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 8th and July 22nd, 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?