Archive: October 6, 2021

ExaGrid Reports Record Bookings and Revenue in Q3 2021

ExaGrid®, the industry’s only Tiered Backup Storage solution, today announced that it had an all-time record bookings and revenue in the quarter ending September 30, 2021. This accomplishment was on the back of ExaGrid’s record-breaking quarters in Q1 and Q2 2021, increasing both bookings and revenue to a new all-time high.

ExaGrid’s revenue grew over 57% as compared to Q3 2020, and grew 10.4% sequentially from Q2 2021 to Q3 2021. In addition, ExaGrid was cash positive in the quarter for fourth quarter in row. ExaGrid added a record 153 new customers in Q3 2021, including 43 six- and seven-figure deals, and has more than 3,100 active customers that use ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage to protect their data. ExaGrid’s growth is accelerating, and the company is hiring over 60 additional inside and field sales staff worldwide.

“IT organizations are truly understanding the difference that ExaGrid brings to the backup storage market with its Tiered Backup Storage approach. ExaGrid reduces the cost of backup storage while maintaining performance and scalability. All of the first-generation deduplication appliances such as Dell EMC Data Domain, HPE StoreOnce, and Veritas 5340, are slow for backup, slow for restores and don’t scale well. Low-cost primary storage disk is too expensive for long-term backup storage. You need to have an integrated approach that brings the performance of backing up to disk but also data deduplication for efficient long-term retention backup storage. ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage provides the best of both worlds,” said Bill Andrews, President and CEO of ExaGrid.

ExaGrid appliances have a network-facing disk-cache Landing Zone where the most recent backups are written without inline deduplication for fast backups and are stored in an undeduplicated format for fast restores. ExaGrid uses scale-out architecture, which maintains a fixed-length backup window and also eliminates expensive and disruptive forklift upgrades and product obsolescence. ExaGrid’s Adaptive Deduplication technology deduplicates the data into a non-network-facing repository where deduplicated data is stored for longer-term retention, often for weeks, months and years. The combination of a non-network-facing tier (virtual air gap) plus delayed deletes with ExaGrid’s Retention Time-Lock feature, and immutable data objects, guards against the backup data being deleted or encrypted.

Highlights of Q3 2021:

• Strong competitive win rate at 75%
• Brought on more than 150 new customers
• Record revenue in the US, Canada, Latin America, EMEA and APAC
• 43 six and seven-figure new customer deals
• Company remains cash positive over the last four quarters
• More than 3,100 customers protect their data with ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage
• ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage – Built for Backup

“ExaGrid realized that disk is too expensive for longer-term retention, that deduplication in the backup application impedes performance and does not bring enough deduplication, that inline deduplication appliances lower the cost of storage but reduce backup and restore performance, and that the backup window grows as the data grows. ExaGrid determined that customers need to have it all: a front-end-disk cache Landing Zone tier for fast backups and restores, a repository tier for long-term deduplicated data, a scale-out architecture to keep the backup window fixed in length as data grows and eliminates forklift upgrades and planned product obsolescence, and an integrated ransomware recovery solution with a non-network-facing tier, delayed deletes, and immutable data objects all in one single integrated approach. ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage is that approach,” said Andrews.

ExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a front-end disk-cache Landing Zone, the Performance Tier, which writes data directly to disk for the fastest backups, and restores directly from disk for the fastest restores and VM boots. The long-term retention data is tiered to a deduplicated data repository, the Retention Tier, to reduce the amount of retention storage and resulting cost. This two-tiered approach provides the fastest backup and restore performance with lowest cost storage efficiency.

In addition, ExaGrid provides a scale-out architecture where appliances are simply added as data grows. Each appliance includes processor, memory and network ports, so as data grows, all resources required are available to maintain a fixed-length backup window. This scale-out storage approach eliminates expensive forklift upgrades, and allows for mixing appliances of different sizes and models in the same scale-out system, which eliminates product obsolescence while protecting IT investments up front and over time.

Community Values and Reduced Risks Key to New Guiding Principles

Oak Ridge, TN: Leaders in Energy and Preservation (LEAP) today released Voluntary Practices for Non-Regulated Energy Development Projects. These practices put into action LEAP’s guiding principles for responsible development of energy projects that respect historic places, cultural resources and community voices. LEAP encourages these principles to be adopted voluntarily across the energy industry by companies who share community values and seek to reduce risks to their projects.

“Over the past several years, we have listened to energy producers and project developers, and have worked in concert with cultural resource managers to develop voluntary principles that are easy to implement and will make a big difference for communities,” explained Chuck Niquette, LEAP Board Chair.

The LEAP Principles are the combined input of more than 100 volunteers from the energy industry, historic preservation advocacy community, cultural resource management industry, and communication specialists. LEAP’s Principles are designed to help developers reduce impacts to historic properties and cultural resources on projects regardless of whether they are subject to federal permitting requirements. Community values and voices can affect project outcomes and the principles underscore that fact.

