ExaGrid System Delivers Strong Data Deduplication, Reduces Backup Times

Honolulu installed a single-site ExaGrid disk-based backup system with data deduplication in its disaster recovery center located 25 miles outside of Honolulu. The ExaGrid system works along with Honolulu’s existing backup application, Commvault.

“We work under a pretty tight budget, so in addition to acquisition cost, we also looked closely at ongoing cost projections. We didn’t want to get into a situation where we were constantly purchasing additional storage capacity, so data deduplication became a key factor in our evaluation,” said Hirota. “We spent a lot of time comparing ExaGrid’s deduplication process to the competition, and we found significant advantages to its hardware-based, post- process approach. ExaGrid’s deduplication technology is extremely effective at reducing data, and because the backups are completed after the data lands on the system, the jobs run as quickly as possible.” Hirota said that today, the ExaGrid system delivers an overall deduplication ratio of 6.5:1, with some data reducing as high as 100:1, depending upon the type of data stored.

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).

Since installing the ExaGrid appliance, backup jobs are completed well within Honolulu’s defined backup windows and are always completed by Monday mornings, so its servers and network run as efficiently as possible.

Scalability for Future Growth

ExaGrid’s appliance models can be mixed and matched into a single scale-out system allowing a full backup of up to 2.7PB with a combined ingest rate of 488TB/hr, in a single system. The appliances automatically join the scale-out system. Each appliance includes the appropriate amount of processor, memory, disk, and bandwidth for the data size. By adding compute with capacity, the backup window remains fixed in length as the data grows. Automatic load balancing across all repositories allows for full utilization of all appliances. Data is deduplicated into an offline repository, and additionally, data is globally deduplicated across all repositories.

“We expanded the ExaGrid system to handle more data, and it was as easy as plugging another unit into the switch,” said Hirota. “I used to spend weekends managing backups, but now they run effortlessly each and every night. The system is easy to use and manage, upgrades are painless, and it’s backed by some of the best customer support in the industry. We’ve been very happy with the ExaGrid system.”