ExaGrid-Veeam Solution Provides The State Bar of California with Worry-Free Backups for Over a Decade
The State Bar of California is the regulatory arm of the California Supreme Court responsible for licensing and disciplining attorneys. The State Bar of California’s mission is to protect the public and includes the primary functions of licensing, regulation, and discipline of attorneys; the advancement of the ethical and competent practice of law; and support of efforts for greater access to, and inclusion in, the legal system.
Key Benefits:
- ExaGrid’s stability gives IT team confidence in backups
- ExaGrid-Veeam solution delivers fast restore performance
- ExaGrid system easily scales out at The State Bar’s data grows
- Combined ExaGrid-Veeam deduplication “essential” for long-term retention
"I think the support model really sets ExaGrid apart. I have my assigned support engineer I can reach out to who knows my environment as well as I do. ExaGrid has exceptional support."
Worry-Free Backups
John West, systems administrator at The State Bar of California, has been backing up data to ExaGrid over a decade. He was there during the original installation of Veeam and ExaGrid, which replaced the tape solution used in the past.
“It’s certainly nice for me not to have to change tapes anymore. We primarily use Veeam for all our data, as our environment is 95% virtual. At the time of installation, we used Backup Exec, which still functions today at a small scale with some database backups for our DBA. What I enjoy most about ExaGrid is its stability. I never have to worry about it.” said West.
ExaGrid has integrated the Veeam Data Mover so that backups are written Veeam-to-Veeam versus Veeam-to-CIFS, which provides a 30% increase in backup performance. Since the Veeam Data Mover is not an open standard, it is far more secure than using CIFS and other open market protocols. In addition, because ExaGrid has integrated the Veeam Data Mover, Veeam synthetic fulls can be created six times faster than any other solution. ExaGrid stores the most recent Veeam backups in an undeduplicated form in its Landing Zone and has the Veeam Data Mover running on each ExaGrid appliance and has a processor in each appliance in a scale-out architecture. This combination of Landing Zone, Veeam Data Mover, and scale-out compute provides the fastest Veeam synthetic fulls versus any other solution on the market.
ExaGrid and Veeam Deliver Fast Restores
West appreciates how quick and easy it is to restore data using the combined solution of ExaGrid and Veeam. “Our environment is predominately made up of virtual machines (VMs), where we can restore down to the file level with Veeam. Whether we are restoring a VM or individual files and folders, it is so much faster and easier to perform. This is one of the features of the ExaGrid-Veeam solution that I really appreciate.”
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 so that an RTO and RPO can be easily met. Available system cycles are utilized to perform deduplication and offsite replication for an optimal recovery point at the disaster recovery 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 disaster recovery.
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 Dedupe “Essential” for Long-Term Retention
“We perform daily, weekly, and monthly backups. Retention is now set for seven years, so the deduplication we receive from our ExaGrid-Veeam solution is essential,” said West.
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.
“Exceptional” Support Sets ExaGrid Apart
West has been pleased with the level of customer support he receives from ExaGrid. “I think the support model really sets ExaGrid apart. I have my assigned support engineer that I reach out to, and he knows my environment as well as I do. He is always very responsive with upgrades, solving problems, as well as sending me out a new disk if one goes bad. ExaGrid has exceptional support,” he said.
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.
Scalability Allows for Easy Expansion
“We’ve added many ExaGrid appliances to our system over the years. Racking it is something I am comfortable with and getting it on the network is straightforward. We can add space quickly and easily into our system.”
ExaGrid appliances contain not just disk but also processing power, memory, and bandwidth. When the system needs to expand, additional appliances are simply added to the existing system. The system scales linearly, maintaining a fixed-length backup window as data grows so customers only pay for what they need, when they need it.
Data is deduplicated into a non-network-facing Repository Tier with automatic load balancing and global deduplication across all repositories.
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.