Dell Networker vs. Veeam on IBM Cloud

For users with a basic backup system that does not provide advanced data protection this is a life saver in the age we live in where hackers are looking to encrypt and ruin your important backups. I would recommend [Dell EMC Networker] based on its features, price, and ease of use. If you have a similar product already it does not offer many unique features however.

Incentivized

Veeam on IBM Cloud is very well suited for doing data backup from the storage environment in the data center. It does this job well with an easy and straightforward user interface. There is minimal learning curve to get started. We wanted to use the cloud for backup instead of expanding storage in the data center and hence went with this solution. We do data recovery on a regular basis and have been able to retrieve data from Veeam backup in a very straightforward manner meeting the recovery time and recovery point objectives

Incentivized

• Networker has a UI and set that is relatively easy to use. It has a policy-based backup system that is straightforward as far as configuration.
• Networker has fairly robust reporting on current save sets and easily exportable pdfs and spreadsheets of statistics and metrics
• Networker has a monitoring dialogue which allows you to find out quickly what has succeeded or failed.

Incentivized

• The program installation is straight forward and uncomplicated.
• Once running it does not put a drain on system resources. After the initial backup subsequent backups are quick.
• It does what it is deigned to do and they have kept it simple for a reason.

Incentivized

• Networker terminology is awful. My favorite example is that many required-to-function configuration changes need to occur with the advanced configuration enabled. To make this worse, the 'advanced configuration' I am speaking of is actually called 'Debug Mode'. That's right, you must use debug mode in order to have a functional administrator interface.
• Errors are common and to resolve you often must go to support. You really need to be an expert to fix many errors, the steps usually involve being really knowledgeable in the CLI tools, which I am getting good at, but the public documentation is seriously lacking for troubleshooting these issues. That said, support (through emc) is really good at handling the common issues, friendly, generally knowledgeable, and quick to respond.
• It runs on Java, and sometimes I need to clear java cache to fix interface bugs. Generally this isn't an issue, but it is additional software you must worry about.

Incentivized

• The reporting could use some work. If you have a client who has some serious audit controls in place, you may find yourself creating the report versus depending on the system do that piece for you.
• My complaint would be with the notification emails. They are not configurable and come out regardless of whether a backup set completed or is still running.
• The scheduling is a little clunky. It would be much nicer if the backup could be "continuous" anytime it's connected to the Internet (similar to Carbonite).

Incentivized

There are three reasons for not renewing our use of NetWorker: 1) the rising and extremely high cost of support and proprietary hardware needed for deduplication, 2) the complete unreliability of the product (we couldn't recover from a true disaster if we wanted to), and 3) the horrible support from EMC for the product

Incentivized

NetWorker has the clunkiest interface and unfriendliest CLI with which I have ever had to work. I spent three years hating this application because it took ALL of my time just to keep it running. Even then, I had no confidence in our ability to recover from a disaster because of its unreliability.

Incentivized

Veeam is very easy to use once fully on-boarded and trained. Part of the reason we can respond to a critical situation swiftly is that it is so easy to use. We did take 2 years to be fully comfortable with the product as we tested it with others, but once we committed to Veeam, there was no question about it.

Incentivized

The support team has always been good, and there is never an issue that can't be resolved. The techs are competent and know the product. The slightly less than perfect rating I'm giving is because Support shouldn't carry the burden themselves. We hear from Dell sales people all the time, but they never call and ask about this product, nor do they offer to upsell it or make it better. That lack of sales support and coherence hurts the overall rating a bit. When I spend my company's money on your product, I expect you to at least ACT like you care, if not actually care for real. It influences my opinion and future purchasing habits.

Incentivized

At the moment I cannot say anything bad about the overall provided services. It's holding me back to put the mark even higher as other cloud solutions have their advantages as well, so I can't rate this one higher than competitor ones. However the experience is really positive to the moment and it has delivered always.

Incentivized

How can anyone build a house without a blueprint? NetWorker was ramrodded into place here without a design or implementation plan. The result was a setup that was doomed from the start and never worked reliable over the full three years of our contract obligation.

Incentivized

Our trust in DataDomain as a premier deduplication technology naturally leads to [Dell EMC] Networker being the appropriate backup application to integrate with. Networker provides the most favorable dedup with DataDomain when compared to other backup technologies, and provides the highest combination of protection flexibility and performance that most other applications cannot provide. For example, Veeam provides excellent VM backup capability, but is unable to protect Meditech. If you go down the list of backup applications, you'll find that Networker is unique in what it is able to protect and in its backup performance.

The capabilities that can be found on Veeam on IBM Cloud are [effective] and very reliable to [most] businesses. The data backup through the Veeam on IBM Cloud services is easy and very promising and the ability to protect data from various cyber data threats is amazing. Veeam on IBM Cloud also can easily generate great data reports and [is excellent on] data retrieving.

Incentivized

• Now that it's been implemented and the many kinks worked out, we have far less exposure to downtime, but that's only because we didn't have an adequate backup solution in the target environment initially. We used native tools to protect SQL data and a few other tricks, but really didn't have anything proper. In other words, the bar was low.
• We have reduced the load on some of our application servers through the use of Networker's agent for Microsoft. However, compare that with Veeam, which just has a checkbox and no agent required to properly back up a SQL box.
• Agent-based backups require monitoring and periodic updates. This adds complexity and additional staff time to manage.

Incentivized

• We solved a problem where we needed a backup for some remote clients and paying the cost for local backup was not feasible.
• allows us to put a solid backup and recovery solution in a client with very little monthly cost.
• Business backup and recovery, disaster recovery, hybrid data protection (onsite and cloud), server and workstation backup.

Incentivized