Start-up aids SMBs in storage arena

Start-up Compellent this week is expected to unveil applications for its modular storage array that the company says will let midrange customers easily replicate and move data.

The offerings include an application that allows IT professionals to move infrequently used data to inexpensive secondary storage, as well as a remote replication application that lets them protect data.

Compellent's Data Progression and Remote Instant Replay are designed for midsize businesses, which are often without storage administrators. The company's StorageCenter array combines Fibre Channel and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives in a single cabinet.

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Start-up Compellent this week is expected to unveil applications for its modular storage array that the company says will let midrange customers easily replicate and move data.

The offerings include an application that allows IT professionals to move infrequently used data to inexpensive secondary storage, as well as a remote replication application that lets them protect data.

Compellent's Data Progression and Remote Instant Replay are designed for midsize businesses, which are often without storage administrators. The company's StorageCenter array combines Fibre Channel and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives in a single cabinet.

"Most of Compellent's graphical user interfaces are meant for people that may or may not have storage knowledge," says Tony Asaro, senior analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group.

The company's data migration software tracks usage and lets IT staff move data among different classes of storage based on customer-defined rules. Once rules are set, Data Progression automatically moves blocks of data to less-expensive Serial ATA or low-cost Fibre Channel storage. For instance, an administrator may decide to move data that hasn't been accessed in a month to Serial ATA storage from more-expensive Fibre Channel and protect it with RAID 5 instead of RAID 10.

Ryan Fletcher, systems engineer for the Whitehall School District in Ohio, has used Data Progression in beta testing to move data on his system from Fibre Channel storage to ATA.

"Fibre Channel drive space is at a premium - it's very expensive," Fletcher says. "There's no way for us to tell what data is being used now and what data isn't. Data Progression automatically migrates less-used data to less-expensive ATA disk. It has successfully migrated 85% to 90% of our total data store to the lower-cost disk."

Analysts are also impressed with Compellent's Data Progression application.

"It is the only SAN-based solution that can move data in a tiered-storage environment on a block, not volume, level," Asaro says. A user can have some data in a volume that is always being accessed, he says, and other data that is never accessed in a single volume. Because Data Progression moves data at the block level, you can move the unaccessed data to lower, less-expensive storage.

Remote Instant Replay lets IT staff recover from data failures by creating snapshots of data to which administrators may return. A rules engine lets users create schedules for taking snapshots and recovering data. Remote Instant Replay allows for the remote replication of data across IP networks.

With Remote Instant Replay, an administrator also can set rules that create asynchronous, semi-synchronous or synchronous replication. Communications can be throttled to use the full bandwidth of the pipe or a part of it. Replication also can be from one host computer to another or from many hosts to one.

Replays can be used to test new applications or operating systems without risk if failure or corruption occurs. Data Progression also can be used to move replays to a lower-cost tier of storage.