Dell's storage vision: From reseller to innovator

Having bought storage technologies and companies to gain entry into new storage categories, Dell is now rolling out a unified storage architectural vision embracing file systems added to every storage offering, and Ocarina-deduplication everywhere. Compellent's fluid data idea is being applied across Dell's storage portfolio …

[Anonymous Coward]

Compellent + iSCSI

I thought the Compellent already did iSCSI as well as FCOE...

[AndyM]

iSCSI

They do, currently looking into there kit and were looking at going the iSCSI route.

[Levente Szileszky]

Yeah, well...

it's not the only strikingly incorrect point in this piece - Compellent also offers FCoE already and spreading all protocols to EqualLogic would make business sense how...? DX6000 as archive platform? Symantec, a cloud storage for service providers? Dell "has a presence in (...) Nascent products in scale-out NAS with the Exanet intellectual property (IP)", ehh? "...would extend out to the DX6000 archive storage product, to whatever disk-based data protection array Dell comes up with", serious: WTF? - so I have to think Chris M. got to take a peek at the same Powerpoint slides I got to but apparently missed the some key connections there and mixed up some others...

[Levente Szileszky]

Chris is correct at his main point though...

...that Dell is quickly becoming an innovative storage provider. It's impressive, I must admit and with this latest acquisition there's a possibility they can dislodge EMC and Netapp on the long run - they indeed have to to unify their software stack, starting with centralized, plugin-styled management and monitoring facility to making data tiering possible all across their storage systems including at least limited support for external, existing SANs (think of IBM Storwiz)

[Man Mountain]

Becoming an innovative storage provider?? FAIL!

You mean they have bought a number of fairly innovative companies but so far have shown no idea really what to do with them or how to integrate them. And they are still firmly in catch up mode to just about every major storage vendor on the planet! Dell are clearly trying to take storage a bit more seriously but let's not get carried away. They have bought some interesting 'bits' but they are still a long way from creating anything truly interesting from them!

[Levente Szileszky]

Ehhh?

So far EqualLogic is THRIVING under Dell (I remember how everybody in 2007 said it's crazy to pay $1.4B, now as I recall EQL accounts for over 60% of Dell's entire storave revenue) and if you have read the article - I doubt it - it clearly says they are bringing out Exanet all across the board, from NAS to SAN, EQL to Compellent including Ocarina-based deduping, all integrated into EQL and (probably later) Compellent stack. So far it sounds way more interesting than, say, Netapp finally admitting NAS is njot everything and buying up Engenio or EMC taking in Isilon.

[doreilly]

Like Commvault ?

Dell already sell PowerVault DL appliances which are Commvault or Symantec based. They also resell DataDomain appliances.

And yes Compellent already have iSCSI and FCoE front-end ports, and resell a Nexenta zNAS gateway product.

I am eager to see where the Ocarina, Compellent, Exanet acquisitions go, if only to make everyone else compete more. NetApp need automated tiering and true scale out NAS not crappy c-mode.