dell.com/compellent 2011 issue fluid data with the dell...

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Prime movers: Executive Q&A with storage mavens Darren Thomas and Phil Soran

Architectural advancement: Eight key technologies form a strong foundation for the Dell Compellent SAN

Data intelligence: Automated tiered storage strikes a continual balance between performance and cost

Competitive edge: How CIOs are accelerating business growth through a dynamic storage foundation

Fluid DataManage burgeoning data flexibly and efficiently with the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN

2011 Issue

Dell Compellent storage special edition

dell.com/compellent

Fluid Data knows if it should

be in the slow lane, the fast lane,

or the speed-of-light lane.

Store and manage your data dynamically and intelligently with Fluid Data from Dell.

Dell’s acquisition of Compellent adds to our suite of award-winning Fluid Data

storage solutions. Today, as more companies challenge the cost of running IT, Dell is

helping Efficient Enterprises simplify IT environments and reinvest savings in strategic

initiatives. Learn more about Fluid Data solutions at DellStorage.com/FluidData.

Fluid_Data_Freeway_Sign_PwrSolutions_Ad.indd 1 5/18/2011 2:23:25 PM

PB 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 1

Based on Dell™ Fluid Data™ architecture, the Dell Compellent™

Storage Center™ storage area network integrates eight key

technologies that advance efficiency—helping enterprises

manage data growth flexibly and reduce costs through a

highly virtualized infrastructure.

By Thea Hayden

6 cover story

Defining the virtual era with Fluid Data architecture

featuresDell Compellent storage

9 Architectural advantages of Dell Compellent

automated tiered storage

By Bob Fine

Tight integration, granularity, and system intelligence

enable Dell Compellent storage area networks to build

exceptional efficiency, automation, and scalability

into sub-volume storage tiering on a fully virtualized

infrastructure for the enterprise.

12 A dynamic storage foundation for enterprise growth

By Scott Horst

CIOs play a pivotal role in driving business growth with

technologies that can be rapidly deployed, managed, scaled,

and adapted to changing conditions. Dell Compellent storage

is a primary enabler for this virtual data center scenario.

2011 Issue


dell.com/compellent

3 executive Q&APrime moversThe recent acquisition of Compellent Technologies

significantly expands Dell’s award-winning enterprise storage

portfolio. Join Darren Thomas, general manager and vice

president of Dell storage, and Phil Soran, co-founder

and president of Dell Compellent, to learn more about their

shared vision for the Dell Fluid Data architecture.

Reprinted from the 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

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2 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent

Index to featured Dell Compellent customers

Appleby ...................................................................... 16

Credit Market Analysis ........................................6, 14

Gaston County, North Carolina ........................... 12

WhereToLive.com .....................................................11

customer perspectives14 Credit Market Analysis: How Fluid Data architecture

pays off for CMA

Dell Fluid Data technology granted three big IT wishes for Credit Market

Analysis (CMA): a scalable, centralized data center; host-based recovery;

and a shared, in-house infrastructure capable of managing client systems.

16 Appleby: Simplifying global disaster recovery

With Dell Compellent Storage Center arrays spread worldwide,

Appleby needed an advanced replication and recovery system.

The Dell Compellent Portable Volume kit helped cost-effectively save

months of integration time and connection upgrades.

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Editorial staffEditor-in-chief and publisher Tom KolnowskiManaging editor Debra McDonaldSpecial edition editor Dawn DavidsonFeatures editor Kathryn WhiteContributing writers Bob Fine, Thea Hayden, Scott Horst, Liem Nguyen, and Anthony PolisenoSenior editors James Hurd, Catherine Luo, and Terrence O’DonnellEditorial assistant Amy J. ParkerArt director and cover designer David ChanDesigner Cynthia WebbBusiness operations manager Cissy Walker

Advertising salesSales director Kyle Walkenhorst (323-340-8585)Sales manager/Western U.S. and South/Central America

sales Shaun Mehr (949-923-1660)Eastern U.S. and Canada sales Steve Branda (201-483-7871)EMEA and APJ sales Mark Makinney (805-709-4745) Ad coordinator Kathy Hartlove

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About DellDell Inc., headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin, listens to its customers and delivers innovative technology and services they trust and value. Uniquely enabled by its direct business model, Dell is a leading global systems and services company and No. 34 on the Fortune 500 list. For more information, visit our Web site at dell.com.

Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, Dell Compellent, Data Instant Replay, Data Progression, Dynamic Capacity, Storage Center, EqualLogic, Fluid Data, and PowerVault are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this publication to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

The Dell Compellent storage special edition is a supplement to Dell Power Solutions, which is published quarterly by Dell Inc., Dell Power Solutions, One Dell Way, Mail Stop RR3-68, Round Rock, TX 78682, U.S.A. No part of this publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without permission from the editor-in-chief. Dell does not provide any warranty as to the accuracy of any information provided through Dell Power Solutions. Opinions expressed in this magazine may not be those of Dell. The information in this publication is subject to change without notice. Any reliance by the end user on the information contained herein is at the end user’s risk. Dell will not be liable for information in any way, including but not limited to its accuracy or completeness. Dell does not accept responsibility for the advertising content of the magazine or for any claims, actions, or losses arising therefrom. Goods, services, and/or advertisements within this publication other than those of Dell are not endorsed by or in any way connected with Dell Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

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2011 Issue Dell Compellent storage special edition

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dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 3

How does the Compellent acquisition

impact Dell’s storage business?

Darren Thomas: Storage is a strategic

market for us. Dell storage has come

a long way in the past three years. The

company as a whole is transitioning into

a comprehensive solutions provider—

including not only storage, but also servers,

clients, networking, and services. However,

storage is a key investment area for the

company. Information is the most valuable

asset in the data center. Dell wants to help

organizations make the right decisions for

their businesses by allowing them to extract

value from their data.

Over the years, we’ve brought

together the technologies that support

our development philosophy to provide

customers with open, capable, and affordable

solutions. The successful acquisition and

integration of EqualLogic in 2007 was the

first step. Compellent shares many of the

same values as EqualLogic, while adding key

capabilities to the portfolio. We are focused

on using these acquisitions—along with other

intellectual property we have in scalable

file systems and deduplication—as the core

of our Fluid Data architecture. We believe

this is the most cost-effective approach to

storage in the industry.

