zorggroep Maas & Waal

zorggroep Maas & Waal Improves Backup Performance with ExaGrid-Veeam Solution

Customer Overview

zorggroep Maas & Waal (zMW) is a regional, certified HKZ healthcare provider offering comprehensive care, housing, and welfare services for the Land van Maas and Waal region of the Netherlands. zMW operates care centers and nursing homes with rehabilitation and day treatment departments, in addition to offering care and services in patients’ homes

Key Benefits:

ExaGrid resolves backup window issues for zMW
zMW ICT staff can restore data quickly and easily from ExaGrid-Veeam solution
ExaGrid-Veeam deduplication ’greatly reduced’ amount of disk space zMW uses

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New Solution Needed to Resolve Backup Performance Issues

The ICT staff at zorggroep Maas & Waal (zMW) had been backing data up to tape and disk using Veritas Backup Exec, eventually adding Veeam to the backup environment as well. The staff constantly struggled with slow backups and trying to keep up with storage capacity.

“We decided to look into other options, and PSIS, our MSP who provides third-line support, told us that they had an amazing hardware product for us to try – ExaGrid. Once we researched ExaGrid, we decided to install it,” said Eric Ten Thije, ICT system engineer at zMW.

The ExaGrid system is easy to install and use and works seamlessly with all of the most frequently used backup applications, so an organization can retain its investment in existing applications and processes.

"We’ve even been able to run a VM from ExaGrid’s Landing Zone when we found corrupted databases in SQL. This prevented any interruptions from the workday while we got the SQL servers running again, and it only took a few minutes. "

Eric Ten Thije, ICT System Engineer

ExaGrid Eliminates Backup Window Spillover into Workweek

The ICT staff now use Veeam to back up zMW’s data to an ExaGrid system. Ten Thije backs up VMs which contain a wide variety of server data, such as Microsoft Exchange servers, application servers, and file servers. Then select data, such as Exchange mailboxes and document files, is archived to tape and stored offsite for disaster recovery (DR). Ten Thije finds that backups are much quicker since switching to the new solution. “Our weekly backups used start on Friday and wouldn’t finish until Tuesday afternoon. Now, we start those backups on Friday and they are finished on Saturday morning. We’re very happy with the backup performance from our ExaGrid system. We used to experience many problems when we backed up to tape, such as corrupted files or interruptions of backup jobs, but now we don’t have to worry about issues like that. Backups take a lot less time to manage since we’ve switched to ExaGrid.”

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-Veeam Solution Simplifies Process of Restoring Data

Since Ten Thije has found that restoring data is a simple, quick process with the ExaGrid-Veeam solution. “When we needed to restore from tape, we had to search for the correct tape in the vault and then run an inventory to find the file. Restoring data from our ExaGrid system using Veeam is much easier. We’ve even been able to run a VM from ExaGrid’s Landing Zone when we found corrupted databases in SQL. This prevented any interruptions from the workday while we got the SQL servers running again, and it only took a few minutes. It’s a great feature from ExaGrid!” he said. ExaGrid and Veeam can instantly recover a file or VMware virtual machine by running it directly from the ExaGrid appliance in the event that the file is lost, corrupted or encrypted or the primary storage VM becomes unavailable. This instant recovery is possible because of ExaGrid’s Landing Zone – a high-speed disk cache on the ExaGrid appliance that retains the most recent backups in their complete form. Once the primary storage environment has been brought back to a working state, the VM backed up on the ExaGrid appliance can then be migrated to primary storage for continued operation.

ExaGrid-Veeam Combined Deduplication

Ten Thije has been pleased with the data deduplication that the ExaGrid-Veeam solution provides. “Deduplication has greatly reduced the amount of disk space we use,” he said. 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.

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.

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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Customer Success Story

Customer Success Story