Opinion

posted on 28 July 2008 19:15

Various blog postings, given spurious credibility through being picked up TechCrunch and then the Washington Post, have said that Nirvanix is responsible in some way for lost files on thelinkup.com which has just closed. These are wrong. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER THAT Nirvanix is at fault at all; in fact the reverse appears to be the case with Nirvanix trying to help out an unlucky and ill-starred fellow startup - and then getting some of the blame quite unjustifiably for that startup's troubles.

The following Nirvanix statement states what actually happened during the torried MediaMax/thelinkup history.

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MediaMax, Inc, also known as “The Linkup” (TLU) recently announced the closing of their business effective August 8th, 2008. We sincerely sympathize with the frustration and anger that this announced closing has caused their users, and as such, have extended our service to MediaMax, Inc. through August 8th free of charge.

We would like to take time to answer questions that have resulted from this closure, as well as dispel some inaccurate and blatantly false information that is being reported on certain blogs.
How can I access my MediaMax/The Linkup data?

The files that were transferred into TLU can be downloaded through August 8, 2008. Those files that were not transferred remain secure in the old Streamload/MediaMax storage system; however, access to those files requires the MediaMax application front-end and database - both owned by MediaMax, Inc. MediaMax contracted SAVVIS (http//www.savvis.net) and Nirvanix to host their MediaMax application/database and old Streamload/MediaMax servers and storage systems, respectively, in July 2007. MediaMax’s intent was to migrate users and files from the MediaMax application and old Streamload/MediaMax storage system into the new TLU application and the new Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network™. However, as documented on the TLU blog on their impending closure, this migration was only partly possible and only a portion of the files were transferred.

Can Nirvanix help me retrieve MediaMax files that are not available on The Linkup?

No. All files that were migrated or uploaded directly to TLU can be downloaded through August 8th. Any files that were not migrated to TLU require the MediaMax application and database front-end which Nirvanix has no access to. Ownership of the MediaMax application front-end and user data belongs solely to MediaMax, Inc. MediaMax has always had full and complete management control over its application, database, billing and software used to provide service to their users. As a result, Nirvanix cannot legally or technically provide access to MediaMax data on the old Streamload/MediaMax system, despite inaccurate claims to the contrary.

Are Nirvanix Inc. and MediaMax Inc. the same company?

No. Nirvanix and MediaMax split out of the same company, Streamload, Inc. in July 2007. Streamload, Inc. was a business-to-consumer company started in 2001 initially offering unlimited online storage for free as well as paid upgrade plans. Due to the success of the free and paid offering, the company had grown to manage approximately a petabyte of media files and billions of objects for tens of thousands of users. During this growth over several years, the company accumulated valuable intellectual property surrounding scalable online storage.

However, while Streamload had accumulated numerous industry awards for pioneering the online storage service, the company quickly outpaced itself which led to a difficult and well publicized transition from the Streamload application (V.4) to the MediaMax application (V.5) in 2006. The company also struggled to adapt to changing market conditions with many new free entrants coming on-line as well as a large buildup of free and former users and their associated storage costs. The company never deleted any inactive data stored for its former users and received no monies for maintaining those files. As a result, this required the company to raise new capital and change its direction as it was losing money.

Streamload investors and Board subsequently recruited a new CEO, Patrick Harr, in early 2007 to raise capital. After a detailed 60-day assessment of the business, it was determined and approved by the Board in April 2007 to split the company into two to provide best opportunity for success - one that would focus on consumer-to-business (MediaMax, Inc.) and one that would focus on business-to-business (Nirvanix, Inc.). Each company would be independently formed with separate ownership, oversight and investors. The companies were subsequently split off in July 2007 and have been separate and distinct entities since that time.

The founding of Nirvanix, Inc.

Nirvanix Inc. incorporated in Delaware, was conceived of by founders Patrick Harr and Geoff Tudor to pursue the storage-as-a-service market for the enterprise. A new Nirvanix system, called the Storage Delivery Network, would be built from the ground up with completely new software and hardware systems. The Nirvanix SDN would incorporate both the lessons-learned of operating a large-scale online storage service under Streamload as well as the latest techniques in clustering, virtualization, database driven file system architectures and distributed networking. Nirvanix filed nine patents on this new platform in August 2007 and launched its award-winning, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network in October 2007. Nirvanix raised $18M in Series A financing from Intel Capital, Valhalla Partners, Mission Partners, European Founders Fund (investors in FaceBook, LinkedIn and others) and Windward Ventures. Nine Streamload employees of Nirvanix’s currently 45 employees would join Patrick and Geoff as part of the founding team. Nirvanix would also go on to recruit several key technology, operational, marketing and financial leaders, including Patrick Ritto, CTO and VP of engineering from MIT, Oracle and VitalStream; Michael Landesman, VP of Data Center Operations from Rackspace, SAVVIS and Exodus; Major Horton, CFO and former CFO of Rackspace and head of Dell Financial; Jonathan Buckley, CMO from PowerFile and McDATA; Dan Havens, VP of Sales from ClearApp, BEA and MicroStrategies and several new key engineers and operational personnel from EMC, Microsoft, Yahoo, Brocade and Akamai.

