Compellent's "Fluid Data" technology is being rolled into what Dell calls its Fluid Data Architecture, which it hopes will allow its customers to move data between platforms and eventually archive data off site via a public , according to Scott Horst, Dell's vice president of corporate marketing. "It would be another tier of storage," he said. "Compellent also gave us chargeback and multitenancy capabilities."

Brian Babindeau, an analyst with research firm Enterprise Strategy Group, said integrating Exanet and Ocarino's technology into its storage products may take longer than Dell plans.

"There's a lot of technology integration work required to add deduplication and an expanded file system across both Compellent and EqualLogic. It is doable," he said. "I think the one question mark ... is getting Exanet to work across those platforms so that they actually have a file storage offering."

Dell is looking to compete against top file storage vendors such as , NetApp with its Data ONTAP GX operating system, and Hewlett-Packard, which is working on integrating with its the StorageWorks division.

Dell has done a good job in filling out its portfolio of storage products with its acquisitions over the past four years, Babineau said.