Case Study: Pepe & Hazard LLP achieves faster, tapeless backups and 18-22 hours/week staff savings with ExaGrid

Pepe & Hazard Moves to ExaGrid to Make Backups and Restores Faster and More Efficient

Pepe & Hazard LLP, a Connecticut-based law firm founded in 1983 with offices in Hartford, Southport, Waterbury and Boston, faced growing backup and recovery challenges as it moved many servers to VMware. The firm was burdened by tape-driven backups—long windows, unreliable restores and manual tape management—and needed a scalable, VMware-friendly solution that would speed restores and simplify retention policies.

Pepe & Hazard deployed a two-site ExaGrid system (primary in Hartford, replicated to a New York co-location) that works with Symantec Backup Exec and tightly integrates with VMware. Post-process data de-duplication and disk-based backups cut Exchange backup time from nearly 12 hours to under four, eliminated tape management (freeing 18–22 staff hours per week), enabled near-instant virtual host recovery, and provided a scalable, supported DR-ready architecture.

Pepe & Hazard LLP

Brian Ciarcia

IT Manager