Around the Block

End to End Enterprise Solutions

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:37:00 -0500

How do technology vendors know when it’s time to deliver a new capability? There’s an easy answer to that question. Deliver the capability that customers ask for.

Over the year since Dell acquired Compellent, we’ve kept our ears open to our customers who want us to deliver value to Compellent. There are a few ways to do that:

Every technology vendor adds new features to their products over time. Compellent is no different – we’ve added eleven new capabilities in the past year.
Leverage partner technology. This is also expected and is normal for Dell as we’ve always had strong relationships with ‘best-in-breed’ technology vendors.
Take advantage of Dell’s unique intellectual property. We, here at Dell have a purposeful approach to strategic acquisitions of IP and investment in innovation.

At the recent Dell Storage Forum in London, we announced we were going to extend storage support for Dell and partner networking solutions. Today we’re following through with this commitment to deliver an end-to-end solution by making a better together story for Compellent that encompasses both our own storage networking technology and technology from partners. Going forward, we’ll fully support the following storage networking solutions:

Dell Force10 S4810
Brocade 6510
Brocade DCX-8510

These are additions to our list of tested, supported, fully compatible switches that extend Compellent’s reach into the enterprise. With full support for 10GbE and 16Gbps Fibre Channel, Dell Compellent is helping its customers optimize their core datacenter infrastructure. As they find Compellent’s distinctive capabilities an ideal fit for enterprise workloads, customers have wanted more choice in enterprise switching. Today we have delivered.

Going beyond conventional switches, we've also qualified a range of switches for our M1000e blade servers. By extending our options for Dell blade customers, we help those who want to use Compellent for private cloud or to create a ‘datacenter-in-a-rack’. These blade optimized switches include:

Dell 4/8Gb FC SAN Module
Dell M8428-k
Brocade M5424

By listening and delivering, we’re ensuring that Compellent remains a strong fit for any kind of customer, regardless of whether they prefer Dell’s own enterprise solutions or partner technology. As Compellent continues to develop over time, you’ll see more announcements where it’s become ‘better together’ with technology from other sources. For additional information, visit Compellent’s partner portal, contact your partner or Dell salesperson.

Fluid Data Helps Data Center Get Above Water

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:10:00 -0500

When you run a 24/7 operation for a luxury jet service, an IT outage is something you can’t afford. The Flight Options IT team was finding that its legacy EMC storage system was running out of capacity. To keep up with data growth, the IT team started looking into different systems that would scale alongside its business, increase performance and reduce physical footprint and management time--until an unexpected disaster accelerated their decision making timeline. On Sept. 22, 2009, the Flight Options IT team discovered that a leaking air conditioner left its four-cabinet rack of database and applications servers and storage under water. The team needed to react quickly to protect its business systems. The backup data center worked as expected and the data was recovered. The next logical step was to get new equipment into the data center, quickly.

The Flight Options IT team spoke with EMC (the legacy vendor) and Dell Compellent about getting a new system quickly. The Compellent team was able to be agile, deliver the right product and act quickly. In less than a day, a Compellent system was ordered, shipped, installed and running. David Davies, CIO of Flight Options, said that in his long tenure as an IT professional he has never seen something like this done at such a rapid pace. It was a storage miracle.

As Flight Options deployed the new SAN, the company reaped the benefits of leveraging an efficient storage architecture to reduce the physical data center footprint by 80 percent, virtualize all applications, reduce costs, improve performance and cut management time to 15 minutes per week. To learn a bit more about the Flight Options story, check out the press release. David Davies is a great speaker who captivated an audience by presenting his story at SNW Spring in Santa Clara, CA. It’s not every day that you get to hear a story like David’s. He even joked that the marketing folks, like me, will love his story when we heard it for the first time.

Has your data center ever been stuck by an air conditioning disaster? What about any natural disasters? How did you recover? Please leave us a comment and tell us about it.

Dell Compellent Replay Manager 6: Simplifying Server Snapshots

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:13:00 -0500

The release of Replay Manager 6 provides many new features for taking Replays, or snapshots, of server environments. While it can be complicated and difficult to run and manage business critical applications -- such as SQL databases, Exchange and Hyper-V – taking and managing Replays shouldn’t be. The latest release of Replay Manager enhances and simplifies management capabilities so administrators can spend less time on Replays and more time on their server environment.

Below is an overview of three of the new features now available with Replay Manager 6:

Multiple Instance Management
Now multiple instances of Replay Manager can be managed through a single centralized management interface. This feature eliminates the need to switch between Replay Manager interfaces, simplifying the management of Replays of server applications such as SQL, Exchange and Hyper-V. This new management interface can be installed on a server, VM or a desktop to ease traditional management challenges.
Windows PowerShell Scripting
Many users prefer using Cmdlet scripting over a traditional GUI. Replay Manager now supports 43 PowerShell Cmdlets, providing all management capabilities found within Replay Manager’s GUI. PowerShell scripting greatly reduces the time required and difficulty of completing complex and/or repetitive tasks when taking snapshots of server applications.
SQL Restore without Recovery
When recovering a SQL database using Dell Compellent space-efficient snapshots, users are now able to restore the database by recovering it. This new feature allows database administrators to apply backup logs to enable an even more granular recovery of their database – recovery between snapshots.

For a demo of Replay Manager 6.0 click below.

VMware vSphere 5, SRM 5 and Dell Compellent

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:16:00 -0500

The release of vSphere 5 and Site Recovery Manager 5 is one of the largest product launches in VMware’s history. This launch adds additional features, customization ability, and provides an even more robust virtualization offering. In support of the launch, Dell Compellent is updating several of its ever expanding list of integrations and will be certifying them with VMware for the launch of vSphere 5:

Storage Center for vSphere 5
With the release of vSphere 5 and Storage Center 5.5.3, Dell Compellent will be fully supportive of all new storage volume/datastore mappings available through vSphere 5. Principal among these new features will be the ability to support and map up to 64TB VMFS datastores. This will allow virtualization administrators to support more, larger virtual machines (VMs) per volume/datastore.

Site Recovery Manager 5 (SRM 5)
Dell Compellent’s Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for SRM 5 will be available for download when vSphere 5 launches later this summer. The SRA will support new features within SRM 5, like automated failback from a disaster event and the new work flows for planned migration and downtime. This new version of SRM will provide an even more complete solution for planning, automating, and recovering from disasters or planned downtime. Additionally, Dell Compellent will continue its OEM relationship with VMware for SRM 5, allowing all DR recovery hardware and software support to be centralized under a single roof using the Dell Compellent Copilot support organization.

vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) - Block Zeroing
Block Zeroing, part of the server offloading APIs known as VAAI, is supported now through our Storage Center releases. Block Zeroing allows servers and Dell Compellent to do what they do best, manage VMs and storage respectively. Block Zeroing reduces CPU load and IO on the server and reduces time to create and manage storage assets for the user.

vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) – Unmap
The release of vSphere 5 unveils another VAAI offloading API, known as Unmap. Before Unmap, deleting data from VMFS datastores, like a file or VM, did not necessarily allow for that once consumed data to return to the available storage pool. Using Unmap, the server will now notify the Compellent array to free the once consumed storage assets back to the available storage pool. This provides even more storage efficiencies using a Dell Compellent array.

Upcoming Support
We will also be updating the immensely popular and easy to use Dell Compellent vSphere Plug-In, the Enterprise Manager / vSphere Integration, and support for all the vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) primitives. We are working hard to ensure all our offerings continue to offer customers the quality experience with VMware they expect from Dell Compellent Fluid Data. Check back for updates and announcements on additional VMware integrations. In the meantime, watch Darren Thomas, Vice President and General Manager of Dell Storage, discuss Dell’s alliance with VMware — and how it enables the cloud.

Introducing Dell NX3000 for Compellent

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:20:00 -0500

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.

Native Free Space Recovery in Red Hat Linux

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:55:00 -0500

With the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Dell Compellent’s already great thin provisioning just got that much better. Thanks to the adaptation of new SCSI commands defined under the SBC-3 specification by the T10 Technical Committee, Dell Compellent Storage Center can now reclaim freed space from Red Hat systems. This is possible without any agent that has to be maintained, versioned and tested on each server.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 introduced the SCSI UNMAP command to the ext4 file systems to support releasing space on SAN platforms that also implemented the UNMAP command. Compellent began working on implementing the UNMAP command early, recognizing the great value it could have with our thin provisioning. Starting with Storage Center 5.4 all the necessary pieces were in place to provide free space recovery to platforms like Red Hat 6.

Since this is all built in natively to the system, users don’t have to maintain a proprietary plug-in on every system deployed. All that is needed are the built-in tools.

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Use It

Make a new ext4 file system and mount it using the new ‘discard’ option. This is the piece that tells Red Hat to send the SCSI UNMAP command to Storage Center when it is done with blocks of storage.
Throw some files onto the new file system. Below is the screen shot from the Storage Center manager showing how much space has been allocated, about 24 GB.
Compare that with the output from df. We can see that they are relatively close.
Now for the magic, delete some data off the volume and look at the file system.
We can see that the Storage Center has released the space back into the pool and is now only reserving about 15 GB of space.

This technology will allow customers to get even better efficiency out of their storage. Stop having stranded blocks allocated and not doing anything. This could also help increase the overall performance of the system as Dell Compellent’s other features like Fast Track and Data Progression can do an even better job of ensuring that the best performing space is utilized by real active data. All of this is achieved through native standards that don’t require the administrator to maintain any custom utilities on their servers. It just works, and that’s the way it should be.

To view this post along with other technical posts, please visit the Dell TechCenter community.

Join me for #SANchat this Wednesday!

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:09:00 -0500

Join us for the April #SANchat this Wednesday, April 20^th. We’ll get started at 9 am ct, 10 am et. This is the first time we’re trying for an early start—trying to find the optimal time for everyone!

After last month’s diversion into the world of the Dell Storage Forum, #SANChat is back to its vendor neutral roots. This month’s #SANchat will be about VDI (virtual desktop integration).

Our co-host this month is Stu Miniman. Stu is an analyst and researcher at Wikibon. He’s recently written about desktop virtualization and posted interviews with VDI experts, so he should bring some interesting insights to this #SANchat. For even more #SANchat prep, be sure to check out all of the information posted from Wikibon’s Peer Incite on VDI.

Will Urban from Dell EqualLogic is also joining us. Will is the Product Engineer for EqualLogic integration with VMware. He’s been presenting and talking about VDI with EqualLogic customers for a while now, so he should have some interesting comments for the chat as well.

Here’s what you can expect if you join us on Wednesday:

What is VDI? We’ll level-set some definitions, talk about how VDI be used as well as the overall benefits of VDI.
What are the barriers to adopting VDI? What issues should you think about before deploying VDI? (from people, to network and storage strategy, to costs).
What are some VDI best practices?
We’ll try to share some case studies as well.

As a reminder, #SANchat is a monthly chat hosted by Dell Storage. For more background on #SANchat, see this blog post over on Dell Compellent’s Around the Block blog. To join, just jump in the discussion and use the #SANchat hashtag. You may find it helpful to use an application such as TweetChat.

Become a Part of Fluid Data 2.0

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:37:00 -0500

It’s been an incredible few months here at Dell Compellent. Becoming a part of Dell has brought a wealth of opportunity for all of us here in Eden Prairie, MN. It’s so exciting to help Dell execute its storage vision and deliver value through open, capable and affordable solutions. To drive towards that vision Dell Compellent is offering career defining opportunities to individuals with the talent and entrepreneurial spirit to help us scale our Fluid Data solutions. If you love technology, and want to a part of a visionary team, join us as we set out to redefine the data center. We’re looking to assemble the best and the brightest to play an integral role in this exciting chapter in the Dell Compellent history.

There are significant hiring plans to fill various positions across the company. Here’s a list of some of the departments that are looking to expand the most:

Copilot support team
Engineering (applications, testing, software)
Marketing (marketing communications, corporate communications, demand generation and marketing programs and product marketing)
Sales

Interested in learning more? We’d love to meet you! Here’s how:

Public Career Fairs for Dell Compellent hiring
Dates and Times:
Friday, April 15^th 10 AM – 4 PM
Saturday, April 16^th 10 AM – 12 PM

Location:
Sofitel Minneapolis
5601 West 78th Street Bloomington, MN 55439

If you are unable to make it to the career fairs you can still visit the Dell Compellent job website to apply.

Read below to hear what some of the team had to say about working at Dell Compellent:

“I joined Compellent because of the great culture that lives here, and now that we are Dell Compellent that culture is still here, it’s just getting bigger. The people I work with have gone from colleagues, to acquaintances and ultimately to friends. Our team gets to work with so many different aspects of the business with opportunities to travel the world – what more could you ask for?” Stephanie Schneider, business development representative in sales

“Working for Dell Compellent has given me the opportunity to be a part of a great team that designed a product that has changed the storage industry. As a part of the engineering team we design, test and deploy solutions that truly make our customers’ jobs easier. Our work is both challenging and rewarding, and I look forward to growing our team as we continue to innovate the Dell Compellent storage solution.” Ed Fiore, director of engineering

“ One of the best parts of working in Copilot is the opportunity to support a truly exceptional and innovative product. There is a great amount of pride in knowing we are a part of an industry leading support organization working with an industry leading product. One of the best parts of our job is helping our customers realize the full potential of their Dell Compellent SAN in their IT environment. From the office atmosphere to our friendly customers I couldn’t ask for a better workplace experience.” Matt Puerkel, Copilot support team

Compellent Joins Dell Family

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:30:00 -0600

Today Compellent shareholders approved the merger with Dell, which means Compellent Fluid Data is joining Dell’s lineup of innovative, award-winning storage products. We’re thrilled to be a part of a great company that shares the same passion for intelligent storage and its role in the enterprise.

Dell is the world’s best at listening to customers and injecting this feedback into everything they do, whether it’s in product development or product support. Dell has also shown a strong commitment to its channel community, which is a big deal for a channel-driven company like us. For Compellent customers, partners and employees, there’s a lot to be excited about today and for the future.

Phil Soran shares in this blog post his excitement for the acquisition and the positive changes for our customers, partners and employees. One of those big changes is that we’re going to combine our C-Drive event with the Dell EqualLogic User Conference and create a new, bigger Dell Storage Forum. Scott Horst, our VP of marketing, explains the reasons why it just made a lot of sense to unite these great conferences. Heck, I feel like we just won the Super Bowl, because we’re going to Disney World!

When the news broke that Dell was planning to acquire Compellent, our customers and partners let us know they were excited about the huge opportunity for the company and our community. We’re grateful for their loyalty and commitment, and it’s an honor to share blog posts from customers and partners who took the time to voice their support for the merger, such as:

So many customers and partners wanted to weigh in that we collected their comments and we'll post additional blogs over the next couple weeks, so please check back soon.

And, finally, if I may get a little personal here, I’m also very excited about joining the Dell team. Actually I’m re-joining Dell. I spent 9 great years in various technical and corporate communications roles prior to coming to Compellent and I get a kick out of knowing my old badge number is waiting for me. When I started at Dell in 1998, the company was 20,000 strong. Now it has about 100,000 employees. Make that 100,600 employees.

Here are some links for more information—I’ll update with more links as we go along:

Darren Thomas’ Blog over at Direct2Dell
Lance Boley’s Blog in the Dell TechCenter
Dell Storage Forum website
Compellent press release
Robert William's blog over at DellShares

Get Fluid with Dell and Compellent

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:25:00 -0600

To our customers, partners, shareholders and employees:

Today, Dell announced that it has successfully completed its acquisition of Compellent. Before I go any further, let me just pause to say thank you.

We didn’t become the world’s fastest growing SAN company by ourselves. We got a lot of help from our loyal customers, partners, employees and shareholders. I believe this acquisition validates the trust you placed in our business and our technology. The opportunity in front of us wouldn’t be here without your passion and hard work.

As for the opportunity ahead, our shareholders approved the merger because they recognized the synergies between Compellent and Dell. For both, our roots are entrepreneurial and our cultures are similar, we have a shared vision for the future of IT – and we’ve separately engineered innovative technologies in line with our vision. From today on, our two companies will work as one to make that vision a reality for enterprises around the world.

