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Customer Success Story

Customer Success Story

ExaGrid Helps U.S. Federal Government Agencies Reduce Backup Windows, Improve Data Protection

Customer Overview

Federal Government agencies, both civilian and military, are steadily moving towards a point where the reliance of tape backup is minimal. The U.S. Government has been the largest user of tape-based backup systems since the 1970s and is well aware of the issues that come along with using that type of backup media. Most agencies have begun to deploy some variation of disk storage and disk-based backup because of reliability and security concerns. The momentum shift to disk has begun in earnest since the advent of disk-based backup with data deduplication.

Key Benefits:

  • Lowest cost upfront and over time
  • Leverages existing backup applications
  • Easily scale to accommodate data growth
  • Easy to Install and Maintain
  • Industry leading level-2 support
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Tape Issues Impact Backup Times, Data Security

Federal government agencies struggle with the ever increasing amount of data that is generated on a daily basis. Current regulations and legislation require the need for government organizations to backup or archive virtually everything. Magnetic tape as a medium for backing up data is cumbersome, time-consuming, and unsecure. As data grows rapidly and regulatory demands become more stringent, traditional tape solutions cannot keep up – resulting in longer backup windows, unreliable backups and restores and increased costs. Tape may be cheap initially but long-term costs in lost and compromised data, and production hours, can cripple an organization.

"The system was more cost-effective than some of the other solutions we looked at. It was less expensive to acquire and we were able to use it along with our existing backup application and tape drive. It was also more advantageous to purchase the ExaGrid systemin terms of licensing and maintenance. We were able to set the system up ourselves and it’s easy to manage and administer. "

Dana McCutcheon, IT Specialist Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service

Disk-based Backup with Data Deduplication Ensures Reliability and Low Cost

As the need for reliable data security and auditable continuity plans grows, more and more government agencies are turning from traditional tape solutions to disk-based backup systems. After evaluating various solutions, many federal government agencies selected ExaGrid’s disk-based backup with data deduplication system.

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).

Leveraging Existing Backup Application Saves Time and Money

The ExaGrid system works in conjunction with a federal government agency’s existing backup application. Because ExaGrid is simply a disk-based target for the backup application, the agency does not incur any additional license or maintenance costs. 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).

Sample List of ExaGrid Federal Government Customers

  • Army Fleet Support
  • Defense Logistics Agency
  • Department of Commerce
  • Department of Justice
  • DeWitt Army Hospital
  • Library of Congress
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
  • U.S. Air National Guard Arizona
  • U.S. Army MEDDAC
  • US Dept. of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs
  • U.S. Federal Courts
  • U.S. General Services Administration
  • U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • U.S. House of Representatives
  • U.S. Navy Advanced Information Systems
  • U.S. Senate
  • Veterans Administration Southwest

Scalability to Meet Future Backup Requirements

ExaGrid’s scalability provides federal government agencies with an extra level of confidence because the system can easily grow to meet increased storage and regulatory demands over time. 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.

This combination of capabilities in a turnkey appliance makes the ExaGrid system easy to install, manage, and scale. ExaGrid’s architecture provides lifetime value and investment protection that no other architecture can match.

Intelligent Data Protection

ExaGrid’s turnkey disk-based backup system combines enterprise drives with zone-level data deduplication, delivering a disk-based solution that is far more cost effective than simply backing up to disk with deduplication or using backup software deduplication to disk. ExaGrid’s patented zone level deduplication reduces the disk space needed by a range of 10:1 to 50:1, depending on the data types and retention periods, by storing only the unique objects across backups instead of redundant data. Adaptive Deduplication performs deduplication and replication in parallel with backups. As data is being deduplicated to the repository, it is also replicated to a second ExaGrid site or the public cloud for disaster recovery (DR).

ExaGrid is Available Through Government Wide Acquisition Contracts

GSA
Intelligent Decisions Contract #: GS35F4153D — ExaGrid is listed on Intelligent Decision’s GSA Schedule 70. Federal and state agency customers can purchase ExaGrid directly from Intelligent Decisions. Promark Contract #: GS35F303DA — ExaGrid is listed on Promark’s GSA Schedule. Promark is authorized to sell to hundreds of federal resellers nationwide. Federal agencies buy from their reseller of choice and the reseller buys from Promark.

NETCENTS
The ExaGrid system is a featured Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) via the Air Force sponsored NETCENTS 2 contract through one of its prime vendors,
Intelligent Decisions.

SEWP V
FCN Contract #: NNG155C71B, Intelligent Decisions Contract #: NNG15SE08B — The ExaGrid system is a featured Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) via the NASA Scientific & Engineering Workstation Procurement contract vehicle (SEWP V) through two of its prime vendors, FCN and Intelligent Decisions.

NIH Information Officers – Commodities and Solutions (CIO-CS)
Contract #: HHSN316201500018W — The ExaGrid system is a featured Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) via The NIH Information Officers – Commodities and Solutions (CIO-CS) contract through one of its prime vendors, Intelligent Decisions.

US Army ITES-2H (CHESS)
Intelligent Decisions Contract #: W52P1J-16-D-0013, CDWG Contract #: W52P1J-16-D-0020 — The ITES-3H (CHESS) contract was established to “Be the Army’s ‘Primary Source’ to support the Warfighter’s Information Dominance objectives by developing, implementing, and managing Information Technology contracts that provide comprehensive hardware and software solutions with Enterprise-focused support services within the Army Knowledge Enterprise Architecture.” All US Army departments and sub agencies must look to the ITES-3H contract first for any IT requirement.

First Source II
Contract #: HSHQDC-13-D-00002 — The ExaGrid system is a featured Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) via the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) FirstSource II contract through Thundercat Technology, Socio-economic Category: SDVOSB.

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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