Compellent QuickStart SE Virtualization Bundles for SMBs

Compellent Technologies, Inc. announced the launch of QuickStart SE bundles to enable businesses to adopt storage virtualization for increased data efficiency and scale to enterprise-level storage management capabilities on a single platform.

Compellent’s QuickStart SE bundles provide the benefits of enterprise capabilities such as automated, continuous data protection and resource monitoring that were previously unavailable to the fast-growing small-to-midrange market.

Based on input from its 100 percent all-channel sales force, Compellent’s QuickStart SE solution was developed for growing businesses moving from direct-attached storage to shared storage, which can better support their transition to fully virtualized data centers and lower IT costs. Compellent’s offering combines thin provisioning, continuous snapshots and storage resource management applications with storage virtualization to help automate data movement and management for organizations with limited IT resources. QuickStart SE allows companies to later expand their storage solution easily by adding software, such as automated tiered storage or remote replication, and emerging hardware standards like SSD without having to rip-and-replace existing storage investments.

"Compellent’s persistent product design allows us to provide flexible virtualized offerings on one platform, which enables businesses of all sizes to easily manage enterprise data storage, both now and over the long-term," explained Bruce Kornfeld, vice president of marketing, Compellent. "QuickStart SE gives customers the flexibility to initially purchase only the capacity they need, while still having the peace-of-mind to know an upgrade is just a click away. With QuickStart SE, small to midsized enterprises get the benefits of big business storage capabilities without the big-ticket investment up front."

Provo City Library Simplifies Virtualization
with QuickStart SE
Provo City Library, headquartered in Provo City, Utah, is an information hub for residents, businesses and a growing student population. With the influx of information generated, the library quickly graduated to a small business-level IT system. John Meade, system analyst II, Provo City Library, implemented storage and server virtualization using Compellent QuickStart SE and VMware to consolidate the data quickly outgrowing its 14 servers.

"When evaluating my storage options, I knew moving to a SAN was the preferred choice to help take my server virtualization to the next level," explained Meade. "My top priorities in the decision-making process were price, growth potential and VMware compatibility. My VAR quickly recommended the Compellent QuickStart SE, because it was feature-rich and could be easily upgraded. Since the implementation, we’ve cut our hardware requirements by a quarter through server and storage virtualization, and we’re on-track for further consolidation."

Collaborating with the Channel to Deliver QuickStart SE
Based on feedback from its Channel Partner Advisory Council, Compellent developed the QuickStart SE bundle after seeing a growing trend in the number of small and midsized businesses looking for an enterprise-class SAN on an SMB budget. The advisory council is a panel comprising Compellent resellers that provide feedback on products, services and the channel program. Compellent’s scalable infrastructure is ideal for growing businesses because they can easily add new capabilities over time without the cost of downtime or complex migration to different models.

"The channel saw a demand for SAN-based storage from the small and midsized businesses we service, but they were limited by the excess costs and complexity of traditional storage," explained Patrick Mulvee, vice president of sales and marketing at Sidepath and founding member of Compellent’s channel advisory council. "QuickStart SE employs the same single, scalable array Compellent is known for, allowing users to grow their storage from one to 1,000 terabytes, without ever requiring a forklift upgrade. The end-user benefits by getting an easy to manage virtualized environment and we also benefit from opportunities down the road to help customers add new technologies and solutions like disaster recovery whenever it suits them."

Pricing and Availability
Compellent is offering its QuickStart SE solution exclusively through the company’s growing international network of channel partners in more than 30 countries.

Compellent QuickStart SE bundles start at approximately $25,500, which includes 4.8 TB of Fibre Channel storage with Dynamic Capacity thin provisioning, Data Instant Replay snapshots and Enterprise Manager storage resource management applications. All pricing excludes maintenance plans and professional services.