BDRSuite Backup & Replication Reviews

We use it for backing up physical Windows Servers and one hypervisor server. The main draw for us was the ability to back up hypervisors, Hyper-V, specifically.

Overall, it's unattended, so we don't have to manage it. Once it's set up, we get notifications of a failed or successful backup every night, or for whatever schedule we have it set on.

We've had a couple of instances where an employee might have accidentally deleted a file, a network file, and one of the servers that we back up is that file server, and we have been able, with no problem at all, to quickly log into the web-based interface and restore files again in a matter of minutes; just individual files from any specific backup. That's an example of what we've been doing with them.

The most important feature, in terms of the hypervisor, is the ability to restore a virtual machine in a matter of minutes. We can take the backup of a virtual machine and we can restore it to the actual Vembu Backup server as a temporary solution, in a matter of minutes. We can just spin up a VM in no time; different hardware, even different processors. It's pretty dynamic in that sense.

The file restoration comes in a close second, but the biggest deal was to be able to restore virtual machines, very quickly and easily.

Since we got it up and running it has been unattended. I got the schedule set up and I got the integration Service Packs sent out to all the servers, and I have not touched it since July. It's pretty stable.

Once you have all your servers in the Vembu BDR software, and they're being monitored and backed up, it's very stable. As I said, it has been three months and I've not even looked at it. I get those emails about a successful or a failed backup, and I've not even had a failed backup yet.

Scalability depends on your resources internally. It all depends on the hardware you're backing it up to, the amount of RAM and storage space that you have. So scalability is subjective.

As long as you can scale internally, it can scale with you. All you have to do, on their end, is purchase more licenses for whatever server you're going to be backing up. Right now I have eight physical servers and one hypervisor with two processors. That's how the licensing works for me. If I were to add another server, I would just purchase another license. So it's easily scalable.

The tech support is the one thing - that is not a system issue - but which is a little bit difficult to work with. They've been great when I get them on the phone, but they work in different time zones. We're in Mountain Standard Time in America and the tech support works out of India, and something like 9:00 pm here is 9:00 am for them. So every tech support issue that I've had to contact them on has always been late and night. It's not a game-changer, but it's definitely not the best solution.

The customer support has been great when we get together. They have a weird way of doing it where they'll do a TeamViewer session with you and have you leave the TeamViewer session running until they remote in. I'm not comfortable with that, so I've always been on the line with them. As far as interacting with customer support, it's been great, it's just getting together with them at a specific time that is an issue.

We bounced around between file-based backups with CrashPlan and we also used the Veeam physical server backup, the free edition. And we dabbled with the Veeam hypervisor backup as well.

The main reason we switched was the affordability of it as well as the ability to back up and restore hypervisors in a matter of minutes. And the ease of use was also a factor. It seems much less cumbersome than some other applications I've used. It just does the job and it's something that we don't have to worry about. Once it's set up and working, it's just working.

It was very easy to deploy. I had no problem at all. I had no problem in deploying the actual BDR software, and then I had no problem pushing out the integration service to the servers that I was going to back up. It went very smoothly.

We have not used it long enough for me to be able to tell you our ROI.

The product's pricing is of good value. It was much more affordable than the alternative solution to it, which was Veeam. That would be the closest competitor, and between those two, Vembu was much more affordable. It seemed reasonable for what we needed to do.

If all you're backing up is physical servers, there are probably better solutions or solutions out there that are probably less expensive. But to get everything under one umbrella, especially with the hypervisors, if you have any kind of virtual environment, this is the way to go, as far as I'm concerned.

One that we evaluated was the Veeam Backup software solution. That's very popular for virtual machines, specifically, hypervisors, Hyper-V and VMware. In that box, there's a one-footer. We evaluated Veeam and we evaluated CrashPlan for a time, and we also dabbled in something called Five9 software. It's a virtual machine management platform that, as a side job, does backups for your virtual machines. We only dabbled with that for just a little bit. We just checked it out. It was nothing that we were actually considering.

Plan accordingly. Know exactly what you're backing up, not even considering the licenses - the licenses are the easy part. Just know what you're backing up and what you're going to need to restore in the event of an outage, because if you don't have the hardware to support five virtual machines that you need to restore, you're out of luck. Plan for space and for resources to restore your virtual machines too, in the event of an outage.

We've used it in production now for about three months. There was some testing and playing with it prior to that. I know that there are plenty of improvements that they're working on. None of them really reflect the kind of work environment that we have here, so as of right now, it does exactly what we need it to do.

Overall, I would rate Vembu Backup at nine out of ten and that's only because of the tech support. As I said, that's specific to me. Somebody in India wouldn't have that same problem. Or somebody in a different time zone or who has a different work schedule, it wouldn't be a problem. But for me, the only deficiency would be that tech support time-zone issue. But other than that, it's been easy to deploy, easy to manage. I don't have any problems with it so far.