LEAP’s Principles promote an integrated process for consideration of heritage resources within the proven modern methods of energy development. They also provide a decision-making framework that does not mandate a particular outcome, and their approach provides a crucial flexibility for industry that can be incorporated into existing systems. The value proposition is clear – LEAP’s voluntary principles have the potential to reduce the risk of project delay, budget overruns, and reputational damage, and should be an important part of an energy company’s environmental, social, and governance policies.

LEAP is actively seeking partners from the energy industry and heritage management firms to join them and adopt the LEAP Principles. Read the full document here: www.energyandpreservation.org/principles and contact Lesley Cusick, LEAP Managing Director to discuss LEAP’s Principles – including how to implement them in a graduated manner, tailored to your company’s needs.

About LEAP: Leaders in Energy and Preservation (LEAP) is a coalition of energy companies and historic preservation groups promoting best practices for early planning that deliver efficient energy projects through responsible heritage management. Our best practices and technological innovations help energy companies manage risk and plan successful projects that protect significant heritage resources such as archaeological sites, historic properties, and sites of cultural importance to Indigenous people.

Apex Companies, LLC Acquires CME Engineering LP and CME Operations LP

Rockville, MD: Apex Companies, LLC (Apex), a national leader in engineering, water resources and environmental services, today announced the acquisition of CME Engineering LP and CME Operations LP, regional providers in civil, mining, water, and environmental engineering.

Based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, CME brings nearly 60 professionals including engineers, geologists, surveyors, and water/wastewater treatment plant operators. The firm serves clients across the Mid-Atlantic with offices in Greensburg, Somerset, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1999, CME’s reputation for technical excellence, reliability, and innovation has led to a loyal client base and a robust portfolio of repeat business.

“We are excited to be joining a firm that is also dedicated to exceeding client expectations and providing best in class solutions for the most pressing environmental and engineering challenges of today,” said Sean Isgan, CME Co-Founder & CEO. “Apex and CME provide each other with complimentary services that will allow us to expand our customer base and service lines. A future with Apex provides exciting opportunities for our staff and for our clients whose needs are ever expanding.”

Mr. Isgan will remain with the firm and work hand in hand with Apex leadership on integration and future expansion of the business under the Apex brand.

“CME adds new mission-critical capabilities in engineering, water/wastewater and power. This and the diverse talent that Sean and his team bring to Apex builds upon our recent investments in infrastructure services, and further diversifies our capabilities in engineering, water and environmental services,” said Apex President & CEO, David Fabianski. “The management core at CME is very strong and the entire staff is incredibly passionate about what they do. We look forward to welcoming them to Apex.”

RFID Wooden Key Cards Creating More Sustainability for Hotels

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 05, 2021: Each year, a typical hotel with 200 rooms uses about 12,000 non-biodegradable key cards, creating approximately 1,300 tons of plastic waste that ends up in landfills.

In an effort to not only promote sustainability but provide a carbon-footprint reducing solution, Print Plast has launched a few plastic-free options for RFID hotel key cards.

Hotel key cards that utilize the latest RFID industry practices enable all hotel brands to take value-added measures to be more environmentally friendly. Besides being the greenest option in sustainability, wooden key cards will also impress your hotel guests with their unique aesthetic appeal.

Wooden cards, an eco-friendly alternative to PVC, can now be found in Print Plast’s line of products. The company offers a wide variety of wood material options, such as Bamboo, which is durable and ecologically sustainable, and Birch, an ultra-flat wood ideal for printing inks and magnetic stripe printing. Walnut, Maple, Cherry, Beech, Sapele are additional, stylish yet natural options. With a unique handcrafted appearance, every material provides a special touch to a hotel’s key cards.

Hotel brands may choose to engrave the product on both sides of the product, or to imprint the product using color ink.

Wooden key cards are available with RFID chip technologies compatible with all major locks and access control systems. This is ideal as security doesn’t have to be compromised in creating sustainable, eco-friendlier solutions.

The alternative is an easy solution when deciding to dedicate to avoiding the prolonged use of plastic key cards (adding to plastic litter and pollution) yet garnering attention and appeal from guests. These innovative, sustainable wooden key cards allow hotels and their guests to help stop plastics use while maintaining quality security, functionality and impressive design.

About Print Plast
With a Swiss joint venture company, PrintPlast began producing cards in 1989. Print Plast has performed the best services and offers the best solutions that provide ultimate privacy protection, professional consulting and customer satisfaction.

The experts at Print Plast manufacture hotel key cards and understand the importance of satisfying guests. To help you deliver the best possible experience to your guests, Print Plast will consult on the art and design of your card artworks. Additionally, Print Plast will then oversee manufacture from start to finish. Likewise, Print Plast must ensure the chip readability/encoding, read-range, and durability of every card to guarantee that 100% of them will not only work but will function for years to come. Providing a 100% performance guarantee simplifies card purchasing for you (hotel management), while more importantly, enhancing your guests’ experience.