Did Nirvanix delete user data?

No, Nirvanix has not deleted any customer data. Nirvanix currently manages a multi-petabyte network for its over 400 business customers on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network. We have multiple safeguards and checkpoints against data corruption and potential loss, including continual MD5 hash checking, dual writes of files in a single node cluster (aka, localized redundancy of files), replication of files across geographically dispersed storage nodes and backup of all systems. The Nirvanix SDN is built on a new and completely redundant, world-class infrastructure from Cisco, Intel and Seagate. Our storage nodes are located throughout the world and are co-located in Tier 1, SAS-70 certified facilities. We also utilize exclusively tier-1, multi-homed bandwidth for our network backbone across the SDN. We are also the only ones in the industry to provide a 100% SLA that results from the ability to geographically disperse data across clustered storage nodes in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Did a storage problem occur at Streamload?

As documented on the MediaMax blog in July 2007, a storage problem did occur at Streamload on the Streamload/MediaMax storage system in June 2007. This occurred prior to the formation of Nirvanix Inc. and was completely independent of the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network which was not launched until October 2007.

Streamload offered unlimited and then 25 GB of free storage for quite some time. This resulted in a tremendous amount of data stored in a few million free, non-active accounts for years. Streamload was literally paying for former users to store 100’s of terabytes of old, inactive data for free. In preparation for the split of the two companies, and subsequent move of the MediaMax application to SAVVIS, it was determined that the inactive data from former users would be purged on the Streamload/MediaMax storage system, thus shrinking the overall storage needs and costs for the new MediaMax company. During this process, a system administrator ran a script that misidentified active account data and disassociated physical files from their owners. This led to files being marked offline in the old Streamload/MediaMax file system when they shouldn’t have been. Data was not permanently deleted but rather marked offline. Subsequent restore efforts led to most files being re-associated with users and restored back online with the remaining being identified as corrupted links from long ago or files stored offline on older JBODs. These JBODs are owned and physically kept by MediaMax Inc. at its facilities. Concurrently with this process to cull legacy users and data, the MediaMax service went offline for 7 days as it migrated its application infrastructure and databases to SAVVIS. The MediaMax blog in July 2007 excerpt is referenced below:

“…On June 15, Streamload had a major storage problem that has caused many of our customer files to become inaccessible. They are not gone forever, but it is taking a very long time to recover all the data because of the extraordinary amount of data stored…”

I have read that Nirvanix is to blame for the difficulties at MediaMax/The Linkup.

This is simply not true and this false speculation has been spread by a handful of angry blog posts and perpetuated by a popular technology blog that did not verify its story by contacting Nirvanix.

For further clarity, the Streamload/MediaMax service was never hosted on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network. Nirvanix and its Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network code, network did not exist at the time when:

- Problems arose in the Streamload V.4 to MediaMax V.5 upgrade in 2006; and

- When the Streamload/MediaMax storage problems occurred in June 2007.

In addition, Nirvanix was not responsible for migration of files from MediaMax to TLU as that was the responsibility and duty of the application. TLU has documented on its blog (http://tlublog.blogspot.com/) why it is closing its doors and we refer readers to their site for explanation.

Can data accidently be deleted on the Nirvanix SDN?

No. This type of problem encountered at Streamload is not possible in the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network as the entire system is fully redundant. This means that all files, and pointers to those files are replicated within the system. Furthermore, a series of “checks-and-balances” has been installed natively within the SDN framework. If a customer deletes a reference to a file, the system logs the removal of the reference, and leaves the physical file associated in tact. After three days, the pointer to the physical file is logged (with a time stamp) and the pointer to that file is removed, finally after eight days of the original removal of the customer’s reference, the file is deleted off of Nirvanix storage. At any point during this eight-day process, the file can be fully recovered.

To prevent accidental deletion of files by administrators, all internal deletions follow this same process and include an additional step - any file deleted by a systems administrator is archived to permanent backup before the file is deleted, guaranteeing its full recoverability. Finally, the SDN contains multiple servers at each node cluster running integrity checks against all files stored within the SDN. This system operates independently of the SDN and continuously crawls through all files that have been placed within the SDN, ensuring that they exist, are accessible, and are not corrupt. Any file which shows even the smallest problem is marked offline and recovered immediately from one of our redundant copies.

Has Nirvanix undergone third party audits and technical due diligence?

Nirvanix has undergone intense technical and legal due diligence by its investors and is proud to have raised $18M in Series A financing from its tier one investors. Along with the due diligence process associated with acquiring financing, Nirvanix has also undergone technical/data security due diligence by its many large corporate customers as well as independent security audits. Nirvanix currently manages a multi-petabyte storage delivery network and is extremely pleased to have over 400 enterprise and channel customers/partners as valued users of the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network.

In addition, Nirvanix has undergone SAS 70 Type 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_70) certification and uses state of the art protection techniques including co-locating in Tier 1 facilities all over the world. Nirvanix has been providing the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network since October 2007 with an impeccable record of consistently exceeding its SLA.

^{[B&F staff with document supplied by Nirvanix.]}