We use it for backing up virtual machines.

The ability to back up virtual machines is the main reason I use it.

Vembu software runs on a Windows Server. The Windows Server has to be connected to the internet so it can connect with Vembu’s servers. It has to connect with Vembu. For some reason, if it doesn't connect, it stops working, and I don't know why on earth they do that. They require it to connect to the internet and connect with Vembu for it to continue to function. If the internet is down or if the server can't reach the internet, it stops working after a few days. That's not great because there are some people who want to do backups but they don't want to have their server accessible on the internet.

I think that's a horrible design, but it's purposely built in that way. It's something that they put in the product, and I don't know why they did that. To me, that’s a terrible design.

If you bought a new car in the year 2525, a Ford, and your car had to have a connection to the Ford dealership or the Ford company and the connection stopped, and then your Ford car was going to stop working in three days, what would you think about that? But that's the way this software works. They did it, and it’s a horrible design. That's what I don't like about it.

I have never had stability issues with the product.

I haven't had to scale it. It was a small environment so there was no need for me to scale or grow, so I can't really comment as to the scaling capacity.

Technical support gets an A-plus.

The reason I use Vembu is to back up my virtual machines. You can back up virtual machines manually but Vembu does it automatically. I'd rather have it updated and backed up automatically, without my having to think about it, rather than for me to have to remember to do it every couple of weeks. This is just an automated way to do something that you should do, and that's the reason why I have it.

The previous process I had was to manually back it up, but now it's automatic and I don't have to worry about it.

It was pretty easy to set it up.

When I upgraded my VMware to version 6, Vembu provided me with an update. That was just a continuation of what it did, but at least they provided the update.

I didn’t do an ROI spreadsheet because this is a time-saver. You can't sell it on ROI. You can sell it on the fact that it is a time-saving tool.

Vembu is too expensive because they don't really have small-business pricing. This is a matter of personal opinion. They're going to tell you that they have competitive pricing because there are more expensive solutions in the marketplace, but there are better solutions in the marketplace that are more expensive. Their product is a better fit for small businesses, but they don't price it that way.

I think they're losing a lot of money by pricing it too high. If the alternative is to manually do backups and they start charging ridiculous pricing for their products, they're not going to sell that many copies. That's probably why they don't. They've got a good product, but they price themselves out of business. That's my opinion.

If I were running Vembu, I would have a small-business suite that's priced for small business. I would allow customers to buy it without a partner, just go direct and price it for small businesses. They would make a lot more money, but they don't want to do that. They want to try to price it ridiculously. It's their call, it’s their product. They made it.

I know many companies won't bother at that price. They’ll just do it manually. I know because I know the market very well here, in the US. I don't think Vembu is a US company. I don't know where they're from.

Their product does a good job. It's just not meant for large environments, so they’re pricing themselves too high. That's just my opinion. Someone will come in and force them to lower their price. As soon as another company comes in, does an online version of it or it does a cost-effective version, they’re going to be forced to deal with this if they want to sell more licenses.

There were other options, but I liked this product. I thought it was easy to use so I took it on. I worked for a partner at the time, and I was going to try to resell it, but I found it to be just too expensive.

The other solution that seems to do better for enterprise customers, the big companies, like Trader Joe's, big retail outlets like that or large grocery stores or hospitals, is Veeam. Veeam costs a little bit more. As expensive as Vembu is, Veeam is actually a little bit more. But because Veaam is meant for larger companies, they sell more instances of it. And by the time you buy the 25-license or 30-license version, it's actually cheaper.

Veeam seems to have much more presence in the marketplace because it's more competitive and scales much larger. I've used Veeam and it's harder to install it, it's harder to get it working. Veeam offers a free version and a small-business solution, but that version doesn't scale well. It's too big. It's like selling a truck to a person who needs a small car. That’s Veeam. Whereas Vembu, they sell a small car, but they want to price it like the huge truck.

Try to negotiate the price. Try to get it to the right price. As a partner, I would try to position it for small and medium-size businesses. I would work with Veeam and say, “Listen. I can't sell it at that price. You're going to have to be more competitive.” As a partner, I would recommend working more with Veeam. It's easy to sell because it's a good product, but I'd be working on the price. It's easy to implement, easy to set up. You can be low a low-tech company and get someone to figure out how to do it easily enough. 

The challenge I would have would be getting Vembu to price it competitively. If they aren't willing to, just go with Veeam or tell them to do a manual backup or go with some other solution.

Vembu is a great product. It's priced too high, but it's a good product.

Backup and replication.

If we have any issues with servers having been corrupted or damaged, we are able to restore our backups. We are also able to store our backups offsite, in case of fire. Right now I'm using it with VMware. The benefit is being able to replicate the information to a different offsite building where I can store it. We're an FQHC and we have to have an offsite backup in case of a fire.

