| Type | Public (NYSE: CML) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Data storage devices |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Founder(s) | Larry Aszmann John Guider Phil Soran |
| Headquarters | 7625 Smetana Lane Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Michael Dell (Chairman & CEO) |
| Products | Storage Center, Storage Center with NAS |
| Revenue | $ 125.3 million (2009) |
| Employees | 565 (Start of 2011) |
| Website | www.dell.com/compellent |
Originally named Compellent Technologies, Inc (NYSE: CML), founded in 2002, is a global provider of enterprise storage systems that gained recognition for automating data movement at the block level. The company is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA. Compellent's chief product, Storage Center, is a storage area network (SAN) system that combines a standards-based hardware platform and a suite of virtualized storage management applications, including automated tiered storage, thin provisioning and replication. The company developed its Storage Center software and hardware solution aimed at mid-size enterprises and sells Storage Center through an all-channel network of independent solution providers and resellers.[1]
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Compellent Technologies was founded in 2002 by Phil Soran, John Guider, and Larry Aszmann. The three have extensive network storage and virtualization backgrounds.
The company had its initial public offering on October 15, 2007, became profitable for the first time in Q3 2008 and has been profitable in consecutive quarters since. On February 11, 2010, it announced Q4 2009 revenues had increased 35 percent over Q4 2008, the company’s 17th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, with full year revenue of $125.3 million.[2]
On December 13, 2010, Compellent announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) at a purchase price of $27.75 per share for an equity value of approximately $960M. The purchase was completed in February 2011 and the name changed to Dell Compellent.
Compellent’s SAN, called "Storage Center", combines several virtualized storage-management applications and one standards-based hardware platform. The storage solution is based on its Dynamic Block Architecture, which tracks metadata, information about each block of data stored on the Compellent system, including the date and time written, frequency of access, associated volume, type of disk drive used, type of data stored and RAID level.[3] Large amounts of data are stored and managed on a granular level and assigned automatically to high-performance drives or large-capacity drives. Compellent claims this method of data management can "lower storage costs by half and cut power and cooling costs by up to 93 percent."[4]
There is one Storage Center product model. The base configuration of Storage Center includes a disk array controller, disk enclosure, disk drives, connectivity hardware, and software modules. The operating system, also called Storage Center, is regularly updated. Software modules include:
Compellent’s hardware supports different server/host interfaces (such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI) and drive technologies (such as solid state drives, Fibre Channel, Serial Attached SCSI and SATA drives). To expand the hardware, users add new drives or I/O cards to the existing system.
Compellent provides technical support and professional managed services through its Copilot team, housed at its Minnesota headquarters. Copilot technical support and service representatives provide maintenance, managed services, consultative services and training. Phone Home is an automated problem-detection service that remotely monitors each customer’s SAN and provides proactive alerting on issues.
The company headquarters occupies the first commercial facility in Minnesota's Twin Cities region to receive a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) designation, now Gold-certified, from the United States Green Building Council.[5] Compellent’s Eden Prairie campus has sustainable design elements such as waterless urinals and drip irrigation systems for landscaping that cut water consumption by 40 percent, energy-efficient HVAC equipment with carbon dioxide monitors, and low emission paints and adhesives. In addition, 75 percent of the building’s construction waste was recycled.[6]
In 2009, Computerworld magazine honored Compellent as a top green IT vendor for its corporate and technology efforts to reduce power consumption and lower carbon emissions.[7]
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2010 | InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award[8] |
| 2010 | Business Solutions Best Channel Vendor List[9] |
| 2009 | Network Computing UK Technology Project of the Year - London Borough of Hillingdon[10] |
| 2009 | CRN Channel Chiefs[11] |
| 2009 | ComputerWorld Top 12 Green IT Vendors |
| 2008 | Gold "Best of VMWorld 2008" in Hardware for Virtualization[12] |
| 2008 | Microsoft Partner of the Year for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Storage Solutions[13] |
| 2008 | InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN[14] |
| 2008 | Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year - Upper Midwest Region[15] |
| 2008 | Diogenes Labs - Storage Magazine Quality Awards for Midrange Arrays[16] |
| 2007 | CRN 50 Emerging Vendors You Should Know[17] |
| 2006 | CRN Emerging Vendors - No. 1 Storage Standout[18] |
| 2006 | TechWorld UK Recommends - Compellent Storage Centre[19] |
| 2006 | InfoWorld Technology of the Year - Best SAN[20] |
| 2005 | Storage Magazine Bronze Product of the Year - Disk and Disk Subsystems[21] |