Compellent announced that global sports and entertainment company IMG is the 1000th organization to select the Compellent storage area network (SAN). IMG will use the SAN as the foundation for its innovative, global virtual data center to help manage rapid data growth, ensure business continuity and reduce storage costs.

“Today we are celebrating that IMG is the 1,000th customer to join our community – forward thinkers that share our vision to grow their businesses through easy-to-manage and easy-to-upgrade enterprise storage,” said Phil Soran, Compellent president and CEO. “Starting with The Ohio State University, our first customer, companies like IMG are part of the growing movement in our industry away from legacy platforms toward more agile, cost-effective and energy-efficient storage architectures.”

After reviewing several legacy and next-generation systems IMG chose Compellent for its ease-of-use, virtualization and disaster recovery capabilities. The company will replace existing storage systems with Compellent SANs in London; Bradenton, Florida; New York and Sydney and anticipates additional worldwide locations. IMG will use Compellent storage to support its global offices with IT services based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and VMware virtualized servers.

“Working with Compellent to create our global virtual data center will allow us to cost-effectively deliver unique services and continuous support to the top corporate, sports and entertainment brands in the world,” said Steve Purewall, global network manager at IMG. “Compellent’s ease- of-use and integration of must-have features like automated tiered storage, thin provisioning and thin replication set them apart from the other vendors we were evaluating.”

In addition to IMG, in the UK Compellent recently signed on Moffat Communications, a managed service provider to the financial community, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and London Borough of Hillingdon council. Compellent is committed to providing the most efficient storage to help customers take the virtual data center to the next level, cutting overall capital and operating costs and reducing energy consumption.

“For a company to hit the 1,000th customer milestone this fast is almost unheard of," said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst of the Enterprise Strategy Group. "Compellent's momentum proves that there is always room for a company with truly innovative technologies and go-to-market strategies no matter how tough the competitive landscape."