Phil Soran: I am very excited about the

vision and mission of Dell Storage. Dell is a

company that matches the entrepreneurial

spirit, history of innovation, and focus on

listening to customers that we have had

at Compellent. Dell is investing in the

Compellent business unit, and we’re rapidly

growing our team worldwide in key areas

such as engineering, support services, sales,

and marketing.

Dell is also adopting many of the tools

and capabilities Compellent has developed

for customer support and channel sales.

A great example is our Copilot Support

team, which serves as an extension of our

Dell recently acquired Compellent

Technologies, a network storage

provider based in Eden Prairie,

Minnesota. The move significantly

expands Dell’s award-winning

enterprise storage portfolio, which

includes Dell™ EqualLogic™ and

Dell PowerVault™ storage area

network (SAN) arrays.

Here, Darren Thomas, general

manager and vice president of Dell

storage, and Phil Soran, co-founder

and president of Dell Compellent,

share some of their experiences in

transforming Dell into an innovative

provider of storage technology and

services. Along the way, they describe

their shared vision for the Dell Fluid Data™

data management architecture.

Another point they have in common:

a very Texas way of viewing storage.

Prime moversExecutive Q&A

Dell Compellent storage





customers’ IT departments. Each of our

support engineers operates as a virtual

copilot sitting alongside a customer’s

storage administrators, and can access

tools to proactively uncover and address

potential threats to their data centers.

Another is our channel program for sales

registration. The Dell PartnerDirect program

will provide long-term deal registration to

help partners protect, enhance, and nurture

their relationships with customers.

Dell has a huge global distribution

network and its reach will help us scale

faster. Dell has a technology plan and vision

to redefine the data center for enterprises

and cloud computing—and storage is

a foundation for this vision. Combining

Compellent with the award-winning Dell

storage portfolio will help transform Dell

into a storage market leader with the most

innovative storage products on the planet.

When I look at the legacy vendors, I think of

the old Texas saying, “Big hat, no cattle!”

What does Compellent add to the

Dell storage portfolio?

Thomas: If you look at the role that

explosive data growth, cloud computing,

and server virtualization play in the

data center today, Compellent enables

best-in-class scalability, efficiency, and

ease-of-management. These features are

important to our enterprise and cloud

service–provider customers. Compellent

adds intelligent data tiering within and

across systems, making it possible to

move data to the right place at the right

time for the right cost—all automatically.

Compellent also gives customers

multi-protocol enterprise storage along

with virtualization, automation, and

no-forklift upgrades. With Dell EqualLogic,

PowerVault, and Compellent, our block

and file storage products now span every

layer, from low- to mid-range systems for

public institutions and small and medium

businesses (SMBs), to high-end enterprise-

ready offerings for large organizations

and the cloud. So far the acceptance and

excitement from customers and partners

have been tremendous.

Soran: The Dell Compellent™ Storage

Center™ SAN is a highly virtualized storage

array with built-in intelligence about data—for

instance, the type of drives used to store the

data, the performance level, and the frequency

of access. We leverage this intelligence, or

data about the data, in a way that is designed

to automatically place information on the

right storage tier to optimize performance

and maximize cost savings. By combining a

data movement engine, intelligent software,

and modular standards-based hardware,

Compellent storage technology automatically

allocates inactive data to lower-cost storage,

saving you up to 80 percent on storage

costs. Our customers can scale up and out

on a single platform, adopting technologies

such as solid-state disks, 10 Gigabit

Ethernet (10GbE) Internet SCSI (iSCSI), or

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) as

they emerge. They can create a strategy

for business continuity using integrated

features such as snapshots, replication,

and data migration. This intelligent storage

architecture, which is a key component for

Dell Fluid Data, helps customers establish a

grid of virtualized storage as the basis for

a private or public cloud.

What is Fluid Data?

Soran: We realized early on that our

vision for storage tied really closely to

Dell’s vision for helping enterprise and

cloud customers optimize their storage

investments. This vision is Fluid Data.

Compellent first started using the term

Fluid Data to explain how our hardware,

software, and customer support all work

together to manage information efficiently.

With Fluid Data, customers can scale on a

single hardware platform built from off-the-

shelf components. This means they can add

capabilities without forklift upgrades. Our

storage virtualization software automates

“ Information is the

most valuable asset

in the data center.

Dell wants to help

organizations make

the right decisions

for their businesses

by allowing them to

extract value from

their data.”— Darren Thomas

General manager and

vice president, Dell Storage

May 2011

dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 5Reprinted from the 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.


the movement and management of data

throughout its life cycle, so that customers

can constantly adapt to business needs.

And we back this dynamic IT infrastructure

with our Copilot Support, which goes

beyond traditional support offerings by

identifying and resolving issues, often

before problems occur.

The essential truth about storage—I call it

the Fluid Truth—is that data isn’t static. It’s not

something to be stored. Data is something to

be actively, intelligently managed.

Thomas: That’s right. This philosophy will

continue to guide us as we deliver on our

vision for data management. We’ve set out to

address three big challenges that customers

face in the virtual era: the significant

growth of their data; the velocity at which

IT requirements change; and the rigidity of

traditional, legacy storage infrastructures.

These challenges require customers

to move beyond simple storage

management. They require a sound

strategy for managing data end-to-end.

It takes new thinking about storage. Over

three years ago, Dell laid out a strategy to

help change the way our customers buy,

implement, and deploy storage. We believe

the centerpiece is Fluid Data. The Fluid

Data architecture is about having the right

capabilities integrated across the entire

storage infrastructure, making it possible

to move data wherever and whenever it’s

needed in support of the business. In other

words, Fluid Data allows you to move

data efficiently, even automatically, while

reducing your storage footprint.

What’s next? How do the Exanet

and Ocarina acquisitions enhance

Dell’s overall strategy?

Thomas: We’re seeing unprecedented

data growth and we don’t anticipate

that slowing down anytime soon.

Other vendors are trying to position

themselves for the next generation of

data management. Some are jettisoning

legacy architectures. We didn’t have to do

that and, instead, have acquired next-

generation storage companies that we

believe allow customers to dramatically

reduce their storage cost today while

investing in a technology that will help to

future-proof them.

