Case Study: BankWest achieves 6–8 hour backups and lower costs with ExaGrid disk backup and deduplication

Financial Institution Banks on Disk Backup With Deduplication for Faster, More Efficient Backups

BankWest, the 9th largest FDIC‑insured financial institution in South Dakota with 13 branches and a central data center in Pierre, faced mounting backup problems as rapid growth increased its data. Its tape‑based system could not keep up—full backups often ran from Friday through Monday or Tuesday, daily differentials were delayed, and IT staff spent hours each week managing tapes.

BankWest replaced tape with a two‑site ExaGrid disk‑based system running alongside CommVault Galaxy, with one appliance onsite and one offsite for replication; tape was reduced to a monthly archive. The deduplication solution cut the backup window from three–four days to about six–eight hours, saved roughly four hours of weekly administration, and provided scalable, easier‑managed backups with dedicated vendor support.

Bankwest

Terry Kuxhaus

IT Manager