Arctera Backup Exec vs. PowerProtect DD Series

One of the differentials is that of all the backup tools I used, Veritas Backup Exec has the best management and control interface. It is very easy to use and configure the rules. There are several options that we can optimize our work for our specific needs, from scheduling a backup, restoring data, directories, alerts system, error reports, backups, inconsistencies and other very interesting things. It has integration with SQL, vmware, hyper v. Backup and restore speeds are fast and secure.

Incentivized

When used as a backup target PowerProtect DD models offer incredible density and can efficiently replicate to another cloud-based or offsite unit. Most complaints about these have been addressed in software over the years and they are now a intuitive and easily managed backup system. You are not buying a Swiss army knife, you are getting a machine designed for a purpose, use it for that and you will not be disappointed. While they have the ability to serve as a CIFS server, they are not a filer and lack many of the features inherent to filers and are a poor substitute.

Incentivized

• The license/agent deployment feature in Backup Exec facilitates effective and speedy population within your data center.
• Veritas Backup Exec's feature rich job creation is intuitive and simplifies backup strategies.
• Customizable views in the Administrator console allow you to view your backup environment to maximize visibility.

Incentivized

• It writes backups quickly. DDBoost add-on is very useful as well for improving backup speeds.
• DD is very efficient in its use of capacity. It dedupes and compresses very well.
• It spans to large capacity amounts.

Incentivized

• The user interface can sometimes be sluggish and hang between options.The minimum spec is 2Gb but if running on a dedicated server I think 4Gb is recommended
• As more companies seem to be entering the backup software market, Acronis is very aggressive on pricing and even offer discounts if you are replacing other backup solutions, the Backup Exec pricing plans have become a more expensive
• Our version is an older 2014 version and has inadequate support for VM backs

Incentivized

• Depending on the model of Data Domain, there is a limit to the number of NFS/SMB threads that can run concurrently. When this limit is reached, the system is slow to respond to client requests.
• Data Domain support is very slow to turn out new features and bug fixes in their code.
• OS upgrades are very slow and disruptive.

Incentivized

This software is a mess in my brutally honest opinion. I've spent more time babysitting this software while backing up 20 servers than I did with Veeam backing up 600+. I've had multiple jobs run fine for weeks at a time that just randomly fail out of the blue for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There's no intuitive way to chain jobs, so automation becomes somewhat more problematic if certain jobs depend on other jobs. The forever incremental feature feels tacked on since the merge operation merges all your incremental jobs into the most recent backup and doesn't have the option set a limit on how long to keep your point in time restores.

DD has performed flawlessly for almost 10 years as our backup/recovery storage with offsite replication. Given its track record and great support from EMC, we're unlikely to look elsewhere any time soon.

Incentivized

It can do a lot of things on paper and sounds terrific, but in practice it doesn't do any of them well. It can easily be sold to non-technical minds and C-levels, but of all the backup solutions I've used in the last 15 years of my career, Backup Exec is easily the least fault tolerant. Unless this software is a sunk cost and you're on a shoestring budget, I recommend almost anything else. Jobs fail often with obscure error codes and the KB articles in the Veritas support portal are a mess. Within 30 days of a fresh deployment I've logged more tickets with their support than I did in 3 years with Veeam.

The weekly error on save needs a manual reload from me. The SDR can't restore the virtual machine of hyperV during a test.

Incentivized

No problem for this point it is in the average.

Incentivized

In the few instances of having to contact support, our overall outcome was always good. They would have received a better score if the wait time was less, but I attribute this to the timing of support calls - it was during the previous owner's time. We have not had to open a support ticket since Veritas Backup Exec took the product back over.

Incentivized

Customer support has had some ups and downs here. We've had several issues with EMC support before and during the acquisition by Dell, but in the last 18 months support has been top notch. Quick and knowledgeable help is but a chat away, or they will call you back so you don't have to wait on hold. The team supporting us is responsive and is quick to assist with any request or issue.

Incentivized

It was pretty straightforward.

Veritas Backup Exec is very comparable to Unitrends and in some areas is easier to use. The license side of Veritas Backup Exec is much more difficult to manage compared to Unitrends. Unitrends seems to be a much smoother solutions to protect virtual environments. Restoring data with Veritas Backup Exec is logical and easier to achieve, Unitrends is a bit less logical or intuitive.

Incentivized

We already had Avamar in place, and since we have a good ecosystem of Dell Solution suite and wanted to evaluate PowerProtect DD also from that perspective, hence we thought of going ahead with it. We knew the limitations with Avamar and PowerProtect DD were right there from that side of the business.

Incentivized

We only use it on the on-premise version on a single site.

Incentivized

• As the person tasked with the job of protecting the company's data, I am glad that Backup Exec performs that job well. I am able to often set-it-and-forget-it and go about the rest of my duties. I have never had a situation where Backup Exec was called upon to restore data and it was unable to do so. This reflects well on both me and my department and provides a sense of security to the rest of the company.
• I am not making full use of the product and have not licensed a number of its features, but even the base feature set is impressive. To be clear, Backup Exec is no longer the only product we reply upon for data protection, but it is still a large part of that program. If an SMB can find the budget to afford to license the set of features meet its particular demands, Backup Exec will do what you need.
• As an industry leader, Backup Exec is well positioned to stay at the head of the pack (as they have done for many years) and provide their customers with a comprehensive set of capabilities that will always remain in the forefront of technology.

Incentivized

• Positive: The high compression (58.0x) and data reduction (98.3%) have allowed us to optimize the storage for efficient usage.
• Negative: even after adding capacity, we are running out of space. Adding capacity adds to the overall TCO (e.g. lease cost).

Incentivized