Over time you’ll see us pushing on

Compellent for innovations addressing the

midrange to the high end of our customer

base, and on EqualLogic for the small

business to midmarket. Ocarina Networks

provides exceptionally efficient data

compression as well as content-aware

deduplication that we will implement

across platforms for leading-edge wide

area network (WAN) optimization. Exanet

technology brings outstanding scalability

to business network attached storage

(NAS). This capability, delivered as the

Dell Scalable File System, was recently

announced on the PowerVault NX3500

unified storage platform and plans are

to integrate it with EqualLogic platforms

later this year.

We’re continuing to build these

technologies into the Dell Compellent

Storage Center SAN array to expand our

Fluid Data solutions. All of these capabilities

are stopping points in our strategy to

deliver solutions that matter to customers.

Customers want to move from storage

management to data management, and we

are developing solutions to help them at

every stage in their journey.

Soran: It’s an exciting time to be

in storage at Dell. We’ve demonstrated

the value of our virtualization features

such as automated tiered storage, thin

provisioning, thin replication, and Live

Volume. And we’re broadening our vision

to scale out further into the enterprise,

with plans for a series of upcoming

product releases that expand upon the

Dell Fluid Data architecture, integrate

with Dell enterprise solutions, and reach

beyond our existing platform.

“ The essential truth

about storage—

I call it the Fluid

Truth—is that data

isn’t static. It’s not

something to be

stored. Data is

something to be

actively, intelligently

managed.”

— Phil Soran Co-founder and president,

Dell Compellent

May 2011



Today’s dynamic business

landscape has no place for

complex, inefficient systems.

A highly virtualized approach

to storage can complement server

virtualization by providing ready access to

critical data, while avoiding unnecessary

hardware purchases and the associated

power, cooling, and management

expenses that go along with them. Overall,

a virtualized data center infrastructure

expedites backup and recovery operations,

avoiding gaps in productivity and backlogs

in business transactions.

Dell Fluid Data architecture enables

organizations to break through the rigid

boundaries of traditional storage systems with

a single, scalable platform that is as dynamic

as the data center it lives in. By automating

and optimizing the movement and

management of data throughout its life cycle,

Fluid Data architecture constantly adapts

to changing business conditions, helping

ensure that information is available when and

where it is needed. For example, Fluid Data

architecture moves information intelligently

within and across storage products, from the

desktop to the server to the cloud. Leveraging

policy-based automation for block, file, and

object-based data, this storage architecture

combines capability with flexibility to help

enterprises scale up and out easily.

In addition, adopting Fluid Data

architecture allows IT organizations to

manage information with fewer people,

helping to reduce time and cost for any

given workload. Ultimately, this agile, virtual

storage platform enables IT departments to

move from a fixed cost center to a flexible

productivity center—helping to simplify IT

management, slash spending, and secure the

enterprise against downtime and disaster.

Eight storage technologies that

heighten data center agility

Based on Fluid Data architecture, the

Dell Compellent Storage Center storage

area network (SAN) combines block-level

Based on Dell™ Fluid Data™ architecture, the

Dell Compellent™ Storage Center™ storage area

network integrates eight key technologies that

advance efficiency—helping enterprises manage data

growth flexibly and reduce costs through a highly

virtualized infrastructure.

Defining the virtual era with Fluid Data architecture

Reliable data

Ryan Sclanders, IT infrastructure manager for Credit Market Analysis, describes how Fluid Data architecture enables dependable performance, efficiency, and reliability in an industry where time is literally money.

dell.to/mQQ7E3

By Thea Hayden

http://dell.to/mQQ7E3


intelligence, storage virtualization,

integrated software, and modular,

platform-independent hardware to enable

exceptional efficiency, simplicity, and

security. This open, cost-efficient enterprise

storage infrastructure heightens data

center agility by integrating eight leading-

edge storage technologies into the Dell

Compellent Storage Center SAN.

1. Intelligent data management

Storage systems that manage data in

complete volumes restrict system flexibility

and performance from the outset. Managing

data at a more granular level enables

administrators to increase storage efficiency

and, in turn, reduce data center costs.

The Dell Compellent Storage Center

SAN tracks and records real-time information

about each block, providing real-time system

intelligence to dynamically store, recover,

and manage data. This data about the data,

gathered with minimal system overhead,

can be extensive—including the type of

data stored, disk drive used, RAID level, time

written, and access frequency. Empowered

by this intelligence, storage automation built

into the Dell Compellent Storage Center

SAN optimizes the provisioning, placement,

and protection of data.

2. Storage virtualization

Block-level data management enables the

Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN to

virtualize storage at the disk level. Not only

does storage virtualization help consolidate

resources and reduce disk costs, but it

also enhances system flexibility—allowing

administrators to avoid allocating specific

drives to specific servers. Instead, the storage

virtualization engine creates a shared pool

of storage resources designed to span every

drive in the system and to make all storage

resources always available to all servers.

Administrators can provision and map

virtual storage volumes to servers instantly.

In addition, the Dell Compellent Storage

Center SAN expands volumes automatically

when an application requires additional

storage. This ability to change, shift, and

dynamically scale storage on demand helps

minimize disk expenditures, save staff time,

and ensure continuous availability.

Because the Dell Compellent Storage

Center SAN virtualizes storage by spreading

read-write operations across all drives, the

SAN can process multiple I/O requests in

parallel. This approach avoids hot spots

associated with conventional storage

systems while expediting data access and

boosting application and OS performance.

When administrators add capacity to the

shared resource pool, the Dell Compellent

Storage Center SAN is designed to

automatically restripe data across every

available drive for hands-free load balancing

and performance tuning.

3. Thin provisioning

In the traditional storage-allocation model,

administrators estimate the capacity required

for a given application and preallocate

extra physical disk space to accommodate

growth. Other applications cannot use

the preallocated disk space, and it cannot

be reclaimed later. In many cases, only

a fraction of the preallocated capacity is

actually used, resulting in stranded storage.

Such inefficient disk utilization inflates

total cost of ownership (TCO), requiring IT

organizations to purchase and house excess

disk capacity and to manually provision this

storage—which may also incur downtime.

