ExaGrid Sets New Standard In Backup Price, Performance And Capacity With Launch Of EX10000E Disk Backup System With Data Deduplication And Expanded 100TB GRID Capacity

ExaGrid Systems, Inc., the leader in cost-effective and scalable disk-based backup solutions with data deduplication, recently announced its new EX10000E 10TB disk backup server allowing customers to store a 10TB full backup plus long term retention. In addition to the 10TB server, ExaGrid has announced an upgrade to its GRID software which expands the maximum number of servers in a GRID configuration to ten (10). The new 10TB server and enhanced GRID software bring unsurpassed price/performance allowing customers to store a 100TB full backup, plus long term retention, in a single cost-effective GRID-based disk-backup system with data deduplication. ExaGrid is the first and only vendor to provide this level of performance and capacity in a NAS-based disk backup system with deduplication starting at a list price of $85,900 for the EX10000E.

Unrelenting data growth causing backup times to grow beyond the allowable backup window is a significant concern for IT organizations. The new EX10000E allows customers with large and growing amounts of data to achieve their backup window goals, while providing seamless modular scalability as data grows.

In addition to the EX10000E's expanded backup capacity, the new system provides the best price/performance of any other NAS-based disk backup with deduplication system available today by writing to disk at full disk speed (post-processing) and adding complete servers in a GRID for full system expansion, instead of just more disk capacity. This scalable GRID-based approach maintains fast backup performance even as data grows. ExaGrid is also uniquely fast for restore performance as it stores the most recent backup in its complete, non-deduplicated form ready for rapid restoration or tape copies.

The new EX10000E system and enhanced GRID software include the following features and customer benefits:

Highly Scalable Virtualized GRID Architecture:

• Up to ten ExaGrid servers can now be combined in a virtualized 100TB GRID system -- more than triple the capacity of prior generation ExaGrid systems.
• Performance scales with data growth since processing power, memory and bandwidth are added along with storage capacity.
• Data loads are automatically balanced across all servers in the GRID.

Best Price/Performance for Shortest Backup Window and Fastest Data Restoration:

• By leveraging post-process data deduplication, the EX10000E delivers the industry's the best NAS price/performance. (Backup throughput is up to 18 TB/hour for a fully configured GRID.)
• The industry's fastest restore and tape copy performance with data deduplication also keeps the most recent backup in its whole form. (Restore throughput is up to 14.4 TB/hour for a fully configured GRID.)

Industry's Only Singly-Managed GRID System:

• Fully configured ExaGrid installations are managed via a single centralized web UI with one login, unlike other solutions that require managing multiple separate devices via separate logins.
• Customers benefit from a virtualized pool of storage that shares data deduplication across systems automatically, with no splitting of data or deduplication efficiency loss across separate systems.

Most Cost-Effective and Flexible Solution with No "Forklift" Upgrades:

• Users of the ExaGrid system do not need to over-buy storage capacity up front, since modular systems can be easily combined in a virtualized GRID for larger capacities as needed.
• Multiple EX Series server configurations hold full backups of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 5TB or 10TB plus retention. Any size server can be mixed and matched in multiple different configurations, with up to ten servers combined in a single GRID.
• Backward compatibility with prior generation systems ensures investment protection without "forklift" upgrades as new servers are added into an existing GRID.

Enhanced Energy-Efficient Operation:

• The EX10000E is a compact 4U rack-mount server, enabling customers to store significantly more backup data in the same space and realize substantial savings in power, cooling and space requirements versus standard disk.
• The new EX10000E was designed for energy efficiency, and consumes 50 percent less power on average than prior generation configurations.

ExaGrid's Disk Backup System with Data Deduplication supports the industry's leading backup applications and utilities, including: CA ARCserve, CommVault Simpana, EMC Networker, Linux/Unix dumps, Microsoft SQL dump, Oracle RMAN dumps, Symantec Backup Exec, Symantec NetBackup, Vizioncore vRangerPro, VMware Backup.

"We consistently hear that completing ever larger backups in a short backup window is a primary customer concern," said Marc Crespi, vice president of Product Management, ExaGrid Systems, Inc. "Our groundbreaking new EX10000E product allows customers with larger amounts of data to achieve their backup window goals with our post-processing data deduplication, but also maintain that short backup window as their data grows by leveraging our scalable GRID architecture. This approach also allows customers the flexibility to buy only what they need, when they need it, as additional servers can be added into the GRID at any time. The strength of our architecture is that you can grow the system as your data grows and performance does not degrade. Each server brings additional memory, processor, and bandwidth resources along with storage capacity – all at a price that remains cost-effective for the customer."

Customer, Partner and Industry Analyst Support for the New ExaGrid EX10000E:

"ExaGrid's disk backup with data deduplication solution paired with its excellent support consistently delivers reliable data backup for GreenBank as we've gone through the process of multiple acquisitions and significant data growth," said Jason O'Dell, IT manager for GreenBank. "For growing businesses, like ours, it's important to have a backup appliance that can grow right along with constantly expanding data demands. The new EX10000E embodies this principle and we're excited about it."

"When it comes to backup, high performance for short backup windows and easy, affordable scalability as data grows are the key things on customers' minds every day," said Bernard Westwood, principal and CFO of Syscom Technologies, a leading storage and data protection-focused solution provider. "ExaGrid's new EX10000E and expanded GRID software allow us to deliver these valued benefits and we're thrilled to have the opportunity to bring them to our customers."

"Organizations struggling with their backups, or with the cost, complexity and risk associated with tape would be wise to consider the backup and restore performance improvements and bottom line savings that can be achieved with ExaGrid," said Arun Taneja, founder and president, Taneja Group. "The new higher performance and larger capacity ExaGrid EX10000E system leverages the economic benefits of industry-standard hardware on an advanced ‘scale-out' grid-based architecture. I do believe the grid approach will prevail as it allows customers the advantage of starting small and be assured that future growth can be handled by the same system without regard to growth rates and technology changes."

About ExaGrid Systems, Inc.
ExaGrid offers the only disk-based backup appliance with data deduplication purpose-built for backup that leverages a unique architecture optimized for performance, scalability and price. The combination of post-process deduplication, most recent backup cache, and GRID scalability enables IT departments to achieve the shortest backup window, fast and reliable restores, fast tape copy, rapid disaster recovery, and data growth without performance degradation or forklift upgrades. With offices and distribution worldwide, ExaGrid has more than 1,600 systems installed at more than 450 customers, and more than 125 published customer success stories.

SOURCE: ExaGrid Systems, Inc.