Compellent Technologies

Compellent Technologies, Inc. was an American enterprise-storage company founded in 2002 and headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. It developed block-level storage systems for small and medium-sized enterprises and sold them through independent technology providers, channel partners, and resellers. The company’s principal product was Storage Center, a storage-area-network platform that combined specialized hardware with software for storage virtualization, thin provisioning, automated tiering, snapshots, replication, and centralized management. Compellent differentiated Storage Center through granular data placement and policy-based storage management. Its DataProgression technology tracked information about individual data blocks, including access patterns and the type of storage media being used, and could move data between performance-oriented and capacity-oriented tiers. This approach was intended to help customers balance performance, capacity, resilience, and infrastructure costs without manually relocating entire volumes. The platform supported multiple host and drive technologies, including Fibre Channel, iSCSI, solid-state drives, Fibre Channel disks, Serial Attached SCSI, and SATA-based storage. The Storage Center product family was built around redundant controllers, disk enclosures, connectivity components, storage media, and software modules. Its capabilities included storage virtualization, automated tiered storage, thin provisioning, continuous snapshots, remote replication, Live Volumes, and boot-from-SAN functionality. The company also provided technical support, consulting, training, and managed services through its Copilot organization. SupportAssist, previously called Phone Home, monitored deployed systems remotely and generated alerts intended to help identify problems proactively. Compellent expanded from an early-stage storage vendor into a publicly traded company. It completed its initial public offering in October 2007, reported its first profitable quarter in the third quarter of 2008, and subsequently reported consecutive profitable quarters. In February 2010, it reported fourth-quarter 2009 revenue growth of 35 percent compared with the same quarter of 2008 and full-year revenue of $125.3 million. These results helped establish the company as an increasingly visible competitor in the midrange storage market. Dell agreed to acquire Compellent in December 2010 for approximately $960 million, and the transaction closed in February 2011. After the acquisition, Compellent operated for a period as Dell Compellent, while its technology was incorporated into Dell’s storage portfolio. Dell gradually reduced use of the standalone Compellent name and later marketed successor products under the Dell Storage Center and Dell SC-series naming conventions, including systems such as the Dell SC9000. Compellent therefore survives primarily as a technology lineage and product heritage within Dell’s enterprise-storage business rather than as an independent operating brand. The company also promoted environmental aspects of its operations. Its Eden Prairie headquarters received LEED Gold certification and incorporated features intended to reduce water and energy consumption, including water-efficient facilities, drip irrigation, efficient heating and cooling equipment, carbon-dioxide monitoring, and low-emission building materials. In 2009, Computerworld recognized Compellent among its leading green IT vendors for corporate and technology initiatives related to energy use and carbon emissions.

Compellent Technologies was established in 2002 by Phil Soran, John Guider, and Larry Aszmann, whose backgrounds included network storage and virtualization. The company was created to address the storage-management needs of organizations that required enterprise capabilities but did not necessarily have the scale or budgets of the largest data-center operators. From its Minnesota base, Compellent developed a channel-oriented business model, working with independent providers and resellers to reach customers in the small and medium-sized enterprise segment. Its central technology was Storage Center, a storage-area-network platform combining a standards-based hardware architecture with proprietary management software. Rather than treating storage as a collection of fixed volumes, the system maintained metadata about individual blocks of data. That information could include when data was written, how often it was accessed, which volume it belonged to, the type of drive holding it, and the applicable RAID configuration. Compellent used this granular view to automate movement between faster and higher-capacity storage tiers through DataProgression. The company presented the approach as a way to improve utilization and reduce equipment, power, and cooling requirements. Storage Center also incorporated storage virtualization, thin provisioning, continuous snapshots, remote replication, Live Volumes, and boot-from-SAN capabilities. Its hardware architecture used redundant controllers, power supplies, and connectivity components to support availability. Customers could expand systems by adding disk drives or input/output cards, while the Storage Center Operating System was updated over time. The platform supported Fibre Channel and iSCSI host connections as well as several generations of solid-state and magnetic disk technologies. Compellent’s business developed rapidly during the second half of the 2000s. The company went public on October 15, 2007. It reached profitability for the first time in the third quarter of 2008 and reported profitability in subsequent consecutive quarters. Its products received industry recognition in the midrange storage and virtualization markets, while its channel program and technical-support operation helped it compete against larger storage suppliers. In February 2010, Compellent reported strong fourth-quarter 2009 performance, including 35 percent year-over-year revenue growth and its seventeenth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Beyond products, Compellent offered support and services through its Copilot organization. These services included technical maintenance, managed services, consulting, and training. Its SupportAssist monitoring system, formerly called Phone Home, was designed to detect system conditions remotely and alert support personnel before issues became more serious. The company also emphasized environmental performance. Its Eden Prairie headquarters received LEED Gold certification and used water-saving landscaping and plumbing, efficient heating and cooling equipment, carbon-dioxide monitoring, low-emission materials, and construction-waste recycling. Computerworld recognized Compellent as a leading green IT vendor in 2009. Dell announced an agreement to acquire Compellent on December 13, 2010, for approximately $960 million. The transaction was completed in February 2011. Compellent initially continued as a recognizable Dell storage product line under the Dell Compellent name. Over subsequent years, Dell progressively integrated the technology and phased out the standalone brand, using Dell Storage Center and SC-series designations such as Dell SC9000. The independent Compellent company consequently ceased to operate as a separate brand, although its architecture, software concepts, and product lineage continued within Dell’s storage portfolio.

