Iperius Backup vs. PowerProtect DD Series

Iperius Backup is a very simple and cheap but absolutely effective solution for small infrastructures. You can use it both on Windows clients and servers, it can integrate with ESXi, MySQL, MSSQL, etc. I think the best way to use it is with their cloud space (Iperius Cloud Storage) that allows you to take care effortlessly of your small customers' data. When it comes to more complex infrastructures, I prefer relying on something different (Nakivo Backup and Replication, Promox Backup Server).

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

• Less than 15' to set up
• It has its own cloud storage solution
• It has a monitoring console
• It's very cost effective

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

• Lack of clear documentation
• Rsync not supported
• Apparently NFS shares are supported but it's not clear how to use them
• Iperius Console should be improved (it's almost a read-only dashboard and you need too many clicks to get where you want to go)

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

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

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

The company used several free solutions (e.g. Cobian Backup et al.) but they were outdated and there was no standardization, nor a simple way to monitor all the backup jobs. Iperius had all the key features needed for the task and the project is very much alive (regular new releases).

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

• One standard solution for small customers
• One console to monitor backup jobs

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