University of Southern California Shifts 8PBs to Nirvanix Private Cloud

Nirvanix, Inc.
announced that the University of Southern California (USC) will deploy over 8
petabytes of unstructured data on a Nirvanix Private Cloud Storage solution.

The Private Cloud will be managed as a service by Nirvanix and will
include digital content from multiple USC entities, including the USC Shoah
Foundation Institute in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
and the USC Digital Repository, a division of the USC Libraries.

8PB of storage is comparable to half a million
16-gigabyte iPhones/iPads, 160,000 Blu-ray discs, 8 billion 500-page books.

USC plans to leverage the Nirvanix cloud for its own internal data storage
requirements and make it available for external clients as well, particularly
in the area of cloud-based digital archives. With the USC Digital Repository,
the university has partnered with Nirvanix to archive digital
content-such as HD videos and high resolution photos-with services available
such as physical to digital conversion, cataloging and full media preservation,
all integrated in a secure Nirvanix Deep Cloud Archive.

"This is essentially the rise of IT
consumers creating externally facing value and emerging as IT providers-a trend
that began with the early days of the Internet and is now reaching critical
mass," said David Vellante, President of IT think tank Wikibon.org.
"Across virtually all industries,
what customers do with IT is becoming more valuable than what suppliers create
at the factory-something you simply did not see with prior generations of
technology."

"In the current
macroeconomic environment, the combination of hyper growth in digital content
and the need for greater return on investment at all academic institutions is
driving the need for a new generation of IT solutions," said Sam
Gustman, CTO for the USC Shoah Foundation Institute and Associate Dean of the
USC Libraries. "We shifted to the
cloud because it provides USC with a geographically diverse and cost-effective
way of storing, preserving and distributing our content on a truly global
scale."

Deployed within USC’s central data center, the Nirvanix
Private Cloud Storage solution will enable the university and its clients to
upload digital content from any location and ensure that it is available
anywhere around the world by virtue of Nirvanix’s Cloud File System software.
Additionally, any changes made to files stored in the Nirvanix Private Cloud
will be reflected across the whole cloud, ensuring that multiple
users collaborating and accessing the same file always have the latest version.
This level of data consistency is critical for such a massive amount of
unstructured data.

"How many
conventional storage devices can even handle eight Petabytes distributed around
the world?" said Paul Froutan, former head of Google data center
operations and current Nirvanix CTO. "The
answer: none. This is why companies are shifting to the consumption economics
and business flexibility inherent in cloud storage services. There are no
physical limitations when you have access to a nearly limitless pool of virtual
resources. The age of big iron monoliths is being replaced by more agile,
adaptable clouds with far greater levels of flexibility and scalability."

"This strategic
IT shift is a precursor of things to come from institutions and enterprises as
they look for new, more flexible ways to store massive amounts of unstructured
content," said Scott Genereux, President and CEO of Nirvanix. "The selection of Nirvanix for this
large-scale storage implementation continues our significant momentum as the
leader in enterprise cloud storage and demonstrates further market share gains."