In contrast, the Dell Compellent Storage

Center SAN includes Dell Compellent

Dynamic Capacity™ thin provisioning

software, which separates storage

allocation from utilization. Administrators

can provision any size virtual volume up

front, and the SAN consumes physical

capacity only when it writes data to disk.

This approach allows administrators to

purchase only the disk space necessary to

meet current data requirements and add

capacity when needed.

4. Automated tiering

In conventional information life cycle

management, IT policy makers must classify

and reclassify data based on its changing

importance to the organization. The process

of manually moving data between high-

performance drives and more cost-effective,

capacity-oriented drives can be complicated

and time-consuming. Add-on migration

engines typically require administrators

to move each volume in its entirety and

continuously fine-tune data placement over

time. The alternative—retaining all data on

high-performance drives—typically increases

disk and data center expenditures.


SAN avoids the need to manually move data

between tiers. Using Dell Compellent Data

Progression™ automated tiered storage

software, the SAN dynamically classifies the

importance of data and migrates data to

the optimum tier based on actual usage

(see Figure 1). Because much enterprise

data is inactive, organizations can

significantly reduce disk expenditures using

automated tiered storage.

At the same time, enterprise data

remains readily available, regardless of the

current tier. Customizable tiering algorithms

determine how once-inactive data is

promoted to a higher tier if it becomes

regularly accessed again.

RAID 5-5

RAID-10

Tier 1

RAID 5-5

RAID-10

Tier 2

RAID-6

RAID 5-9

Tier 3

Solid-state drives 15,000 rpm Fibre Channelor Serial Attached SCSI

(SAS) drives

7,200 rpm SAS

Figure 1. Data dynamically cascades from tier to tier according to access frequency, freeing high-performance drives for mission-critical applications



5. Continuous snapshots

Protecting enterprise data from server failures,

viruses, power outages, human error, and

other compromising circumstances is critical

to ongoing business success. Although

continuous snapshots offer effective data

protection, many snapshots require full mirror

images and subsequent full-volume clones.

Such a heavy burden on disk resources

hinders system performance and delays

recovery. Also, the number of snapshots taken

may be limited—often just 10 per volume.

Given few recovery points, mission-critical

applications risk extended downtime.

The Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN

uses Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay™

software, which is designed to take a large

number of space-efficient snapshots. By

capturing only changes in data since the last

snapshot, or Replay, the software enables a

dramatic reduction in the amount of disk space

required. Replays can be captured continuously

in short intervals for a high level of security

using minimal capacity. Recovery is designed

to occur in seconds, and volumes may be

mapped to different servers without disruption.

6. Thin replication

For off-site backup, replicating data between

locations typically requires identical site

configurations and pricey high-speed data

links. Even then, replication can be slow

and unreliable, especially when the process

requires the transfer of full-volume clones.

Remote Instant Replay thin replication

software provides cost-effective, verifiable

multisite data protection. Following initial site

synchronization, only Replays are replicated.

The Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN is

designed to maintain space-efficient Replays

without affecting system performance and

can easily map Replays to any server for

near-instant recovery to any point in time.

Because the SAN intelligently transfers

only changed blocks of data, it optimizes

bandwidth utilization, obviating the need for

high-speed connections. Thin replication

does not require identical site configurations,

giving administrators the flexibility to deploy

low-cost drives at remote sites.

7. Unified user interface

All too often, the expense of managing

conventional storage systems exceeds the

cost of the storage platform itself. In many

cases, administrators must manage storage

using multiple stand-alone user interfaces.


features an intuitive point-and-click interface

that provides a comprehensive view of the

entire storage environment. Wizards guide

administrators through system setup and

application configuration, helping to simplify

advanced operations. In addition, the interface

automates repetitive, time-consuming tasks,

empowering administrators to focus on strategic

projects rather than routine maintenance.

The interface automatically monitors and

displays storage consumption and usage

trends, avoiding the need for manual capacity

planning. Plus, a PhoneHome feature provides

automated real-time alerts and notifications

for remote diagnostics and monitoring.

8. Scalability on a single platform


provides a single scalable platform designed

to support enterprises as they grow or as

application demands change over time. The SAN

supports a combination of industry-standard

server interfaces and drive technologies in the

same storage system and simple adoption of

technologies on the fly, helping to eliminate

the need for forklift upgrades. In addition,

administrators can implement upgrades,

port modifications, and other configuration

changes on demand without disruption.

Capacity can be scaled incrementally

on the same platform in line with business

needs. By using Dell Compellent Live

Volume software, administrators can scale

performance horizontally by shifting peak

I/O loads on a volume to a second Dell

Compellent Storage Center SAN. Moreover,

a perpetual software-licensing model means

that enterprises do not need to repurchase

any software licenses when they upgrade

controllers to integrate new technologies.

An integrated, automated, and

resilient foundation for growth

Based on Dell Fluid Data architecture, the Dell

Compellent Storage Center SAN provides a

dynamic, virtualized storage platform that

readily adapts to constant change. Block-level

data management optimizes storage resource

utilization to cut storage costs. Built-in

intelligence and automation streamline data

management, helping to save staff time

and minimize human error. And advanced

snapshot technology enables continuous

availability without squandering storage

resources. Moreover, an agile, technology-

independent hardware platform safeguards

storage investments. Leveraging the Dell

Compellent Storage Center SAN enables

organizations to significantly reduce the cost

of managing enterprise data throughout its

life cycle, while scaling capacity quickly for

fast, flexible business response.

Learn more

Author

Thea Hayden is director of marketing

communications for Dell Compellent. In this

role, she is responsible for core marketing

content, brand communications, design, Web,

and the Voice of the Customer program.

For more information about Dell Fluid Data

architecture, scan this QR (quick response) code

using a smartphone or tablet computer equipped

with a camera and QR reader app.

Dell Compellent Storage Center:dell.com/compellent

compellent.com/powersolutions

http://www.compellent.com/popups/FluidData/FluidData.html


http://compellent.com/powersolutions

PB 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 9


In today’s data-driven world, an

optimized storage infrastructure

with intelligent data management

is at the heart of business process

efficiency. Automated tiered storage

offers an attractive way to help

manage rapid data growth and control

costs. But organizations face a broad

array of possibilities. By identifying

key differentiators in the underlying

architecture, IT decision makers

can effectively evaluate the cost

benefits of tiered storage systems and

determine the approach that best suits

their particular enterprise.

