by Berit Johnson, Product Marketing Manager, Dell Compellent — June 29, 2011
Dell Compellent is introducing the latest addition to its unified storage line, the Dell NX3000 for Compellent. Another step in the integration of Compellent into the Dell Fluid Data architecture, the Dell NX3000 for Compellent connects to the Compellent Storage Center SAN and leverages Dell’s cluster-ready, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2-based NAS solution to provide advanced file management services such as single-instance storage (SIS) for file-level deduplication and DFS (Distributed File Services) for namespace service and replication.
The amount of unstructured data is expected to grow drastically over the next several years, causing the need for NAS storage to increase significantly. Companies are tasked with finding ways to effectively manage this data growth under strict budget restrictions.
NAS products such as the Dell NX3000 for Compellent enable end-users to leverage file system protocols to provide file shares for centrally storing unstructured data such as word processing, spreadsheets and presentation files among many users. In addition, NAS systems host file-oriented application data such as static web farm content, document management data stores and source-code storage for both Windows and Linux/Unix clients.
By consolidating all block-level (SAN) and file-level (NAS) storage onto a single scalable Dell Compellent storage platform, end-users experience a number of benefits, including cost savings from leveraging a single virtualized pool for both block- and file-level storage, the ability to take advantage of Dell’s patented architecture for NAS-dedicated volumes, and access to Dell Compellent’s award-winning Copilot support for the entire unified storage solution.
The new Dell NX3000 for Compellent includes the following hardware features that enable improved performance and scalability options for Windows NAS users:
- Leverages a Dell 11G server (2U form factor) with 24GB RAM and dual quad-core processors
- Scales out to 4 clustered nodes with active/active failover
- Supports a quad-port 1Gb NIC or a dual-port 10Gb NIC for network connectivity
- Supports a dual-port 10Gb iSCSI HBA or a dual-port 8Gb FC HBA for SAN connectivity
For additional information about the new product, please visit the unified storage page on our site and view the video.
by Compellent Technologies, — May 04, 2010
Russ Taddiken and Scott DesBles take us through new sales slides and share insight into how to use them to circle pain points and differentiate Compellent from other vendors. The goal of this new presentation is to move away from highlighting a feature-set to a whole integrated solution – not just features but advantages as well.
8:57 am – What can Fluid Data do for you? Slash storage costs up to 80 percent, a single solution does it all, the future is built in. Sound too good to be true? Let us show you what we mean! Let them put you on the spot to deliver on these promises because we CAN.
8:58 am – Where are your pain points? How long can you manage data the same way?
- Data growth is out of control, wasted capacity with inefficient utilization
- 80 percent of data is inactive
- System complex and inflexible to manage
- DR is difficult, slow
- Replication is costly, unreliable
- Forklift upgrades, risk of technology obsolescence
9:00 am – Fluid Data architecture – this slide gives you the opportunity to discuss why Compellent is so different from other storage in the marketplace. We take a revolutionary approach to data management.
9:01 am – Storage Center overview includes software and hardware. Software includes thin provisioning, automated tiered storage, intelligent storage automation, virtualization, snapshots, replication. Hardware = simplicity. File and block, scale up from TBs to PBs, drives supported (FC, SATA, SAS, SSDs), clustered controllers.
9:02 am – Single platform for scalability – the industry’s only persistent hardware platform. Nondisruptive change. Compellent has the ability to deliver new tech over time so their investment is validated into the future.
9:03 am – We want to give you the opportunity to present to specific customers in the way they need – deep dive? Specifics? These slides give you the basis to provide the level of detail that matches your customer’s needs. We feed into more product–specific slides as we go, which provides a chance to look for objections from customer and the opportunity to answer questions and prove ourselves.
9:06 am – Persistent Software Design: What we have today works in systems we sold yesterday. “No forklift upgrades ever” - what other vendor offers the chance to change cost of ownership from 2 to 3-5 years?
9:07 am - Breakthrough efficiency – The only storage company that wants you to buy fewer drives. This is the storage solution for all your needs.
9:09 am - Thin Write is our ability to see 0s and not write the 0s to disk when we’re importing data. It’s not a standalone or licensed feature, it’s just what we do.
9:10 am – True storage virtualization – the smartest storage for virtual servers. This slide gives you the opportunity to discuss how valuable bringing in a fully virtualized environment is. Users can expand and change characteristics on the fly with virtualized storage, and it provides the same savings on the storage side that you see on the server side, such as power savings and cooling costs.
9:12 am – Thin provisioning is “just what we do.” 100 percent of Compellent customers use Thin Provisioning. Thin Import is enabled by this functionality – here is an opportunity to differentiate against other vendors that use thin import functionality as a highly specialized tool – with Compellent, it’s basic and automatically included.
9:13 am – Automated Tiered Storage – 81 percent of our upgrade orders are for affordable, high-capacity drives because of ATS. Here you can talk about how we deliver performance in the tier 1 world and further customer’s understanding on how we’re going to deliver performance capabilities.
9:15 am – Things like live volume, thin write, thin import are only mentioned in slides briefly but not highlighted - this gives us the opportunity to dive into what these features are when the question comes up – further differentiates Compellent’s architecture.
9:19 am – Thin replication – 68 percent of Compellent customers replicate their data to another site. Point of this slide is that this feature is all integrated into the storage array – deepens discussion into Portable Volume to talk about reducing risk, explore the solutions a little more deeply.
9:21 am – There are ‘watch the demo’ buttons embedded on some slides launch videos to talk about specific features – these can be viewed right there during the presentation.
