IBM Global Services Integrates Nirvanix Cloud Storage in SmartCloud Enterprise Service

IBM OEM’s Nirvanix’s Cloud Storage Network to lead its SmartCloud Enterprise storage offering

By Deni Connor
Founder and senior analyst
October 12, 2011

Nirvanix has been chosen by IBM Global Services, the largest IT services organization in the world, to provide its public Cloud Storage Network technology, a fully-managed service, to IBM customers.  The result of a five-year pact that IBM and Nirvanix announced this week, IBM SmartCloud Enterprise will integrate Nirvanix’s production-grade cloud storage and allow the uploading of any size file or object with high-availability ensured by storing data at multiple redundant locations.

IBM’s SmartCloud Enterprise paired with Nirvanix’s Cloud Storage Network technology is suited for storing unstructured data – Word documents, spreadsheets, medical images and emails – and objects in a cluster of geographically distributed storage nodes in which each node knows what is stored on it for high availability and redundancy, as well as performance. The cluster created by the Nirvanix cloud storage technology can be accessed and uploaded from anywhere and managed via a single namespace. It is capable of supporting billions of objects, as compared to EMC Atmos which is reported to be limited to an object store able to support only millions of files.

IBM signed the OEM agreement after extensive research into the offerings of other vendors—including many startups and larger players– and the company decided on Nirvanix for its self-healing cloud, data consistency, global namespace, purpose built cloud infrastructure, multi-tenancy, and self-provisioning, among other features that form the basis of Nirvanix’s proprietary software IP stack.

Nirvanix’s Cloud Storage Network has features that make it notable among its competitors. They are:

Data consistency – When changes to data are detected in the cloud, they are automatically distributed to all nodes in real-time rather than at a scheduled point in the future.

Global namespace – The Cloud Storage Network is managed under a global namespace, which allows users to upload a file or object from anywhere and at any time and have it available, regardless of its location.

Self-healing – All files uploaded into the Cloud Storage Network are continually checked for corruption and automatically repaired if they are found to be corrupt.

Geographically distributed storage – The heart of the Cloud Storage Network is its geographic distribution of files throughout the cloud, assuring high availability.

Multi-tenancy – In a multi-tenant model, the provider’s resources are pooled to serve many customers, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned as needed. This elastic, shared-

storage model allows the provider to cost-effectively provision resources and bill by usage rather than available storage.

Self-provisioning – Customers can manage their storage service using the Nirvanix management console.

Service Level Agreements – Nirvanix guarantees uptime up to five nines of availability.

Security – Security is built-into the Nirvanix Cloud Storage Network. The Nirvanix infrastructure features built-in enhanced security capabilities such as SSL, strong password authentication, and de-identified physical file information that prevents linking files to users without a 3-step key.

Our take
Nirvanix’s Cloud Storage Network is a true enterprise-ready, scalable example of cloud storage at its finest. While IBM made a number of cloud services announcements today, clearly the Nirvanix integration is the jewel of  its cloud storage announcements. According to a recent report from Storage Strategies NOW on Cloud Storage Adoption, Deployment and Practice, 57% of C-level executives are planning to adopt cloud storage, while only 54% of IT operations staff are.

This study also clearly shows that the features Nirvanix offers with its Cloud Storage Network mesh with the requirements – multi-tenancy, data consistency, SLAs – required of any vendor that provides public cloud services.

IBM’s adoption of Nirvanix’s cloud service is a resounding sign of its belief in the type of cloud Nirvanix delivers. While some companies are still trying to put together a viable cloud strategy, it looks like IBM and Nirvanix are ready to take industry-proven technology and expand it on a massive, global scale.