Critical Technologies Selects Compellent Storage Area Network for Advanced Storage Capabilities and Savings.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Compellent's Storage Center enables simultaneous operation of multiple drive technologies for cost-effective storage and modular growth

Compellent Technologies, a provider of modular, affordable storage solutions distributed exclusively through a select national network of business partners, today announced Critical Technologies, a Dallas-based technology services company, has selected Compellent's Storage Center(TM) storage area network (SAN) to increase data storage capabilities and reduce ongoing storage expenditures.

Critical is a provider of hosted enterprise records management (ERM) and document imaging services. For its clients nationwide, the company ensures 24x7 uninterrupted access to more than 20 TB (terabytes) of hosted business records. Critical needed to replace its previous SAN vendor when a system upgrade required costly changes that couldn't be justified.

"Being able to match the right disk technology to our various classes of data is saving Critical and our clients money," said Monty Hamburger, director of information technology for Critical. "Storage Center's ability to instantly create volumes has saved us dozens of hours of time we used to spend preparing and waiting for new volumes - on our previous SAN, volume initialization alone regularly required a full 48 hours."

To cost-effectively manage its data, Critical is using both high-performance Fibre Channel and affordable Serial ATA drive technologies in its Compellent SAN. Storage Center's open-systems hardware architecture enables simultaneous mixing and matching of any drive technology within a single system. With Storage Center, Critical's systems administrators use Fibre Channel disk for critical business applications and Serial ATA drives for data storage that is accessed less frequently.

Global Document Storage Services (GDS2), a San Diego-based data storage consulting firm and Compellent partner, worked closely with Critical throughout the SAN selection and implementation to understand its requirements and design a solution that delivers high-end functionality that is affordable.

"Storage Center will provide Critical a flexible and modular foundation to keep pace with its growing business," said Randy Miller, president of GDS2. "By offering powerful software capabilities on scalable hardware, Compellent delivers enterprise features for any small or mid-sized business."

About Storage Center

Storage Center builds on its Dynamic Block Architecture(TM) to deliver a scalable, open-systems hardware platform allowing businesses to mix and match any number of drives, controllers and enclosures; an integrated foundation of core storage capabilities providing functionality previously available only in high-end systems; a powerful suite of software applications optimizing utilization, automating replication and speeding data recovery; and a single, intuitive, centralized management interface streamlining all storage administration.

About Compellent

Compellent delivers affordable, modular storage solutions exclusively through business partners that provide companies of all sizes enterprise-level 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 $23 million in financing from leading investors including Cargill Ventures, Crescendo Ventures and El Dorado Ventures. For more information, visit www.compellent.com.