Compellent Australian expansion gains momentum

Gordon Peters
Friday, 17 September 2010 00:40

IT Industry - Market

Storage vendor, Compellent has revealed its plans for bringing Fluid Data storage to the wider Australian market as it establishes itself in the region, and following what it says is good sales across the market with 25 customer sites already.

Compellent's vice president of worldwide sales, Brian Bell, told channel partners and customers about plans for the Australian market at an event in Sydney for the launch of Storage Center 5 in Australia, the latest version of the Compellent Fluid Data storage solution, which he said integrates a 'powerful data movement engine, intelligent software and modular hardware platform to redefine efficiency, productivity and protection in enterprise storage.'

According to Bell, 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.'

Compellent has announced 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.

'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,' Bell said, adding that '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 claims 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.'

Bell said Compellent continues to make ongoing investments in Australia, establishing its Australian headquarters in Melbourne, close to some of its biggest channel partners, and had 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.'