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Customer Success Story

Customer Success Story

Bullfrog Spas Replaces Aging Dell Data Domain to Gain Peace of Mind with ExaGrid

Customer Overview

Bullfrog Spas’ mission is simple: Create peaceful lives. This mission of course includes creating products that offer their customers a peaceful body, peaceful mind, and peaceful home. This mission equally applies to their valued team members and partners. Their culture and the efforts of incredible and dedicated team members have helped to make Bullfrog Spas the fastest-growing manufacturer of premium hot tubs in the world and one of Utah’s premier brands.

Key Benefits:

  • ExaGrid offers seamless integration with Veeam & offsite DR
  • Peace of mind knowing RTL is in place so Bullfrog Spas’ data can be recovered in case of a ransomware attack
  • ExaGrid offers faster backups, better deduplication, and is easier to use than Data Domain
  • Excellent support model with a knowledgeable ExaGrid support engineer who is also well-versed in Veeam
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ExaGrid Chosen to Replace Dell Data Domain

The IT Team at Bullfrog Spas received information that their Dell Data Domain solution was coming to an end-of-life decision. Their backup strategy had utilized Veeam with Dell Data Domain. Cally Miller, network administrator at Bullfrog Spas, decided to look at alternatives and looked to their reseller for suggestions. Miller then investigated a few options including ExaGrid.

“We had some extensive calls with the ExaGrid sales team and went over the product architecture, setup, and features. We completed a test lab demonstration to see how things would work and if it was, in fact, the right fit. ExaGrid’s UI is highly informative. It took more work to manage backups with Data Domain and it was harder to see the data, how it flowed, and the different set-up points. With Veeam and ExaGrid, it is much smoother and more streamlined. ExaGrid plays very nicely with our environment,” he said.

The ExaGrid system is easy to install and use and works seamlessly with the industry’s leading backup applications so that an organization can retain its investment in its existing backup applications and processes. In addition, ExaGrid appliances can replicate to a second ExaGrid appliance at a second site or to the public cloud for DR (disaster recovery).

"My support engineer walked me through everything that we needed to get set up with our DR site on AWS, and he jumped in to ensure everything was communicating as it should be. The integration with ExaGrid to AWS has been seamless and I have enjoyed this experience! Everything is less difficult now and I know replication is happening. ExaGrid simply takes the stress out of backup storage. "

Cally Miller, Network Administrator

ExaGrid Cloud Tier Allows for DR in the Public Cloud

Since switching to ExaGrid, Miller has established disaster recovery (DR) in the public cloud for additional data protection. “My support engineer walked me through everything that we needed to get set up with our DR site on AWS, and he jumped in to ensure everything was communicating as it should be. The integration with ExaGrid to AWS has been seamless and I have enjoyed this experience! Everything is less difficult now and I know replication is happening. ExaGrid simply takes the stress out of backup storage.”

The ExaGrid Cloud Tier allows customers to replicate deduplicated backup data from a physical onsite ExaGrid appliance to the cloud tier in Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure for an offsite DR copy.

The ExaGrid Cloud Tier is a software version (VM) of ExaGrid that runs in the cloud. The physical onsite ExaGrid appliances replicate to the cloud tier running in AWS or Azure. The ExaGrid Cloud Tier looks and acts exactly like a second-site ExaGrid appliance. Data is deduplicated in the onsite ExaGrid appliance and replicated to the cloud tier as if it was a physical offsite system. All features apply such as encryption from the primary site to the cloud tier in AWS, bandwidth throttle between the primary site ExaGrid appliance and the cloud tier in AWS, replication reporting, DR testing, and all other features found in a physical second-site ExaGrid DR appliance.

ExaGrid’s Retention Time-Lock Saves the Day

Miller appreciates having ExaGrid’s Retention Time-Lock for Ransomware Recovery (RTL) in place. “Unfortunately, we have had to utilize the Retention Time-Lock feature at least once, so it was immensely helpful having that confidence knowing this was in place and our data was safe. Our support engineer guided us through the easiest restore. Honestly, I had never been through anything like that, so it was so nice to know that you have someone that you can reach out to, that treats your environment like it’s their own. ExaGrid support jumps right in and helps wherever they can – they are very attentive.”

ExaGrid appliances have a network-facing disk-cache Landing Zone where the most recent backups are stored in an undeduplicated format for fast backup and restore performance. Data is deduplicated into a non-network-facing tier called the Repository Tier, for longer-term retention. ExaGrid’s unique architecture
and features provide comprehensive security including RTL, and through the combination of a nonnetwork- facing tier (tiered air gap), a delayed delete policy, and immutable data objects, backup data is protected from being deleted or encrypted. ExaGrid’s offline tier is ready for recovery in the event of an attack.

Speedy Backups and Storage Savings

ExaGrid’s data deduplication technology helps to reduce the amount of data stored while delivering the fastest possible backup times. Bullfrog’s backup schedule is done on a 3-week and 2-month calendar.

“Before, we were not getting a whole lot of deduplication with Dell Data Domain, but have noticed a significant increase in our dedupe ratio since switching to ExaGrid. We have also been incredibly pleased with the speed of the ExaGrid, so our networks utilize 10GbE throughput, and can back up data in a matter of minutes,” said Miller.

ExaGrid writes backups directly to a disk-cache Landing Zone, avoiding inline processing and ensuring the highest possible backup performance, which results in the shortest backup window. Adaptive Deduplication performs deduplication and replication in parallel with backups for a strong recovery point (RPO). As data is being deduplicated to the repository, it can also be replicated to a second ExaGrid site or the public cloud for disaster recovery (DR).

ExaGrid and Veeam can instantly recover a file or VMware virtual machine by running it directly from the ExaGrid appliance in the event that the file is lost, corrupted or encrypted or the primary storage VM becomes unavailable. This instant recovery is possible because of ExaGrid’s Landing Zone – a high-speed disk cache on the ExaGrid appliance that retains the most recent backups in their complete form. Once the primary storage environment has been brought back to a working state, the VM backed up on the ExaGrid appliance can then be migrated to primary storage for continued operation.

Expert Technical Support Saves on IT Staff Time

“ExaGrid support is great. Even our salesperson checks in regularly. I have saved plenty of time, because working with a dedicated support engineer allows me to shoot off an email, set up a meeting, or just get a quick answer back. I do not waste time searching for answers. I especially love the reporting layout that we get every morning – it’s just so nice. It lets you know the status of your sites and your data and informs you if there is anything you need to look at. It has freed up a lot of my time. In the past, I would spend an hour and a half in Veeam every day, just trying to look up what was happening,” said Miller.

The ExaGrid system was designed to be easy to set up and operate. ExaGrid’s industry-leading level 2 senior support engineers are assigned to individual customers, ensuring they always work with the same engineer. Customers never have to repeat themselves to various support staff, and issues get resolved quickly.

ExaGrid and Veeam

“Veeam integrates very well with ExaGrid, so we have only ever had to interact with the Veeam console, which makes it nice to only work through one software as a single step,” said Miller. “With ExaGrid’s technology and support people being well versed in Veeam, it is a simple ‘one-stop’ for us to get technical guidance which we did not have that through Dell Data Domain.”

Veeam’s backup solutions and ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage combine for the industry’s fastest backups, fastest restores, a scale-out storage system as data grows, and a strong ransomware recovery story – all at the lowest cost

About ExaGrid

ExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a unique disk-cache Landing Zone that enables fastest backups and restores, a Repository Tier that offers the lowest cost for long-term retention and enables ransomware recovery, and scale-out architecture which includes full appliances with up to 6PB full backup in a single system.

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