For example, many tiered

storage offerings attempt to match

data with drive type, typically

placing mission-critical data on

high-performance drives and placing

less-valued data on high-capacity

drives. However, tiering profiles

in this type of scenario are often

limited in scope and require manual

intervention to move and reformat

data from a disk group to a pooled

configuration. Also, application

licensing may be restricted to a

particular hardware platform. Such

limitations make it challenging to

respond quickly and flexibly to

changing business conditions.

In comparison, the Dell Compellent

Storage Center™ storage area network

(SAN) was engineered from the

ground up to include automated tiered

storage with built-in data management

intelligence. Dell Compellent Storage

Center SANs are based on the Dell™

Fluid Data™ architecture, which is

designed to intelligently manage data

throughout its life cycle—helping to

ensure that information is available

when and where it is needed. This

built-in intelligence enables Dell

Compellent Data Progression™ tiering

software to integrate seamlessly with

Dell Compellent storage technologies

to maximize storage performance,

efficiency, and manageability.

A highly virtualized environment

provides an excellent foundation

for automated storage tiering. The

intelligent storage architecture of the

Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN

is designed to enable true disk-level

storage virtualization by creating a

single pool of storage resources that

spans all disks and RAID levels. In

contrast, typical enterprise storage

architectures pool only a subset of

the storage resources by stretching a

volume, or logical unit (LUN), across

a predefined set of drives.

Tight integration, granularity, and system intelligence

enable Dell Compellent™ storage area networks to

build exceptional efficiency, automation, and scalability

into sub-volume storage tiering on a fully virtualized

infrastructure for the enterprise.

By Bob Fine

Architectural advantages of Dell Compellent automated tiered storage

Smart, responsive, and well connected

Dell Compellent Storage Center SANs

provide the advanced automation

and built-in intelligence to help

enterprises manage data flexibly,

based on its business value. Fluid Data

architecture also provides exceptional

application responsiveness by

enabling integration across the

data center infrastructure—helping

IT administrators make dynamic

connections across storage, servers,

and networks.



Dell Compellent storage technology

is designed to deliver the right data to the

right application at the right time through

a dynamic, virtualized storage pool that is

always available to servers. Administrators

can create the entire array as a single pool

of high-performance storage or configure

particular subsets of the array as individual

pools. Unlike typical enterprise storage

systems, in which administrators must

confine sub-LUN tiering to a distinct set

of drives with predefined storage ratios

for each tier, all Dell Compellent storage

participates in the automated tiering.

Granularity and system intelligence

facilitate precise data movement

The Dell Compellent array facilitates a

highly granular approach that enables

data movement with great precision and

efficiency within the tiered environment.

Dell Compellent technology divides data

into pages—preformatted collections of

allocated and unallocated disk blocks. The

pages are 2 MB by default (with 512 KB and

4 MB options). Details about each block are

captured in action at the 512-byte level, the

smallest addressable data block.


SAN identifies blocks that are eligible for

movement based on access frequency.

Then it moves only the pages that include

those blocks to the appropriate tier or RAID

level. In contrast, typical enterprise storage

architectures use blocks ranging from 16

MB to 1 GB in size. If only a small quantity of

data in the block changes, the system must

move the entire block regardless of size.

Dell Compellent storage continuously

captures use characteristics about each

block, including creation time, location,

access frequency, and data type. This

in-flight metadata enables Data Progression

to determine what pages should be moved to

a different storage tier (freeing capacity in

the higher-performance tier) or a different

RAID level within an existing tier (sustaining

read performance while reclaiming

capacity). This block-level intelligence is

designed for negligible system overhead

while helping to ensure that data always

stays in tune with application needs.

Typical enterprise storage architectures

limit which blocks can migrate because

they move data between tiers but do not

offer more than one RAID level within each

tier. Moreover, they may require a server-

side agent to determine whether data

should be moved. Because the agent runs

periodically or on demand, the information

it collects may be outdated by data

migration time.

Advanced automation streamlines

tiering administration

Data Progression enables fully

automated, profile-based sub-LUN tiering.

Administrators apply custom or predefined

policy-based profiles to drive data

placement and movement on each LUN

or group of LUNs. Profiles specify not only

the tiers but also the disk types, rotational

speeds, and RAID levels within each tier.

Administrators can change profile

settings, expand volumes on the fly, and

add capacity without system disruption.

When drives are added to a tier, the

Dell Compellent system is designed to

automatically restripe all data across

appropriate RAID levels during the next

migration cycle. Moreover, the migration

process—which occurs automatically or

on demand—runs in the background while

the system is online to avoid affecting data

availability or application performance.

In storage approaches that do

not provide a comparable degree

of flexibility, volumes are not easily

expanded. As a result, administrators may

need to compress data as volumes fill up

and decompress if data becomes active

again, which may delay access to vital

enterprise information.

Snapshot integration accelerates

write and read performance

Not only does Dell Compellent

Data Instant Replay™ software enable

continuous data protection, it also helps

to optimize performance in an automated

tiered storage environment. Data Instant

Replay creates snapshots, or Replays, that

use minimal storage space because they

capture only data written to the volume

since the previous Replay.

By default, Data Progression writes new

data to tier 1, RAID 10 storage for optimal

write performance. Over time, it converts

infrequently accessed data blocks to read-

only and moves them to a lower storage

tier and RAID level, or to a different RAID

level within the same tier—freeing space

Figure 1. Data Progression software writes all data to tier 1, yet snapshots automatically move to a lower tier—freeing space on high-performance drives for mission-critical applications. Virtual pointers use block metadata to retain data continuity among associated blocks.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

New write

Read-onlyVirtualpointer

Snapshot

24 h

ou

rs


on the higher tier or RAID level. Migration within

the same tier maintains read performance. To

further free tier 1 space, Replays automatically

move to a lower tier during the next migration

cycle. Because most enterprise data tends to be

inactive, organizations may reclaim significant

capacity from more expensive tier 1 storage

simply by migrating read-only data to a lower

storage tier.

When new data needs to be written to

a once-inactive block, Data Progression

automatically allocates a new writable block to

tier 1, RAID 10 storage, incurring no write penalty

for migrating data to lower tiers. Virtual pointers

maintain continuity between associated blocks

(see Figure 1).

