linkup before failing in August 2008.

History

Streamload, founded in 1998 in San Diego, California by Steve Iverson (an Ernst & Young's entrepreneur-of-the-year award finalist), was one of the first Internet storage services, receiving various accolades for innovative products between 2002 and 2006. The company attracted angel investor and computer software entrepreneur Charlie Jackson and $1.2m in investment by August 2004Streamload/MediaMax/TheLinkup death spiral dogs Nirvanix.

Their flagship product was renamed to MediaMax (subsequently The Linkup) and spun off on 1 July 2007 while the existing company (with all the servers and data) was re-named Nirvanix. The Linkup's 8 August 2008 failure, one of the most serious of its kind, resulted in permanent loss of data for around 20,000 paying customers. Although Nirvanix denies responsibility for the data loss (claiming that Savvis was contracted by its MediaMax spin off to host the application and the database) they were implicated by hosting the data itself, 'at least 55%' of which they claim 'remains secure' yet inaccessible in their systems.

Nirvanix kept many of the former company's physical assets and employees (including CEO Patrick Harr), and secured $12 million in initial venture funding from Mission Ventures, Valhalla Partners and Windward Ventures. The company later received unspecified funding from Intel to provide the company with “additional opportunities to further technology advancements of its Storage Delivery Network optimized for media applications”, and “to further accelerate its global build-out of storage nodes to meet swelling demand for its online storage service.”.

See also

• The Linkup (formerly MediaMax), a defunct Streamload spin off
• Amazon Simple Storage Service - Nirvanix has claimed to be 200% faster than Amazon S3Nirvanix Claims 200 Percent Faster Downloads than Amazon S3.