As we celebrate this milestone in both companies’ successful histories, I’d like to offer a few thoughts about the days ahead:

What This Means to Our Employees

Nine years ago today three guys got together in the basement. And I want to acknowledge my partners, John Guider and Larry Aszmann. Guys, take a bow. In 2002, when we started this company, we had a vision: to create a company that would innovate and improve on the existing state of storage – to create fluid technology that encouraged customers to purchase fewer, not more, drives; to provide excellent service and support; and to be a true and honest partner to the channel and to our customers.

I’m very proud of the achievements of our employees – how we created something worth almost a billion dollars in value. Let me give some examples of the great work done by our team over the years:

Delivered $414.9 million in total revenue from 2004 to 2010
Supported a total of 1,300 dependents and employees
Teamed with 522 channel partners
Processed 23,506 sales orders, and
Shipped 7,000 controllers in 4,100 systems to 2600 customers

Not many companies can say they did that. Together, this team started a business, raised money, built a product, found channel partners, and turned it all into something much bigger than the sum of its pieces and parts – bigger than all of us. And together we will help Dell redefine the data center.

What This Means to Our Customers

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that our world-class customer experience will not change. I recognize that for many of our valued customers, Copilot is their favorite Compellent feature and our customers can continue to count on that personalized level of service excellence you have come to know and love from our great Copilot team.

Dell is committed to adding more resources to support our customers, and more resources to keep innovating our product. Together with Dell, we can accelerate new features, new integration, and scale deeper into the data center to help customers turn IT from a cost center to a flexible business productivity center. I thank you for your support and it’s very gratifying to see such great enthusiasm for joining the Dell family.

What This Means to Our Channel Partners

You’ve heard me say that the channel is in our DNA. Our goal with Dell is to protect and grow Compellent’s channel relationships. Dell announced a long-term registration program for all Dell PartnerDirect channel partners that are certified to sell storage, helping partners grow and nurture their customer relationships as trusted IT advisors once they have sold a Dell storage solution.

All current Compellent partners will be “grandfathered” into the Dell Certified Partner Program as Storage Certified Partners, which offers many benefits, including access to a diverse portfolio of products, healthy margins and list-price discounts. More information about these benefits can be found on the Dell PartnerDirect site.

The New Dell Storage Forum 2011

We have joined forces to launch a combined storage conference to help partners and customers get the most from their product investment and ongoing relationship with us. Our first ever Dell Storage Forum will take place June 5-11, 2010 in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney Resort. This is where storage magic will happen. The new conference will take all of the things you love about C-Drive and grow it into a bigger event. It’s also the first time Dell will dedicate a track just for channel partners.

Scott Horst’s blog explains why it made sense for us to combine C-Drive with the EqualLogic user conference, two very successful events, into one for the entire Dell storage community. We will also look at hosting Europe and Asia events throughout the year – so stay tuned for updates.

Thanks to your vision, loyalty and support, we have created a community that is passionate about innovative storage technology. Innovation is core to Compellent and our award-winning product. We know we have something very special in Compellent. And Dell recognizes it too.

Thank you.

Phil

Dell Storage Forum

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:20:00 -0600

Compellent’s C-Drive Makes a Fluid Move to the 2011 Dell Storage Forum

For four years, C-Drive has been the one week a year we bring the Compellent “experience” to life for our entire ecosystem – partners, customers, media, analysts, technology partners, and more – to drive education, networking and training across multiple days, venues and meetings. Our core philosophy has always been to continually move partners and customers from information to participation in everything we do, driving a fluid learning environment that adapts to the needs of our stakeholders every time we see them.

And now, that we are officially part of Dell, we are combining Compellent’s C-Drive with the Dell EqualLogic User Conference into a combined conference. Compellent C-Drive 2011 US previously scheduled for May 1^st – 6^th in St. Paul, Minnesota at the RiverCentre will be fluidly rolled into the Dell Storage Forum scheduled for June 5^th – 10^th in Orlando, Florida at the Disney Hilton Resort. We are very excited to be part of something that we can all grow together into a bigger, better, and bolder event.

The 2011 Dell Storage Forum will offer sessions, strategies and best practices for the entire Dell Storage portfolio—from Compellent to EqualLogic to PowerVault and more–to ensure this becomes not just an event, but an ongoing initiative for Dell Storage and a recurring investment in our partner’s and customer’s mutual success.

And, for the first time, the Dell Storage Forum will be open to all Dell Storage channel partners selling our innovative storage technologies to businesses and data centers around the world. There will be a full day of sessions solely for partners, instructor-led training and certifications, and the chance to attend the same technology and product tracks as end users.

‘The Virtual Era Is Fluid’ at 2011 Dell Storage Forum, But You’ll Leave with a Solid Foundation

In its new fluid form, the 2011 Dell Storage Forum will serve as a face-to-face gathering built for the virtual world, allowing everyone to connect to Dell Storage and to each other, to gain a deeper understanding of the technology and the team that can help us all get better together.

The Virtual Era has arrived—and it’s here to stay. Pushing us into this new era of computing are three powerful trends converging like a perfect storm–data volume, velocity and value.

The amount of data IT organizations are grappling with every day is exploding, and nearly 90 percent of that data is not accessed after its creation. Much of this data is created outside of the walls of the traditional office by a mobile workforce and moving from device to desktop to datacenter with increasing speed. Before our eyes, data has transformed into the growth driver for organizations as they strive to find new sources of revenue while controlling costs.

What does this mean to you? The Virtual Era has arrived, but you need solutions.

For IT, the Virtual Era brings opportunity, but also layers of complexity and challenges. The Virtual Era demands more—a fluid approach to how technology is designed, engineered, architected, deployed, managed and supported. More and more data means companies need more storage. Businesses today are ever more reliant on storage, and that makes it a strategic decision–far-reaching, fast-moving and fraught with risk.

Yet, companies are increasingly frustrated with the rigid boundaries of their existing storage systems. Whereas other solutions treat data as a static thing, Dell believes data should be actively, intelligently managed and moved throughout a business wherever and whenever it’s needed. We’re out to boldly tell the world an essential truth about data, and that truth is that data needs to be fluid.

The time for this “fluid” conversation is now, and that conversation will converge at the Dell Storage Forum in June with storage experts, technology evangelists, industry leaders, passionate customers and our channel partners. Everyone will be learning how fluid storage can help drive efficiency, agility and resiliency, dramatically reducing costs and enabling you to reallocate those savings to strategic initiatives that drive your business.

The Virtual Era is Fluid. And, it requires an approach that is just as fluid as the world in which we live.

From the back office to the front pocket, the opportunity of the Virtual Era is ripe for the taking. To learn more about how fluid defines the Virtual Era join us at the Dell Storage Forum. Register today.

We’ll contact everyone who already registered for C-Drive 2011 on next steps. You can also read this FAQ for more information.

Guest Post: Getting Creative with IT

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:10:00 -0600

Arnold Worldwide is a global communications company delivering services across all communication touchpoints – advertising, digital, promotions, direct, design and branded content. We’re proud to represent a diverse portfolio of worldwide brands, and we’ve been a Dell shop for as long as I can remember. We have always relied on Dell servers to host critical applications the agency and our clients depend on.

In the advertising business, creative workloads often change dramatically. Projects and campaigns come and go but leave behind an enormous electronic trail. Five years ago, I recognized that our legacy SAN couldn’t keep up with the massive data files we were generating and the system offered zero scalability. To cut costs and keep up with our competitors, we were forced to look for a better solution.

After evaluating and considering a number of options, we chose the Compellent solution because we knew it would work great with the VMware virtual servers we were going to run on Dell. Once implemented, we saw immediate results due to the SAN’s persistent architecture and intuitive technology. We eliminated 80 percent of our hardware and consolidated down to four physical servers. With rack space at a premium and energy costs on the rise, it pays to virtualize. With our data center running on Compellent and Dell, we did that easily.

We’ve also greatly improved our ability to withstand data disasters that might occur. For example, I remember a time soon after we installed the Compellent SAN—we were doing some system maintenance, and someone accidentally deleted a bunch of digital images. However, we had the volume backed up with a Compellent snapshot, so it just took us a few minutes to roll back in time to before the images were deleted. That’s another benefit of virtualization that people don’t really think about. Fortunately, we’ve done all this while keeping capital and operating expenditures low so we can focus our efforts on what we do best—deliver the right IT services to support the creative marketing and advertising campaigns of our clients around the world.

We’re still totally satisfied with our decision to switch to Compellent. Due to budget cutbacks in recent years, the advertising industry has been forced to look for ways to do more with less. But our bet on cutting-edge storage and server virtualization has enabled us to stay ahead of the competition. Dell’s acquisition of Compellent validates the critical decision we made five years ago, and our faith in the two companies has never been stronger. We look forward to seeing the two companies flourish and continue to create innovative IT offerings for many businesses, not just ours.

Editor’s Note: Greg Folsom is the CIO of Arnold Worldwide, and a Compellent and Dell customer. To learn more about Arnold Worldwide, its use of Compellent Fluid Data storage and its annual cost-savings, read the case study.

The Perfect Image

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:05:00 -0600

As a dedicated provider of professional, quality and technologically advanced imaging services, Radiology Ltd. requires technology that lives up to our stringent standards. Our nine different locations offer a range of services including body imaging, breast imaging and intervention and cardiac radiology, so it’s important we have a reliable storage system in place. Patient records not only need to be available 24/7 for short-term needs, they also often need to be available for the entire lifetime of the patient and sometimes longer. Dell and Compellent provide that kind of reliable technology for us.

When we began using a Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) in 1998, EMC was really our only choice to manage the data-rich imaging files. We were a medium business storing at enterprise level. Our IT department was calculating a potential 4-5 TB of storage needed per year, and we were being forced to buy EMC hardware at a premium cost. While we were happy with our Dell servers, we needed a storage solution that could accommodate our storage growth while ensuring that we could access our images and records as quickly as possible to continue offering great patient care.

When it was time to invest in storage again, Compellent was the clear choice. Fluid Data allowed us to move 80 percent of our data onto less expensive lower-tier drives, saving us tens of thousands per year. Finally, we had a solution with enterprise-level storage at a price that was affordable for us. Attached to our Dell servers, Compellent has provided us with a reliable and easy-to-manage solution, and the two companies have helped us to stay competitive with other imaging service providers.

Dell’s acquisition of Compellent is a great opportunity for both companies and their customers. Compellent will reap the benefits of more dollars behind research and development, which will put new features and capabilities on the fast track for customers. For Dell, adding Compellent to its portfolio along with their EqualLogic offering will create a strategy that covers all of the open storage market, especially mid-sized companies whose storage needs grow as fast as they do.

My team and I are excited to see what the future holds for Dell and Compellent.

Editor’s Note: Eric Nied is a Compellent and Dell customer. To learn more about Radiology Ltd, visit their website: (www.radltd.com).

Dell and Compellent: When Consolidation Equals Growth

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:00:00 -0600

Watch us grow! Dell’s acquisition of Compellent is now final and the engines are revving on multiple fronts for accelerated growth. Consolidation in the storage sector means rapid expansion of the Compellent product offering via the enhanced marketing and distribution capabilities available through Dell. Growth of Dell’s market share in the storage sector will also occur since the Compellent offering is a natural fit for the enterprise space. My company, Davenport Group, is also expecting to grow as a result of this merger. We have been partners with both Dell and Compellent since 2003 and offer just two storage solutions to our clients, EqualLogic and Compellent. This merger will combine the best of both worlds for our clients, the remarkable innovation and support of Compellent and the maturity, resources, and breadth, that is Dell.

From a business perspective, Dell should see significant growth of their market share in the storage sector from adding Compellent to their offering. The flexibility, power, and scalability of Compellent now provides Dell with a flagship storage product to further penetrate the data center. Compellent’s Storage Center is a perfect fit for the upper mid-market all the way to the enterprise space. Enterprise shops are where the real value of the Compellent product set quickly becomes obvious. As clients deal with hundreds of terabytes of data, Compellent’s ability to gain control at the block level provides the edge that IT professionals are seeking. Compellent’s Storage Center provides end-users the ability to gain control over their data, reduce the complexity, and truly manage their costs. The architecture is a masterful design that delivers the lowest cost per allocated terabyte while being extremely flexible. One of our clients called it “the Lego building blocks of storage,” which may not be the next marketing tagline but it certainly conveys the concept. Compellent’s core value speaks to the demanding needs in every data center, and Dell has the resources and commitment to ensure that Compellent’s innovation continues and that Copilot services only gets better.

Davenport Group has been evangelizing the message of Compellent for 7-plus years. Often we encounter very talented IT professionals who, after a whiteboard session with a member of our team say, “You can’t do that!” Our response is always the same, “Let me show you.” Once the underlying magic of Compellent is properly conveyed, the IT professional is hooked. Davenport Group has prospered on our ability to convey the Compellent message and that was back when people said, “Compellent who?” Now with Dell’s resources and their commitment to the channel, we expect Storage Center to become the biggest selling SAN of all time. It is a bold claim but once people understand Compellent’s capabilities, the growth will occur. Look out world, here comes Compellent!

Dell Bolsters Storage Offering with Acquisition of Compellent

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:40:00 -0600

By now you've probably heard the big news – Dell recently bought Compellent, the storage system company. It's a reasonable match for a number of reasons.

Dell is a well known brand, known more for cost effective technology rather than bleeding edge products – their innovation years ago was in the business model that revolutionized personal computing. They made it cost effective for consumers and business owners to buy inexpensive PC's. They were the first company to make buying a computer affordable, cool, and easy.

But that was years ago, and since then Dell has made major moves into the server and network management side of things, partly by purchasing EqualLogic in 2008 and the KACE network management appliance in 2010. Now Dell is making another important push into the enterprise space with the purchase of Compellent. Since Dell already owned EqualLogic, the acquisition of Compellent helps them round out their storage offerings nicely.

With both EqualLogic and Compellent under one banner, Dell is now positioned to offer mid-level and Enterprise level storage solutions. This makes it easier for resellers and partners because they can present a wider spectrum of products to customers under one umbrella, rather than working with several companies. We've sold both EqualLogic and Compellent solutions before and we'll continue to do so now that they are both owned by Dell.

The purchase makes sense for more than resellers and partners – it makes perfect sense for Dell, too. Both EqualLogic and Compellent cater to different markets, so they won't be stomping on each other's toes. Still, they now have opportunities to share research and resources to grow from the strengths of the other – Compellent can enhance the quality of EqualLogic's products and EqualLogic will bring Compellent some of the efficiency that makes their solution cost effective. Also, Compellent should grow by leaps and bounds in terms of overall identity and brand awareness now that they are backed by Dell. Both companies have things they can learn from each other. Certainly Dell knows this and is poised to leverage the advantages of both companies.

As a partner and reseller, we look forward to passing the benefits on to our clients.

Guest Post: An Even Easier Sale: Dell Compellent

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:11:00 -0600

Selling Compellent has always been easy for us. My company, Atlanta Technology has been a certified reseller of Compellent for more than a year now, and during that time, we’ve grown our customer base by 150 percent.

Now, when I say Compellent is an easy sale, I mean it’s easy once we get past the “Who is Compellent?” conversation with our prospects. I think that’s a common challenge for many of Compellent’s resellers, just because Compellent isn’t as well known as some of the legacy storage providers.

Be that as it may, once we’re able to demonstrate the functionality of Fluid Data technology, using live demos and leveraging stories about our customers’ successful implementations, our prospects are sold. And rightfully so. At Atlanta Technology, we’ve begun offering cloud hosting services to complement our IT virtualisation practice. Our goal is to provide our customers with IT solutions that enable growth, add business value, and simplify overall IT management. We build those solutions around Compellent Fluid Data. So, that’s why Compellent is a go-to storage solution for us.

When I heard the news that Compellent had been acquired by Dell, one of my first thoughts was that the “Who is Compellent?” conversation will likely be eliminated. Dell has a powerful brand, and has a strong presence around the globe. Dell’s brand name and worldwide footprint will not only bring awareness to Compellent, but it’s also a solid validation of what the Compellent SAN can do for the enterprise. And, now, I can sell a complete Dell IT solution to my customers, storage included. I have an inkling that prospective customers will now be asking me about Compellent, before I even have to open my mouth. That’s exciting stuff. It makes my life easier, and hopefully, with the availability of more resources and heightened brand awareness, we’ll accelerate the growth of our customer base across the UK even faster than before.

HIMSS11 Keynote: Linking People, Potential and Progress

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:31:00 -0600

HIMSS 2011 kicked off with a keynote by Robert Reich, Economist and Former Secretary of Labor. Although the session focused more on the economy and its impact on healthcare rather than strictly IT, it was a session not to miss!

