Compellent Customer Gaston County Wins InfoWorld 100 Award for IT Innovation

Business Wire, Nov 12, 2007

County Government Pairs Compellent SAN and VMware to Modernize Data Center and Implement Instant Disaster Recovery

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- Compellent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE Arca: CML) today announced its customer Gaston County, the eighth largest county in North Carolina, has been named to the InfoWorld 100, an annual award that honors IT projects that demonstrate the most creative use of cutting-edge technologies to further their business goals.

To rein in data growth and provide disaster recovery, Gaston County modernized its data center using Compellent storage area network (SAN) systems and VMware-based virtualized servers. The county consolidated 85 third-party and custom applications, a GIS system and an electronic document repository, which houses more than 1 million documents, on the Compellent SAN. The data is replicated to a second SAN to provide disaster recovery for 1,100 users in 35 departments such as emergency medical, transportation and health services. In the event of data disaster or accidental deletion, Compellent's continuous snapshots and remote replication technology can reduce downtime from one day or more to less than 15 minutes.

"Compellent has helped our county transform an aging IT infrastructure to a cutting-edge, virtual data center to deliver better services to our citizens," said Brandon Jackson, chief information officer of Gaston County. "It's a great honor to be recognized by InfoWorld for the work Gaston County, Compellent and its partners are doing together."

To be considered for the InfoWorld 100, projects must stretch beyond the typical, off-the-shelf solution, and must use multiple technologies in innovative ways to serve well-defined business goals. "Whether ushering legacy systems into the agile era or revolutionizing how their companies leverage technology to meaningful ends, this year's winners are both inspiration and proof that striking a new path in IT can reap deep organizational rewards," said InfoWorld Senior Editor Jason Snyder.

Gaston County is the latest government entity to deploy the Compellent SAN to extend data storage efficiencies and help overcome the challenges of unrestrained data center growth. By integrating automated tiered storage, thin provisioning, remote replication and storage virtualization into a single platform managed by an intuitive interface, Compellent can organizations of all sizes cut costs and easily implement a virtualization strategy.

"We're delighted that Brandon Jackson and his team at Gaston County have been recognized for their vision and innovation," said Phil Soran, chairman and CEO of Compellent. "Customers like Gaston County are recognizing that by combining server virtualization and virtualized storage they can achieve the benefits of the data center of the future."

After evaluating multiple systems, Gaston County worked closely with Davenport Group, a Compellent business partner, to select and implement the Compellent SAN for the county's award-winning IT modernization and disaster recovery project.

"Compellent is the perfect match for customers like Gaston County interested in implementing a virtualization strategy to lower costs and complexity in their data center," said Paul Clifford, principal and founder, Davenport Group.

Winners are formally announced today at InfoWorld.com. For more information about the InfoWorld 100, visit http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=s&V=93246.

About InfoWorld Media Group

InfoWorld Media Group helps IT solutions management choose the right technology, within the context of a cohesive strategy, for business impact at their organizations. Rather than merely covering the enterprise technology market, InfoWorld identifies and promotes emerging technology segments that add unique value for the organizations that implement them, as well as the vendors that provide those solutions. Using an integrated communications approach including online, events, research, and a continued investment in an independent Test Center, InfoWorld analysts and editors provide both hands-on analysis and evaluation, as well as expert commentary on issues surrounding emerging technologies and products. Visit InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com.

About Compellent

Compellent is a leading provider of enterprise-class network storage solutions that are highly scalable, feature-rich and designed to be easy to use and cost effective. Compellent Technologies' principal offices are located in Eden Prairie, Minn. For more information, please visit: http://www.compellent.com.