Compellent - Taking On The Enterprise Challenge

On Nov. 22, Compellent announced the newest release of StorageCenter version 5.4, new Live Volume software, new Enterprise Manager multisite tool capabilities, and next-generation hardware that is faster, stores more data and connects to FCoE and 10GbE iSCSI. Back in October, I wrote that Compellent was rising to the enterprise challenge. With this announcement, it's clear to me that Compellent is taking on the enterprise challenge and may be swinging the acquisition pendulum in their direction.

Certainly we will discuss the details of the announcement in this blog. However, in my opinion, it is becoming crystal clear that Compellent is poised to start taking on bigger and broader enterprise storage challenges and opportunities. Feature enhancements such as broader connectivity support, SAS drive support, Live Volume software for disaster recovery, non-disruptive system software upgrades, and virtual machine movement technologies for use with VMware vMotion and Microsoft Live Migration bolster Compellent's capability and credibility in enterprise data center environments.

Further, Compellent's new capabilities within Enterprise Manager enable the company to provide enterprise environments with a single pane-of-glass management approach for real-time control of Live Volumes, use a simple vSphere 4.1 client plug-in for VMware to manage storage via the vSphere interface, use a "storage adapter" for Citrix StorageLink that enables administrators to create and recover storage for Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer environments, and integrates with Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery for simplified setup and configuration management of Hyper-V workloads via integration with array-based thin provisioning, snapshots and thin replication capabilities. That's truly a mouthful from a storage management perspective. However, it's all highly important from an enterprise management capabilities perspective.

Prior to the Nov. 22 announcement there was a lot of speculation brewing in the industry about Compellent possibly being the next target for acquisition by a server company looking to round out its storage offering. Frankly, the speculation has continued to increase, and with proven software-based capabilities now ready for prime time in the enterprise, it is my opinion that it may not be long at all before we see a server company recognize this and make its move.

Could Cisco, or Dell, be ready to move forward? The answer can only come from the server vendors. There are many variables for them to consider--not least is how would such a move affect existing relationships (Cisco/EMC) and how to position a storage acquisition with an already successful product line (Dell, EqualLogic). All things considered, it would not surprise me to hear over the holidays that one of these server vendors has recognized Compellent's success and has made an offer.Just prior to the announcement, I had the opportunity to speak with Compellent's Bob Fine, Director of Product Marketing. We discussed a number of items, including Compellent's approach to a persistent software design and architecture, the new Series 40 controller, newly added drive technologies, some back-end specifics, some new connectivity offerings and interoperability testing.

Compellent's approach to a persistent software design has enabled the company to provide a perpetual software licensing model. "Our approach essentially future-proofs our customers' investment in our software. For example, units shipped in 2005 are still in production today using our latest software. And there are no re-licensing fees." says Fine. No doubt this approach is attractive to buyers in today's cost-sensitive environment.

My October blog touched on controller technology, and said that the company had done well with low-end enterprise and cloud providers such as Savvis. I expected Compellent to take a leap into the future with more robust technology for the enterprise. The new Series 40 controller goes a long way in making the leap in to the broader enterprise space. Compellent has adopted an ongoing approach of technology independence within the controller design, essentially being able to support new host and back-end connectivity as the technology emerges and can be integrated into the controller platform. The new controller supports six PCI slots that enable greater scaling of the overall system, a protected battery-less cache approach and an on-line system software non-disruptive upgrade in a clustered environment-- an important element for enterprise-class storage environments.

Under non-disclosure agreement, Bob Fine and I talked about performance of the Series 40 controller. I do expect impressive performance results to be published at the turn of the year. Without getting into specifics, it is accurate to say that Compellent is on the march to provide whopping IOP capabilities over a very reasonable amount of time. If you are a Compellent customer, or interested buyer, I suggest you speak to Compellent under NDA to more fully understand its roadmap.

Drive technology now supported includes 2.5-inch SAS 2 drives at 6Gbps interface transfer rate. It's clear that SAS provides the next-generation interface for StorageCenter. Compared with the 3.5-inch drives, the new 2.5-inch drives are 70 percent smaller and, according to Compellent, their power measurements have shown the new drives eat up 30 percent to 40 percent less power. The drives supported are the SAS 15K RPM at 146GB and the SAS 10K RPM at 450GB and 600GB capacities. The new drive support enables a 2X capacity improvement along with a 2X IOPS per-rack-unit increase compared to the usage of 3.5-inch drives.I didn't see it mentioned in the announcement from Compellent, but it is worth noting that as a part of its overall storage solution, the company now resells three Cisco connectivity products. These include the MDS 9148 8Gb Fibre Channel switch, 5010 and 5020 iSCSI and FCoE switches, and the 95XX Fibre Channel Directors

In summary, as Compellent takes carefully measured steps to both leap and walk into enterprise opportunities, I believe both enterprise customers and larger systems providers in need of more robust storage solutions are sitting up and taking notice. Will these new advancements move the company forward? In my opinion, there is no doubt that the answer is yes. How far forward remains to be seen, but Compellent is making all the right moves.

(As of the writing of this blog, neither Compellent, Cisco, Dell nor EMC were clients of Tom Trainer, or Analytico)