by Stephen Anderson, Director of Alliance Marketing — June 17, 2008

It was an exciting time to be at TechEd last week, where we were not only included in Microsoft’s partner sessions, but also learned we are now a worldwide Microsoft Partner of the Year.

Compellent is honored to have been chosen from among more than 2,000 partners for the Partner of the Year award. The award recognizes partners who delivered on “significant customer impact, originality, effective time to market, deployment of advanced features, and the ability to optimize their use of Microsoft technologies to meet business needs.”

According to Microsoft's award summary, "The flexibility of Compellent Storage Center, coupled with its integration with Volume Shadow Copy Services, makes it possible for administrators to recover data for Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and other Microsoft applications—quickly and efficiently."

Selected for the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Storage Solutions category, Compellent virtualized storage and Microsoft just go together.  In fact, they complement each other so well that earlier this year Compellent was selected as a core storage component of the Microsoft Partner Solution Center’s (MPSC) virtual data center and disaster recovery strategy.

So here’s to a tried-and-true combination: Compellent and Microsoft.

by Justin Braun, Microsoft Product Specialist — June 11, 2008

Being with all these Microsoft experts at Tech Ed reminds me of the time I used to work for Microsoft several years ago. I spent a lot of time with my customers working on solutions around Systems Management Server (SMS), Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), and even had some early adopters of Data Protection Manager (DPM). SMS is now known as Configuration Manager and DPM is stronger than ever with its new version which protects advanced application data (SQL and Exchange) as well as your existing files and folders.Those technologies have all changed and evolved all underneath one umbrella. Enter Microsoft System Center.

System Center ties all of these components together. From deployment of desktops and servers, to asset management, service center (help desk) management, and protecting your data. I am particularly interested in learning more about System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Hyper-V, and DPM and how the evolution and advancement of all of these products fits together, so without further ado…

System Center Virtual Machine Manager
SCVMM has a 2007 version which allows you to manage instances of Microsoft Virtual Server from a single MMC. Those familiar with Virtual Server know that it was administrable only through the web interface. The change to the MMC seems to be mainstream and provides a lot more functionality.

Microsoft announced the beta availability of SCVMM 2008 during MMS. SCVMM 2008 brings a number of new features including the ability to manage Hyper-V hosts as well as Virtual Server. The big feature was received the most attention is it's ability to manage VMware ESX hosts. Not only can you manage ESX hosts machines and their guests, but you can also initiate VMotion right from within the SCVMM console. What a powerful feature. They hit the mark by tying these technologies together and are considering how they can tie other technologies into the mix such as Virtual Iron and Xen. A Live Migration feature similar to VMotion is also in the works. It's timing for a release at this point is unknown. The SCVMM 2008 beta is available for download on the Microsoft Connect website.

Check back later this week for some insight on Hyper-V and Data Protection Manager…

by Justin Braun, Microsoft Product Specialist — June 10, 2008

We’re back in Orlando, FL this week for Microsoft Tech-Ed 2008. For the first time, Tech-Ed has expanded from a one-week conference into two separate conferences held back-to-back. Compellent is again proud to be a sponsor for the IT Professionals conference of Tech-Ed 2008, which is being held this week, June 10–13.

Over 10,000 attendees are expected to converge on the Orange County Convention Center to get their fill of information and education on current, existing, and emerging Microsoft technologies. Tech-Ed will offer 19 technical tracks and over 390 breakout sessions that cover the large range of different roles that the typical IT Pro plays.

Representatives from Microsoft will be in the Compellent booth today, Tuesday, to discuss their new Solution Accelerator that makes offline servicing of Microsoft Virtual Machines a simple task when coupled with Compellent Storage Center.  Be sure to stop by and see us (Booth #914) to learn more about this solution and why Compellent is the best SAN for your Microsoft infrastructure.

by Justin Braun, Microsoft Product Specialist — February 27, 2008

This morning, the launch kicked off with retired NBC Nightly News anchor, Tom Brokaw addressing attendees about the role technology plays in our lives and the dependency on IT in most things we do. Brokaw then introduced Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.

Ballmer discussed the concept of "Dynamic IT" where you enable and provide agility through new technology. Dynamic IT is seen as an overall strategic business asset versus just a cost center. Microsoft continues to focus on industry trends like software and services, developing for openness, the rich user experience, and virtualization. Microsoft sees virtualization as still being in its early stages in the industry and according to Ballmer, less than 10% of the world’s servers are virtualized.

Windows® Server 2008 has been a long time coming, but now that it's here, let's talk about some examples of the interoperability between Windows® Server 2008 and the Compellent Storage Center SAN:

Certified for Windows® Server 2008
The Compellent Storage Center 4.0 carries the "Certified for Windows® Server 2008" qualification on both the 32-bit and 64-bit platform. You can find us in the Windows® Server Catalog.

No Server Agents
We don't require any special drivers to use our storage in a Microsoft environment. Connect your server via your Fibre Channel or iSCSI infrastructure to the Compellent Storage Center and within a few minutes you're ready to go.

Thin Provisioning
With the thin provisioning capabilities of Dynamic Capacity technology we don't need to pre-allocate space for volumes or Replays (snapshots). With Windows® Server 2008, the standard installation will consume around 6GB of disk space. The recommended volume size for a boot volume is now 40GB for Windows Server 2008. You shouldn't have to consume all that space before the data is written. You can extend those capabilities by creating a "gold" image of your Windows build, take a Replay then use the Replay for the boot volumes in your environment.

Remember, on the Compellent Storage Center Replays only consume space for the deltas—that is, the changes between the snapshot and any new data that is written. With Dynamic Capacity and Data Progression (automated tiered storage), you can cut your disk space utilization and costs drastically in your Windows environment.

by Justin Braun, Microsoft Product Specialist — February 26, 2008

Last week we announced the launch of Storage Center 4.0 with new and exciting features like Fast Track, Free Space Recovery and Thin Import. This week I am in Los Angeles for another exciting event: the official launch of Windows® Server 2008 (SQL Server® 2008 and Visual Studio® 2008 too!)

Microsoft will host the premier kick-off to this event, sold-out and with more than 3,000 attendees expected, starting tomorrow, Wednesday, February 27, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In addition, more than 200 other worldwide launch events are planned. The theme “Heroes Happen Here” celebrates the real world IT heroes from help desk workers and IT pros to developers everywhere.

A Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, Compellent is proud to be a sponsor for this event. My colleagues and I will be giving demos and answering questions at the Compellent station no. 50 in the Partner Pavilion (Petree Hall C) starting Wednesday, so come by see us and also register to win an Xbox 360!

Stay tuned for updates from the launch event on Wednesday.