Compellent releases V5 of Storage Center to UK channel

US storage vendor Compellent (NYSE: CML) last week unveiled the latest version of its SAN offering to the UK channel, Storage Center 5, which the firm says is designed to simplify disaster recovery and enable automated tiered storage for SMEs, as well as the enterprise.

Built on the vendor’s ‘Dynamic Block Architecture’, Storage Center 5 includes Portable Volume replication, scalable SAS storage, automated tiered storage with RAID 6 protection, and Virtual Ports I/O technology.

“It’s a great opportunity for channel partners to add incremental features without a forklift upgrade; Customers can add more and more storage by expanding the system, and [have] more enterprise functionality within their existing storage infrastructure,” explains Bob Fine, director of product marketing, Compellent.

Fine highlights the portable volume feature, allowing replication between two SANs, even over a small bandwidth connection, which has traditionally been difficult for SMEs.

“SMEs have the same needs, but a smaller budget. Portable volume helps customers replicate but also partners can provide channel-friendly friendly programme and service packages to allow customers to scale,” he explains.

However, Mike Kelson, technical director at Compellent reseller Atlanta Technology believes “there aren’t any groundbreaking features in [the new release],” but the established scalable SAS technology continues to benefit the business. Storage Center 5 can scale from as few as six SAS drives up to 384 SAS drives with a mix of capacities and speeds within the same enclosures, supporting FC or iSCSI front-end server connectivity.

Kelson tells Channel Pro: “Storage Center 5 is all about bringing down the costs of enterprise class storage systems. We can sell Compellent more aggressively into the mid-market and lower, whereas before we were directed at the enterprise. The SAS technology has brought the entry price down, which has opened up new markets to us.”