Zerto Adds ExaGrid De-Dupe

ExaGrid Systems, Inc., a provider of disk-based backup storage with data deduplication, announced that it has partnered with Zerto, Inc., in the protection, recovery and migration of data in cloud and virtualized data centers, to deliver complementary solutions – CDP along with long-term archiving – improving performance and cost efficiency in IT datacenters.

Customers using both ExaGrid and Zerto have a cost-effective, offsite, disk-based backup solution that employs data deduplication for long-term retention of offsite BC/DR VMs with a small storage footprint. Organizations can protect all of their production workloads, achieving faster recovery times even as they reduce long-term storage costs.

Zerto provides enterprise BC/DR of mission-critical workloads from the primary site to an offsite DR site, in addition to continuous replications. Zerto’s backups can then be replicated to, and protected by, an ExaGrid system using data deduplication for cost-effective storage and long-term retention of BC/DR VMs with easy setup and management. With ExaGrid’s architecture, the most recent Zerto backup of Tier One VMs in a Virtual Protection Group (VPG) is first stored in an ExaGrid Landing Zone in its native format for fast Zerto VM restores and boots. Long-term retention copies of these offsite backups are then stored in the ExaGrid repository as deduplicated data, resulting in a reduced storage footprint that allows extended retention policies to be met at a reduced storage cost. The combination of Zerto’s Offsite Backup and the ExaGrid Landing Zone plus repository offers protection of mission-critical VM data.

“The value that Zerto delivers has always been around making BC/DR a seamless, responsive and reliable strategy, and our partnership with ExaGrid extends the benefits of our offsite backup solution for organizations that need fast and cost-effective data protection,” said Paul Zeiter, president, Zerto. “The combination of continuous data replication and deduplication technologies will give end-users the flexibility to better manage their data and protect it over the long term.“

“The partnership between Zerto and ExaGrid is very symbiotic,” said Bill Andrews, CEO and president, ExaGrid. “We’re pleased to offer ExaGrid’s disk-based backup storage with Zerto’s live DR of mission-critical VMs. ExaGrid’s unique Landing Zone provides the ability to very quickly restore mission-critical VMs and VM data because the data is available in its full, undeduplicated form – which means it doesn’t need to be re-hydrated or reassembled prior to being restored. In addition, with ExaGrid’s data deduplication, Zerto offsite backups can be stored cost efficiently for longer-term retention. This provides the fastest possible restores in the event of a disaster as well as the ability to roll back to older versions. Typically, customers find that they can extend retention because only deduplicated data is stored in the repository, minimizing footprint which results in maximizing storage – and investment.“

In addition to storing Zerto backups, ExaGrid can sit behind the nightly backup application at the primary site and provide protection for all backups – virtual and physical. ExaGrid can replicate the daily changed data to the offsite system for a second offsite copy for ‘all data’ offsite DR. ExaGrid’s largest system has an ingest rate that is two to three times faster and a restore rate that is five to ten times faster than its closest competitor. ExaGrid’s Landing Zone and scale-out GRID architecture allow for faster backups, resulting in a shorter backup window, restores and VM boot speeds that are as much as ten times faster than competitive solutions, and a fixed-length backup window as data grows. The overall cost is lower up front and over time as compared to the large brand vendors.