ExaGrid Chosen to Replace Tape

Enclara Pharmacia had been backing up its data to an HPE tape library using Veritas Backup Exec. Because of the extensive time needed to manage tape, numerous offsite trips required to vault the tapes, and limited number of jobs that could run at one time, the company decided to look into a disk-based solution.

Dan Senyk, senior network administrator, Enclara Pharmacia, who played a role in the search for a new solution, says, “We narrowed the search down to ExaGrid after meeting with two other competitors. We had been having problems with weekend backup jobs running into Tuesday, and we wanted to make sure all jobs ran at night and not during production hours. Our main goal was to shorten the length of time for job runs. ExaGrid seemed like it could do that for us with the use of its Landing Zone.

“What we really like about ExaGrid is that it seemed to be the leader in deduplication. It allows you to recover data directly from the Landing Zone, making recovery faster. The Landing Zone accelerates the time it takes for a job to run because the deduping is done from the Landing Zone later, rather than as part of the job. This distinguishes it from the competition. In fact, the Landing Zone is the number one reason why ExaGrid is better than the other systems, and the main reason we chose it.”

More Backups in Shorter Windows

Senyk noted that backups were taking too long when Enclara was using tape. “With the limitations that we encountered using the four tape drives, we eventually started running tapes all day, every day – even during production hours. Weekend jobs would take forever. Some jobs would take four days to run.”

Senyk is now able to schedule more backup jobs each week now that Enclara has switched to ExaGrid, with some jobs taking one-third of the time as compared to tape. “We would run fulls on the weekends, but we wouldn’t run incrementals every day because we just couldn’t fit it in using tape,” he says. “Now with ExaGrid, we run every job, every day as an incremental, and nothing spills over during daytime hours. Before ExaGrid, we had to split our jobs in two just to fit them in. Now, I can fit everything in, and backup always finishes by morning. It’s a huge help!”

“Hands-Off” System is Easy to Maintain

Senyk appreciates the usefulness of the GUI and the automated health reports. “If there’s anything wrong, I get an alert, but I haven’t gotten one in a long time. The whole system will show up in red at the first screen you log into, so it’s easy to tell if something is wrong.

“It’s a very hands-off system if you want it to be. You can let it do its thing, and you don’t have to worry. There was literally a two-month period where I didn’t even log in. Backups were running, and I didn’t have to do a thing. It alleviates a lot of time.”

If Senyk has a question about the system, he finds it easy to get in touch with customer support. “It’s unbelievable how great ExaGrid support is,” he says. “With some other companies, you struggle to get basic help, or even just to get somebody on the line. But with ExaGrid, you get an assigned customer support engineer. I have her direct line and email. Her responses are almost immediate. She just opens up a Webex, and we’re on together. She can check things out remotely, too. It’s very nice. I’ve never had support like ExaGrid’s before.”

Senyk is also impressed with customer support’s proactive approach to maintaining the system. “Our customer support engineer contacted me to let me know an upgrade was available, and wanted to initiate it for us. Other companies don’t track your system, and you can’t even get them to help you upgrade it yourself. ExaGrid customer support alone makes it worthwhile.”