Unlike typical storage system architecture,

Dell Compellent storage does not require

administrators to reserve space for snapshot or

write data. Furthermore, Replays do not reside

within the volume alongside active production

data; they sit outside the production volume in

pages within the general virtual storage pool.

Consequently, Dell Compellent storage allows a

large number of Replays.

Efficiency-boosting features maximize

tiering benefits

Thin provisioning, disk performance

optimization, and streamlined administration

features are also tightly integrated with Data

Progression to enhance efficiency in the Dell

Compellent virtualized storage environment.

Dell Compellent Dynamic Capacity™ software for

thin provisioning helps create the flexible storage

pool required for effective tiering. Administrators

can expand or shrink volumes on demand

without being bound to RAID set capacity or

performance limitations. Other storage systems

require administrators to predefine RAID sets and

later format additional space to accommodate

LUN expansion.

Dell Compellent Fast Track optimizes disk

performance by placing the most active data

blocks on each spindle together on the outer

tracks of each drive, helping to reduce the seek

time of those blocks. And Dell Compellent

Enterprise Manager helps simplify administration

by providing a comprehensive view of the entire

Dell Compellent storage environment, including

real-time tiering statistics. Following initial setup,

tiering functionality is designed to be fully

automated. However, at any time administrators

may configure and control the tiered storage

without system disruption.

Because Data Progression is not tied to

any particular Dell Compellent storage system

model or platform—a common limitation with

other approaches to sub-LUN tiering—it enables

organizations to scale up and out freely without

incurring downtime. Incorporating automated

tiered storage into an existing Dell Compellent

system does not require a costly, large-scale

upgrade; it is as easy as activating that particular

built-in software module. Nor do upgrades require

a change in licensing and service agreements,

unlike storage systems that tie the tiering license

to particular hardware.

Integrated automated tiering optimizes

virtualized storage efficiencies

Without a virtualized storage platform that is

engineered for automated tiered storage, even

sophisticated, policy-based approaches may

fall short of achieving the potential benefits of

tiered storage. Characteristic limitations include

poor tiering integration; lack of granular system

intelligence; labor-intensive, inefficient data

movement schemes; and limited scalability. All

too often, such limitations offset the time-saving

and cost benefits of virtualized storage.

Based on Dell Fluid Data architecture, Dell

Compellent storage technology brings high

levels of efficiency, automation, and scalability

to sub-LUN tiering. Designed to be continuously

aware of each granular data block spanning the

entire storage system, built-in Dell Compellent

automated tiered storage enables organizations

to strike a constant balance between

performance and cost.

Fluid Data storage makes sense for WhereToLive.com

Ben Higginbotham, director of new technology, shares his passion for what he calls “world-changing” Fluid Data technology.

dell.to/inAxX5

Learn more

Author

Bob Fine is director of product marketing for Dell

Compellent. In this role, he is responsible for product

release communication, competitive analysis, field

enablement, and product education.

For more information

about advanced automated

storage tiering, scan this QR

(quick response) code using

a smartphone or tablet

computer equipped with a

camera and QR reader app.

Dell Compellent storage:dell.com/compellent


http://dell.to/inAxX5

http://www.compellent.com/popups/D5Tiering/D5Tiering.html




12 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 13

In the virtual era, CIOs are meeting the demands of

a fickle global economy by leveraging intelligent,

automated technology designed to keep data

center operations in alignment with changing

business policies. Dell™ Fluid Data™ architecture

helps lay the groundwork for a virtualized IT stack

by automating and optimizing the movement and

management of data throughout its life cycle. By

automatically provisioning, deploying, and scaling

storage capacity, servers, and applications in response

to changing conditions, Fluid Data–based solutions

help reduce cost, management overhead, and risk

from the desktop to the server to the cloud.

The Dell Compellent Storage Center™ storage

area network (SAN) leverages Dell Fluid Data

architecture to complement virtual server strategies

with a dynamic pool of shared storage resources

designed to be available to all servers, all the time.

The result is a dynamic, scalable approach to

storage that supports an end-to-end virtual data

center by helping to simplify IT management, slash

storage spending, and secure the enterprise against

downtime and disaster.

Improving efficiency to lower storage

total cost of ownership

The Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN works with

server virtualization products such as VMware® ESX

and Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server to dynamically

allocate storage capacity for business-critical

applications, enabling servers and applications to be

deployed quickly, easily, and flexibly. Advanced virtual

server performance, minimized administration and

maintenance, and a flexible storage architecture lead

to savings that allow CIOs to reallocate IT staff to

strategic initiatives and end-user support activities.

CIOs play a pivotal role in driving business growth with technologies

that can be rapidly deployed, managed, scaled, and adapted to changing

conditions. Dell Compellent™ storage is a primary enabler for this virtual

data center scenario.

By Scott Horst

A dynamic storage foundation for enterprise growth

Storage that serves Gaston County

Brandon Jackson, chief information officer, discusses how the efficiencies of Fluid Data architecture from Dell Compellent have revolutionized a once-strained staff and IT infrastructure.

dell.to/lW1RP3

http://dell.to/lW1RP3


12 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent dell.com/compellent | 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition 13

Dell Compellent storage boosts performance by

allowing the SAN to process multiple I/O requests in

parallel, and by avoiding hot spots associated with

conventional storage systems. When capacity is

expanded, the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN

delivers hands-free load balancing and performance

tuning, minimizing costs associated with hands-on

IT maintenance. Policy-based profiles enhance data

management agility, enabling automated placement

and movement throughout the data life cycle.

In addition, intelligent storage automation

expedites preventive maintenance. For example,

the SAN’s automated monitoring features are

designed to alert administrators of the need to

replace drives and power supplies before an actual

failure occurs.

The open hardware architecture of the Dell

Compellent Storage Center SAN incorporates cost-

effective, industry-standard components, which also

helps simplify maintenance. Moreover, standardized

hardware helps reduce technology risk and free

organizations from proprietary vendor lock-in. The

ability of Storage Center to mix and match server

interfaces and drive technologies, and to easily

integrate emerging technologies, helps protect

existing data center investments and avoid the

necessity for large-scale upgrades.