9:22 am – Platform Integration – This slide includes Replay Manager and MS PowerShell Automation. You can discuss options for automation for Microsoft or Unix/Linux. Know your audience – if this customer hasn’t had a SAN before, you’ll probably focus on ease of use of interfaces. For customers looking to get beyond that, the more enterprise customers, you can talk about these tools that allow them to get deeper into automation capabilities.
9:25 am – Intelligent Storage Automation – Sophisticated is now automated and simple, allows us to externalize the reporting environment that other vendors don’t. The wraparound management of it all is Enterprise Manger – we are proud of this feature and have it in the new presentation more than in the previous deck. We want users to know how easy it is to use and manage! Every demo should include Enterprise Manager. You get all the information you could ever want and more on how your architecture is performing, including features like threshold alerts and chargebacks. We’re bullish on what Enterprise Manager does and want you to be, too!
9:32 am – Unified Storage – Seamlessly support block and file based storage. zNAS is truly block-based access in a common pool of storage. All occurs on Compellent array – no third-party or software additions.
9:33 am – Real-time Response – Copilot is winning accolades in the industry, providing worldclass service. We don’t do callbacks – you talk to the person that owns your system/problem when you call, so you get a fast response. High customer satisfaction – 98 percent satisfaction rating, 100 percent would buy again. Copilot is more than a support organization – it smoothes the process of managing the environment, sets up customers for next upgrades.
9:36 am – The Future is Fluid – About Compellent. This slide provides an opportunity to talk about industry testing and awards that we’re winning, including our patents that reinforce the technology. We’ll save you significantly on your investment in storage. These slides are at the end of the presentation – we want you to be bold on features right away, about your own company – lead with who YOU are, and Compellent supports that by coming up at the end.
9:39 am – Customer reference slide – use our marketing team to add logos for your own customers to customize this slide. You can also use it to discuss how we are not isolated in one particular vertical. We have a presence in verticals that is nearly even – they can all see the Compellent advantage across different industries.
9:40 am – Top Tier Technology Partners – Compellent does storage really well, that’s what we focus on. We sell the whole storage solution and then work with these other platform partners. This slide shows who we work with and how we provide information (white papers, best practices) to help customers integrate these pieces. VARs can use this slide to sell themselves and other solutions they sell apart from Compellent. Prove your own value-add.
9:42 am – Summary and Next Steps: can we offer a live presentation? Review your architecture? Infrastructure assessment? TCO analysis? Finalize this meeting but gain a commitment for the next meeting. Explain the strong statements that Compellent IS the best solution for their environment and we’d like to earn the opportunity to prove that.
9:45 am – Thank you! We’re happy to provide this new sales tool to you.
by Liem Nguyen, (former) Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — April 27, 2010
Today Compellent is pleased to introduce the latest in our unified storage line, the Compellent zNAS , which is our first NAS based on ZFS (Zettabyte file system). Compellent zNAS is ideal for mid-sized and large enterprises with file and block based storage requirements, especially in mixed Unix, Linux and Windows environments.
Why is this important? Because file storage requirements are going through the roof, with analysts like IDC predicting the amount of unstructured data (office docs, videos, graphics files) will increase by more than 60 percent annually through 2012. That's a lot of growth, requiring both granular system intelligence and big file scalability to manage all that data, regardless of size or type, in the most efficient way. The Compellent zNAS was designed with those storage consolidation needs in mind. Here are a few of the product highlights:
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Unified storage management interface - The zNAS interface integrates file and block storage management tasks. For example, an admin can create file shares that are instantly, thinly provisioned on Compellent enterprise SAN. Other data management tasks such as volume deletion, snapshot creation and system analytics are also available from the unified interface (See sample screenshot)
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Fluid Data architecture - Regardless of whether the data is written by file-based or block-based applications, the zNAS leverages our Fluid Data architecture to consolidate the data in a virtual pool of storage and provide granular system intelligence to actively manage the data. The solution offers block-based thin provisioning, automated tiered storage, boot from SAN, continuous snapshots and thin replication applications.
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High-performance NAS hardware - The zNAS ships as a single 1U NAS node or a clustered dual configuration. The NAS comes with dual Intel Nehalem processors and memory up to 48 GB. Because each node is diskless, the management software and NAS image boot from the SAN, which means fewer hardware components to deploy, maintain and upgrade.
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Single, scalable platform - The back-end storage consists of the Storage Center controller and enclosures that can support any type of drive such as SSD, SAS, FC or SATA. By leveraging a persistent hardware platform and managing just one pool of storage, enterprises can greatly simplify management, improve performance for their applications, and save money on hardware and associated costs.
If it's ZFS, it's got to be massively scalable
- ZFS is an advanced, highly scalable file system: it’s a 128-bit file system addressing 18 quintillion (1.84 × 1019) times more data than current 64-bit systems.
- The practical limitations on file size and directory entries cannot be defined, so basically you’re bound more by the physical capacity of the unified platform - in Compellent’s case that’s 1,008 disks.
- ZFS has advanced error detection and correction, using end-to-end checksums to authenticate data integrity.
- ZFS has other valuable storage efficiency features such deduplication, which is expected to ship later this year on zNAS (end of Q2/beginning of Q3).
We'll ship the Compellent unified storage solutions with zNAS by the end of June 2010, available only through our global network of channel partners.
For more information, watch the brief zNAS product tour (below) by Troy Presler, the product manager for zNAS.
If you'd like more information on unified storage, join me (@LiemNguyen) and ESG senior analyst Terri McClure (@esganalysttmac) for the next #SANChat on unified storage at 1:30 pm CDT later today, April 27. We will talk about the benefits of scalable NAS, next-generation unified storage technologies and other storage issues.