People

posted on 03 March 2008 17:43

Cloud storage supplier Nirvanix has recruited Michael V. Wall, a co-founder of Intel's storage business management team in the late 1990's.

Wall spent 15 years at Intel Corporation, most recently as the general manager of the company’s Storage Group. He worked closely with the large, multinational OEMs that manufacture and distribute servers, workstations and storage solutions. Nirvanix wants to use this depth and breadth of experience as it builds its Storage Delivery Network (SDN) worldwide.

Wall said of his appointment: "The storage market isn’t known for frequent inflection points but this happens to be one of those rare moments as online storage takes a solid footing in the marketplace. There is no doubt that the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network approach to the market is a winner. I look forward to working with my fellow Board members and the management team at Nirvanix to ensure that our SDN becomes the de facto storage utility standard.”

Patrick Harr, Nirvanix CEO and board member, said: “Mike brings a strong network across Fortune 1000 companies and storage OEMs, successful operating experience and great strategic insight, which will further accelerate Nirvanix growth. Nirvanix has been adding accounts in record numbers across the world from startups to the largest of corporations and, especially at this time in our company’s history, the depth and breadth of experience that Mike is bringing to the Board will definitely make the climb up the steep growth curve easier. We are very pleased that Mike has decided to join the Board.”

Nirvanix describes itself thus: "Nirvanix is the premier “Cloud Storage” platform provider. Nirvanix has built a global cluster of storage nodes collectively referred to as the Storage Delivery Network (SDN), powered by the Nirvanix Internet Media File System (IMFS). The SDN intelligently stores, delivers and processes storage requests in the best network location, providing the best user experience in the marketplace. With the ability to store multiple file copies in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN enables unparalleled data availability for developers, businesses and enterprises."

"The Nirvanix SDN is optimized to handle very large files and enables any consumer or enterprise Web application to scale instantly, meeting the demands for storing and delivering millions of files from video and audio to documents and backup files worldwide."

"By using the Nirvanix SDN, versus alternatives such as adding network storage systems or using first generation online storage platforms, businesses are guaranteed a shorter time-to-market, reduced costs, and also benefit from better flexibility and control for their operations. In addition to its superior network and storage technologies, Nirvanix works to maintain its outstanding reputation with its customers with unparalleled developer and 7x24 enterprise support."

On the day when Microsoft substantially strengthened its Software as a Service (SaaS) offering and, clearly, has confidence in its built-out infrastructure to handle this, the need for Nirvanix to solidify its offering and accelerate its sales is emphasised by Microft's activities.

The cloud storage market is turning into a serious competition between established storage product and service suppliers such as EMC and Symantec, very strong new infrastructure players such as Amazon and Google, and established software suppliers such as Microsoft. The market is so very young and promises to be so vast and multi-structured that there is no incumbent leader and, for companies like Nirvanix, everything to play for.