Toledo-Lucas County Public Library Is Tape-Free with ExaGrid System
Customer Overview
Located in Toledo, Ohio, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library is the area leader of information, education, and inspiration. By providing open and equitable access to its collection, all of Northwest Ohio can enjoy the ‘The People’s University.’ The library is home to the fifth largest collection in the state of Ohio.
Key Benefits:
- Efficiently scales to meet increasing data volume needs
- Backup window reduced from 15 hours with tape to 6 with the ExaGrid system
- Easy access to reporting provides status on backup jobs from anywhere at anytime
- Backup efficiencies have freed up time in the workday to dedicate to other priorities
- Proactive monitoring by ExaGrid support engineer
Need to Replace Time-Consuming, Costly Tape Library Led to ExaGrid
The Toledo-Lucas County Library had hoped to reduce the costs and the amount of time its IT staff was spending on managing tape and troubleshooting backups by purchasing a new tape library. However, the library’s backup jobs continued to fail.
“We had great expectations for the new tape library but were left with the same old problems: the high cost of tape, constant troubleshooting, and lots of time spent managing backup jobs. The final straw was when we had to return the autoloader to the factory to have a jammed tape removed,” said Dave Misko, network engineer supervisor for the Toledo-Lucas County Library. “We finally decided that enough was enough and began looking for disk-based backup solutions to eliminate tape completely.”
"Before I even leave for work in the morning, I check my phone to make sure that the backup jobs ran correctly overnight. When I arrive at work, I don’t have to change tapes or troubleshoot backup jobs. Installing the ExaGrid has given me hours back in my workday. "
Scalability to Grow, Ability to Replicate Data Offsite
After evaluating the pros and cons of different disk-based approaches on the market, the library purchased a two-site ExaGrid system to work along with its existing backup application, Veritas Backup Exec.
“We looked at a couple of different options, but what we liked best about the ExaGrid system was its ability to easily scale as our backup needs increased,” said Misko. “The fact that we could also deploy a system offsite for disaster recovery was a big plus. The ExaGrid system was the best fit and met all of our requirements.”
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.
Unique Data Deduplication Approach Speeds Backups
ExaGrid’s post-process data deduplication significantly reduces the amount of data stored to boost retention while ensuring fast backups. The library’s total data volume is approximately 24TB, with 8TB of data backed up each night.
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 Misko said that since installing the ExaGrid system, backup times have been reduced to 6 hours, down from as high as 15 hours.
“Our backups have to be completed during the nine-hour timespan when the library is closed, but we weren’t able to meet that goal with our tape library, especially when the secondary drive in the carousel failed and our backups stretched to nearly 15 hours. With the ExaGrid system, our backups are completed consistently each night, and our data is automatically replicated offsite for disaster recovery. We don’t have to worry about meeting our backup windows anymore,” he said. Misko said that since installing the ExaGrid system, backup times have been reduced to 6 hours, down from as high as 15 hours.
“Our backups have to be completed during the nine-hour timespan when the library is closed, but we weren’t able to meet that goal with our tape library, especially when the secondary drive in the carousel failed and our backups stretched to nearly 15 hours. With the ExaGrid system, our backups are completed consistently each night, and our data is automatically replicated offsite for disaster recovery. We don’t have to worry about meeting our backup windows anymore,” he said.
Easy Management and Top-Notch Support
“Gone are the days when I arrive in the office and have to spend hours troubleshooting backups or manage tape. One of the nice things about the ExaGrid system is its detailed reporting. Before I even leave for work in the morning, I check my phone to make sure that the backup jobs ran correctly overnight. When I arrive at work; I don’t have to change tapes or troubleshoot backup jobs. Installing the ExaGrid has given me hours back in my workday,” said Misko.
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.
“The ExaGrid system is incredibly easy to manage, but I think “One of the best things about the system is that it’s monitored by ExaGrid’s support team. We had a drive failure at one point, and I received a call from our support engineer to let me know he was shipping a new one out immediately,” said Misko. “Our support engineer does a great job at keeping in touch, and he’s very easy to reach if I have a question. He really knows his way around the system.” Misko said that he would highly recommend the ExaGrid system to other organizations seeking to streamline backup processes. “ExaGrid is definitely the solution for any organization looking to completely eliminate the need for tape. We’re now tape-free, and our backup jobs run so much faster – it’s absolutely the way to go.”
ExaGrid and Veritas Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec provides cost-effective, high-performance backup and recovery – including continuous data protection for Microsoft Exchange servers, Microsoft SQL servers, file servers, and workstations. High-performance agents and options provide fast, flexible, granular protection and scalable management of local and remote server backups. Organizations using Veritas Backup Exec can look to ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage for nightly backups. ExaGrid sits behind existing backup applications, such as Veritas Backup Exec, providing faster and more reliable backups and restores. In a network running Veritas Backup Exec, using ExaGrid is as easy as pointing existing backup jobs at a NAS share on the ExaGrid system. Backup jobs are sent directly from the backup application to ExaGrid for backup to disk.