SCIENCE

Having secured the services of key storage and virtualization resellers, Geomatic Technologies, Interconnekt, Regal IT, Sententia and XSI Data Solutions, Compellent has already seen sales of its Fluid Data storage technology take off at more than 25 customer sites across Australia.

At Compellent's official launch event at the Park Hyatt Sydney last week, Brian Bell, vice president of worldwide sales, gave details to channel partners and customers of how the company planned to bring Fluid Data storage to the wider Australian market.

The event also marked the official availability of Storage Center 5 in Australia, the latest version of the award-winning Compellent Fluid Data storage solution, which integrates a powerful data movement engine, intelligent software and modular hardware platform to redefine efficiency, productivity and protection in enterprise storage. New features such as Portable Volume replication kits, scalable SAS, tiered storage with RAID 6 protection, virtual I/O ports and virtual server mapping combine to automate operations, simplify disaster recovery and enable tiered storage for enterprises of all sizes.

Bell said: "With Fluid Data storage products, organisations can cut cost, time and risk while rapidly responding to change. Compellent's vision of storage as the intelligent, easily-managed core of virtualised and cloud data centers has already gained traction with more than 2,100 customers around the world. Australia is proving no exception with dozens of organisations already adopting our Fluid Data architecture working hand-in-hand with our strategic resellers in the market."

Bell also believes that enterprises will continue to choose Compellent's Fluid Data storage over traditional storage technologies because they recognise the strategic value of an efficiency driven storage platform that integrates automated tiered storage, thin provisioning, thin replication and other virtualized storage features in one scalable system.

"The Australian economy has weathered the global recession much better than most and demand for new technologies that deliver competitive advantage remains strong," continued Bell. "Compellent is investing in its Australian channel to deliver the technical training, the marketing programs, services and sales support tools for Storage Center 5 that will enable its reseller partners to compete and win against the much larger, traditional storage vendors."

Investing Locally For Growth Compellent continues to make ongoing investments in Australia. To start with, the company has established its Australian headquarters in Melbourne. In addition, to support the company's ongoing launch into the region it has begun hiring experienced executive and technical staff to run its local operations.

Craig Stockdale has been appointed managing director of ANZ and will be responsible for establishing Compellent's 100 percent channel model across the region. Meanwhile, IT infrastructure specialist Stephen Madden has been appointed as Solutions Architect to lead the technical side of the business. The company has plans to hire additional regional business development managers to enhance the sales efforts of its channel partners.

Solving Customer Issues With Automated Tiered Storage Commenting on how Compellent can help solve key challenges in the data centre, Craig Stockdale said: "Australian IT departments are continually evaluating how to save time and money to get the best from their infrastructure. Using Compellent Fluid Data with automated tiered storage technology, organisations like Mitchell Communications, James Cook University and Metricon have significantly reduced storage costs and increased utilization by automatically migrating most data to lower-cost, high-capacity drives, while keeping the high-performance drives for the frequently accessed data."

Storage Center systems are backed by Copilot, Compellent's comprehensive service and support offering, which helps ensure the satisfaction of Compellent customers in Australia. Copilot integrates installation, training, proactive 24x7 technical support, hardware and software maintenance, and system optimization services to deliver world-class service throughout the lifecycle of a user's data and system.

All-Channel Assisted Sales Model Eliminates Conflict For Partners

During the launch event, Bell highlighted how Compellent's reseller partners benefit from the company's unique all-channel "assisted sales" model, which gives a major advantage over the competition when it comes to selling to, and servicing, its clients.

Bell continued: "Unlike other storage vendors, who use resellers for distribution but ultimately compete with them via direct sales, Compellent has no direct sales force and focuses all of its field and technical resources on helping partners sell and close deals."

Compellent resellers that join the company's Elevate Partner program also gain access to Compellent's secure online partner portal, which features rapid deal registration, online quote generation and a host of other personalized portal resources.