As anticipated earlier this month, San Diego based Nirvanix has launched and will offer an alternative to Amazon’s S3 storage service, which is growing rapidly.
The company is positioning itself against Amazon by saying it’s easier to integrate than S3 and they offer a service level agreement to guarantee 99/9% uptime (Amazon does not offer an SLA).
Pricing is $0.18/GB/month for storage and $0.18/GB of data transferred. By comparison, Amazon charges $0.15/GB/month for storage, and $0.10/GB of data transferred in and $0.13-$0.18/GB of data transferred out.
The lack of a service level agreement at Amazon has led many startups to use it for backup purposes only, keeping primary storage under their direct control. They may find Nirvanix as an attractive alternative (and this may also give Amazon an incentive to add an SLA soon).
Nirvanix, however, is affiliated with MediaMax, which has recently gone through a hellish transition that left customers offline and furious. The connection between the two companies is going to create some marketing stress for Nirvanix as it rolls out its new service.
The company has raised $12 million in funding.