Nirvanix Appears to be First Big Victim of Cloud Gold Rush

Fallout from the cloud gold rush has begun.

According to multiple reports, six-year-old cloud storage provider Nirvanix this week told channel partners to move their customers’ data because the company will be closing by Sept. 30 if it can’t secure more funding.

Big-name Nirvanix clients include Fox News and National Geographic.

As of yesterday, end users no longer were able to replicate their storage to the Nirvanix cloud, CRN reported. Those clients have been given two weeks to move their data. However, for those using petabytes of storage, two weeks may not prove enough time.

In addition, InformationAge reported on Monday that Aorta Cloud, a Nirvanix partner in the UK, was informed by Nirvanix executives that the company has "gone to the wall" on its financing. Aorta Cloud CEO Steven Ampleford also told the Wall Street Journal that Nirvanix leaders told him, "Armageddon is about to happen." They did not tell him what will happen if customer data aren’t moved by the end of the month.

Meantime, some parties are trying to keep Nirvanix operational but for now nothing is certain.

The Nirvanix shut-down news comes as the cloud storage market has grown saturated with providers and competition from Google, IBM, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and others drives down pricing. The natural attrition that comes of such saturation and competition appears to be starting.