by Lawrence E. Aszmann, Chief Technology Officer — October 1, 2008

I knew a month or so ago, when I heard a segment on NPR about cloud computing, that it was a concept taking hold of people’s imaginations. I’m waiting for the Today Show segment, which is when I’ll know for sure that it’s a topic for mass media frenzy.

All kidding aside, there is no doubt that the concept of cloud computing is gaining momentum in the IT community. The concept isn’t as new as some media coverage might lead you to believe – from the time of the first outsourcing done by the Big 6 (remember them?) consulting firms, there have been ways for companies to outsource and “pay as you go” for IT services. Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Software as a Service (SaaS) furthered that direction in the late 90s, and early 2000s. Small companies are using Google’s AppManagement as their IT infrastructure, and more companies are using storage and server virtualization to create a cloud (one server running multiple applications) in their own data centers. The question is, can larger companies benefit from cloud computing similar to this, but on a broader scale?

It seems like larger organizations are unsure about whether the lack of control is outweighed by the cost savings of not investing in an in-house data center – let’s be honest, when it comes to IT, it’s nice to know that your company’s critical data is inside your own organization’s walls, and firewalls. But, major IT players like VMware and Microsoft are embracing the cloud – and the role of virtualization in cloud computing – and have discussed it on several occasions. The appeal of the cloud could sway more CIOs to take a closer look, as evidenced by a recent CIO magazine article on the concept, which cites a Forrester Research report called, “Is Cloud Computing Ready for the Enterprise?”

We’d like to hear from our customers, partners and readers with their thoughts on “the cloud”, and what their plans are for using it. I invite you to join in the cloud computing discussion and answer the question: Would you trust your data to the cloud?

by Lawrence E. Aszmann, Chief Technology Officer — September 12, 2008

Earlier this week Compellent was the Platinum sponsor of the Microsoft Virtualization Launch event in Bellevue, WA. Customers including financial firm Munder Capital Management attended to learn more about optimizing Hyper-V for their data centers running on the Compellent SAN. Here's a short clip of Phil Soran congratulating the Microsoft team on a great launch, which was shown to the 1,200 folks in the audience.

by Lawrence E. Aszmann, Chief Technology Officer — September 11, 2008

Two of Compellent’s key technologies – Data Progression and Replays – have recently been accepted for patents.

I’m excited to tell you that as of the patents’ issue dates, July 8^th and July 22^nd, we are the only company with these proprietary technologies. We have many other patents pending.

You can read the full patents, in all their legalistic language, at the US Patent and Trademark Office site, but for those of you who aren’t lawyers, here’s what they mean:

Data Progression Patent

Our Dynamic Block Architecture is the foundation for everything Compellent does and is the key to the way blocks of data are metatagged and manipulated. Unlike legacy storage systems, Compellent manages data inside the volume, and DBA enables all the features that Compellent offers in one SAN – and competitors can’t – like Data Progression (automated tiered storage), Dynamic Capacity (thin provisioning), Fast Track, Free Space Recovery and other storage management applications.

The patented Data Progression software takes a problem—information lifecycle management—that can’t be solved well manually, and automates storage tiering. Simply, Data Progression moves unused (or rarely used) data to lower-cost, more energy-efficient storage. Because you aren’t using the data anyway, it’s there, it can be easily retrieved, but it isn’t eating up your IT budget. When the data is used again, it automatically moves back to a higher tier, to eliminate latency.

The key advantages of Data Progression are cost, footprint and energy savings. In a recent test, 146 GB were stored on RAID-10 volumes, versus 1 TB stored on RAID-5 SATA drives. The terabyte of data, although much greater in quantity, used just 8% the cost, 8% the footprint and 6% of the energy. This translates into real savings.

The configuration of Data Progression is now optimized in the latest version of Storage Center, version 4.1. We’ve incorporated best practices for tiering storage, and have applied recommended parameters automatically to volumes, which will make it easier to get the benefits of automated tiered storage right out of the box. If customization is needed you can create profiles and apply that same tiered setting for one volume, a group of them, or all volumes--for instance, you can create a unique tiered setting for all digital images.

Here are some screen shots of the old and new interface for comparison.

Data Progression Interface – Storage Center 4.0

Data Progression Interface – Storage Center 4.1.x
1. Default, optimized setting: No configuration needed, all active data written to RAID 10, Replays written to RAID 5 for all volumes

2. Creating Customized Automated Tiered Storage Profile

Data Instant Replay Patent

Our patented Data Instant Replay technology enables continuous snapshots but does it in a way that’s more efficient – we only copy changed data, not full clones of entire volumes. This makes it easier to replicate data over IP networks, using Remote Instant Replays, for a relatively inexpensive disaster recovery solution.

Storage Center 4.1 now makes it possible to automatically migrate Replays within a single tier. This means you can dynamically migrate Replays between RAID volumes – e.g. from RAID 10 to RAID 5—within one tier of storage.

Compellent improves storage performance by creating practical and innovative ways of managing your active and inactive data. We want to hear from you. What are the greatest challenges to you in terms of managing your storage? How are you tiering storage today?

by Lawrence E. Aszmann, Chief Technology Officer — September 3, 2008

With the average businesses’ data doubling every 18 months, and that data becoming increasingly valuable, having a reliable and fast disaster recovery plan is more critical than ever. Compellent partners Fordway, Foresight Computer, Winslow Technology, and Davenport Group discuss the importance of disaster recovery to end-users and customers Ares Management, Munder Capital Management and London Borough of Hillingdon tell us why, as Mike Dufek of Munder Capital Management explains, “I put my investments… where my data’s at, because that’s the most important thing to me.” Mike is also quoted, along with our customers Tidewater and OfficeWare, in a news release we issued today describing the different applications and benefits of our thin replication technology.



Want to see more videos? Compellent’s now on YouTube. Check it out.

by Lawrence E. Aszmann, Chief Technology Officer — May 12, 2008

As we bring C-Drive 2008 to a close we wanted to extend a thank you to all of our business partners, customers, analysts and media folks that took the time to come and participate. Here is a video compilation of take-aways from this year’s event. We look forward to seeing you all back again in 2009!