ExaGrid is the leader in cost-effective and scalable disk-based backup solutions with byte-level data de-duplication. A highly scalable system that works with existing backup applications, the ExaGrid system is ideal for mid-market and small enterprise companies looking to quickly eliminate the hassles of tape backup while reducing their existing backup windows. ExaGrid’s patented approach minimizes the amount of data to be stored by providing standard data compression for the most recent backups along with byte-level data de-duplication technology for all previous backups. Customers can deploy the ExaGrid system at a primary site and at a second site to supplement or eliminate offsite tapes with a live data repository or for disaster recovery.

Five reasons disk backup improves backup effectiveness, cost-efficiency & data protection.

1. Faster Backup Times

While some may argue that certain tape-based approaches might allow for a particular backup job to move at rate comparable with disk, the key advantage of disk backup over tape is the ability to run a large number of backup jobs in parallel. The number of backup jobs you can run via tape-based backup is only as high as the number of tape drives in your tape library (eg. at most four simultaneous backup jobs can target a four-drive tape library). This limit is much higher with disk – a 60TB ExaGrid system can support up to 120 simultaneous backup jobs – and the ability to run this many backup jobs in parallel will allow for much higher backup speeds with disk over tape.

2. Improved Data Recovery Time (RTO)

With tape-based data protection, the longest delays in recovering from a tape are often due to the need to acquire, load, and restore data from the tapes containing the backed up data. However, tapes are often lost, misplaced, or are otherwise faulty, and when older backup tapes must be used, overall recovery time is longer and the data finally restored to users and applications may be days or weeks old.
With implementation of post-process deduplication, where backups are landed on disk in their entirety before they are deduplicated, any time you do a backup to the local disk backup appliance, that most recent backup is retained in its entirety, ready to be rapidly restored when needed. A recent survey of ExaGrid customers found 96% recover files in under 30 minutes, and 86% recover files in under 15 minutes.

3. Better, Faster Offsite Disaster Recovery

The need for fast and simple restores to recover data during a site disaster is a business imperative for many companies. With a disk backup system using deduplication, an optional offsite disk backup appliance can replace offsite tape and provide faster, more reliable data recovery. The byte-level changes from backup to backup on a local site system are replicated efficiently to an off-site system. Since it is only these byte-level changes that are replicated, typically only about 2% of the backup traverses the WAN. In the event of a primary site disaster, it takes just a few seconds to initiate a data recovery process at the second site using the existing backup application.

In addition to facilitating the replacement of offsite tape, certain disk backup with data deduplication systems also provide "Instand DR" technology for even faster recovery from an outage or disaster. With “instant DR,” when a new backup at the primary site is replicated to the remote site by sending over just the bytes that have changed, the remote site takes these changed bytes and combines them with previous backups to create a complete copy of the most recent backup on the remote site. Keeping this most recent backup intact and ready to be restored makes disaster recoveries much faster, giving the customer “instant DR” should the need arise.

4. Reduced Time, Cost, and Complexity

Disk backup appliances save a significant amount of IT staff time for users by eliminating the need to fight with the tape library over jammed tapes, media errors, and slow backups. And by reducing or eliminating the use of tape in your environment, you can reduce costs. Companies that switch from tape to a disk-based system report saving time, valuable resources, and money. ESG (2010 Data Protection Market Trends) reported that staff costs represent nearly 30% of the data protection budget. The whole point of backup is to perform restores, so there’s no doubt that it’s a critical function in the IT space. Given this criticality, it would seem to make more sense to invest less time and money in a system that will restore versus investing more time and money in a system that may restore. The value of a disk backup with dedupe system is best articulated by sharing several ExaGrid customer experiences:

James Richmond, Network Administrator at Morningstar: 
“It got to the point where I spent the majority of my day managing backups… I used to worry each night about backup jobs failing, especially over the weekend. The ExaGrid system has taken all of the worry and hassle out of our backups and it frees me up to do other things. The ExaGrid was also more cost-effective than the other solution evaluated.”

Niels Jensen, IT systems manager, at Fugro Data Systems: 
“ExaGrid’s technology has exceeded our business needs and expectations. As such, it has delivered outstanding value. Furthermore, from an operational point of view, the time savings are a huge hidden benefit. My team can deliver almost instant restores to people throughout the business - thus enabling them to deliver a better service to Fugro customers. It also frees my team to focus on other projects.”

Brice White, Director of IT at Strategic Hotels and Resorts: 
“Strategic Hotels & Resorts had been backing up to a cloud provider for the past eight years. We looked at a couple of products….On a dollar-for-dollar basis, it was no contest. Strategic’s backup costs were averaging $12,000 to $14,000 and up per month. The ROI with the ExaGrid was about three months. We’re saving over $150,000 per year.” Beyond the time and cost savings described above, customers who have already put disk behind the backup server to reduce backup windows also realize savings in the cost of disk by moving backup from expensive SAN to less expensive disk backup with deduplication.

5. Reduce or Eliminate Failed Backups

One of the most consistent challenges in backup operations is the prevalence of tape backup failure. Estimates show that 15% to 30% of backups to tape-based media fail while 30% or more of restores from tape fail. The percentage is significantly higher if you broaden the definition of a backup failure to include backup jobs that exceed your backup window. Many organizations have strict policies that backups cannot run after a certain hour and must be shut off. Even if you can allow them to keep running into the business day, no one would advocate that you sustain that mode of operation, so “failure” is the right label. Disk eliminates the reliability problems of tape and the associated backup failures. Because disk backup is faster than tape and supports greater concurrency, you will not only eliminate media errors, and jammed tape drives, you will see faster backups.

Technical papers:

Disk-based Data Protection Options

Evaluating Scalability of disk-based backups

Data Protection Scenarios and Solutions