Dell Compellent

Dell Compellent

Type	Public (NYSE: CML)
Industry	Data storage devices
Founded	2002
Founder(s)	Larry Aszmann John Guider Phil Soran
Headquarters	7625 Smetana Lane Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Michael Dell (Chairman & CEO)
Products	Storage Center, Storage Center with NAS
Revenue	$ 125.3 million (2009)
Employees	565 (Start of 2011)
Website	www.dell.com/compellent

Originally named Compellent Technologies, Inc (NYSE: CML), founded in 2002, is a global provider of enterprise storage systems that gained recognition for automating data movement at the block level. The company is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA. Compellent's chief product, Storage Center, is a storage area network (SAN) system that combines a standards-based hardware platform and a suite of virtualized storage management applications, including automated tiered storage, thin provisioning and replication. The company developed its Storage Center software and hardware solution aimed at mid-size enterprises and sells Storage Center through an all-channel network of independent solution providers and resellers.^[1]

History

Compellent Technologies was founded in 2002 by Phil Soran, John Guider, and Larry Aszmann. The three have extensive network storage and virtualization backgrounds.

The company had its initial public offering on October 15, 2007, became profitable for the first time in Q3 2008 and has been profitable in consecutive quarters since. On February 11, 2010, it announced Q4 2009 revenues had increased 35 percent over Q4 2008, the company’s 17th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, with full year revenue of $125.3 million.^[2]

On December 13, 2010, Compellent announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) at a purchase price of $27.75 per share for an equity value of approximately $960M. The purchase was completed in February of 2011 and the name changed to Dell Compellent.

Products

Storage Center

Compellent’s SAN, called "Storage Center", combines several virtualized storage-management applications and one standards-based hardware platform. The storage solution is based on its Dynamic Block Architecture, which tracks metadata, information about each block of data stored on the Compellent system, including the date and time written, frequency of access, associated volume, type of disk drive used, type of data stored and RAID level.^[3] Large amounts of data are stored and managed on a granular level and assigned automatically to high-performance drives or large-capacity drives. Compellent claims this method of data management can "lower storage costs by half and cut power and cooling costs by up to 93 percent."^[4]

There is one Storage Center product model. The base configuration of Storage Center includes a disk array controller, disk enclosure, disk drives, connectivity hardware, and software modules. The operating system, also called Storage Center, is regularly updated. Software modules include:

• Storage virtualization
• Thin provisioning
• Automated tiered storage
• Continuous snapshots
• Remote replication
• Boot from SAN

Compellent’s hardware supports different server/host interfaces (such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI) and drive technologies (such as solid state drives, Fibre Channel, Serial Attached SCSI and SATA drives). To expand the hardware, users add new drives or I/O cards to the existing system.

Support and services

Compellent provides technical support and professional managed services through its Copilot team, housed at its Minnesota headquarters. Copilot technical support and service representatives provide maintenance, managed services, consultative services and training. Phone Home is an automated problem-detection service that remotely monitors each customer’s SAN and provides proactive alerting on issues.

Environmental initiative

The company headquarters occupies the first commercial facility in Minnesota's Twin Cities region to receive a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) designation, now Gold-certified, from the United States Green Building Council.^[5] Compellent’s Eden Prairie campus has sustainable design elements such as waterless urinals and drip irrigation systems for landscaping that cut water consumption by 40 percent, energy-efficient HVAC equipment with carbon dioxide monitors, and low emission paints and adhesives. In addition, 75 percent of the building’s construction waste was recycled.^[6]

In 2009, Computerworld magazine honored Compellent as a top green IT vendor for its corporate and technology efforts to reduce power consumption and lower carbon emissions.^[7]

Awards and recognition

Year	Award
2010	InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award[8]
2010	Business Solutions Best Channel Vendor List[9]
2009	Network Computing UK Technology Project of the Year - London Borough of Hillingdon[10]
2009	CRN Channel Chiefs[11]
2009	ComputerWorld Top 12 Green IT Vendors
2008	Gold "Best of VMWorld 2008" in Hardware for Virtualization[12]
2008	Microsoft Partner of the Year for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Storage Solutions[13]
2008	InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN[14]
2008	Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year - Upper Midwest Region[15]
2008	Diogenes Labs - Storage Magazine Quality Awards for Midrange Arrays[16]
2007	CRN 50 Emerging Vendors You Should Know[17]
2006	CRN Emerging Vendors - No. 1 Storage Standout[18]
2006	TechWorld UK Recommends - Compellent Storage Centre[19]
2006	InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN[20]
2005	Storage Magazine Bronze Product of the Year - Disk and Disk Subsystems[21]

References

1. ^ NYSE Listing. "Compellent Technologies, Inc."
2. ^ Compellent Technologies. "Compellent Reports Record Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2009 Results." 11 February 2010.
3. ^ Open Magazine. "Virtual Disk Block: SAN ROI Tipping Point." 19 April 2006.
4. ^ Investor's Business Daily (reprinted on Yahoo Finance News). "Virtual Storage Sheds Help Companies Store Vast Amounts Of Data." 27 October 2009.
5. ^ Liberty Property Trust. "Liberty and LEED."
6. ^ Liberty Property Trust. "Liberty Pre-Leases New 'Green' Building at Lake Smetana Business Park to Compellent Technologies, Inc." 11 January 2007.
7. ^ Computerworld. "Top 12 Green IT Vendors." 20 April 2009.
8. ^ InfoWorld Test Center. "InfoWorld's 2010 Technology of the Year Awards." The IDG Network, 6 January 2010.
9. ^ Business Solutions. "Best Channel Vendors 2010." 4 January 2010.
10. ^ Compellent Technologies. "Compellent Customer, London Borough of Hillingdon, Wins 'Network Project of the Year' at the 2009 UK Network Computing Awards." 30 March 2009.
11. ^ CRN 2009 Channel Chiefs, "Brian Bell Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Compellent Technologies." 23 February 2009.
12. ^ SearchServerVirtualization.com "Best of VMworld 2008 awards announced." 17 September 2008.
13. ^ Microsoft. "Microsoft Announces 2008 Partner of the Year Awards Finalists and Winners." 16 June 2008.
14. ^ Infoworld. "2008 Technology of the Year Awards." 7 January 2008.
15. ^ Ernst & Young. "Winners for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2008 award in Upper Midwest region announced." 05 June 2008.
16. ^ Storage Magazine. "Quality Awards III - Compellent shakes up the midrange array field" April issue.
17. ^ CRN. "50 Emerging Vendors You Should Know." 04 June 2007.
18. ^ CRN. "5 Storage Standouts." 1 November 2006.
19. ^ Techworld. "Compellent Storage Centre." 4 May 2006.
20. ^ Infoworld. "Storage Vendors Move Beyond Blocks and LUNs." 2 January 2006.
21. ^ Storage Magazine."Products of the Year 2005." 2005.

Dell Compellent building.

External links

• Dell Compellent Web site
• Dell Compellent Facebook page
• Dell Compellent Twitter page