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Customer Success Story

Customer Success Story

Reliable ExaGrid System Protects McVean Trading’s Diverse Backup Environment

Customer Overview

McVean Trading and Investments, LLC is a Futures Commission Merchant based in Memphis, Tennessee. Formed in the fall of 1986 with Charles McVean as the major stockholder, it now retains 80 employees and associated persons, including professional traders, analysts, and support staff. Its mission is to create and preserve wealth for its clients through successful long-term trading in the futures markets.

Key Benefits:

  • ExaGrid provides quick backup and replication to protect McVean Trading’s data
  • ExaGrid’s deduplication maximizes McVean Trading’s storage capacity
  • ExaGrid supports both Veeam and LaserVault Backup, to back up McVean’s diverse environment
  • Using reliable ExaGrid system ‘doesn’t require care or feeding’
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ExaGrid Integrates with All Pieces of Diverse Backup Environment

The IT team at McVean Trading and Investments had been backing up its virtual infrastructure with Veeam, as well as its IBM AS/400 data using LaserVault Backup to tape, and replicating disk imaging to a third-party data center. “ExaGrid was brought on my radar when my counterpart saw an ExaGrid ad, which highlighted ExaGrid’s deduplication features. He was interested in checking out the ExaGrid technology, so we arranged for a demo. We were really happy with how ExaGrid performed on the AS/400 side, and the fact that it integrated so well with Veeam made it pretty logical to have both of our backup types hitting one repository. Within a couple of years, we installed a second ExaGrid system for replication,” said Dean Proffer, an IT engineer at McVean Trading.

“Our ExaGrid system was very easy to set up and install, it was just a matter of changing the backup to a disk target. Our ExaGrid support engineer helped us with any questions we had, and the setup and configuration were so straightforward that it was as easy as setting up a share,” said Proffer.

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).

"Restoring data from ExaGrid is very simple, especially if it’s from a recent backup because that data is already hydrated and waiting. I’ll frequently do test restores in Veeam and they run just like the rest of my virtual infrastructure. It’s hard to tell that it’s a restore from the disk performance. "

Dean Proffer, IT Engineer

Fast Backups and Restores, Impressive Data Deduplication

Proffer backs up McVean Trading’s data in full backups each day, and he has found that ExaGrid provides quick backup and replication. “With ExaGrid, our backup and offsite replication are completed within the same timeframe of our previous backups, without replication.”

Proffer has been impressed with the data deduplication ExaGrid provides for the different type of data that is backed up on the system. “Our deduplication ratio is nearly 90:1 for our LaserVault data, and we see 50:1 on average for our SQL dumps. ExaGrid’s deduplication allows us to keep more data than we need to. I would need to be stingier by nature if I didn’t have so much storage space available.” He has also been impressed with how quickly data is restored from the ExaGrid system. “Restoring data from ExaGrid is very simple, especially if it’s from a recent backup because that data is already hydrated and waiting. I’ll frequently do test restores in Veeam and they run just like the rest of my virtual infrastructure. It’s hard to tell that it’s a restore from the disk performance,” said Proffer.

ExaGrid writes backups directly to a disk 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 while providing full system resources to the backups for the shortest backup window. Available system cycles are utilized to perform deduplication and offsite replication for an optimal recovery point at the DR site. Once complete, the onsite data is protected and immediately available in its full undeduplicated form for fast restores, VM Instant Recoveries, and tape copies while the offsite data is ready for DR.

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).

Reliable ExaGrid System ‘Doesn’t Require Care or Feeding’

Proffer has found that the ExaGrid system is very reliable, so he doesn’t need to get in touch with ExaGrid customer support very often, but he does appreciate ExaGrid’s model of assigning each customer an experienced support engineer. “We haven’t had problems with our ExaGrid system; it does what it’s supposed to do, so our data is always there, and it doesn’t require any care or feeding. Our ExaGrid support engineer gets in touch with us to upgrade the system, and it’s been great to have a single point of contact who works with us on scheduling system updates around our backup and replication windows.”

Most of all, Proffer appreciates the simplicity of backing up data to an ExaGrid system. “My daily routine for my backups is to take a look at the interface and make sure there are no alarms or alerts, but otherwise it’s set it and forget it. Using ExaGrid doesn’t require a whole lot of effort, management, or energy. We’ve put it all in place and the wheel spins, and it’s not one of the plates I continually need to twist to keep spinning.”

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’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.

ExaGrid and LaserVault Backup

IBM iSeries (AS400 and System i) users can quickly and efficiently back up their data on the most cost-effective and scalable disk-based backup system available on the market, using LaserVault Backup (LVB). By backing up to an ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage appliance via this purpose built backup application from LaserVault, IBM iSeries customers can gain improved backup performance, fast and reliable data restores, and rapid recovery from system or site disasters.

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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