8:07 – A “sound technician” comes out on stage and is followed by the rest of the comedy a capella group, Return to Zero, to warm up the crowd. They sing, “It’s Alright,” “Drift Away,” and “Love Potion No. 9.”

8:17 – The crowd welcomes the host of HIMSS Channel, Robyn Leonard. “It’s about linking people, potential and progress.” Each day, keynotes will share stories of how individuals are helping people in hospitals and clinics. The HIMSS Channel can be found on Youtube.com.

8:20 – According to Robyn, this HIMSS is shaping up to be the largest healthcare IT show in the country.

8:24 – Robin connects via video feed to different correspondents stationed around the Orange County Convention Center, including an anchor in the Social Media Lounge.

8:28 – HIMSS Board Chair, Dr. C. Martin Harris takes the stage to welcome the attendees. He reports a record 31,000 HIMSS attendees. Dr. Martin had dinner with a longtime HIMSS member and 25 years ago, there were 3,000 attendees.

8:31 – On the first day of the event, Dr. Martin honors the HIMSS members from the 60’s and 70’s.

8:33 – Dr. Martin promises to deliver Steve Lieber in an egg to the HIMSS Awards Banquet, a la Lady Gaga at the Grammy Awards.

8:41 – Dr. Martin introduces the keynote speaker, one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the economy, Robert Reich.

8:44 – “The great recession wore me down. Three years ago, I was 5’11”!” Mr. Reich wants to discuss how the economy will impact healthcare costs.

8:46 – Mr. Reich says we have two economies. If you look at the DJIA, that economy is very strong. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash, but aren’t investing in new jobs and capacity. Maybe they’re holding back because they’re not sure if they have enough customers. The last recession was different from others before it – it started with the explosion of a big debt bubble. It’s not easy to come out of it. Federal Reserve Board has kept interest rates at near zero but it hasn’t helped.

8:48 – There is a deeper story to the recession. For thirty years, American consumers kept buying, not because wages went up, but because of adjustment of flat wages. More women entered the workplace. They went to work to prop up family incomes because male incomes were going down. When that no longer worked, everyone started working longer and harder.

8:50 – The third and final coping mechanism was going into debt. People were comfortable with it because their houses were going up in value, but when the housing bubble burst, it all came crashing down.

8:55 – Mr. Reich says that the latest news is that Republicans and Democrats can’t agree and there’s a 50 percent likelihood of a government shutdown by this summer. There was a government shutdown when Mr. Reich was the labor secretary. When media wages are flat, when people are worried about losing their jobs, when people are taking on debt, when nest eggs have gone down to robin’s eggs, and people’s houses are going down in value, the anger of people sneaks into politics.

9:00 – “The baby boomer generation is like a wave moving through the population. Like a pig moving through a python…no, let’s go back to the wave.”

9:04 – The real healthcare budget issue comes down to healthcare costs.

9:10 – “You are all on the frontilines…You dealing with healthcare information technology, have a big part of the solution. And for that reason, I salute you and I hope you do a great job.”

CRN Rings Up Bell for 2011 Channel Chiefs List

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:30:00 -0600

Every year, Everything Channel’s CRN recognizes the Channel Chiefs as leaders in creating effective channel programs for solution providers. Today, Brian Bell, our vice president of sales, was named a 2011 CRN Channel Chief, and we’re all very proud of this accomplishment! Brian’s placement on the list is the culmination of all the great work he and his team achieved in refining our channel program in 2010. This marks the second time Brian has been named to the list, and I was honored to be placed on the list in 2010.

Compellent employs a channel-assisted sales model, which focuses our channel team on working with VARs to identify and close deals. We consistently hear from our VARs that our channel-assisted sales model is among the best in the business. Our channel partners are the foundation of Compellent’s success, and together we generated record revenues in 2010.

Here are a few of our channel program highlights from 2010:

The total number of Compellent users worldwide grew more than 56 percent to more than 2,500 in 2010. We couldn’t have reached this milestone without the dedication, expertise and loyalty of our channel partners.
CRN named the Compellent Fluid Data solution the Top Midmarket Product of the Year for 2010.
Two Compellent channel partners, Sonia St. Charles of Davenport Group and Terri McGrath of Insight, were named to CRN’s list of the Most Powerful Women in the Channel.
Winslow Technology Group was named to the list of 2010 CRN Fast Growth 100 Award winners.
We invested in a number of resources for our channel, including more comprehensive sales tools, a game-changing business intelligence system, training and certifications. .
We initiated our Field First program, designed to inform and educate our channel partners on what’s ahead for Compellent.

These successes represent just a sample of the great work Brian’s team achieved while working hand-in-hand with our sales operations specialists, storage architects, solutions experts and others. But this award would be nothing without our channel partners believing in and putting their energy behind our Fluid Data solution. Looking to read more about Brian’s 2011 award win? Click here to read the full press release or check out CRN.com.

Guest Post: A Dose of Storage Cures IT Pain

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:39:00 -0600

Next week, I’ll be attending the annual HIMSS show with the team from Compellent, and I’m looking forward to taking in the sessions, walking the show floor and checking out the cutting-edge healthcare information management technology throughout the week. In addition, I’m interested in speaking with Dell about its healthcare solutions and how its plans to acquire Compellent will affect its future healthcare offerings. It also doesn’t hurt that the show is in Orlando – I just don’t know how I’ll survive without the four-foot high snow drifts and freezing temperatures of my home in White Plains, New York!

Kidding aside, I can’t wait for this trip because I’ll also be speaking at the show in a session called “Rehabbing IT Storage Pain Points and Protecting EMRs.” In this presentation, which takes place on Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 1 pm, I’ll be discussing how our efforts to modernize our data center has resulted in better performance for critical patient care applications, a reduced hardware footprint, and a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy. This subject is particularly close to my heart, as my team worked extremely hard to make this a reality.

The project began with the Compellent SAN. We implemented Compellent Fluid Data virtualized storage to replace our Hewlett-Packard legacy storage solution, which was outdated, couldn’t scale to when we needed more capacity, and impossible to manage. We also virtualized our Dell servers, and put a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in place to reduce our hardware needs and unnecessary IT complexity.

The results of this effort have been nothing short of spectacular. We’ve experienced better performance from our MediTech and MediServe applications, automated previously manual management tasks and even achieved HIMSS Stage 6 certification from our adoption and use of electronic medical records (EMRs). In fact, we were one of the first rehab hospitals to reach this goal – an honor everyone at Burke Rehab Hospital is extremely proud to point out.

While we’re thrilled with these results, we still have more work to accomplish. We have big plans for the IT capabilities of Burke Rehab Hospital, and what we have in place is just the beginning. We plan to continue innovating in the area of acute patient care, and Compellent is playing a very large role in that.

Going to HIMSS? Feel free to swing by the Compellent booth (#4173) and introduce yourself, and I hope you can attend my session!

Editor’s Note: Ken Kupetsky is the CIO of Burke Rehabilitation Hospital and is a Compellent customer. If you’re planning on attending HIMSS 2011, Mr. Kupetsky will be speaking on Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 1 pm in Room 311A.

February #SANchat – The Pain of Keeping IT Resolutions: Post-Chat Wrap-Up

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:41:00 -0600

Thanks to all who joined us on Feb. 2 for #SANchat on IT Resolutions for 2011. And of course, many thanks to our guest moderator Howard Marks (@deepstoragenet), who shared his observations based on some of the real-world testing and consulting he’s done.
We provided a general overview of topics discussed and some highlights below for your reading pleasure.

The Technology and Some Highlights
Network Convergence: Howard jumped right in to discuss network convergence. In his opinion, FCoE is not ready, but many disagreed. We had some fun exchanges on where FCoE technology is headed in 2011. I knew going into this that FCoE would generate some strong opinions and the SANchatters didn’t disappoint:

@DeepStorageNet: Much as I love the idea of converged networking I think for 2011 FCoE is still hot air
@stu: @DeepStorageNet all due respect, your FCoE message is old. embedded in Cisco, HP, IBM solutions. Baked Inside so nobody cares
@rootwyrm: @DeepStorageNet Do you think we're going to see more top-of-rack FC-FC Edge/Core in heavy FC environments, esp. w/FC16 coming soon?
@DeepStorageNet: I see a lot of features coming in DC Ethernet (DCB, Per VM security, TRILL) and don't want to upgrade my core w/o them.
@iSCSIKing: @DeepStorageNet Do you see DCB being adopted faster than FCoE, since FCoE requires DCB? #sanchat
@DeepStorageNet: @iSCSIKing We are seeing DCB switches from vendors that don't have FCoE now and customers buying them

Data Deduplication: After a long discussion on FCoE, we jumped to data deduplication. Howard felt strongly that data deduplication is only useful if it’s deployed cost effectively, and others agreed.

@DeepStorageNet: Data Reduction can have a huge impact on costs but you have to really think through where and how to put it to use
@DeepStorageNet: Truth is the biggest impact of dedupe is frequently not the local backup but that it shrinks the data enough to replicate
@rootwyrm: @DeepStorageNet So what about folks using Tivoli Storage Manager, who don't do full weeklies and typ. see poor dedupe performance there?

Solid State Drives: After dedupe, we moved to SSDs and Howard felt solid state storage and automation go together very well (and apparently chicken and waffles is tasty…). Howard also encourages folks to undergo some spring cleaning and throw out your outdated IT wares.

@DeepStorageNet: Now for what's hot: NFS for VMs, More Solid State Storage and automation
@DeepStorageNet: NFS is a bit easier. iSCSI has practical limits on number of VMs/datastore and datastore size that NFS doesn’t.
@DeepStorageNet: The solid state storage and automation go together like chicken and waffles
@DeepStorageNet: Making solid state work: Tough question as it requires matching workloads to solutions. Low hanging fruit is the small dataset

Howard said that NFS is easier to use than iSCSI for VMs, but there is another point to consider. While there are minor scaling issues with VMFS, more and more storage vendors are supporting VAAI for hardware-assisted locking. (Compellent is hard at work on our VAAI.) We feel this implementation will level the playing field, meaning NFS will cease to have scaling advantages. Coupled with the fact that the vSphere Client Plug-in can automatically configure iSCSI, iSCSI can be considered just as easy (if not easier) than NFS. There’s going to be some different viewpoints depending on the vendor or protocol camp you’re in. As always, end users should triple check the math on vendor claims and weigh the benefits of multi-protocol functionality.

The Tweeps
Here is a list of some technology friends that participated in our chat, feel free to give them a follow:

@DeepStorageNet – Moderator Howard Marks
@AdvistorInc – AdviStor
@SusanTatDell – Susan Torbitt
@iSCSIKing – Lance Boley
@Gminks – Gina Rosenthal
@RootWYRM – Phil Jaenke
@HPStorageGuy – Calvin Zito
@MarketpH – Market pH
@DylanAtDell – Dylan Locsin
@stu – Stuart Martin
@GaryMWatson – Gary Watson
@bladeguy – Ken Henault
@geoffuse – Geoff Hughes
@Bacon_Is_King –Baconus Maximus
@The_Super_Dave – David Hurst
@Nkampwerth – Nathan Kampwerth
@EvanHoffman – Evan Hoffman

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, March 2 for our next #SANchat. Have ideas for what our next chat should focus on? Feel free to share them with @LiemNguyen or @DellCompellent.

February #SANchat – The Pain of Keeping IT Resolutions in 2011

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:41:00 -0600

It’s that time again for our monthly #SANchat! We trust everyone had a happy and safe New Year and have set some realistic IT resolutions for 2011. Please join us today, Feb. 2, from 3-4:30 pm CT to chat with our guest moderator Howard Marks. Howard, @DeepStorageNet, has written about the storage industry since 1987, has tested dozens of storage and networking products over the years and knows a thing or two about technology trends that get hot only to become nothing more than hot air. Howard also blogs for InformationWeek and Network Computing and runs the IT site DeepStorage.net.

In December, you may have followed along with Stephen Foskett’s “11 Trends for 2011” chat and this month we want to discuss these trends further. Howard will offer his opinions on where IT departments will see the greatest opportunities to reduce costs and increase efficiencies as the year rolls along. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and what you plan to do in the coming year! What tech products are you going to be most excited about this year? As budgets rebound, what issues do you think you’ll need to work through to implement your next IT project? What storage pains will you be facing this year and what will you do about it?

To join in #SANchat, we recommend using the TweetChat platform; you can also get additional information on the SANchat series by visiting wthashtag.com/sanchat or our previous blog post on the topic. We look forward to having you join the conversation about the 2011 Trends!

December #SANchat – 11 Trends for 2011: Post-Chat Wrap-Up

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:18:00 -0600

Thanks to all who joined us for the December #SANchat – the topic “11 Trends for 2011” brought some new folks to the board to discuss a variety of theories. If you missed the discussion you can catch up below on some of the topics and links, read the transcript, and find some new faces to follow on Twitter. Thanks again to our guest moderator Stephen Foskett for leading the conversation.

The Highlights

You can’t have a trends discussion without talking about the trendiest topic in the IT industry: yes, the cloud. Interestingly enough, one of the hot topics was actually cloud fatigue – the notion that the term ‘cloud’ will fall by the wayside as adoption continues:

@sfoskett: As @SamJ said the first time I met him, we'll know that cloud computing is successful when it's just called "computing"

The conversation also turned to the death of RAID – Stephen pointed out that RAID isn't dead as a general concept but the implementation has to change entirely. Also @virtual_bill pointed out that SSDs might improve the performance of RAID as far as device failures are concerned.

We also had a fun exchange on smartphones and tablets in the datacenter – what role will they play in the future?

@virtual_bill: Both have a place in datacenter assuming interfaces exist for proper display. Tablets better now as they may run fuller OS.

@sfoskett: I love some of the cool enterprise applications I'm seeing for the iPad: @OmniGraffle, iSSH and vnc http://bit.ly/5llsTV

Wrapping up on FCoE, the group generally agreed that network convergence is imminent, though Stephen says 2011 will see lots of chatter about FCoE, but it won't have real customer traction until 2014 or later:

@sfoskett: @stu I think you kinda need functioning product and customer adoption to end the protocol wars. Wake me in 2014...

The Links

During the conversation the participants shared a variety of links worth taking a look at; here a list of some of the best:

Pack Rat Blog: CloudStuff Versus Stuff in the Cloud
Wikibon “Peer Incite” discussion: Is RAID dead?
The Storage Architect blog: Is RAID Dead? No- Next Question
Wikibon Blog: Predictions for Storage Networking in 2011
Tech Republic Blog: Useful applications for the PC-to-iPad convert

The Tweeps

We had mix of some regulars and new faces this month; here is a list of some new technology friends to follow:

@stu

@johnobeto

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, January 5 for our next #SANchat, until then have a safe and happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate!

December #SANchat - 11 Trends for 2011

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:41:00 -0600

What better way to celebrate the return from Thanksgiving food and merriment than with a new #SANchat? Please join us tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 1 from 3 – 4:30 PM CT. This month’s guest moderator is Stephen Foskett (@sfoskett), an industry blogger and vendor-independent IT/business consultant who has been in the storage industry for over ten years. Stephen will be talking about the top 11 trends that will have the greatest impact on IT and storage in 2011, and we are looking forward to getting thoughts from the Twitter group on what the biggest headlines will be.

While we know that it’s not quite revolutionary to focus on upcoming trends during December industry discussions, what is revolutionary is some of the technology we’ll be addressing. From automated data management and migration to cloud storage and next steps in virtualization, today’s leading trends are poised to have a significant effect on next year’s data centers and IT as a whole. Stephen has already started the conversation on his Pack Rat blog—make sure you head over to see his take before Wednesday’s discussion.

To join in #SANchat, we recommend using the TweetChat platform; you can also get additional information on the SANchat series by visiting our previous blog post on the topic. We look forward to having you join the conversation about the 2011 predictions!

Introducing Compellent Storage Center 5.4

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:02:00 -0600

The future just got a little more "cloudy" for Compellent with the release of some major updates in Storage Center 5.4 including some significant hardware updates—there's a lot to take in so let's get started.