Boosting business continuity

to protect the enterprise

Automated storage management features of the

Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN are designed

to accommodate changing data capacity and

utilization requirements at any time without

human intervention—helping to protect data,

maximize uptime and availability, and preserve

business continuity.

To protect critical information and applications,

the Storage Center SAN includes efficient snapshot

recovery and remote replication software. Data can

be shifted on demand across data centers, enabling

always-on availability. An IT team can recover files

immediately or set up multisite replication using a

point-and-click interface. These features help reduce

capacity, hardware, and bandwidth costs, allowing

the IT team to replicate data across any number of

global locations at a fraction of the cost of traditional

replication solutions.

Data protection is built into the hardware.

Failover features include dual-active clustered

controllers, redundant power supplies and fans,

and battery-backed cache.

Increasing agility to advance

competitive advantage

Transitioning to a fully virtualized IT stack that

comprises both virtual servers and virtual storage

helps CIOs accelerate business resilience and

growth opportunities. The Dell Compellent Storage

Center SAN and the Dell Fluid Data architecture

are designed to enhance IT flexibility and business

agility by automatically moving storage resources

where they are really needed, when they are

needed. When incorporated into an end-to-end

data center virtualization strategy, they heighten

competitive edge by enabling reduced overall

storage costs, fast implementation of business

applications, always-available information for

decision making, instant deployment of emerging

technologies, and continuous data protection.

With a powerful data movement engine,

intelligent storage management features, and

a single scalable platform that helps eliminate

the need for forklift upgrades, Dell Compellent

storage systems powered by Fluid Data

technology are designed to provide a cost-

efficient, enterprise-class infrastructure with

virtually limitless growth potential.

“ Compellent [storage] has enabled our team

to measurably reduce IT costs while

increasing the efficiency, utilization, and

flexibility of our storage infrastructure.”

– Brandon Jackson CIO, Gaston County, North Carolina

February 2010

Learn more

Author

Scott Horst is executive director of marketing for

Dell Compellent. In this role, he is responsible for

product marketing, marketing communications,

corporate communications, and marketing programs

and events worldwide.

For more information about


innovations, scan this QR

(quick response) code using

a smartphone or tablet

computer equipped with a

camera and QR reader app.

Dell Compellent storage:dell.com/compellent


http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/videos~en/Documents~Compellent_cust_gastoncou.aspx.aspx



Customer perspective

Established in 2001 by a group

of frustrated credit specialists,

Credit Market Analysis (CMA) is

an independent organization

operating out of London and New

York. Now a subsidiary of the Chicago

Mercantile Exchange, it develops pioneering

approaches enabling traders to graphically

view, organize, and store the quotes it

receives in real time, and provides a new

way of verifying prices to obtain a more

accurate market view and end-of-day

position evaluation.

CMA’s innovative approach to

market analysis creates large volumes

of highly sensitive data that require

secure management and bulletproof

storage. “My team’s role is twofold,”

says Ryan Sclanders, IT infrastructure

manager at CMA. “Firstly, we provide

comprehensive, real-time customer

data services to numerous leading

financial services organizations with an

understandable emphasis on redundancy

and security. And secondly, we are

also responsible for the infrastructure

within CMA itself, including the network,

servers, all hardware, and software. The

only technical role we aren’t directly

involved in is actually developing the CMA

applications themselves.”

Building a foundation for the future

Much of the data stored by CMA comprises

vast volumes of credit quotes received by

traders in real time from numerous sources.

CMA applications efficiently extract all

this information from e-mails and other

messaging platforms and prepare it to

populate real-time or historical databases

for short- or long-term storage. The

organization is extremely transaction heavy,

so all databases must be readily available.

“We process around 70 million hits on

our central servers a day, about 4 quadrillion

transactions per database server over a

60-day period, and our systems pass a million

e-mail messages per day,” explains Sclanders.

Dell™ Fluid Data™ technology granted three big IT wishes

for Credit Market Analysis (CMA): a scalable, centralized

data center; host-based recovery; and a shared, in-house

infrastructure capable of managing client systems.

Credit Market Analysis

How Fluid Data architecture pays off for CMA

14 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition | dell.com/compellent Reprinted from the 2011 Dell Compellent storage special edition of Dell Power Solutions. Copyright © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

CMA services are provided either as

in-house or shared solutions. If a customer

decides to procure an in-house solution,

its database and application “talk” to CMA’s

secure central environment, passing quotes

for processing. If the customer opts for

a shared solution, the application server

and database are often hosted in the CMA

production environment, leaving traders

with just a graphical user interface (GUI) on

their desktops that can communicate with

the shared solution.

When Sclanders joined CMA, he

immediately set about designing an entirely

new infrastructure, built from scratch using

a Dell Compellent™ Storage Center™

storage area network (SAN) based on

Dell Fluid Data technology and VMware®

virtualization. CMA has been running Dell

Compellent enterprise storage for over two

years now and has established a mature

configuration. CMA currently operates two

separate Dell Compellent systems. The

first, a 14 TB SAN, takes care of the live

production environment; the second,

a 19 TB SAN, runs a combination of host-

level disaster recovery and corporate

services, such as Microsoft® Exchange

messaging, authentication servers,

databases, and test environments.

Breaking the boundaries

of traditional storage

Before Sclanders joined CMA, the

production environment operated solely

on a packaged server cluster with direct

attach storage (DAS). Sclanders audited the

organization’s requirements for existing

systems and future scalability, and quickly

discovered a clear need to enhance storage

capabilities because the legacy environment

would not cope with the sophisticated real-

time services that CMA wanted to offer its

clients. Explaining his decision to procure

Dell Compellent storage, Sclanders said,

“A lot of vendors we looked at were sitting

on old architecture. Dell Compellent set a

new standard. The Fluid Data architecture

provided the flexibility, scalability, and

performance that we required.”

Sclanders identified three key

requirements for the infrastructure. The

first was being able to build a scalable

central production system that would

enable CMA to grow its databases and

access historical data. At that time it

already had approximately 100 databases

in its production environment, with

many ranging from 40 GB to 60 GB

each. The second requirement was to

implement host-based recovery, an option

unavailable in its previous system. The

third requirement was to build a shared

infrastructure in which CMA could host

application servers in-house for customers

and undertake the responsibility of

managing client systems.

