DCC adds high end Dell Compellent storage solution to its range of offerings

Distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC) has added the high end Dell Compellent storage solution, which is characterised by a fully virtualised storage platform and fluid data capabilities, to its comprehensive range of Dell networking, server, PC, notebook and storage solutions. The benefits for resellers are that they can now offer clients, including large enterprises and those in cloud computing environments, an end-to-end Dell solution.

Says Jaco Erasmus, Dell Enterprise Specialist at DCC: “Dell is very focussed on bolstering its footprint in the enterprise space and the acquisition of the Compellent storage range approximately a year ago fills out its storage range nicely. Dell’s home grown PowerVault storage solutions are for entry level applications, EqualLogic addresses the needs of SMEs, and Dell Compellent is targeted at the very high end user – typically organisation with numerous branches, customers, transactions and/or data intensive operations.”

Dell Compellent’s standout features include a powerful data movement engine, virtualised software applications and an agile hardware platform.

Says Erasmus: “Dell Compellent’s fluid data storage technology can help slash the time and cost of managing storage by up to 80% while dramatically simplifying the management of IT infrastructure. It uses a sophisticated data movement engine to automatically place data on the right storage tier, moving data internally between different classes of disk drives based on actual usage. By moving inactive data to lower cost, high capacity drives (and eventually archiving data offsite via a public cloud), businesses need to buy fewer high-performance drives and can take advantage of more lower-tiered storage, saving money on cooling, power and space.”

Compellent supports data access from virtually all applications via multiprotocol interfaces, which provide Fibre Channel, iSCSI, FCoE, and file access. Business continuity is safeguarded through near-instant, any-point-in-time recovery. Data is protected through integrated snapshots, synchronous replication, and data migration.

Erasmus notes that the configuration of the solution will depend on the storage capacity and performance required by the client. “The Dell Compellent solution can manage up to 1000 Terabytes, and is both modular and scalable,” he notes. “Dell’s commitment is to never sell clients more than they need, so the configuration and specification of a Dell Compellent solution would depend on an assessment of the client’s environment and needs. Another advantage of using Dell’s storage solutions is its promise of non-forklift upgrades – organisations can upgrade certain aspects of the solution without having to replace the entire storage  environment.”

Sales training and product awareness support will be offered by DCC on the Dell Compellent products. Dell offers full ‘co-pilot’ or engineer level support to clients using Dell Compellent products.