Most notable among the hardware updates with the 5.4 release is the next generation controller in Compellent's lineup, the Series 40. The updated platform brings greater IO card capacity (six PCI-E 2.0 x8 slots) and 25% better performance. This platform will allow customers to take advantage of some of the new IO options (which will also be supported on the Series 30) and scale single systems to even larger capacities. The front end IO options now include FCoE for converged networking support. On the back end 6Gb/s SAS IO cards and enclosures are now shipping, including a 2.5" 24-bay 2U enclosure with three new drive options (146GB 15K; 450GB and 600GB 10K).

On the software side there's a game-changing capability that will resonate with enterprise customers. For years, customers have enjoyed Compellent's Data Progression feature, which provides an automated tiering capability to balance capacity and performance in a given system. Within a system the data is managed in a couple of ways—data protection levels (RAID 10 for writes and distributed parity for read only data) and disk tiering (data management based on disk performance characteristics). This allows customers to grow storage as needed (either by adding performance or capacity tiers) delivering an efficient scale up storage growth model.

However, this "two dimensional" data management scheme had previously been isolated to single systems. Compellent gave customers the ability to manage multiple systems under one console but the Data Progression features described above were limited to a single system (for the most part, replicated volumes can have a different storage profile—but you get my meaning).

Traditionally, as storage environments grow, so do the number of systems. These silos create a new level of inefficiency and management complexity that potentially cancels out any benefits gained from tiering. Moving data between siloed storage is time consuming and complex and as the infrastructure expands to meet demand, pockets of IO and throughput and capacity disparity begin to appear.

Compellent has introduced a "third dimension" data management capability through Live Volume which allows for rules based automated movement of data between storage systems non-disruptively. Live Volume plays a big foundational role in Compellent's delivery of scale out storage architecture to the enterprise and the cloud.

Using Enterprise Manager 5.4 the storage administrator can designate replicated volumes as Live Volumes. This allows the target volume in the replication scheme to become a mountable real time read only volume. Writes continue to be ingested at the source system and replicated to the target.

Should the workload shift (IO or throughput) to the target, the Compellent Storage Centers will swap roles—the target site will then become the source. Workload triggers are customizable as is the setting for allowing write ownership to transition again. Live Volume also allows for manual swapping as well. Additionally, each copy of a Live Volume enabled volume may have its own replay (snapshot) schedule.

When combined with a virtual server infrastructure the possibilities are pretty exciting. For example, a fully virtualized (compute, network and storage) infrastructure can be distributed among different campus data centers or within different power/cooling zones in a large enterprise data center. As workloads on the virtualized compute environment shift the storage workload will follow. I know from experience that data center power maintenance and generator tests being a huge pain to schedule, coordinate and execute. With this kind of a compute/storage grid available maintenance windows become practically non-existent turning your internal cloud into a 24-by-forever IT engine.

Live Volume also provides higher availability for servers using multipath SAN connections. Not only can a server have two or more connections to the SAN, with Live Volume, the targets can be distributed between two systems hosting Live Volume copies. Connections to the secondary Live Volume system could be set up as failover connections. Personally, I'm hopeful that MPIO drivers in the future will become Live Volume aware and distribute read IO between Live Volume pairs—but that's me talking, not a Compellent offering.

This new three dimensional data management model extends Compellent's value into the enterprise and cloud IT offerings where flexibility, reliability and scalability are required, not just desired, features of a modern storage system. Compellent has been the leader in scale up storage and now with Live Volume they're delivering on scale out. You're going to see Compellent continue to build on Live Volume to enable customers to scale beyond.

P.S. If you're wondering about Compellent's potential delivery of data management for the "fourth dimension" then consider that Compellent is a charter member of the Active Archive Alliance .

Editor’s note: This blog post is also appearing on John’s personal blog, StorageGumbo.com.

Guest post: Compellent is on its way to scale out block storage

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:01:00 -0600

Today, Compellent announced a new version of its enterprise storage platform: Storage Center 5.4.

A brief recap of the announcement

On the hardware side there are a lot of news: new Series 40 controllers (now fitted with the powerful nehalem CPUs, bigger caches, more expansion slots), FCoE and 10Gbit iSCSI support, 2,5" SAS trays. This new hardware is the foundation for the next generation software enhancements bringing a new level of performance and scalability at the same time.

On the software verge, aside from the release of Storage Center 5.4 to support the new hardware and the new VMware integration plug-in, we can find one of the most impressive features I have ever seen in the storage industry: Live Volume.

A step forward in the right direction

Before going deep into the technical details I would like to point out one important thing (that you can't easily discern from the press release): all the features shown above are available to all Compellent customers! Yes, the Compellent software licensing model is perpetual so, if you have a support agreement in place, you can update every hardware series to the new software features (for free!) or, if you don't need new features but merely more power, you can choose to update only your hardware!

This approach is great (customers are always happy about that): they can buy only what is necessary when they need it, no forced upgrades of hardware to get new software features or vice-versa!!!!

Furthermore, you can also add new SAS trays (or IO cards) to old generation systems without changing the controllers. I'm pretty sure that this capability is unique to Compellent (I don't recall anyone in the industry sporting this feature) and makes a big difference with the competition, allowing customers to spend as little as possible to maintain and update their SAN.

Back to the core

I will not spend more time in this article talking about the hardware; it's obviously much more powerful, more expandable, with more IO options while widening the backend options at the same time. It's all you can expect from your storage vendor with a new announcement, isn't it?

But the software part of this announcement is something that you can't ignore! I'm not talking about the better integration with the hypervisors (especially VMware with the new outstanding plug-in, ;) ), I mean Live Volume.

Live Volume is a new SOFTWARE FEATURE enabling non disruptive volumes (LUNs) movements between different arrays! Live volume is to storage as vMotion is to virtualization. No external appliances, no constraints, no limitations – it just works. Well, this feature was mentioned many times in the past and many customers are already using it in production, but now it's official and available to everyone.

I'm sure that this feature will, in some way, disrupt the market for scale out block storage, I'm also wondering when a DRS-like technology will be applied to the Live Volume concept, that will definitely transport the virtualization benefit to the block storage world.

Editor's note: Enrico Signoretti is the CEO of Cinetica, one of Compellent's channel partners in Italy. This post is also appearing on his company blog.

Be More Fluid with the New Storage Center Command Set for PowerShell

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:00:00 -0600

Windows PowerShell was designed as a scripting language to help IT administrators automate repetitive tasks that could otherwise be error-prone by nature and in return free administrators to focus on other activities of the IT Pro.

We began the voyage over two years ago in expanding the capabilities of automation with the Compellent Storage Center by creating the Compellent Storage Center Command Set for Windows PowerShell. As the first storage vendor on the PowerShell scene, we offered over 60 cmdlets in our 1.0 release to handle anything from user management and alerting, to storage provisioning and volume management for the Windows platform.

In just a short time from now, Compellent will be releasing its new version of the Storage Center Command Set 6.0. This new version includes a number of features including new cmdlets that support the configuration and management of a new Storage Center feature called Live Volume, as well as Remote Data Instant Replay (Asynchronous Replication). Along with new features, the syntax of many of the existing cmdlets have changed to simplify their use, provide naming consistency across cmdlets, as well as increase the availability of pipelining results from one cmdlet to another. Watch for future posts where we’re cover some of the newness in more detail.

How is PowerShell and the Compellent Command Set being used in your environment? Leave us a note – we’d love to hear your story!

Guest Post: Fluid Storage for Cloud Computing

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:21:00 -0600

Interest in cloud computing is growing rapidly as organizations look for new ways to reduce costs and increase the flexibility of IT. For businesses building a private, internal cloud or planning to offer external cloud services, implementing the right storage solution is essential for maximizing that flexibility. Companies need storage solutions that support an on-demand model, providing the right resources at the moment they are needed without excessive costs.

As the Intel Architecture Group and Intel IT showed in the “Cloud on Wheels” demo at Storage and Networking World in October, Compellent Fluid Data Storage provides a strong platform for cloud computing environments. The Compellent solution, powered by Intel® Xeon® processors, offers a virtualized storage area network (SAN) with capabilities that deliver the cost-effective flexibility users expect from cloud environments.

Rapidly scaling capacity with thin provisioning

Like server virtualization, storage virtualization can play a key role in cloud computing. By pooling storage resources, a virtualized solution such as the Compellent SAN can help ensure that applications have the capacity and performance they need, when they need it.

Thin provisioning capabilities, which are integrated into the Compellent SAN, can help optimize capacity utilization within that virtualized environment. With thin provisioning, administrators no longer have to anticipate and pre-allocate storage capacity for each volume. Instead, they can create virtual volumes of any size—applications consume capacity only when data is written. Especially useful in cloud infrastructures, thin provisioning enables administrators to rapidly expand or shrink volumes as usage levels change without having to purchase additional arrays.

Sustaining performance and controlling costs with automated tiered storage

Building a multi-tiered cloud storage environment can help optimize storage performance while controlling costs. With a multi-tiered environment, organizations can take advantage of multiple drive types with varying performance levels. Frequently accessed data stays on high-performance drives, such as Intel® Solid-State Drives, while archival data is moved to more cost-effective drives, such as SATA drives.

With the Compellent SAN, data is written first to high-performance drives by default to ensure the best performance. Automated tiered storage capabilities then automatically migrate block-level data from one tier to another—or one RAID level to another within a tier—based on administrator-set policies. The migration process runs in the background without affecting data availability or application performance. Many organizations can move as much as 80 percent of data to cost-effective drives, helping them cut costs while delivering high performance to the “hot data” or critical data. The benefit, is that the tiering allows highly accessed data to be placed on the performance tier dynamically, without having to configure or provision the data specifically.

Intel Xeon processors help the Compellent platform deliver the intelligence for automated tiered storage. By combining outstanding compute performance with large I/O and memory bandwidth, Intel Xeon processors enable the Compellent controller to continuously collect information about data usage and perform automated data migration without a significant impact on storage performance.

Building a better cloud

Intel is committed to helping organizations capitalize on the vast potential for cloud computing. In addition to providing key technologies for cloud solutions, Intel has launched the Intel® Cloud Builder program to streamline the construction of cloud environments by sharing reference architectures and best practices. As Intel, Compellent, and other companies are already showing, optimizing cloud storage can go a long way toward maximizing the flexibility and cost benefits of cloud computing.

For more information

Learn more about the Intel Cloud Builder program.

Editor's note: Greg Scott is a strategic initiatives manager at Intel Corporation who is contributing to the Intel storage strategy for cloud computing. Intel is one of Compellent's technology partners. To read more about the "Cloud on Wheels" demo, check out this press release and blog post.

Creating On-Premises Private Cloud with Compellent and Microsoft

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:00:00 -0600

On-premise private clouds are becoming more popular among the enterprises we work with. These enterprises are virtualizing their storage and server infrastructures to increase efficiency and flexibility while reducing costs. To quickly and effectively manage virtualized IT resources, leading technology vendors, including Compellent, are making it easy by integrating with the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Self-Service Portal 2.0 Toolkit, a free partner-extensible cloud solution offered by Microsoft.

How does the Self-Service Portal 2.0 work?
The Self-Service Portal pools data center infrastructure resources – from networking to servers to storage – and makes them readily available to individual business units. Using Microsoft PowerShell scripts with Hyper-V and storage systems that integrate with these technologies, such as Compellent Storage Center, organizations can automate the deployment of their virtualized server and storage resources.

It’s all about efficiency and speed. From a data center management standpoint, what the business unit administrator wants to be able to do is quickly provision virtual machines (VM) without a lot of management overhead. That’s where the Self-Service Portal 2.0 comes into play. It provides a web-based interface where administrators can create whatever virtual machine they want, using pre-determined configuration options and pre-loaded VM templates.

Once a request from the business unit administrator is submitted, the system automatically notifies the IT administrator, who simply needs to validate the request and initiate the provisioning process. The Self-Service Portal takes it from there, utilizing built-in automation from Microsoft, Compellent and other DDA partners to rapidly deploy the requested IT services. Advanced PowerShell scripts reduce the manual steps associated with provisioning Windows Server/ Hyper-V VM resources, expediting deployment, ensuring accuracy and allowing administrators to focus on other important projects.

What Compellent brings to the table
Compellent comes to the table with a couple of things. Number one, its advanced storage technology is robust enough to do some pretty complex things from the storage layer at the same time reducing the complexity with operational efficiency for IT administrator. Number two, we’ve incorporated the OS-level integration with Windows Server/Hyper-V into the PowerShell piece. So that’s a huge enabler for us. Not only can we talk to our storage, but we can also talk to the OS itself without requiring special drivers to connect to the server host.

Compellent has created the Compellent Solution Pack for SCVMM SSP 2.0 that essentially incorporates two PowerShell scripts for the Self-Service Portal – one that creates one or more VMs using Compellent Instant Replays, and one that deletes VMs with automatic cleanup. We plan to offer this solution pack later this quarter.

The fluid nature of PowerShell automation
Traditionally, when data center administrators provision Hyper-V VMs using a template in SCVMM, the system created the VMs on the host itself using VHD copies via the LAN. The VHD is already sys prepped, providing a ready-to-deploy template complete with OS and applications. However, since each VM consumes just as much disk capacity as the base OS image – e.g., 10 GB – the provisioning process is time consuming and wastes disk space. Creating just one VM with this approach takes 5 to 20 minutes and, in this case, utilizes 10 GB or more of capacity.

With the Compellent “create VM” PowerShell script developed for the Self Service Portal, administrators can deploy the same Hyper-V VM in 20 to 30 seconds once the VHD has been sys prepped. Instead of creating full copies of the VHD via LAN, the script utilizes a gold image captured on the SAN as a snapshot. Each VM created shares the same gold image, and the only capacity consumed beyond that base image is the negligible space required for the unique characteristics of each VM.

For example, a small organization with four department that each need 25 physical boxes to do their work would traditionally be required to fill out a procurement order, put the OS on the hardware and ensure that there is enough energy to power 100 machines in the data center. The entire process would take about a week. With Compellent and the Self-Service Portal, it takes this organization 20-30 seconds to deploy a virtual machine. When deploying 100 machines required by the business, 12GB would be taken by the OS on each machine, meaning that an additional 1.2TB would be taken up just by the OS across the 100 machines. The same scenario on the Compellent would add up to 112 GB of space for the OS.

If changing business needs call for one or more VMs to be removed, the data center administrator can utilize the “delete VM” script. This script not only deletes the VM, but also performs a complete cleanup process – from removing the volume associated with the VM to unmounting the VHD and rescanning to ensure it has been removed.

From the beginning to the end – from the application and the OS to the storage layer, this process is completely fluid and abstracted from the general user. A few clicks on the self-service portal page and the business unit admin is all done. That is what Fluid Data is all about.

To learn more about the Self-Service Portal, please read the Microsoft blog.

Guest post: Storage myths, virtual realities and green actions

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:28:00 -0500

The London Borough of Hillingdon recently earned a place in the final three of the 2010 Gartner Green Data Center Excellence Awards, to be held on Monday November 22nd. It is an accolade we are proud of, and one we feel can help to dispel a myth that is too widely accepted in the storage industry. Contrary to popular belief, virtualisation can be accomplished without the need to learn a whole new skill set, and going green is less about environmental altruism in business, but more about making shrewd cost savings that directly affect your bottom line.

Since virtualising our storage and server footprint through Compellent and VMware, we have:

Running over 90% of our servers, or 200 virtual machines, on nine physical platforms, including provision for DR, cutting the ICT space we occupy by 65% and power consumption by over 80%
Saved > £93,000 on our annual energy bill
Saved the generation of 171 tonnes of carbon emissions each year
Reduced the 3 year cost per Terabyte of storage by >70%
Lowered our carbon footprint by 20% over 18 months whilst accommodating the growth required by the organisation

What is more, our deployment was easy, and that is testament to the quality of the people involved. For such results to be achieved, you need to a mix the right technology with the right support, and Compellent has been there with us every step of the way.

Alongside our VMware deployments, Compellent’s support has underpinned what really counts – results. Many companies talk about difficult journeys, struggles and competing priorities with their moves to virtualisation. This story is different. For sure, there is some extraordinary technology inside those cabinets, but it is the people who have been inspired to develop it that count.

Working with a team that has the confidence and ability to make the journey a simple one is what makes green storage a reality. It is the people who have shared our ethos to be innovative and unafraid to do things differently who have ensured we have achieved an environment that Gartner deems worthy of excellence.

