Switch to ExaGrid Improves Dedupe, Tripling Storage Savings
FlashData backs up VMs using both VMware and also a Nutanix hyperconverged environment, in addition to SQL and Oracle databases. Pagno has found that switching to ExaGrid, and using the combined ExaGrid-Veeam deduplication has helped manage long-term retention.
“Some of our clients have a long-term retention policy as there are many rules and laws in Brazil, and the long-term retention requirements can range from one year to 20 years depending on the type of client and type of data,” said Pagno. “Before using ExaGrid, our virtualized storage didn’t have deduplication but after switching to ExaGrid, our storage savings have tripled due to the deduplication it provides, so we can offer longer-term retention to our clients.”
Veeam uses the information from VMware, Nutanix AHV, and Hyper-V and provides deduplication on a“per-job” basis, finding the matching areas of all the virtual disks within a backup job and using metadata to reduce the overall footprint of the backup data. Veeam also has a “dedupe friendly” compression setting which further reduces the size of the Veeam backups in a way that allows the ExaGrid system to achieve further deduplication. This approach typically achieves a 2:1 deduplication ratio. Veeam uses changed block tracking to perform a level of data deduplication. ExaGrid allows Veeam deduplication and Veeam dedupe-friendly compression to stay on. ExaGrid will increase Veeam’s deduplication by a factor of about 7:1 to a total combined deduplication ratio of 14:1, reducing the storage required and saving on storage costs up front and over time.