Compellent Delivers First Storage Area Network With Automated Tiered Storage Within a Single Disk Enclosure.

MINNEAPOLIS -- QuickStart ILM Automates Data Classification, Movement and Tiering; Eliminates Labor-Intensive Processes of Traditional ILM

Compellent Technologies, a provider of affordable and modular enterprise storage solutions, today announced the availability of Storage Center QuickStart ILM, the first storage area network that fully automates tiered storage within a single disk drive enclosure. QuickStart ILM is unique in its ability to provide not only tiers of storage based on drive types and RAID levels, but also automated data classification and data movement between these tiers.

QuickStart ILM provides tiered storage by intermixing high-performance Fibre Channel (FC) drives and lower-cost mid-tier FC drives in a single enclosure. Data is automatically classified and migrated to the optimum tier of storage based on usage, enabling organizations of all sizes to implement an automated tiered storage solution without the traditional cost and complexity of information lifecycle management (ILM).

"Trying to classify data in order to properly tier it is actually a pretty daunting task, at least with the state of the art today," said Dave Russell, research vice president for Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. "The promise of ILM is very enticing to end users, but the execution can be extremely labor intensive."

Unlike traditional systems that move entire files or volumes, QuickStart ILM is able to intelligently migrate data at the block-level. By utilizing metadata, the storage area network (SAN) determines which tier of storage should be used to store each block of data and intelligently monitors usage over time. Frequently accessed data is retained on high-performance storage and infrequently accessed data is automatically migrated to lower cost storage, reducing overall disk expenditures up to 74 percent.

What Compellent Customers are Saying

"With email attachments and media files growing, IT administrators are forced to reconcile user's expectations for nearly unlimited data storage with a fixed budget for additional capacity," said Jeff Berliner, director of systems for NYU School of Medicine. "With automated tiered storage, I can dramatically expand storage capacity without buying more high-performance, high-cost disks. Compellent's implementation of automated tiered storage is elegant and robust."

"With major construction projects lasting three to four years, keeping email correspondence online and available at all times is critical," said Bill Snow, IT director for Moss and Associates, a Florida-based construction firm with more than $750 million in revenue. "The Compellent SAN automatically moves the inactive portions of our user's large .pst Exchange files to a lower-cost tier of storage. Now, I no longer need to buy expensive tier 1 storage to support our rapidly growing business."

"Compellent integrated ILM right into its product; it's not an add-on like other SANs we evaluated," said Roy Bolin, operations manager for Kenosha Unified School District. "More than 70 percent of our data automatically migrated to a lower-cost tier of storage without requiring any human effort for data classification or movement. With this system, we feel we can scale indefinitely without adding more staff to manage our storage resources."

Other storage vendors allow for different drive types, but cannot automatically migrate data between storage tiers and RAID levels, and they require separate software for data classification and data movement--immediately negating any potential return on investment.

"Storage users want ILM, but manual data classification and data movement are preventing companies from moving forward," said Bruce Kornfeld, vice president of marketing for Compellent. "QuickStart ILM eliminates the time-consuming activities that impede other ILM strategies, enabling storage users to implement automated tiered storage for their organization in just minutes."

Storage Center QuickStart ILM is available immediately through Compellent's national and international network of business partners. Pricing starts at $49,500 and includes a Storage Center SAN with 6.4 terabytes of storage and enterprise capabilities including automated tiered storage, thin provisioning, and continuous snapshots. QuickStart ILM's modular architecture enables any business to easily scale to more than 300 terabytes on the same platform.

About Compellent

Compellent delivers affordable, modular storage solutions exclusively through business partners that provide companies of all sizes enterprise storage capabilities without big system costs or complexities. Designed by network storage and virtualization pioneers, Compellent enables any business to cut storage expenditures in half, recover from data hazards within minutes, scale to any capacity across any technology and easily manage its storage without adding staff. Headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn., Compellent has raised more than $38 million in financing from leading investors including Cargill Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Crescendo Ventures and El Dorado Ventures. For more information, visit www.compellent.com.