Flattering praise indeed; but our current results are not a final destination. They are a stop on the way to greater things, and therein lies the real result for a public sector organisation. What the people from Hillingdon, Compellent and other partners have achieved means that we offer better services at reduced cost to the people that we are here to serve.

Editor’s Note: Roger Bearpark of London Borough of Hillingdon is a Compellent customer and the contributor of this blog post. To learn more about London Borough of Hillingdon and its use of Compellent systems, please read this case study. Mr. Bearpark is one of the three finalists for the 2010 Green Data Center Excellence Award; if you plan on attending the Gartner Data Center & IT Operations Summit on Nov. 22, please come and support him at 17:40 – 18:30 in Park Plaza Westminster Bridge – Westminster B+C.

Scale Up, Scale Out and Scale Beyond

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 08:00:00 -0500

I was just at the Midsize Enterprise Summit in San Antonio where I did 6 boardroom sessions in 2 days. Each boardroom consisted of about 20 end users that listen to your pitch on your product and ask questions about how things really work. I always prefer to do these sessions in conjunction with a Compellent customer as they can tell the story on what really matters to IT. I did three sessions with Greg Edwards from Harris County, and I did another three sessions with Chuck Matulik from Cross Country Home Services.

I found that customers of all sizes continue to be very frustrated with the rigid boundaries of their existing storage, to the point of needing to consider a new SAN in just 2 years, as their systems don’t scale beyond today’s needs. Compellent knew from the start that scaling beyond is what every business required. As we prepare to introduce the next version of Storage Center, which will encompass the largest hardware release in our company’s history, we are taking the first step in a series of new product releases designed to drive scale and enterprise deeper into our product. With this upcoming release, our scale up story just gets stronger. Customers can continue to add drives, drive types, more spindles, and more powerful controllers, all to scale to meet the demands of their business. We're talking about the ability to deliver more performance, less hardware and lower power in the same footprint using 2.5-inch SAS drives, and eventually as we add infrastructure to our system, doubling drive counts over time. When we deliver this release, we’ll show you all the details.

Our open and agile Fluid Data architecture makes this transition straightforward and seamless – offering backward and forward compatibility. And with this new release, our scale out story becomes bolder. Enterprise Manager serves as that common framework to manage multiple systems as one, and it also provides dozens of points of integration with leading technology. For example, in August at VMworld, we announced our vSphere 4.1 client plug-in. You will be able to manage Compellent storage, snapshots and replication, all through the vSphere client. (Read more about the plug-in capabilities in a recent blog post from John Dias, storage architect for Compellent.)

A key enabling technology for enterprise to scale-out in this new release is Live Volume. Since we introduced automated tiered storage to the market in 2005, Compellent has enabled the automated migration of storage between arrays. In the past, we were intelligently moving data just within the array – now, we're also automatically moving volumes between arrays to provide continuous access and high availability to the business. We will go deeper on this feature later.

So for most companies, all of this would be impressive. But for Compellent, scale up and scale out is not quite enough. Scale Beyond is where we're headed. Over the next year, we intend to drive scale into every dimension of the product – integration, performance, availability, policy, persistence, and more. This is a message I just delivered to our entire channel on our recent “Field First” quarterly webinar. It may appear to some that this increased focus on scale and enterprise is taking us in a new direction, but this has been the plan all along. If you ask the two customers who presented with me at the show, they would tell you that we are unique in the industry in our ability to meet the needs of enterprises of all sizes. Our features were developed to be enterprise from the start, while our platform was built to scale from several terabytes to multiple petabytes. In fact, just to compare, one of the customers I presented with at the show has more than 800 TB’s installed, and the other has less than 100 TB’s – but both are using the same single model we sell to every customer that scales from very small to very large.

The industry alternative to this type of scalability is painful. End users face that real-world cost and hassle of a fork-lift upgrade to a new model, and paying for software all over again. So to Compellent, scale means you can simply upgrade a component at a time, as new technologies arrive, and you can do so without data center disruption and without repurchasing software licenses. That's why technology refreshes with Compellent are actually refreshing, and that’s part of what Scale Beyond is all about. We’re working hard to turn this vision into a reality, and you’ll hear more from us on Scale Beyond soon.

Conversations from Copenhagen - VMworld Europe 2010

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:11:00 -0500

As VMworld Europe 2010 comes to a close, I wanted to highlight interesting discussions from Copenhagen this year. Compellent was at the Bella Center in Copenhagen with more than 6,000 attendees from 82 countries and one of 113 exhibitors. News highlights include the VMware View 4.5 iPad client, vCentre iPad application and VMware’s Project Horizon, which was announced last month at VMworld in San Francisco but continues to generate excitement.

Much of the buzz has been around the keynote speakers and hands-on labs taking place throughout the course of the show. More than 2,150 labs have already been completed and 19,400 virtual machines have been deployed. The labs have been so popular that blogger Christian Mohn of vNinja.net proposed holding them year-round for customers and partners – I think that’s a pretty cool idea and hope our friends at VMware seriously consider a way to pull this off. There’s been so much hype about cloud computing that it’s important to showcase some real and practical ways to design and create pragmatic solutions. That’s why Compellent is working with Intel and VMware on the “Cloud on Wheels” project.

Matt Roblin of Breathalize.co.uk blogged that VMware’s October 12 keynote from Paul Martiz and Steve Herrod was filled with positive messages, and is happy to see that the company is attacking on a lot of new fronts across the ‘New Stack.’ According to Matt’s post “Thoughts on the ‘New Stack,” VMware is clearly hungry to keep innovating and has a degree of confidence that can help support the company’s expansion.

There’s also a great summary of the Paul Martiz and Steve Herrod keynote from Mike Laverick of www.vibriefing.com, who said that while the keynote was basically the same as the one he’d seen from San Francisco, it was interesting to hear it again for nuances and additional details. That’s sort of like re-reading a great novel.

For on-the-floor sights, check out the VMworldTV YouTube page for video compilation of the first and second days of the show, as well as other tidbits like an interview with VMware’s new European CTO, Paul Strong. There’s also a great social media hub on VMworld.com, where you can get the latest feeds on blog posts, tweets, photos, and videos.

And last, but certainly not least, the Best of VMworld 2010 Europe User Awards were announced, and I'm thrilled to report that one of our Italian customers, Bankadati Servizi Informatic, was named Best Virtualization and Server Consolidation Project. Congratulations to Christian Manzia of Bankadati, Compellent’s channel partner Gruppo Reti S.p.A. and to all the winners. Here's the complete list of the award recipients from VMware’s Tony Dunn:

Simon Gallagher, vinf.net - Best of Show
Simon Gallagher, vinf.net - Best Remote Office/Home Office Virtualization Project
Benny Goedbloed, Belgian Department of Justice - Best Desktop Virtualization Project
Paul Maddock, Warwickshire College - Best Desktop Virtualization Project Honorable Mention
Christian Manzia, Bankadati - Best Virtualization and Server Consolidation Project
Richard Nunan, DNM Technology - Best Private Cloud Computing Project
Daniel Pfuhl, University Hospital Leipzig - Best Virtualization for Disaster Recovery Project

Over at Tech Target's SearchVirtualDataCentre.co.uk, Lauren Horwitz and Kayleigh Bateman report on all six award winners and document Bankadati’s integration of Compellent Fluid Data in this slide. In honoring Christian, judges said, “Bankadati created more room for applications and data that really need the performance."

Another Compellent end-user, Kim Deleuran, CTO of IT Gaarden, based not too far from Copenhagen, was interviewed by Kayleigh for her cloud computing article on two different viewpoints on creating and managing virtual and cloud data centers: using products from multiple IT vendors or from a single or fewer sources. IT Gaarden, for instance, chose Compellent, VMware Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. for its infrastructure.

What stands out the most to you from VMworld Europe? Do you agree with using best-of-breed solutions for virtualized or cloud infrastructures? Let us know your thoughts.

Sounds like if you didn’t go to Copenhagen you missed a lot. I’m already trying to talk my boss into letting me go to both US and Europe VMworlds next year!

If you want just the links, here they are:

vNinjanet: http://vninja.net/virtualization/extending-vmworld-labs/

Breathalize.co.uk: http://breathalize.co.uk/2010/10/12/thoughts-on-the-new-stack/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Breathalize+%28breathalize%29

VMworld Youtube: www.youtube.com/VMworldTV

VMware community page: http://www.vmworld.com/blogs/vmworld/2010/10/13/best-of-vmworld-2010-europe-user-awards

Search Virtual Data Centre:

http://searchvirtualdatacentre.techtarget.co.uk/news/article/0,289142,sid203_gci1521802,00.html

http://searchvirtualdatacentre.techtarget.co.uk/news/article/0,289142,sid203_gci1521812,00.html

Compellent, Intel and VMware - A Match Made in the Cloud

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:33:00 -0500

My name is Tim Plaud and I'm a principal storage architect with Compellent, a partner of Intel. An evolving set of concepts for the better part of four decades, cloud computing has evolved from being a marketing buzz word with little clarity and even less credibility to a real IT strategy built on a set of proven technologies for data centers. Cloud computing now has a stronger-than-ever foothold and it only seems to be getting stronger.

Many end users I talk to understand the value of cloud services, whether the infrastructure to deliver IT as a service is built on-premises or owned by a service provider. However, the big issue for these companies is how they can go about architecting a solution. To help these companies build their own private clouds, we’re working with Intel and VMware to demonstrate a “Cloud on Wheels” solution in the Intel booth (#206) at SNW, taking place during expo hours on Tuesday, Oct. 12 and Wednesday, Oct. 13. Christian Black, researcher and architect, Intel IT, and I will be in Dallas to drive the demos and talk about how the different technology building blocks go together.

I’m excited to have worked with Intel and VMware on Cloud on Wheels, which will combine Intel Xeon 5600 processors, a converged IP/storage fabric on 10Gb iSCSI, VMware virtual servers and vSphere, and Compellent Fluid Data technology. The demo will illustrate how end users can experience the performance advantages of wide-striping and dynamic RAID, as well as the efficiency advantages of thin provisioning and automated tiered storage. In fact, automated tiered storage plays a particularly important role in this private cloud because application data always finds the right level of storage performance and capacity, without requiring any manual intervention. That’s critical for simplifying administration especially if organizations are tight on resources and don’t have a lot of time to manage storage.

Naturally, virtualized storage resources are just one piece of the private cloud puzzle. Cloud environments require the processing power, the virtual servers and the network connectivity to handle scalability, performance and management requirements. With Intel, VMware and Compellent technologies making up the foundation of the Cloud on Wheels solution, all the pieces work together in a self-tuning data center. Customers can manage large pools of IT resources, including networking, storage and servers, as part of an integrated modular, flexible and scalable cloud requiring very little management. After all, isn't that what this whole cloud thing is all about?

Remembering a Storage Industry Veteran and Friend

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:30:00 -0500

I was shocked and deeply saddened by the news that longtime storage journalist, Mark Ferelli, passed away yesterday. It was so hard to believe – especially since I had just given him a big hug at VMworld last month. He seemed like his usual jovial self, and was off to one of many briefings with his partner in crime, Yuri Spiro.

I first met Mark at Comdex back in 2000 when I was working for a small PR agency in Orange County, CA that handled the Fibre Channel Industry Association account. This was back in the day when no one knew what Fibre Channel technology was, let alone could they spell it correctly. I recall 80 percent of booth visitors asked “what’s Fibre Channel and why is it spelled wrong.” Then, along came Mark. I believe he was one of two, or perhaps the only reporter remotely interested in covering Fibre Channel-based storage back in those days. But, his technology acumen and his eagerness to learn prevailed. His tenure at CTR helped educate thousands, if not, millions, on the in’s and out’s of the storage industry.

The conversations I enjoyed most with Mark weren’t focused on technology (for those of you who know me, you’re not surprised), but it was the stories he told about his wife and family, whom he adored. I remember a conversation a couple of years ago, which happened to be right before his wedding anniversary. I seem to recall it was 40+ years. That sums up Mark completely. He was a tremendously dedicated, committed man, both to his family and career.

He will truly be missed.

The Mark Ferelli Memorial Fund has been set up to help Mark’s family through this difficult time. If you would like to contribute, visit the following link: http://tinyurl.com/35zmwp8.

Jon Toigo over at DrunkenData also shares his thoughts on Mark.

Here’s a glimpse of the tributes from the storage community via Twitter:

storageio: Sadend by news of longtime #it #storage industry journalist and friend Mark Ferelli who passed away yesterday.
dconnor: Mark Ferelli, friend and storage journalist for Computer Technology Review dies today. Sad RIP.
JonToigo: At Half Mast: DrunkenData.com is flying its flag at half mast today.
jspiro: Mark Ferelli, who I knew since a little kid, who worked for my dad, passed away today; a sweet, smart, patient man.

Compellent at the Core

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 09:32:00 -0500

7 years for me at Compellent today. Time to sit back for 2 minutes and reflect, as 2 minutes is all I can spare as I try to help drive hyper-growth before I hyper-ventilate. The one thing that strikes me the most is for as much as things have changed, so little has really changed. Clichéd yes, but full of truth. And that is the best thing about working here. As much as we have grown revenue, enabled the channel, scaled the product, solved customer problems, added staff, become a campus, and been recognized as a breakthrough business on so many fronts – we have also kept intact the things that really matter, and the things that really impact a company’s ascent and maturation over time. We have kept intact the culture and our belief in “positive aggressive”, the focus on execution and just getting things done, the autonomy that comes with our work and the chance to just figure things out as you go, the ability to make progress again and again regardless of the nonstop pace or the ever-shifting obstacles, and most importantly, we have kept intact the people that make things go.

Compellent has always been a “fluid” place to work with both constant change and challenges, but it has also been a rock for 7 years as more and more people have joined to challenge the status quo and change the world of data storage. Just over 7 years ago I sat in a room with our 3 founders and heard the Compellent story for the very first time, and 7 years later the story is better (I may have even played a small part in shaping that story once and a while), but it is still the same at its core. The story of Compellent, Fluid Data and problems we solve is told over and over to customers and partners, but the real story is how great companies are built from within, not without, and how everyone here has invested so much of themselves to make this thing go and keep going, and going. There are some around here who joke that storage never sleeps, and neither have I since I started working here, but I wouldn’t have the story told or unfold any other way.

+
Cover of the program guide for the launch
of Compellent in 2004

Fluid Data Arrives Down Under

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 19:24:00 -0500

Last week, Compellent celebrated the availability of Storage Center 5 and the opening of our office in Australia. Brian Bell, VP of worldwide sales, Craig Stockdale, managing director of ANZ, Stephen Madden, solutions architect for ANZ and I hosted locally based customers, channel partners, reporters, analysts and bloggers as well as the IT community at events held in Sydney and Melbourne. Craig and Stephen are based in Melbourne though they spend a lot of time in Sydney. (Look for them next month at the vForum in Sydney.)

On Wednesday, Sept. 15, we converged at the Park Hyatt Sydney hotel, located alongside Sydney Harbor with a spectacular view of the Sydney Opera House. We spent the following day in Melbourne at the Riva St Kilda overlooking Port Phillip Bay. It was a great week. Even better knowing Compellent is now forever linked to Australian history. No, I didn’t get hit in the head with a boomerang. Let me explain.

Australian History Lesson

Two people were key to the founding of Australia: Arthur Phillip and James Cook. Phillip, appointed as governor of New South Wales, led the expedition that sailed into Sydney Harbor and founded the city of Sydney. There are many places named after Phillip, Port Phillip Bay for one. Cook was the first European to discover eastern Australia and circumnavigate New Zealand, and his name is on many places too—places like James Cook University, which implemented two Compellent SANs while working with our long-time partner Regal IT.

We were honored that Lee Askew, IT manager at the university, flew 6 hours from Townsville, Queensland to come to our launch event at the Park Hyatt. The Park Hyatt sits by Sydney Cove where the first European settlement was established by Phillip. I’d be a far wiser man if I told you we chose the location because of the historical significance. In reality, our reasons were a bit more practical; the fun connection to Fluid Data and the location’s availability swayed our decision to go with this location. Only later did I learn from Chris Chambers with our partner XSI that Phillip landed and pitched the first tents just a boomerang’s throw from the hotel. So you could say that Compellent launched its business in Australia at the same spot where the country itself was launched. That’s a good sign.