Today CMA leverages the block-

level intelligence of the Dell Compellent

Dynamic Capacity™ feature to dynamically

move and manage data within its three

tiers of storage. Using this automated

tiered storage feature, frequently

accessed data remains on fast Fibre

Channel storage, while archive

information finds its level on Serial ATA

(SATA) drives. A large virtual environment

of approximately 100 virtual machines

sits on the second and third tiers. In

general, a significant amount of data sits

on fast, highly accessible storage, virtual

application servers sit in the middle,

and all historical data sits on the SATA

drives. Not only has the Dell Compellent

approach help cut administration time

and reduce overall storage costs, it has

also helped boost performance of critical

applications—automatically.

Benefiting from a virtualized

environment

Virtualization has perhaps been the single

major enhancement for CMA, in terms

of manageability, cost savings, space

reduction, and environmental impact.

Instead of nearly 100 physical servers,

each dedicated to a single client without

any real redundancy, the IT infrastructure

services team now maintains more than

100 virtual servers on just four physical

systems—which can represent significant

savings in administrative overhead, energy

costs, data center space, and regular

capital expenditure (see the sidebar,

“Dynamic results”).

Dell Compellent Storage Center

creates a smart, shared pool of storage

resources that allows Sclanders to change,

shift, or dynamically scale the virtualized

environment without disruption to clients.

This shared pool of resources avoids

the guesswork of capacity planning and

helps simplify storage provisioning for any

number of servers, helping provide CMA

with dramatic, cost-effective reductions in

time and disk space.


Dynamic resultsA scalable, virtualized environment helped CMA achieve the following:

• Cost-effective reduction in energy consumption, administrative overhead,

and environmental impact

• Essential redundancy features and recovery capabilities

• Consolidation of a high number of aging physical servers through virtualization

• A leading-edge, secure environment to support remote and on-site managed

client applications and internal demands


Customer perspective

Appleby—a global provider

of legal, fiduciary, and

administration services—is

a major presence in several

of the world’s leading offshore business

centers. The organization provides legal

and business solutions for many clients,

including global public and private

corporations, financial institutions, and

high-net–worth individuals.

Because Appleby operates data centers

in several geographic regions, replication for

disaster recovery purposes is a top concern

for the organization. However, its previous

decentralized storage infrastructure seemed

to make multisite replication prohibitively

costly and complex.

Implementing cost-effective

disaster recovery

To address these concerns, the Appleby IT

team launched a storage strategy based on

Dell Compellent Storage Center storage area

networks (SANs) built on Dell™ Fluid Data™

technology. Three island locations installed

these modular, highly scalable SANs, and

Appleby installed additional SANs in its Hong

Kong and British Virgin Island offices.

Unlike other approaches to replication,

Dell Compellent Remote Instant Replay™

replication leverages lightweight Data

Instant Replay™ snapshot technology

between local and remote sites to help

ensure cost-effective business continuity.

“I think it would have cost us double

to use a different replication method,

based on the extra hardware and the

time investment,” says Jack Fleming,

infrastructure manager at Appleby. “That’s

why we are replacing our older SAN in

Mauritius. With Dell Compellent Storage

Center, I can replicate the data for as many

servers as I want for the same licensing fee.

So as we expand into new locations, the

savings could be exponential.”

Getting a savings jumpstart

on Isle of Man

When Fleming added a new location on

the Isle of Man, he didn’t have to sacrifice

performance for cost at the small site. He

installed tier 1 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

drives at the Isle of Man location knowing

that the drives were designed to provide

similar performance to Fibre Channel drives

at a reduced cost. Dell Compellent

Data Progression™ automated tiered

storage intelligently migrates inactive data

down to low-cost Serial ATA (SATA) drives.

Unlike other storage vendors, Dell

Compellent does not require identical

configurations at remote sites. It provides the

flexibility to mix and match drive types within

the same system. Appleby can purchase

systems sized to match the locations they

serve and scale each location as it grows.

Once the system was installed, Fleming

turned to the Dell Compellent Portable

Volume kit to help drastically reduce the

initial synchronization time between the

primary data center and the Isle of Man

location. Within hours of plugging one

of the 2 TB external USB drives into the

controller, the Isle of Man location was

fully synced with its Jersey location. The

whole process took less than 24 hours

to complete, including transit time—a

remarkable accomplishment given the

10 MB connection between sites.

“Setting up a site like this over the wire

with our current connection would have

taken nearly six months,” says Fleming.

“Our other option would have been to

temporarily upgrade our bandwidth, which

could easily have cost US$10,000 a month

until we were fully replicated.”

Making storage administration a snap

The ability to remotely access and manage

distant SANs using the Dell Compellent

Enterprise Manager console also can make a

big difference in staffing for an organization

with locations worldwide. Appleby does not

have to staff a specialized storage expert

at each location. “With Dell Compellent,

storage management is a no-brainer,” says

Fleming. “We can even manage those

processes remotely. And as a result, we

have an easy, scalable approach to disaster

recovery that helps to secure the business

against whatever Mother Nature brings.”

With Dell Compellent™ Storage Center™ arrays spread

worldwide, Appleby needed an advanced replication and

recovery system. The Dell Compellent Portable Volume kit

helped cost-effectively save months of integration time

and connection upgrades.

Appleby

Simplifying global disaster recovery


“ I’ve used other SANs before—but nothing else was as simple to use.”— Jack Fleming

Infrastructure Manager at Appleby

February 2011


vStart virtualization from Dell.It really is that simple. vStart from Dell takes the complexity and time out of virtualizing your enterprise by delivering it at the push of a button. Pre-configured servers, storage, networking and VMware software managed via a single console can be deployed in hours not days. And it’s just as simple to find out more by going to www.dell.com/vstart or join the conversation at #vstart on Twitter.

Efficient Enterprises do more with Dell.dell.com/vstart

Store and manage your data dynamically and intelligently with Fluid Data from Dell.

Dell’s acquisition of Compellent adds to our suite of award-winning Fluid Data

storage solutions. Today, as more companies challenge the cost of running IT, Dell is

helping Efficient Enterprises simplify IT environments and reinvest savings in strategic

initiatives. Learn more about Fluid Data solutions at DellStorage.com/FluidData.

Fluid Data always knows

the most efficient way to get where

it needs to go.