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Historically, IT departments have responded to growing business demands bydeploying servers, storage and networking dedicated to specic applicationsor functions. In many cases, this resulted in a complex infrastructure that is

difficult to manage and costly to maintain. Meanwhile, the explosive growth ofdata continues while the operating costs in the data center keep on increasing:80% of the IT budget is spent just to keep the data center running 1, and thevolume of global data is expected to grow nine fold in the next 5 years, with90% of it being the most challenging, unstructured data 2.

Consolidation of IT infrastructure through virtualization has become a key priorityfor IT decision makers looking for solutions to these challenges. The benets of aconsolidated data center can be signicant, including a better system utilization,improved IT agility, simplied management and improved data availabilityand protection. Many organizations have already experienced some benetsof consolidation by virtualizing servers. But by taking it one step further andcombining server virtualization with storage consolidation, enterprises can morefully realize the advantages of a modern, efficient data center.

While the choice of the storage platform is key to realizing these benets, manytraditional storage systems dont meet some basic requirements. The right storagearchitecture adapts to change, transforms a rigid platform into a exible andscalable system, and helps to shift from operation to innovation. With its modular,scalable and highly efficient platform, the Dell Compellent multi-protocolenterprise storage addresses many of the storage consolidation requirements.

Efficient Storage Consolidation with Dell Compellent

Dell Compellent delivers unmatchedlevels of efficiency, agility and

resiliency in the consolidated storageenvironments with:

Seamless upgrades and systemexpansion: Easy scalability acrossblock and le without disruption,downtime or forklift upgrades.

Hyper-efficient use of disk space andintelligent data movement: Optimizedcost and data placement for block andle with industry-leading automatedstorage tiering.

Continuous data protection againstdowntime and disaster: Applicationavailability and instant restore of datawith the space-efficient, application-aware continuous snapshots.

Reduced licensing costs: Future-proofstorage investment with an innovativelicensing model.

Easy integration across leadingtechnologies with open architecture: Simplication and automation of VMmanagement with dozens of points ofengineering integration.

Simplied and streamlinedmanagement: Centralized multi-sitemanagement, monitoring and reporting.

World-class support and services:Enterprise-class Copilot support.

Solution Brief

Figure 1. When combined with server virtualization, Dell Compellent can help drive newlevels of efficiency and agility into data consolidation initiatives.

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Siloed, fragmented storage hinders IT agilityand efficiency

IT departments that have deployed server virtualizationwithout storage consolidation continue to deal with complexmanagement, limited scalability and suboptimal TCO.Consolidating direct-attached storage (DAS), legacy storagearea networks (SANs) or a sprawl of le servers can deliverthe most immediate results. In DAS, storage is accessible onlyto a single server, limiting scalability and creating inefficiencies

in support and management. In the traditional legacy SANs,scalability is still limited, and the SANs require frequent disruptiveforklift upgrades to add capacity or new features. Finally,the sprawl of le servers used to store the rapidly growingunstructured le-based data poses an opportunity for storageconsolidation. The scalability of le servers is often conned toa single device with no scale-out capacity, manual upgrades aredisruptive and time-consuming, and support is fractured andcumbersome. These are some of the environments that canrealize immediate operational efficiencies and cost reductionsfrom storage consolidation projects.

Dell Compellent unifying architecture delivers

unmatched levels of efficiency, agility and resiliencyDell Compellent is a virtualized, self-optimized storage systemwith built-in intelligence and automation to optimize datathroughout its lifecycle. Based on a modular architecture thatunies block and le data, it brings unrivaled levels of IT efficiency,agility and resiliency to storage consolidation initiatives. Thesecapabilities are crucial in consolidated environments whichneed to stay nimble to quickly respond to shifting businessrequirements in a cost-effective way.

Maximize operational efficiencies in consolidatedenvironments: Legacy storage systems may waste up to60% of capacity on empty disk space, and keep as much as80% of inactive data on high-cost drives. Dell Compellentthin provisioning technology, a key efficiency driver, allowsstorage to be allocated real time when data is written todisk, eliminating the need to pre-allocate capacity. Theautomated tiered storage technology tracks data usageand optimizes cost and data placement for block andle by moving the data to the best storage tier based onhow often its accessed. Together, these Dell Compellentfeatures automate data movement throughout the datalifecycle, making the most efficient use of disk space whilemaintaining required performance levels. These efficienciesallow Dell Compellent customers to reduce the cost ofpurchasing and managing storage by up to 80% 3.

Support greater IT agility on a virtualized storage platform:Organizations with legacy storage systems are oftensubjected to forklift upgrades and high licensing costs. TheDell Compellent agile and persistent hardware architectureallows organizations to scale easily across block and lestorage without disruption and rip-and-replace. With aperpetual software licensing model, customers neverneed to re-purchase the same software again. With theseagility features, Dell Compellent becomes a future-proofplatform which not only supports the near term objectivesbut can also evolve and respond to change that drivesbusiness growth over time. This agility is a key requirementin consolidated environments which may need to serve theneeds of many groups and must be exible and nimble toachieve many diverse goals.

Guarantee business continuity and reduce risk: When datais destroyed whether by human error or environmentalfactors organizations nd that data recovery is a difficultand slow process. On many legacy storage platforms,replication is costly and complex. Dell Compellent protectsits data against downtime and disaster, ensuring thatinformation is always available to applications and userswithout sacricing. Space-efficient snapshots providecontinuous data protection but only consume space that isneeded. Snapshots are leveraged in remote replication forhigh availability across multiple sites, enabling administratorsto recover most volumes to a server in less than 10 secondsusing a simple point-and-click interface. The snapshotsoftware ensures time-consistent snapshots of MicrosoftExchange Server, SQL Server and Hyper-V data. And forany support issues, Compellent is backed by the Copilotteam which provides around-the-clock phone support andproactive remote monitoring.

End to end data optimization drives business results

Designed to help enterprises realize immediate and tangibleresults and reduce total storage costs, Dell Compellent is a fullyvirtualized storage which efficiently unies block and le data.With Dell Compellent, operational efficiencies lead to a betterutilized storage capacity and simplied IT infrastructure; greateragility with non-disruptive scalability allow enterprises to stayresponsive to the constantly shifting business requirements;and dynamic business resiliency helps to maximize dataavailability and protection. With a complete portfolio of primary,archive and backup products, Dell offers a broad choice ofstorage solutions for various enterprise needs. Based on theFluid Data architecture, Dells storage portfolio is designed to

help organizations more effectively manage valuable businessinformation in virtualized data centers.

2012 Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved.SB208_Dell_CMP_Consolidation_042612_053012

1 Dell Power Solutions Special Edition, Efficient Enterprise, Q1 2010, Its Time to Kick Business Innovation into High Gear2 IDC, Digital Universe Study, sponsored by EMC, June 20113 Based on Dell Compellent customer testimonials

For more information, visit dellstorage.com/compellent

http://dellstorage.com/compellenthttp://dellstorage.com/compellent