Many thanks to our Australian community for coming to our launch event, which included customers from Children’s Medical Research Institute, KPMG, Mitchell Communications Group, Metricon, Pepper Homeloans and Stryker, and representatives of our channel partners Geomatic Technologies, Interconnekt, Regal IT, Sententia and XSI.

Click to watch a brief video message from Brian and Craig recapping the launch as well as photos and additional links below.

Sydney:

From left: Craig Stockdale, managing director of ANZ; Brian Bell, VP of worldwide sales; Stephen Madden, solutions architect for ANZ

Watching the Fluid Data customer video.

James Henshaw, head of IT at Pepper Homeloans, and Brian Bell of Compellent

From left: Chris Ober, VP and senior analyst of Ideas International; Darryn Capes-Davis, ICT manager of Childrens Medical Research Institute; and Stephen Madden of Compellent

Melbourne:

The calm before the storm. Literally, high winds and waves came to St Kilda right after I took this photo.

Brian Bell with members of the XSI team in Melbourne

Craig Stockdale of Compellent with Mark Deady of Geomatic Technologies

Additional Links:

Press Release: Compellent Announces Strong Channel Partner and Customer Momentum in Australia, Introduces Storage Center 5

Customer Story: Childrens Medical Research Institute

Customer Story: Mitchell Communications Group

ITwire: Compellent customers speak about Australian storage market

ITwire: Compellent Australian expansion gains momentum

Techworld: Compellent launches in Australia

ARN: Compellent sees wealth of opportunity in Australia

ITNews: Compellent launches ‘fluid data’ in Australia

Compellent vSphere Client Plug-in

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:01:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This blog was originally posted by John Dias, storage architect at Compellent on his Storage Gumbo blog.

Thanks to Darin Schmitz, Virtualization Product Specialist at Compellent, I'm able to share with you some screen captures of the vSphere plug-in previewed by Compellent at VMworld. The finished product will be released Q4 but I've never been good at waiting to open my presents (yes, I was a little brat and would frequently search for my birthday and Christmas gifts—good thing I have a talent for acting surprised).

And what a treat this is! In my previous post I covered how storage administration is made much easier through Enterprise Manager using the Windows and VMware provisioning capabilities to not only carve out volumes but to fully present them for use on the host.

With this plug-in you'll be able to do that and much more for vSphere ESX servers including creating, expanding and deleting storage as well as managing replays and performing data recovery from the vSphere client. The list of features in the final version may differ slightly but in general administrators can save a great deal of time and simplify tasks by using the new plug-in.

A few screen caps are provided below to tease you—enjoy! Click on the images below for a full view of the screen shots.

The context menu shows options available for managing your data stores and the underlying Compellent volumes. Note that Data Instant Replay (Compellent snapshots) features are available to the vSphere administrator including "Recover VM Data From Replay...."

The storage configuration wizard should be familiar to any Compellent SAN administrator. As you can see below in the summary prior to volume creation the properties for both the Compellent volume and the VMFS datastore have been configured for end-to-end provisioning.

Clicking the "Finish" button will begin the provisioning process and when completed you'll have a new datastore ready for use by guests. No extra steps required. Expansion and removal of datastores is just as easy.

Selecting "Recover VM Data from Replay..." from the context menu launches a wizard which shows you all the replays available for a given datastore, including information like creation time, expiry, size and replay description.

The replay recovery summary screen lists the properties for the recovery including host(s) to which the replay view will be mapped, the desired datastore name and LUN ID which are all configurable during the wizard steps. This screen cap was taken after the "Finish" button was clicked and shows the status of the background tasks. Note that Compellent administrators have this ability today, but it involves going back and forth between the Compellent management and vSphere client interfaces—it can get confusing. This is one feature I really hope that makes the final cut.

Again, this is really a teaser and hopefully we'll be able to show more very soon.

Seattle Tech Field Day

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:11:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This blog was originally posted by Justin Braun on his own blog: The Braun Blog.

I’m still getting caught up on events, so I thought I’d share with you a little about our participation in the 2010 Tech Field Day held in Seattle, WA.

Back in the middle of July, Compellent had an opportunity to participate in Gestalt IT Tech Field Day. As it says on their website, “This unique event brings together innovative IT product vendors and independent thought leaders, allowing them to get to know one another. It is a forum for engagement, education, hands-on experience, and feedback.”

Compellent was thrilled to be part of the experience as one of five sponsors for this event. Others included F5, NEC, Veeam, and Nimble Storage, who used Tech Field Day as their official launch.

The event focused around these different vendors who had the opportunity to present their technologies to an esteemed panel of delegates. The delegates, which comprised of technologists and bloggers, came from around the world.

The evening of July 15th included a reception and dinner at the Boeing Museum of Flight. This was about the coolest thing I’ve seen. I have a love for aviation, but to see where some of the first aircraft were built was simply amazing.

The welcome reception was held in the “Red Barn”. This is the original Boeing airplane factory. The smell of the wood barn interior makes you feel like you were there. Seeing the woodshop tools that were used to create the different components of the flying machine was pretty cool.

This was an opportunity for us to meet the other vendors in attendance, but more importantly to meet all of the delegates and learn more about them and what they do. Liem Nguyen, the director of Corporate Communications for Compellent helped to coordinate Compellent’s sponsorship and involvement, and is seen below with Kirby Wadsworth, a marketing exec with F5 Networks. You can’t tell from this picture, but Kirby was rockin’ some pretty sweet yellow slacks that night.

Most of the delegates in one form or another were involved in IT, but specifically this Tech Field Day was focused on virtualization. So, the basis of what we talked about centered around our virtualized storage solution, but also the integration points with Hyper-V and VMware.

Bob Fine, Director of Product Marketing, Scott DesBles, Director of Technical Solutions, and myself tag-teamed to present the Compellent solution. Bob and Scott provided the Compellent overview and a roadmap discussion which seemed to keep the panel engaged, and we also discussed Live Volume while demonstrating the Compellent Storage Center and its ease of use in addition to Enterprise Manager, the “single pane of glass” which can be used to manage multiple Storage Centers in your environment and the interface that enables the world-famous “6 clicks to replicate a volume’”.

Check out Liem’s blog post about Tech Field Day with some exclusive interview footage of the delegates and shots from the Museum of Flight.

We had a blast meeting with the delegates and other vendors in Seattle. We’d love the opportunity to do this again and continue to share the Compellent story.

Did I mention the view in Seattle? For this last picture, I was amazed at how close the parking lot was to the runway at Boeing Field. We were able to get some great photos and videos of the experience. Here’s a nice shot of a cargo aircraft on approach with Mount Rainer in the distance.

Is Tape Backup Dead?

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:11:00 -0500

Looking back in time, backing up data from desktops and servers to tapes made sense. There are just too many things that can go wrong with an IT system; you’d be foolish not to back up your data. Having that insurance policy sitting on a shelf or at an offsite location was critical. If an “event” occurred, the clock starts ticking and it is IT’s job to bring their organization back online. How long? A few hours? A few days? A week? Looking toward the future, using tape as an insurance policy for bad things happening in the datacenter just won’t work for much longer. Data sets are too large, pipes from tape back to disk are too slow, and the time it takes to physically find tapes, ship tapes and restore from tape just doesn’t cut it anymore. The pace of information flow and business change will be too fast for restoring from tape in the future. (Are we already there today?)

Alternatives to tape backup

There are many technologies out there offering superior ways to ensure that operations can be back up and running shortly after any “event” or to avoid downtime completely—based on budget, of course. Many forward-thinking IT departments back up data to disk so that restores happen almost instantly. No more searching for the right tapes and waiting for tapes to spin in order to get back up and running. Some of the techniques that create backup sets on disk available today include:

Increase the snapshot frequency on primary storage—manage those snapshots with the disk vendor’s user interface or a backup application. The data is already there ready to be used. These snapshots can also be sent to another physical disk system to provide extra protection.
Use backup software (the way you always have) and write to disk instead of tape—a pretty common practice these days. The data could also be de-duplicated within the target disk. However, I suspect many are still ALSO writing the same data to tape—is this really necessary?
De-dupe the data at the server and then send to disk—another method that is gaining momentum because less data needs to be sent to the backup disk—less to manage.
Send backup sets to another location for disaster avoidance—bandwidth is a lot cheaper than it was 10 years ago and if you’re sending snapshots or de-duplicated backup sets the amount of disk needed in the remote location can be price competitive with sending, storing and managing tape after tape after tape...

What about accessing “old" data?

All of this discussion was about backup—being ready in case something bad happens. What about accessing all the old data that doesn’t really need to be accessed frequently? SEC filings from 3 years ago. Engineering drawings from the last product revision. Surveillance video. The CEOs keynote speech from the customer event 2 years ago. This is where an active archive comes in.

As a disk vendor, we’d LOVE to think that every organization would store their data on their primary storage disk forever. But that’s just not reality. Automatically tiering data within your primary storage is a great thing. But now there are techniques to create archives on secondary disk and tape systems so that your organization can have fast access to the information they need. It might appear that I’m suggesting that data never goes away. It just moves from fast disk to slower disk to tape over time—staying online and available the whole way. That’s the whole point. Archiving software is intelligent enough these days to help IT departments decide how long data needs to stay available so managing this process is getting easier. The key difference here is that these archives can now be on tape systems. Tape for archives—YES. Tape for backup—NO. Maybe the industry as a whole isn’t ready for this yet—but more and more will be moving there over time.

Top 20 VMWorld 2010 Photos

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:14:00 -0500

With the flood of photos from VMworld 2010, we decided to capture the highlights. From the arrival, to the booth demos, press conference with Heineken Netherlands, roundtable discussion with customers and even photos of the Compellent CEO working the booth, you’ll find a nice variety of scenes from VMworld 2010.

Presenting the top 20 photos:

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Live from VMworld 2010: My Three Jobs

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:28:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This blog was originally posted on Amanda's Adventures Blog and shortened by the editor. This is the last 'Live from VMworld" blog from our social media "woman-on-the street" and we thank her for doing a great job reporting on what she saw and heard at VMworld this year.

My 3 Jobs

I’ve had three jobs this week: SysAdmin for Biola, solving problems on the side, while at VMworld; Compellent Social Media Reporter and Customer Rep; Professor for Intro to MIS.

What a week it’s been! I’m exhausted. My body has decided it’s tired too, as I’m definitely fighting a cold now. Bummer. If you don’t rest, it catches up to you. I’ve pretty much worked from 7:30am to 11:30pm every night this week and tonight will be no exception, even though VMworld is done. That’s a long day! They’ve been great; lots of fun, great learning opportunities, wonderful new friends and networking acquaintances.

I almost didn’t want to leave VMworld. It was such a great environment, I had made a new little community of friends there, and didn’t have too much stress. Yes, I was busy running around doing things, but they weren’t super critical. If I missed a session I was bummed, but it didn’t matter. I can always watch them online anyways.

As I was flying home today I started getting freaked out. There’s so much to do here at home!

I realized as I was coming back that my slides for class weren’t complete. There were only about 15 slides. I just don’t know how to make each class session long enough! We finished class around 7:20 tonight (so a 1hr 20min class). We pulled apart some computers and played with the parts which I think they really enjoyed. I think it was pretty new for most of the people, although I know it was a little boring for those who know a lot about computers. It’s hard to balance that. We did the computer project for about 45 minutes or so, which means I only talked for 30 minutes or less. I think next week will be a lot better. I’ve already been prepping for the past three hours for our software class next week. It will be interesting I think. I am sure that I will go the whole session, as we now can go in to the labs and start working there on our projects. I really like my students. I’m excited to be teaching, but it’s just a lot on top of my already crazy-normal life!

“The world we have created is a product of our own thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein

Exciting stuff happening at VMworld today. The morning session was great! I wish I had more time at the conference. I did a great lab at 8am, ran over to the general session at 9am, and then ran to the expo from 10-10:30. I literally ran almost all the way back to my hotel (1 mile away) to be back and ready with my stuff for the shuttle to pick me up at 10:45. I was sorta run-walking (my sister does race-walking) and I think I would have won the race! Haha! My feet definitely hurt now.

I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to spend more time in the Expo area. I was in the Compellent booth most of the time that I was in the Expo area, so I didn’t get to scope out the new products or get too much swag. I had to get some things to bring back to my team, otherwise they might not ever let me leave again

Morning Session: Awesome stuff. The theme was innovation, and so they had three presenters talk. My favorite was a Ph.D student from MIT who started a company called SixthSense (see Fast Company’s review of them here). They created a gadget that uses augmented reality. It comprises an off-the-shelf webcam, mirrors, smartphone, and a pico-projector–all hung on a lanyard. It can recognize objects, like a book in a store, and pull up Amazon review of the book and project them on to the front cover of the book. I can’t explain it very well, so go look at the review on Fast Company’s site. Wow. Really impressive. I think it definitely will take off.

Other presenters were Natan Linder, a Master’s student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab and Tan Le, Co-founder and President, Emotiv Systems. Natan Linder presented LuminAR, which can project images of the web, anywhere. It allows you to have Internet everywhere, as long as you have a wireless signal and a power socket. They’re calling it the new form factor for a computer. The pixels can be put on any spaces. It looks like a light bulb, and you can put the bulb pack in a lamp or in a robot.

Emotiv’s product is a head set that measure brain waves in order to move virtual objects. It tests your brian waves when you’re thinking of moving a block on the screen up. It then tells you to pretend that you’re moving the block. The block moves. Pretty cool. I’ve heard about them in INC. magazine before and thought it was awesome then. It allows you to control things with your mind. A demo was of a man sitting in his wheelchair and he had his chair hooked up to his brain waves. When he would move his face or think to go to the left, the wheels would start going to the left. I really think it has potential to do great things.

Emotiv Initial Brain Wave capture device

Emotiv Current Brain Wave capture device

Vendor Booth at Expo

By the way, Compellent was a Finalist for the Hardware for Virtualization category of awards at VMworld. Yay! That’s cool.

Hardware Virtualization:
Gold: Cisco Systems Inc., Cisco Nexus 7000 Overlay Transport Virtualization
Finalist: Compellent Technologies, Compellent Storage Center 5
Finalist: Xsigo Systems, VP780 and VP560 I/O Director

That’s all for now folks!

Live from VMworld 2010: CommVault and Compellent Talk About Virtualization

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:04:00 -0500

All the buzz at VMworld 2010 has been around virtualization. I had a chance to catch up with Bruce Kornfeld, VP of business development and alliances from Compellent and David West, VP of marketing and business development from CommVault to talk about the partnership between the two companies, how the two technologies work together, data storage efficiencies, and data management and protection.

It wasn’t all work and no play for Compellent and CommVault at VMworld 2010. The two companies hosted customers and prospects at Tres Agaves restaurant on Tuesday, August 31 to unwind after a long day at the show and enjoy some great food and great company.

Watch the video to learn more about the way Compellent and CommVault technologies work together.

Live from VMworld 2010: VMworld Day 3 - Labs

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:13:00 -0500

Editor's Note: Originally posted on Amanda's Adventures blog. The journey documented by Amanda Zook, system administrator from Biola Univerisity and Compellent customer.

VMworld Day #3: Labs

Today was quite the day, as all the days have been at VMworld. The morning started off with a Women of Purpose breakfast where they had some women CIOs and CEOs sharing their career path and sharing a bit of wisdom.

One woman who is a VP at VMware said that as a single mom, she would always tell someone that she couldn’t go to a meeting or schedule something at a certain time because she had to pick her kids up. However, she said that she’s learned not to disclose the reason. “Keep it to yourself” was her advice. She said that men take time off some times in the afternoon to go see their kids games but don’t really say why they’re leaving or make a big deal out of it. Women tend to explain away or feel compelled to give a good excuse. No need, she encouraged. Just tell them you’re busy. Interesting idea. I like it.

A good chunk of my time today was spent in the labs. These labs are awesome. I just can’t get over it. After talking with a few people, they said that they would totally pay for the labs if they were put online for future use. One person even said he’d pay out of his own pocket. They’re really really good. Thanks VMware!

I worked through two: vSphere Troubleshooting and vSphere PowerCLI. I did all of the Troubleshooting lab, and it was great. Really gave me some extra places to look when having trouble with LUNs not showing up, or vmdk files that won’t start or appear to be non-functioning. If you can’t access your ESX host, check the firewall on the vCenter server. Wouldn’t have necessarily thought of that (probably something that I should have though!).

