ExaGrid and Veeam With Integrated Solution

ExaGrid Systems, Inc. announced that together with Veeam Software, Inc., the two companies have extended their leadership in availability solutions for the modern data center.

This is demonstrated across virtually every measurable proof point, the most important being real-world customer validation. There are more than 700 customers using Veeam with ExaGrid and many more are moving at high speed to use the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover.

Jordan’s Furniture, a New England-based furniture retailer under the Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. umbrella replaced its storage with the ExaGrid-Veeam solution to address its backup and recovery objectives.

“We liked that Veeam and ExaGrid are tightly integrated. We chose Veeam because it was built for virtualized environments, enables extremely fast recoveries, and automates many of the tasks associated with deploying new VM backups. We also had experience with the ExaGrid system here in our environment and were impressed with its ability to quickly and efficiently replicate information between datacenters,” said Ethan Peterson, network engineer, Jordan’s Furniture. “The ExaGrid-Veeam solution was far more cost effective than any of the EMC offerings, and we liked its scalability and ease-of-use.“

U.S. Legal Support Inc., a privately-held provider of litigation services to major insurance companies, law firms, and other business corporations nationwide, replaced its inefficient, unreliable and costly cloud service with Veeam and ExaGrid.

“Our backup times are so much faster using the Veeam and ExaGrid system,” said Ryan McClain, systems architect, U.S. Legal Support. “Other benefits have been stability and reliability. Because it is a purpose-built system and not a general purpose NAS box, backups run more consistently and trouble-free than ever before. I spend three to six fewer hours per week dealing with backup issues.“

McClain continued: “In addition to faster backup times and reduced hours and resources needed, the GRID-based, scalable system easily expands with growing volumes of data, leaving room for expansion. Having the ExaGrid-Veeam solution in place completes the picture, so now our backup infrastructure can easily grow with our backup demands.“

In addition to growth in customer traction, ExaGrid continues to demonstrate its integration with Veeam through the development and delivery of technology advancements that respond to customer requirements. ExaGrid software version 4.7 delivered on its promise of backup and support for Veeam. Version 4.7 (v4.7) added enablement for an ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover to be integrated into each appliance, enhancing performance for all Veeam backups and restores. ExaGrid software v4.7 further expanded cross data center replication for DR to 16 GRID systems in a cross-protection topology, while enabling deduplication and replication to occur in parallel. This improves DR site recovery point, with zero impact to backup performance. In addition, ExaGrid’s release of Version 4.8 (v4.8) expanded capacity from 14 to 25 appliances in a single GRID, accommodating full backups of up to 800TB with an increased ingest capacity of 187.5TB per hour.

ExaGrid’s approach to disk-based backup, and its ability to deliver performance and scalability without costly forklift upgrades, as well as its distinctive Veeam relationship, which enhances customer protection across virtual environments, has been well-documented and lauded by virtually every industry analyst/pundit.

An Enterprise Strategy Group test validated the benefits of the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover and found that it improved the performance of Veeam full backups by almost 2X and Veeam synthetic fulls by 6X. Moreover, the test also demonstrated that by leveraging the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover users would alleviate infrastructure strain, reducing the hours needed for backups by more than 2X. Additional benefits were also verified, including significant network savings and reduction in server CPU usage, as well as infrastructure efficiency gains across processor, memory, bandwidth, and disk resources.

“Why does this matter? While most backup targets support the leading backup applications, not all targets are actually integrated with backup and availability applications. That requires a deep level of partnership between the vendors. ExaGrid and Veeam have been closely aligned in the ground-up development of the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover. As a result, a seamless solution can be deployed across virtual environments, where functionality and capabilities are improved across the board,” stated Brian Garrett, VP, ESG Lab. “If you are looking for time and resource savings, as well as truly instant recovery capabilities, we would recommend giving the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover a try.“

Video on ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover lab test

“The ExaGrid-Veeam solution builds on a long-standing and continuously expanding partnership,” said Doug Hazelman, VP of product strategy, Veeam. “By enabling Veeam’s Data Mover to be installed directly onto the ExaGrid appliance, customers appreciate increased performance, eliminate virtual infrastructure backup complexity, ensure immediate restores, and considerably reduce all associated expense.“

“The pervasiveness of customer and industry analyst validation further confirms our two companies’ position as the leaders in delivering fast, scalable and cost-effective backup and replication that goes well beyond standard disk-based data protection,” said Bill Andrews, president and CEO, ExaGrid. “In addition, today’s announcement attests to our shared vision to continue to revolutionize data protection, availability and DR solutions for virtualized datacenters.“