ExaGrid Makes “Massive Difference,” Reduces Backup Windows 82%
Harper Macleod has a wide range of data to back up, from SQL databases to application servers. Brian backs up the law firm’s data in different stages, from “hot” storage of snapshots of live data taken from the primary storage solution every five minutes, to “warm” storage of data backed up nightly as well as weekly to the ExaGrid system, where it is kept for 30 days, and then moved to “cold” storage on network-attached storage (NAS), where it stays for five years.
Harper Macleod is governed by policies set by the Law Society of Scotland, and Brian has been able to add more recovery points using ExaGrid, keeping in line with the policies as well as keeping the law firm’s data well protected. “ExaGrid provides us with quick nightly backups and a recent recovery point, should we need one,” he said. “We’ve seen a massive difference in our backup window since switching to ExaGrid; a full backup used to take 70 hours, and that’s been reduced to 12 hours. Our nightly backups have also been reduced from seven hours with our previous solution to an hour and a half using ExaGrid. It’s such an improvement!”
In addition to shorter backup windows, Brian has found that restoring data from ExaGrid using Veeam is a quick process. “Part of our backup policy is to test our backups on a weekly basis, which can range from restoring an individual file to a full server. We’ve found the process with Veeam and ExaGrid is very smooth, and recovering data is very easy to do. From the testing we’ve done, we feel that we can recover quickly in the event we ever lost our servers,” he said.
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 VMware virtual machine by running it directly from the ExaGrid appliance in the event that the primary storage VM becomes unavailable. This is possible because of ExaGrid’s Landing Zone – a high-speed cache on the ExaGrid appliance that retains the most recent backups in complete form. Once the primary storage environment has been brought back to a working state, the VM running on the ExaGrid appliance can then be migrated to primary storage for continued operation.