• 2011

  Acquisition completed

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Dell completed the acquisition and initially marketed the product family as Dell Compellent.

• 2010

  Dell acquisition agreement

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Dell agreed to acquire Compellent for approximately $960 million.

• 2009

  Green IT recognition

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Computerworld included Compellent among its recognized green IT vendors, citing environmental aspects of the company and its technology.

• 2008

  First profitability

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Compellent reported its first profitable quarter in the third quarter of 2008 and received further industry and partner recognition.

• 2007

  Initial public offering

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Compellent completed its initial public offering on October 15, 2007.

• 2006

  Growing recognition in the storage market

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  The company appeared in emerging-vendor and technology recommendation programs, including recognition for Compellent Storage Center and its SAN capabilities.

• 2005

  Storage product recognition

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Compellent received Storage Magazine recognition for its disk and disk-subsystem products.

• 2002

  Company founded

  [1]Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org

  Phil Soran, John Guider, and Larry Aszmann founded Compellent Technologies in Minnesota.

A midrange enterprise-storage specialist focused on automated, virtualized, and policy-driven storage management for small and medium-sized IT environments.

• Storage-area-network platform

  Storage Center

  Storage Center was Compellent’s flagship SAN system. It combined redundant storage controllers, disk enclosures, connectivity hardware, and the Storage Center Operating System with software for virtualization, thin provisioning, automated tiering, snapshots, replication, Live Volumes, and boot-from-SAN. The platform managed storage at a granular block level and supported Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity together with solid-state, Fibre Channel, SAS, and SATA media.

• Automated storage tiering

  DataProgression

  DataProgression was Compellent’s proprietary approach to moving data between storage tiers. By monitoring block-level metadata and access behavior, the system could place frequently used information on faster media and less active information on higher-capacity media. The intended benefit was better utilization of mixed storage resources without requiring administrators to move complete volumes manually.

• Storage-management software

  Storage Center Operating System

  The Storage Center Operating System, commonly referred to as SCOS, provided the software foundation for Compellent systems. It coordinated storage virtualization, provisioning, tiering, snapshots, replication, host connectivity, and system administration across the Storage Center hardware platform. The operating system was updated regularly during the independent Compellent period.

• Technical support and services

  Copilot

  Copilot was Compellent’s support and services organization, providing maintenance, technical assistance, managed services, consulting, and training. It was based at the company’s Minnesota headquarters and supported customers operating Storage Center systems.

• 2010

  Compellent agrees to Dell acquisitionM&A

  Background

  Compellent had established a growing position in midrange enterprise storage, while Dell was expanding its data-center and storage portfolio.

  Action taken

  Compellent agreed to be acquired by Dell in a transaction valued at approximately $960 million.

  Aftermath

  The transaction closed in February 2011. Compellent initially operated as Dell Compellent, and its technology was later marketed through Dell Storage Center and SC-series products.

  Announced acquisition value. Approximately $960 million (December 2010 announcement)

  Source

1. 1Compellent Technologiesen.wikipedia.org