Dell Compellent Management Suite
Intelligent, automated enterprise storage management

Overview:

Managing complex storage tasks like replication and capacity planning for multi-terabyte SANs at multiple locations with more than one interface can be challenging. Operational costs and complexity can grow exponentially as storage capacity increases. Dell Compellent simplifies SAN administration with an intuitive interface that automates the most common storage tasks. Enterprise Manager™ software delivers centralized management of all local and remote Storage Center™ environments and tight integration with leading technology providers.

Unified Storage Management Interface

Dell Compellent network storage features a unified, point-and-click interface that cuts administration time and eliminates the need for specialized skills. From provisioning to replication to reporting, the intuitive interface automates time-consuming enterprise data management tasks so that your staff can focus on other important IT projects.

How to Streamline Data Storage Management with Dell Compellent

• Use intuitive wizards to guide you through complex allocation, configuration and administration functions
• Manage individual or multiple enterprise storage systems through the same point-and-click interface
• Monitor network storage consumption and usage automatically, eliminating manual capacity planning
• Create and map new storage volumes of any size to a server in less than a minute
• Recover most storage volumes to a server in less than 10 seconds
• Automatically restripe volumes across all available drives when adding capacity

Enterprise Manager

Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager simplifies network storage management by providing a single, centralized console for the administration of multiple local and remote Storage Center SANs. Users can configure and verify remote replication processes, monitor storage capacity and disk utilization in real time, and generate comprehensive enterprise storage usage and performance reports.

How to Simplify Storage Admin with Enterprise Manager

• Maximize resource utilization and reduce disk costs using accurate capacity and performance data
• Streamline disaster recovery planning and replication configuration with a simple point-and-click interface
• Speed event resolution with centralized alert notification and event log management
• Identify trends and monitor enterprise storage use by business unit for accurate needs assessment and chargeback
• Automatically calculate energy savings and generate boardroom-ready hero reports

Replay Manager™

Dell Compellent Replay Manager is powerful snapshot consistency software that integrates with Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to ensure the integrity of Exchange Server, SQL Server and Hyper-V data. By initiating snapshots when the I/O is quiesced, Replay Manager provides time-consistent snapshots even if the application or virtual machine (VM) is running during the process. The application-aware technology leverages Data Instant Replay, which creates space-efficient snapshots for recovery of most volumes to a server in less than 10 seconds.

How to Protect Applications and VMs with Replay Manager

• Take time-consistent snapshots of Windows application data in physical or virtualized server environments without disruption
• Protect Windows application data and VMs without full-volume clones or taking applications offline
• Prevent business-critical data from being corrupted or skipped during the backup and recovery process
• Manage multiple instances of Replay Manager through a centralized interface spanning multiple servers and applications
• Provide advanced granular SQL Server database recovery by restoring a database and applying transaction logs
• Leverage Windows PowerShell cmdlet scripting to automate Replay Manager tasks

Key Benefits:

Manage storage with an intuitive interface

Dell Compellent storage systems feature a unified, point-and-click user interface that cuts administration time and reduces the need for specialized administrative skills. The intuitive interface automates repetitive, time-consuming tasks so data center staff can focus on more critical projects. Complex allocation, configuration and administration functions are easily accomplished with wizards to guide the process. Comprehensive PhoneHome capabilities deliver remote diagnostic and monitoring tools with automated alert and notifi cation services.

Simplify multi-site administration with Enterprise Manager

Enterprise Manager delivers powerful storage resource management by providing comprehensive monitoring and management of all local and remote Dell Compellent systems. You can gain instant visibility and control of storage resources enterprise-wide to streamline administration and reduce operational costs. Confi gure and verify remote replication processes, monitor storage capacity and drive utilization in real time, and generate comprehensive storage usage and performance reports–all from a single pane of glass.

Streamline disaster recovery and maximize bandwidth

Enterprise Manager simplifi es disaster recovery with remote replication setup in as few as six clicks. This streamlined replication management also allows recovery from disaster in just seconds with a single-click disaster declaration. Using Enterprise Manager, you can easily and accurately estimate bandwidth requirements upfront based on actual data. Advanced bandwidth-shaping algorithms allow you to utilize the lowest bandwidth required while maintaining optimal performance.

Assign costs to storage and chargeback appropriate departments

The Dell Compellent storage-based chargeback feature automatically calculates storage costs based on the actual space consumed by applications. Administrators can assign diff erent costs to each volume based on drive class or storage tier.

Enterprise Manager monitors storage utilization and generates reports that identify the cost of storage consumption based on department name or account number. These chargeback reports can be scheduled for automatic email delivery to business units.

Illustrate your innovation with boardroomready reports

Enterprise Manager empowers you with a real-time, C-level view and reporting for your Dell Compellent infrastructure. Understand how utilization aff ects performance with features that summarize I/O usage and display ongoing CPU and memory consumption. Reduce network costs with bandwidth simulation and shaping. Be a hero in the boardroom with executive-ready reports that demonstrate bottom-line economical and eco-friendly savings from features like Dynamic Capacity™, Data Instant Replay™ and Data Progression™.

Maintain data continuity for live Windows Server applications

Replay Manager™ integrates with Data Instant Replay to ensure data remains consistent even if Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server is running as a snapshot or Replay is captured. With Replay Manager you have the ability to take Replays of Windows Server volumes without having to take Windows Server applications offl ine. Integrated with Microsoft's Volume Shadow Service (VSS), Replay Manager provides consistent online backup and recovery of Exchange, SQL Server or any VSS-enabled application without clones or downtime.

Automate your data center

With aggressive platform integration, ongoing interoperability testing and collaborative design eff orts, Dell Compellent delivers data center automation for industry-leading applications. The Storage Center Command Set for Windows PowerShell™ streamlines system management with an intuitive scripting interface. Replay Manager enables consistent and automated data backup and restore of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server, as well as Hyper-V™ virtual machines (VMs). These certifi ed and validated platforms ensure seamless interoperability and support.

Technical Specifications:

Compellent Management Suite Specifications
Storage Center Interface
Intuitive, Point and Click Interface	Yes
Rapid Setup and Installation	Yes
PhoneHome Capabilities	Yes, including automated alert and notifi cation services coupled with remote diagnostic and monitoring tools
Integration of all Software Features	Yes
Interface Spans the Entire Set of Technologies, Capabilities and configurations	Yes
Enterprise Manager
Data Collection Service OS Support	Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2
Client OS Support	Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008 R2
Optional Agent OS Support	Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2
Database Support	Microsoft SQL 2000, 2005, 2005 Express Edition, 2008, MySQL, SQL Server 2008 R2, Flat file
Resource Usage Identifi cation	Systems, Drives, Volumes and Servers
Performance I/O Utilization	Systems, Drives, Ports, Volumes and Servers
Storage Center Connectivity	TCP/IP
Wizard-based Replication Creation	Yes
Replication Progress Reporting	Yes
Bandwidth Validation and Recovery	Yes
Disaster Site Recovery Activation	Yes
VMware SRM Adapter	Yes
User-confi gurable Properties and Security Profiles	Yes
Configuration Import and Export	Yes
System Log Forwarding	Yes
Replay Manager
Integration with Microsoft VSS	Yes
Server Operating System Support	Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2
Database Support	Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007, SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008
Virtual Machine Support	Microsoft Hyper-V
Clustering Support	Yes
Volume Recovery to any Server	Yes

Documentation:

Dell Compellent Management Suite Datasheet (.PDF)