I did about 30 minutes of the PowerCLI lab and got 10 pages in. I wasn’t doing so well on that one. I haven’t done any powershell, so I was slowly making my way through it. It was helpful. I wish I could have finished it, but it would have taken me a long time. I needed to be somewhere at 11:30, and the line was really long to get in to the labs, which ate up a good chunk of my time. However, I do have a large poster with PowerCLI commands (side note: some guy asked what I had and I told him what it was and his reply was, wow, that’s kinda nerdy, to which I replied, well, I’m a SysAdmin. He thought that was cool, because he probably thought I wasn’t technical. It’s an interesting response when people find out you’re a techie girl). The poster will go up in my cube, and I will practice until it’s perfect! Good goal. I at least have a small framework to go from now.

Labs

Line for Labs

VMworld Lab stats

I was at the Compellent booth for awhile and did the SANchat, which is a twitter gathering where people can talk about different topics on twitter for an hour. This month we discussed VMworld (no surprise there!). We got a few people talking about different topics such as their favorite sessions, which vendor had the best swag, if people would pay for lab access after the conference, and other things. It was an interesting experience. I’d definitely say it wasn’t my favorite thing that I’ve done all week, but it was something different. There were a few of us sitting around in the booth and so we’d tweet a question and someone (most of the time who was sitting right next to me) would reply, and I’d look up and say “Really?” or “That’s cool!”. It created a conversation starter for those of us sitting in the booth, but unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of interaction otherwise. I was hoping more people would participate. They were probably all in sessions, in the Expo area, or unable to get on the spotty wireless.

It was fun because I was staked out in the booth, so I told my “twitter friends” to come by and meet me there. The “virtual friendship” is really an interesting thing. Finally met another Compellent customer who I was trying to meet up with in May at the C-drive conference, which was great. Also, was able to meet a friend who I started following on twitter and found out he actually works at Fuller Seminary! How cool. Didn’t realize he was in LA, Linux admin, and at a seminary. Also met up with another new friend who saw an email of mine to a list serve and we realized we had a common friend. It was fun to meet up with him, because he works for Winslow Technology Group, which is our vendor partner for our Compellent solution. They’re a great company and all of the people I have met from WTG are the nicest people! Fun stuff to finally meet these virtual friends of mine. Weird too.

Went to a wonderful restaurant for dinner with Compellent. The food was great. Super fancy. I had a pot de creme for dessert. How do you like that?! (Christie, you would have loved the place!) There were some industry analysts there, as well as fellow customers, and the Compellent Execs. Great time talking with the others who were there. It really was a good networking time, and fun to get to know some more people. An industry analyst from Gartner who was at dinner with us (I don’t remember his name, but I think he was someone relatively well known) [Roger Cox] said that he wanted to come see my class that I’m teaching. I told him he was welcome to come! It’d be cool if he wanted to be a guest speaker as welll!

Speaking of networking, I only have 8 business cards left. I’d say that’s pretty good! I’ve been passing them out to those who I meet over time. I had a scare as I thought I lost my case of cards I’ve collected this week. Ahh! All that hard work would have been lost! Thankfully I found them in a pocket of my bag. I always write notes about the person on the back of the card so I can remember who they are and where I met them. It’s a handy trick that I’ve picked up.

VMworld Party

Just caught the end of the VMworld party, which featured INXS (pronounced In Excess). The place was hopping. They had food and lots of drinks. People said they ran out of beer so they were all headed to the bars, but I was headed back to my hotel to sleep. They had a photo booth, large balls that you could go inside and roll around in, a trampoline that you could strap into and flip around on, and other fun picture opportunities. It seemed pretty good. A little bummed I missed it, but it was fine just seeing the end of it.

Crowd at INXS concert

INXS

That’s about it! I’m sad that the trip is almost over. Heading back to LA to finish up the week.

Live from VMworld 2010: VMworld Thus Far

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:10:00 -0500

The first few days of the VMworld show in San Francisco have been outstanding. Over 17,000 people are in attendance. Compellent has come in full force with a huge booth showing off our Fluid Data Architecture with live running hardware and demonstration “pods”. Yesterday, I co-presented a session with Craig Miller, our customer from BioWare. I outlined the features of Compellent and Craig discussed how he has integrated Storage Center and VMware in his data center. It is a very impressive story as 12 months ago, Craig was not virtualizing any of this servers. Now, they are 60% virtual on their way to 100% by March of next year. This morning, we had a press conference with VMware and our customer Heineken. They replaced their older storage array with Storage Center and are getting better performance with less disk drives, saving on power, cooling and improving application response times. Tonight is the big VMworld party, it should be a lot of fun.

Live from VMworld 2010: VMworld Day 2

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:05:00 -0500

Editor's note: More from our VMworld social media reporter, Amanda Zook. Originally posted on her blog.

VMworld Day #2

Note: this is long because there was so much good content today! Hope you still enjoy reading it.

What a great day it’s been today! Although the morning didn’t start off that well, as I didn’t end up making it over to VMworld with enough time to complete a lab before the main session, and then wasn’t able to get in to the PowerCLI session that I really wanted (Which would have made my goal of scripting a little easier!) the day definitely looked up from there.

The main session was great! The event was done very well. As the production director for my church, I really appreciate lights and sound that are done well. This was truly amazing. The screen was gigantic. They said that there are over 17,000 people at VMworld this year. No wonder you see people with VMworld name tags running all over the city. They ARE everywhere.

A room large enough for 17,000 people

Before the main session started

It was really neat to hear about what VMware is doing, and the new products that they are coming out with. They showed a great video in the beginning of the session talking about what a cloud is. It was really funny. They even threw some Inception-esque lines in — “The cloud is in your mind.” haha.

But really? What is the cloud? There’s the public cloud, like GoogleApps or other SaaS programs, and then there is the private cloud like using VMware inside your organization to host your VMs. They seemed to define it as a collective group of resources.

One thing that was really interesting to me in the keynote was the mention of how users now want things from businesses to work like the programs they use for personal use (Facebook, Google, Youtube, etc.). Users don’t want to have to submit a ticket to the IT department and wait for 3 days. They don’t care that you’re using a VM. In IT we like to point out that they’re using a cool new service. But they don’t want the platform. They just want their app to work. Essentially they want self service, where they can go in, click on the app or service they want to use, and be able to have access to it by entering information. Yes! This is so true. The business world can’t adapt that quickly to what users want, so it continues on with the slow movement while IT departments are working at a frenzied pace to adapt their whole system to what users want. We already have good fast moving infrastructure (ability to quickly create a new server/add RAM or other resources). The problem lies in the fact that we’re trying to use old apps. New apps need to be created to fully utilize the new architecture and infrastructure of cloud computing. Enter VMware. A lot of companies use it to reduce costs, or improve efficiency, but the next step of full utilization of VMware is flexibility and business agility. This is where the stuff gets good. They are putting out a product called vCloud Director. It pools virtual infrastructure resources in your existing datacenter and delivers them to users as a catalog-based service. I’d like to demo it out. It sounds pretty neat.

Also got to see some other product demonstrations that will be coming out in the future. My favorite one was the one coded “Project Verizon” (I think that’s what it was called…). It allows users to view their desktop from any device- iPad, Android phone, laptop, etc. It seemed like it will do a lot more than just normal VDI will. Interested in hearing more about it.
Although I liked the keynote session, apparently some others at Citrix and Microsoft had some comments about it. See these two blogs if you’re interested.

I wasn’t able to get in to the PowerCLI session, so I went and did a lab. Awesome set up they have. People have already done over 5,000 labs. Yikes. Over 40,000 vms have been created in labs. I think someone said there are over 800 VDI instances that are being used. I did the vSphere troubleshooting lab and it was very helpful. I must be slow though, because I had to ask them to give me more than the allotted time (1 hour) to finish it, as I almost ran out of time! Maybe I’m just thorough in reading instructions.

This photo doesn't do it justice, but the lab set up was amazing.

Heard a little more about VDI from a Gartner Analyst. Very good session comparing Citrix’s XenDesktop 4 and the new VMware View 4.5. He also compared Quest vWorkspace 7.1 and Microsoft VDI, but those both weren’t recommended for large enterprise usage.

Then, the event that I’ve been waiting to go to for 3 weeks now: Women of Purpose. So good. Ahh. They had a panel of 6 women who were either VPs, Directors, or CIOs in large companies. They seemed like great people. It was funny, one of the panelist said she was excited to see a lot of women show up for this event and knew others were happy to have a get-together as someone said in their blog that it was their goal was to find another woman sysadmin during the conference. That was me! So cool! A VP of IT read my blog. That’s fun. As a side note, thanks to all who read!

Many different topics were discussed on the panel from how to balance your time when you have a family and work as an exec in a company to mentoring and career paths. Most of these companies that the women were a part of were largely virtualized. One of the CIOs said her company was 100% virtualized. That’s so cool. What a great goal.

Women of Purpose Panel

Good quote from Melissa Armstrong: Listen most, question often, talk least. Good advice. There was a lot of wisdom that was given in the 2 hour session. Very worth my time. I’m hoping to get in contact with a few people I met and maybe one of the panelists to see if they would informally mentor me. There was so much useful information given. I had to leave right after and couldn’t stay for the reception because I was off to skype in to my Intro to MIS class.

Thankfully there were no technical issues skyping! I think it went well, at least it did on my end. It’s easier to teach looking at a computer screen than a class full of 40 college students! I’m looking forward to meeting my students next week for class though. It’s fun to be able to do things like that and use technology in a way that allows business/teaching to still carry on even though I’m 300 miles from home.

After class, the evening was filled with talking with current and prospective Compellent and CommVault customers. Great party held at Tres Agaves, a Mexican restaurant. The food was really good. It was great to talk to other users. Met some new friends and did some good networking. It was a chill environment to sit down, have dinner with people, or stand around just talking. Even though I was at a conference all day, I probably walked over 5 miles today! The restaurant was 1.5 miles away and I thought I’d just walk rather than pay for a cab. And then I walked back with a Compellent team member on the way back, which I originally hadn’t planned on doing, since I already had walked quite a bit before. It sure was nice to move though, especially after sitting all day.

Compellent Party

Down an Alleyway

Looking forward to another day tomorrow!

Leave me some comments and let me know what was your favorite part of the day! Thanks for reading.

Live from VMworld 2010: Compellent Press Conference with Heineken Netherlands

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:01:00 -0500

A press conference was held today to announce Heineken Netherlands as a new customer of Compellent. Phil Soran, Compellent, Tod Nielsen, VMware, and Mike Robers and Lucien de Konink, Heineken were at VMware’s Blogger’s Lounge to share the news.

View VMworld 2010 Press Conference Video

View Q&A with Phil Soran Video

9:15: Tod Nielsen, COO of VMware kicks off the press conference with introductions and highlights the importance of partners like Compellent who provide efficient storage solutions to their customer base. Tod adds “My favorite twist of this press conference is the fact that Compellent is different than other vendors because of their Fluid Data architecture. Funny how last night was the VMworld Hall Crawl, and now we have Heineken a new customer of Compellent.”

9:19: Phil Soran steps in- “We are thrilled to be participating in this conference, and happy to have Heineken as one of our new customers. We’re providing Fluid Data storage solutions to our customers and have been the primary innovator in the storage space, with thin provisioning, sub-LUN automated tiering and intelligent data management. Compellent is one of the fastest growing SAN vendors in the world.” We’re in 34 countries and have 2,100 end-users with about 1,900 of those customers running VMware.

9:21: “Fluid Data is so simple to use that you can even enjoy a Heineken while using our technology it’s that easy.” He adds. “We are expanding globally as a company, as you can see with customers like Heineken and we’re also announcing our Australian market opening this week.” But let’s hear from Mike and Lucien about Heineken

9:22: Lucien: A little about Heineken, we brew great beer and brands. We are the #1 Brewer in Europe. We have 200 regional beer and ciders. We have a brewery in almost every country. The 140 breweries in 70 countries, brewed 200 million hectoliters of beer in 2009. In Netherlands, we have 3 breweries that brewed 18 million hectoliters of beer, 5 million is for domestic and the rest for export.

9:23: “We started Heineken Light last year just for the USA market, because we don’t drink that stuff,” Mike adds, getting laughs from the crowd.

9:24: Mike: Why did we choose Compellent? We needed to look for other solutions. We had a serious problem with support costs from HP, along with capacity and performance issues, so we had to take action and fast. We were stuck on EVA 5000 which didn’t allow us to upgrade to a newer version of VMware. We chose Compellent because it operates with every system and enabled us to have business continuity.

9:27: Lucien: We also had major issues with reporting. Thus, the major pro of Compellent is the reporting, I’ve never seen better. Right now we are 61% virtualized as of last week. We plan to be 90% by 2012. On our old EVA, some business critical reports took 35 minutes to generate, with Compellent it’s done in 20 minutes, showing the obvious performance improvements we’re seen.

9:28: Lucien: The Fluid Data concept gave us high flexibility and reporting functionality. Plus, the 24x7 proactive support, which is critical for us and our business. In addition, with Compellent we were also able to automatically tier 5% SSD, 72% Fibre Channel and 23% to SATA. We lowered our disk count by 40% in Zoeterwoude and 60% in Den Bosch.

9:32: Dave Villante, from Wikibon Group comes to the table

9:33: When you migrate to new systems what do you expect? From my research, customers plan for migration to cost $50,000 and take 6 months, do you guys think that is reasonable? What have you found? He asks of Mike and Lucien. They reply with a couple of raised eyebrows at the cost and said, “We expect it to be very easy. We migrated in three weeks. Our business is a 24/7 operation, so we cannot have much downtime.”

9:36: Can you talk about being a 24/7 company? Dave asks. Mike: You can’t stop brewery systems. If you interrupt the process, the beer goes bad. If a line goes down, it costs 12,000 Euros an hour. Same with packaging and distribution, all of those systems need to stay up and running.

9:38: Dave to all: What do you see as a big disruptive technology in the future? Phil- On the connectivity side, we have 10G iSCSI, FCOE, Infiniband, etc. On the hardware side, smaller drives, SAS taking over and SSD/flash drives. The core of Compellent is the flexibility to incorporate new technologies into existing systems, so when Heineken is ready to adopt the next new technology, they can do that with Compellent.

9:39: On the software side, he adds, data will be managed differently. It will need to be flexible to fit into cloud. You will need automated tiered storage at the block level. When we’ve had customers migrate over to Compellent they reclaim 60-70% of their capacity that they didn’t have with other systems.

9:40: Dave asks Mike and Lucien: What’s the benefit of saving all that space? Mike replies with- Not only are we spending less money, but we’re looking at green IT. Less hardware also means less cooling and power that we need.

9:41: Dave also asked about chargebacks . Mike: We are a non-profit IT organization so, we do chargebacks on a yearly basis and only charge for normal maintenance and hardware. Dave replies asking if charge backs were difficult? Mike promptly answers- no, it was fluid. We’ve been doing it for the past five years.

9:43: Dave to Lucien and Mike: What would you say is on Compellent’s to do list? Lucien- things are very good, all of our previous problems have been solved by Compellent.

Read more about this press conference and the announcement on SiliconAngle.

Live from VMworld 2010: Behind the Scenes Look at the Compellent Press Conference with Heineken Netherlands

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:26:00 -0500

We are very excited to have Heineken Netherlands join us at VMworld 2010, particularly for the press conference at the VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge in Moscone South at 9:15 AM PST and the SuperSession today at 3:00 PM in Room #134 in Moscone North. Being the number one brewer in Europe with more than 200 regional, local and specialty beers and ciders, it’s no surprise that Heineken Netherlands generates a lot of data. What you may not know is that not too long ago Heineken Netherlands wanted to upgrade their VMware infrastructure but was faced with capacity, performance and reporting issues with their HP EVA storage systems. After evaluating other vendors they landed on Compellent Fluid Data for our automated tiered storage with enterprise SSD, scalable and persistent hardware, and, of course, the seamless integration with VMware. Together, Compellent and VMware have increased performance for Heineken Netherlands by as much as 300 percent and reduced disk requirements significantly using tiers of SSD, FC and SATA. In the future, Heineken Netherlands will be able to save even more money adding SATA disks almost exclusively.

As part of the team preparing for the press conference and SuperSession, it’s been a pleasure working with the IT folks from Heineken Netherlands and talking with them about the real-world problems they were faced with and how they went about addressing those enterprise challenges. I remembered how we joked about the connection between Fluid Data and enjoying your fluids in moderation, but in the end, the Heineken Netherlands IT story is really about better enterprise performance and storage efficiency since they’ve introduced Compellent into their VMware environment.

