ExaGrid Customer GreenBank Wins 2009 InfoWorld 100 Award for Dramatically Improved Backup and Disaster Recovery Deployment

WESTBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ExaGrid Systems, Inc. (http://www.exagrid.com), the leader in cost-effective and scalable disk-based backup solutions with data deduplication, today announced that its customer GreenBank received an InfoWorld 100 award for their innovative use of the ExaGrid system. InfoWorld’s annual awards honor companies for IT projects that exemplify intelligent and creative uses of technology to meet business and technical objectives.

“Being recognized for one of the most innovative IT projects of the year by InfoWorld is a great honor for GreenBank, we are very proud to have received this for our use of ExaGrid’s disk-based backup technology.”

GreenBank, a Tennessee chartered commercial bank with principal executive offices in Greeneville, Tennessee and more than 60 branch locations, has grown quickly by acquiring several other banks. As its data grew, GreenBank’s IT department found their tape backups took too long and often failed before completion. In addition, restores were time consuming and difficult to perform using tape.

Due to this rapid data growth, GreenBank needed a product that incorporated data deduplication technology to reduce the amount of data stored, and GreenBank is currently seeing data deduplication ratios with ExaGrid of more than 16:1. Incremental backups that previously took over 24 hours with tape are now completed in less than 12 hours, and full backups that previously took over three days to complete each weekend—often aborting before completion—now take 1/3 the time. In addition, GreenBank is now cost-effectively retaining nearly three months of data on the system, and their helpdesk easily performs restores for end users, cutting time-consuming tape inventory delays and restores.

“As a financial institution, it is important that our data is easy to recover and restore. With ExaGrid our backups are now completed consistently every night and our IT staff spends far less time managing and administering backup processes and tapes. The ability to reliably backup all the data received from many servers at many locations has allowed the team to work on more strategic projects,” said Jason O’Dell, IT Manager, GreenBank. “Being recognized for one of the most innovative IT projects of the year by InfoWorld is a great honor for GreenBank, we are very proud to have received this for our use of ExaGrid’s disk-based backup technology.”

“We’re excited to see GreenBank recognized for its use of ExaGrid’s disk backup solution,” said Bill Hobbib, vice president of Marketing, ExaGrid. “Companies like GreenBank who are experiencing exponential data growth depend on our technology for the shortest backup window, best scalability without forklift upgrades or performance degradation as data grows, and fast disaster recovery.”

ExaGrid combines last backup compression along with data deduplication, allowing changes to be stored from backup to backup instead of storing full file copies. This lets organizations store 1TB to 100TB full backups plus retention on one single scalable system. This unique approach reduces the disk space required by a range of 10:1 to 50:1 or more, delivering unparalleled cost savings and performance. ExaGrid delivers extremely fast backup performance because data is written directly to disk and data deduplication is performed post-process after the data is stored.

ExaGrid’s GRID computing software makes the system highly scalable. Different sized configurations can be mixed and matched into a virtualized GRID system with capacities of up to a 100TB full backup plus retention. Performance scales with data growth since processing power, memory, and bandwidth are added along with storage capacity, and data loads are automatically balanced across all servers.

“This year’s recipients of InfoWorld’s highest honor are shining examples of IT projects undertaken by tech leaders committed to pushing their organizations forward,” said Jason Snyder, features editor, InfoWorld.

To be considered for the InfoWorld 100 award, nominated projects must use multiple technologies in innovative ways to serve well-defined business goals. "Breathing new life into outdated operations, advancing business goals with inventive use of technology -- this year's winners demonstrate, once again, that innovative, business-minded IT is the lifeblood of successful organizations," said Jason Snyder, senior editor for InfoWorld.

Winners of the InfoWorld 100 were formally announced November 23 at InfoWorld.com.

For more information about the InfoWorld 100, please visit: http://www.infoworld.com/t/it-management/top-100-it-projects-2009-860

About InfoWorld Media Group

InfoWorld Media Group helps Senior IT Decision Makers choose the right technology, within the context of a cohesive strategy, for business impact at their organizations. Rather than merely covering the enterprise technology market, InfoWorld identifies and promotes emerging technology segments that add unique value for the organizations that implement them, as well as the vendors that provide those solutions. Using an integrated communications approach including online, events, research, and a continued investment in an independent Test Center, InfoWorld analysts and editors provide both hands-on analysis and evaluation, as well as expert commentary on issues surrounding emerging technologies and products. Visit InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com.

About International Data Group

International Data Group (IDG) is the world's leading technology media, events, and research company. IDG’s online network includes more than 450 web sites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment and video games worldwide. IDG also publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers. Media brands are in more than 90 countries and include CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld/TechWorld/TecChannel, Macworld, Network World, and PC World. The company’s lead-generation service, IDG Connect, matches technology companies with an audience of engaged, high-quality IT professionals, influencers, and decision makers.

IDG is a leading producer of more than 750 technology-related events including Macworld Conference & Expo, OpenSource World, E3, DEMO, Storage Networking World, and IDC Directions. IDC, a subsidiary of IDG, is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events. Over 1000 IDC analysts in more than 100 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends.

Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at http://www.idg.com

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 and the fastest, most reliable restores, tape copy, and disaster recovery without performance degradation or forklift upgrades as data grows. 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. For more information, contact ExaGrid at 800-868-6985 or visit www.exagrid.com. Also visit "ExaGrid’s Eye on De-Duplication" blog: http://blog.exagrid.com/.

ExaGrid is a registered trademark of ExaGrid Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.