MLSListings Gains Reliable Backup After Switch to ExaGrid-Veeam Solution
Customer Overview
MLSListings Inc. is where real estate property listings originate, as the authorized trading platform for real estate professionals. Its customers are REALTORS®, brokers, and agents throughout northern California, specializing in the counties of Monterey, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz. Approximately 16,000 real estate professionals in over 6,000 firms representing 28,000 square miles conduct business utilizing the MLS platform, which provides the most up-to-date and accurate information available to buyers, sellers, and those seeking real estate information.
Key Benefits:
- ExaGrid-Veeam solution resolved issue of backup windows that surpassed 24 hours
- Deduplication is the “secret sauce” that allows MLSListings to get “more usage” out of backup storage
- IT staff feels confident in reliability of backup solution, with aid of ExaGrid Support
Updating Backup with ExaGrid-Veeam Solution
MLSListings had been struggling with slow tape backup and was in the process of virtualizing its IT environment, so it decided to look into a disk-based backup system. The company’s trusted technology provider recommended Veeam and ExaGrid as a more modern backup solution, and MLSListings purchased both.
From the beginning, Richard Ding, network engineer at MLSListings, has appreciated the support he receives from ExaGrid. “As far as the IT department, I’m a one-man shop, maintaining the network as well as our hardware and software. Working with my ExaGrid support engineer has been so helpful, especially getting our ExaGrid installed and configured to work with Veeam. There was a limited window to get everything installed at the colo data center we use, and my ExaGrid support engineer worked on it remotely and talked me through the process over the phone. It ended up being a very simple process with minimal downtime to get the job done.”
Deduplication: The ‘Secret Sauce’ of Backup
Ding backs up MLSListings’ data on a daily basis, which had been nearly impossible with tape. “One of the major reasons we needed a new backup solution was because we could not finish our backups within a 24-hour window using tape, which defeats the whole purpose of backup. This issue has been resolved since we switched out the older technology for the newer ExaGrid and Veeam technology,” said Ding.
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).
Introducing data deduplication to the backup environment has allowed Ding to get “more usage” out of the backup storage. “Deduplication is the secret sauce of the ExaGrid backup solution,” said Ding. 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.
"When I first started my career in IT, I had to manually check our backup jobs every morning, and sometimes it took half a day to resolve an issue. Now, I have so many tasks as a network engineer and backup is not the portion of my work that I worry about, thanks to the reliability of the ExaGrid-Veeam solution. "
Backups No Longer Dominate Workday
One of the features that Ding appreciates most about working with ExaGrid is the high level of customer support that it provides. “My ExaGrid support engineer has been working with me since day one. I’m always able to reach out to him directly and he always responds quickly, which is very different than what I’ve experienced working with other vendors who assign a ticket and then don’t call back in a timely manner. My ExaGrid support engineer actually calls me if there is an issue with the system, thanks to ExaGrid’s ‘phone home’ feature which will send an alert and also notify my engineer to remotely log in and check out the system. It keeps the maintenance simple.
“Backup is so important, and keeping data without a backup plan is like driving on the highway without car insurance. When I first started my career in IT, I had to manually check our backup jobs every morning, and sometimes it took half a day to resolve an issue. Now, I have so many tasks as a network engineer and backup is not the portion of my work that I worry about, thanks to the reliability of the ExaGrid-Veeam solution,” said Ding. “My ExaGrid support engineer not only helps to resolve issues, but also teaches me the best practices to get the most out of the solution. No matter how great a product is, a good support engineer is essential, and it’s been incredible to have someone so knowledgeable to work with,” he added.
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. Customer’s 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.