Dell Compellent, formerly Compellent Technologies, Inc., was an American manufacturer of enterprise

computer data storage Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a compute ...

systems that provided block-level storage resources to small and medium sized IT infrastructures. The company was founded in 2002 and headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Compellent's flagship product, Storage Center, is a

storage area network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access data storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries from ser ...

(SAN) system that combines a standards-based hardware platform and a suite of virtualized storage management applications, including

automated tiered storage Hierarchical storage management (HSM), also known as Tiered storage, is a data storage and Data management technique that automatically moves data between high-cost and low-cost storage media. HSM systems exist because high-speed storage devices, ...

through a proprietary process called "DataProgression",

thin provisioning In computing, thin provisioning involves using virtualization technology to give the appearance of having more physical resources than are actually available. If a system always has enough resource to simultaneously support all of the virtualized ...

and replication. The company developed software and products aimed at mid-size enterprises and sold through a channel network of independent providers and resellers. It became part of Dell in February 2011.

History

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

virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...

backgrounds. The company had its initial public offering on October 15, 2007, became profitable for the first time in Q3 2008 and was 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. On December 13, 2010, Compellent announced it agreed to be acquired by Dell for approximately $960 million. The purchase was completed in February 2011 and the product line sold as Dell Compellent. In the following years, Dell slowly phased out the Compellent brand name, naming the products simply Dell SCxxxx (for example, Dell SC9000).

Products

Storage Center

Compellent’s

(SAN) system, called "Storage Center", combines several virtualized storage-management applications with hardware. The product 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. Large amounts of data are stored and managed on a granular level and assigned automatically to high-performance drives or large-capacity drives. Compellent said this method of data management can lower hardware, power and cooling costs." The base configuration of Storage Center includes a dual, redundant

disk array controller A disk array controller is a device that manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It almost always implements hardware RAID, thus it is sometimes referred to as RAID controller. It also often provides ...

, disk enclosure, disk drives, connectivity hardware, and software modules. For high availability purposes, I/O ports and power supplies are also redundant. The operating system, called SCOS (Storage Center Operating System), is regularly updated. Software modules include: *

Storage virtualization In computer science, storage virtualization is "the process of presenting a logical view of the physical storage resources to" a host computer system, "treating all storage media (hard disk, optical disk, tape, etc.) in the enterprise as a singl ...

Thin provisioning In computing, thin provisioning involves using virtualization technology to give the appearance of having more physical resources than are actually available. If a system always has enough resource to simultaneously support all of the virtualized ...

Automated tiered storage Hierarchical storage management (HSM), also known as Tiered storage, is a data storage and Data management technique that automatically moves data between high-cost and low-cost storage media. HSM systems exist because high-speed storage devices, ...

*Continuous

snapshots Snapshot, snapshots or snap shot may refer to: * Snapshot (photography), a photograph taken without preparation Computing * Snapshot (computer storage), the state of a system at a particular point in time * Snapshot (file format) or SNP, a file ...

*Remote replication and live volumes *Boot from SAN Compellent’s hardware supports different server/host interfaces (such as Fibre Channel and

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

) and drive technologies (such as

solid state drives A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is ...

, Fibre Channel, Serial Attached SCSI and

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

disk 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. SupportAssist (formerly: 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 The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...

. 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. 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.

Awards and recognition

*2005 - Storage Magazine Bronze Product of the Year - Disk and Disk Subsystems *2006 - CRN Emerging Vendors - No. 1 Storage Standout * 2006 - TechWorld UK Recommends - Compellent Storage Centre *2006 - InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN *2007 - CRN 50 Emerging Vendors You Should Know * 2008 - Gold "Best of VMWorld 2008" in Hardware for Virtualization *2008 - Microsoft Partner of the Year for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Storage Solutions *2008 - InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN *2008 - Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year - Upper Midwest Region *2008 - Diogenes Labs - Storage Magazine Quality Awards for Midrange Arrays * 2009 - Network Computing UK Technology Project of the Year - London Borough of Hillingdon *2009 - CRN Channel Chiefs *2009 - ComputerWorld Top 12 Green IT Vendors *2010 - InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award *2010 - Business Solutions Best Channel Vendor ListBusiness Solutions. "Best Channel Vendors 2010."
4 January 2010.

References

External links

Dell Compellent
{{Dell Compellent Compellent cOMPELLENT Storage Area Network companies Companies acquired by Dell