Here are additional press conference details:

Who: Phil Soran (CEO of Compellent), Tod Nielsen (COO of VMware), Lucien de Konink and Mike Robers (Heineken Netherlands)
When: Wednesday, September 1 from 9:15 AM to 9:45 AM (PST)
Where: VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge, Moscone South

Can’t make it to the press conference? Or even worse…couldn’t make it to VMworld? No problem. Tune in to find out more and watch it streaming live at http://www.SiliconAngle.TV starting at 9:15 AM PST.

**Update: View the recorded session here: http://www.siliconangle.tv/video/compellent-ceo-phil-soran-customer-heineken-netherlands**

SuperSession details:

Who: Bruce Kornfeld (VP of Alliance for Compellent), Parag Patel (VP of Global Alliances for VMware), Lucien de Konink and Mike Robers (Heineken Netherlands)
When: Wednesday, September 1 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PST)
Where: Room #134

3 Tips on Getting the Most Out of VMworld 2010 with vSeanClark

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:35:00 -0500

VMworld 2010 is bigger than ever, with upwards of 12,000 – 15,000 people expected to converge on the Moscone this week. The registration lines snaked around several times yet moved along at a brisk pace thanks to efficiency of the event organizers. The blogger lounge has been upgraded to include live Internet streaming of VMworld TV and daily newscasts. I spent some time there yesterday and for me personally it was great meeting folks I’ve been following on Twitter or talking to on blogs (including the Roger Lund blog) over the past year or so.

While the VMware team really has perfected the art of running an event, sessions have been filled to capacity and some people haven’t been able to get into them. Before you head out to the Moscone check out this interview I did with Sean Clark, vExpert, consultant and blogger who is otherwise known as @vseanclark. For all you Twitter fanatics, you’ll appreciate the video angle that cuts off the top of Sean’s head, since most of you probably wouldn’t recognize him without his pith helmet. This year was Sean’s fifth VMworld so you’ll be wise to listen to his 3 tips on maximizing your time at VMworld: get to sessions early, start impromptu tweetups while in line, and head to hands-on labs to learn at your own pace. And his bonus tip: come see us at the Compellent booth 1022!

Do you have any additional tips on getting the most out of VMworld 2010? Feel free to leave us a comment.

Live from VMworld 2010: First Impressions

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:00:00 -0500

Editor's note:
Amanda Zook, Compellent customer from Biola University, is our social media reporter on the ground at VMworld. She will be updating her blog with the latest happenings from the show and we'll post them on "Around the Block" as well.

First Impressions:

Wow. This place is cool. So fun! Everyone is talking about techy stuff.

I met up with a fellow Compellent customer last night to see what they’re doing with their environment. It’s always nice to meet up with people that you have met before and catch up, especially since there are thousands of people here and sometimes you can feel lost in the crowd.

This morning I walked into the huge conference center with tons of people (Well, there’s 3 conference buildings, which each have tons of rooms). There’s digital signage everywhere, which I love. Bean bags line the wall in several areas where techies are on their laptops, smart phones, and iPads. Some people are working in their free time, others are networking. Me? Free time = None. However, in the midst of walking to sessions or talking with others before or at the end of sessions I’ve had some good conversations with fellow IT people.

The virtual world is a weird one. I “met” a friend on twitter who messaged me and we were able to meet up today. It’s always one of those weird moments because you don’t know what the other person looks like (the tiny twitter icon is hard to judge what a person looks like most of the time), so you’re scanning a room looking for someone who looks like they’re looking for you.

There’s a bloggers area where people are chatting, writing, and recording videos. It’s a pretty neat environment. Everything looks sharp. All of VMworld’s marketing is great. They even have M & M’s that have stamped on them. That’s cool.

Today I tried to learn more about cloud computing, the change over to ESXi and new features of 4.1, and about VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).

Did you know that ESX 4.1 is the last version of ESX? There won’t be a service console anymore. You’ll have to use ESXi, which sounds like it will work just great. The bummer part is that we’ll have to move over to that new version. No rush- there’s 7 years of support, but if you want updates, you’ll need to move sooner.

In 4.1 you can have up to 1000 hosts in a virtual center, which seems like so many VMs! Our team has about 115 virtual servers and 85 physical machines. We’ll never reach that limit of 1000 but it’s good to know that it scales!
I was excited to hear about the DRS host affinity, which is new in 4.1. It allows you to create certain restrictions on your VMs. So, say you never want your SQL server to move hosts (like we do). You can create a rule so that it stays on the same host. Or you could create a preferential rule that says “If at all possible, don’t move it, but if you must, then do it”.

I heard something about VAAI (vStorage API for Array Integration), which allows the host to use less CPU when doing storage-related tasks. See here for more details. I need to learn more about it. It sounds interesting.

Learned about how the vMA (Virtual Management Assistant) can help you run scripts on all your vms. Essentially it sounds like a CLI that runs so you can talk to all the VMs. Since there isn’t an esxtop in ESXi (and that’s what everyone will be moving to soon) this tool will be useful to monitor performance.

I interviewed some people on how they would define cloud computing and how they’re using it. Hopefully will get those videos up later. Also was able to hang out in the Compellent booth and talk to potential customers, sharing why it’s great for my team and Biola. Hopefully I’ll be able to answer the questions that people throw at me about our set up It was quite tiring doing that though, as I’m not a sales person. I’m an introvert, which is why I do IT; leave me in a cube by myself all day, and I’m pretty good. But it’s still fun to get out and do those types of things.
Side note- All the booth’s had women outside them talking to people. They call them “booth babes”. Some booth’s have girls dressed really scantily. It’s pretty ridiculous. Thankfully Compellent’s not that type of vendor!

Something interesting: I was asked how I got into social media. It really threw me off guard, because I don’t feel like I’m “into” social media. It’s just something normal. I’m in my 20s. Who doesn’t use twitter and facebook to communicate? Especially young IT people! It seems weird to me that I have a few friends who have taken jobs as Social Media Reps for companies. It just seems like a weird thing to do for a job! It’s not something we’re “into”. It’s just a part of normal life! It’s the way we communicate. Kinda interesting though how different of a culture it is when you’re 10 – 20 years younger than someone. But sure, I can blog, tweet, facebook, etc. It’s sorta second nature. Do other of you younger people feel that way? Maybe I have cultivated it more than others, but maybe it’s just a generational thing.

Pics are from the conference and my cable car ride last night! Yes, I did hang off the edge of the train! So fun. Really, I haven’t thought something was that fun in awhile. I’m easy to please, I guess.

Live from VMworld 2010: Compellent events at VMworld

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:53:00 -0500

With a promise to be one of the best IT shows this year, VMworld 2010 is upon us. For the first time, Compellent is a platinum sponsor of the show and plans to make a big splash. The show is being held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and runs this week to September 2.

From what I’ve seen so far, this is the biggest VMworld yet, and Compellent is proud to be a platinum sponsor. If you’re one of the 15,000 expected show attendees, please stop by our booth #1022 and check out all that we have in store for you.

The best way to learn how to maximize your investment in VMware is to hear best practices from other end-users. Outside of the Compellent booth, we will host three customer-led discussions with two of our customers: Heineken Netherlands and BioWare.

Super Session: “Heineken Netherlands crafts high-performance data center with Compellent and VMware”
Date/time/location: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 from 3 – 4 PM in Room #134

I have the pleasure of co-presenting with VMware and our newest customer, Heineken Netherlands. Joining me will be Mike Robers, virtualization team lead, and Luicen de Konink, project manager, of Heineken Netherlands, Parag Patel, vice president of global alliances for VMware.

Not long ago, Heineken Netherlands, one of the world’s premier brewers, tapped Fluid Data storage from Compellent to help deliver new performance and efficiencies to a recently upgraded VMware infrastructure. Hear them share how this private cloud combines VMware and Compellent automated tiering, solid state drives, and robust reporting to ensure that the brewer’s data-intensive quality assurance and processing control measures guarantee that each bottle meets the lofty standards of the label.

Stick around after the session to find out how you can put some “Fluid Data” in your den; we will be giving away Krups “BeerTender” with four Heineken beer glasses and $20 gift card to purchase a Heineken mini keg.
Breakout Sessions: “BioWare’s Quest: The Search for Business Continuity”
Date/time/location: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 from 3:30 – 4:30 PM in Room #310 and on Thursday, September 2 from 10:30 – 11:30 AM in Room #309
Join Craig Miller, senior team lead of infrastructure support at BioWare and Scott DesBles, director of technical solutions at Compellent to learn more about using the latest storage and server virtualization technology.

At BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, a team of talented engineers bring entire fantasy worlds to life through popular video games like Mass Effect, Sonic Chronicles and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. To provide the most robust test environments, speed development time and ensure data protection, the BioWare IT team relies on a dynamic combination of Fluid Data storage from Compellent and VMware. See how the company uses a combination of snapshots, replication and archiving to recover data back as far as 15 years and manage more that 150 TB of active data.
Customer Roundtable Discussion from VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge
Date/time/location: Tuesday, September 2 from 8:00 – 9:00 AM at the VMware Social Media and Blogger’s Lounge, Moscone South street level entrance

A live discussion featuring Aethion, a technology consulting firm, and Alphastaff, a leading HR services company, moderated by Dave Vellante, Wikibon analyst and founder.
Stuck at the office? Join us online!
#SANChat: Wednesday, September 1 from 1 – 2:30 PM Twitter for #SANchat to talk about what’s going on at the show and what we’ve learned about what’s next for virtualization. Guest moderating will be blogger @rootwyrm, otherwise known as Phil Jaenke, and @AmandaJZook, a Compellent customer from Biola University. Follow them and @DellCompellent for more details.

During show hours, stop by our booth #1022, across the aisle from VMware booth and take part in all that we have planned for you:

Product demos: Compellent will demonstrate our virtualized storage platform and how it works with technology partners like VMware and Cisco. Technology demonstrations in the Compellent booth will include: vSphere 4.1 Client Plug-in, Live Volume and Enterprise Manager. Compellent end-users from Aethion, Alphastaff, Biola University and BioWare will also be available throughout the show to discuss best practices and real world implementations.
Savvis Symphony demo: In our booth, Savvis, a cloud computing infrastructure outsourcing provider, will be demonstrating their cloud service “Symphony” using VMware, Cisco and Compellent technologies. The services they will be demonstrating are: Symphony VPDC, Symphony Open, and Symphony Dedicated.
VDI Performance Demo: Atlantis Computing, a leading provider VDI storage and performance optimization solutions, will showcase how its Atlantis ILIO solution can boost VDI desktop performance by 10 times using VMware View, Cisco UCS and Compellent technologies at booth 1140.
Join us on Tuesday, August 31 for the VMworld “Hall Crawl” from 4 – 6 PM. We’ll have a cold Heineken waiting for you!
Relax and unwind in our “Fluid Data” lounge where you can take a seat on our comfy couches and enjoy some compelling company while networking with peers and Compellent end-users.
Register to win one of five $500 Visa cash cards to be given away at our booth on Thursday, Sept. 2 at 1 PM. But remember—you must be present to win.

Live from VMworld 2010: Introducing Amanda Zook, Compellent Social Media Reporter for VMworld

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:35:00 -0500

Editor's Note: Amanda Zook from Biola University is a Compellent customer MVP and our social media woman-on-the-street at VMworld. She has safely arrived and ready for some VMworld excitement.

Read Amanda's Adventures to get all the latest updates about Amanda Zook’s trip to VMworld and the numerous activities she has planned. We look forward to reading more about what Amanda learns and shares this week at VMworld, it’s going to be a great week!

In Route to VMworld:

Things started off a little scary. Took the metro from my house to LAX—I have only done it once before, and it went okay, but some times there are delays, so I left at 9 AM for an 11:40 flight. Just to be safe. I ended up at the gate by 9:30, so needless to say I was way early. Good thing though; I found out the travel agent company who booked my flight booked it from San Francisco to LAX for today and then LAX to SF for Thursday. Umm, I’m standing at the ticket counter in LAX, obviously I’m not flying out of SF! Praise God that the ticketing agent was willing to change it for me for no charge! That flight was supposed to leave at 11. Unfortunately there was such thick fog in SF that we weren’t able to leave until 1:30! So I had a long morning at the airport, but I’m a mobile girl: have laptop, book/magazine, iPhone always on me. I’m always working/studying/prepping/learning about something. I can work anywhere, even if I don’t have internet (like now, while I’m waiting for the Calitrain to take me to San Jose to visit a friend and take a tour of Apple’s headquarters).

Excited to go to Apple! I’m visiting a friend who works at Apple. We were MIS students together at Biola University, and I’m always fascinated by what he’s doing. He’s a SysAdmin too (but way smarter than I am!). I always like catching up with him to see what he’s working on and how he’s doing. Maybe one day I’ll work with him at Apple (or wherever he is at that point in time; last year when I visited he was at eBay). For now I’ll live vicariously through his SysAdmin duties at a Fortune 500, but one day I’ll be there too!

What a week this will be! I’m excited! Looking forward to meeting lots of people at VMworld, going to sessions, helping out as a customer rep in the Compellent booth, AND going to the Women of Purpose meeting! Please let me find another woman sysadmin! I’m tired of no lines in the women’s bathroom at tech conferences. Women aren’t used to that! We like go take group trips to the bathroom haha.

On a side note not related to VMworld, my house should close escrow this week! So it’s a big week in all areas of life! Woo hoo! Hopefully when I get back, they’ll hand me the keys. Pray that it all goes smoothly!

Goals:

Find out how large scale companies use VMware. What does it look like in a big environment? We have about 150 VMs, but if you had more, how do you manage them? I think when you grow larger, you have to be more efficient as you can’t manually power on 500 VMs one click at a time. I’m interested in learning about this. It probably involves….
…Powershell scripting. I’m going to a session. I really want to learn how to script. How can you be a SysAdmin without knowing it? From anyone I’ve talked to, you’re not a true SysAdmin until you can. When we set up our goals for the year (in October) this will be at the top of my list. I’ll start it as a goal now so that I can have a head start.
Find some good gluten free bakeries! I looked online and SF has lots of GF places. Ahh, fresh bread! Can’t wait. I want soup in a bread bowl. Not sure if they do that, but I’ve heard that the San Francisco Soup Company does gluten free bread, so maybe! Also going to hit up the Mariposa Artisan Bakery to get some muffins. Love it! Maybe I should start a GF bakery in LA… hmm. Food for thought.
Having fun on Public Transportation. Metro to LAX, plane, shuttle, BART, Caltrain to San Jose, Muni to Moscone, walking to hotel.
I want to be intentional at networking. (Not quite sure how this will play out, but I don’t want to just be the friendly person that people are talking to. I want to be a useful resource where I can help teach and explain things to people and be beneficial to them and their time; also to learn from them and take good information back to my team. Of course I do want to meet people just to have some new tech friends. But I feel like I’m pretty good at that. Intentionality is to be learned.) Anyone have good questions that you’re interested in knowing about for people in the tech industry?
Utilizing social media: I’m the social media person (or something like that, correct me if that’s not right) for Compellent, as their customer representative. I’m going to be talking with people, interviewing some VMworld-ers on camera, blogging about sessions, and talking with potential customers in their booth.
Also, I’m going to be trying an experiment: My first Tuesday night class for Intro to MIS is going to be taught via Skype. Expanding Biola University’s use of online resources. Someone should tell the Department of Distance learning. Maybe The Chimes (Biola’s newspaper) will write about me I think it will be cool! (I have to give props to my mom for thinking of the idea; She’s never used skype even, but she totally thought of the idea!) Hopefully it works out well.
Learn about the different products that VMware has. Maybe see some Virtual Desktop demonstrations, or take other ideas about cool new technologies back to Biola.

Keep your eye on the blog here. I’ll be posting every day about the sessions and highlights of the day.

Lots of firsts for me this week: first time visiting Apple headquarters (and hopefully not the last), First Tuesday Intro to MIS class via skype, first big conference (Only been to Compellent’s C-drive conference, which at 500-ish people I guess isn’t big compared to the 12,000+ people that I’ve heard are going to be at VMworld!), first house purchased (hopefully!), and first time being Compellent’s MVP customer!

Get ready for a great week at VMworld and otherwise!