If we were to lose all of our data we wouldn't be able to operate. We run a 24-hour clinic, we have an ER department, and the data needs to be safe. If we didn't have that information stored safely, our patient information, we would not be able to run the business. So it's very valuable for us.

It also saves us time being able to do backups automatically instead of manually.

Finally, for reporting purposes, it's safer for us to have multiple places where backups are stored. We feel safe that the information is backed up more than once.

The most important feature is the Restore, to be able to restore in a disaster recovery situation.

If the English accent of the support agents was a little better, so that we, as the users, could understand it better, that would be nice. It's very hard to understand the support people when we talk to them because of the accent.

We haven't encountered any issues with the stability so far. It's been working fine.

It can handle a lot because it's doing a whole data center, so it's handling everything.

Tech support is good.

I purchased Veeam but my local reseller sold me only a minimal number of licenses and I was not told that I needed to purchase many licenses. So it was not cost-effective for us to have that solution installed here.

The initial setup was not complex at all. It was easy.

It's very hard to estimate ROI. If I have a disaster issue here, my whole company is down, so I cannot put a value on it. It's really the value of the whole company. If we don't have that data we aren't able to run. It's a very valuable tool for us.

The pricing is good. 

Veeam was one of the options we looked at.

Test it first. Make sure it works in your environment. But I will also say that it's an immediate investment that needs to be done.

We aren't using the compression or encryption features. We don't need them.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It's not a ten because the accent of the customer support agents is very difficult to understand. You have to ask a few times when speaking to them. That's the only issue, the rest of it is good. It's a good product. It's working.

We use it to back up a test lab type of environment. It's a virtual environment where we use Hyper-V.

The way it improves our organization is that we haven't worried about looking at backups in about a year or so, it's just been running on its own. It also delivers an enterprise-level of data protection and helps with our budget. I estimate we have saved $3,000 - $4,000.

The most valuable feature is the Hyper-V backup - it's just one click. I don't have to worry about it.

There's a feature that does syncing with AWS Cloud backup online. It's not that straightforward to get it set up.

We haven't encountered any issues with the stability of the product.

I haven't tested the scalability yet.

Tech support has been pretty good. I've reached out to them a couple of times and they answered my questions. The support has been pretty decent.

We previously used Veeam. Vembu is much cheaper than the competitor, than the Veeam suite. That's why we went with it.

It was very easy to set up. It took us about 30 minutes to deploy it.

I prefer the way Vembu is licensed. When you look at Veeam or any other product, they price per node. Vembu is licensed per host. You just buy a host license and it backs up unlimited VMs within that host. The others charge per VM.

We evaluated Veeam, Comet, and Windows' built-in backup.

Look at the options out there. If you're looking for a cheaper solution go with this. If you're looking for more features and integrations with other solutions, then you would have to go Veeam.

Although we use it with Hyper-V, I don't know if it enables high-availability. We currently just have the one user, the test environment backup.

I rate Vembu a nine out of ten. The one point off is because the cloud sync options are not that straightforward to set up.

The primary use for this solution is to replace the old-fashioned backup solution that we had that was based at the application level. I was doing backups of an SQL database or mailboxes from Exchange, but we needed a more modern solution where we could back up the entire virtual machine.

The solution is used for taking a backup of the virtual environment, and the benefit of this is that the speed is a lot higher. The product is taking a full backup during the weekend and takes considerably less time than our old solution. During workdays, it's doing an incremental back up every three hours, and that is also a lot faster. It also gives me a lot of options on which restore point I should use, in case I need to restore something. So these are huge benefits for the organization, speed and multiple restore points, that we didn't have in the past.

Another benefit is that the whole process is running at the ESXi level so the users do not really experience any delays or any lack of performance. We just keep them going, using the infrastructure, the VMware infrastructure. In the past, that was not the case because, during the backup process, it was slowing down the server because the server itself was executing the backup. Now, another server and another hypervisor are executing the job and the end-user does not experience anything as a result of the process. It is going on in the background. No delays at all.

In terms of data protection, we are not using disaster recovery because we are not licensed for it. But given the fact that we can afford the few hours the restore is going to take us, it is reducing costs, and the maintenance we used to have of switching tapes and external drives. All that kind of stuff that we had in the past has now been eliminated.

The most valuable features for me are that I can back up the entire virtual machine, but when restoring I can restore at the file level.

One issue that we are facing is that, during the evaluation period, we had some jobs that were replicating three virtual machines from one ESXi to another. Then, during the license purchase and activation, that Replication functionality was disabled because we are not licensed for it. As a result, we have one job left, the replication job that we were running, but since we don't have access to that area of the product we now, we are unable to delete that job. I need assistance on how to unlist that job.

Otherwise, we have no issues. It's functioning as expected and we're getting the results that we were expecting from the product.

A couple of times, the Vembu server was stuck and we couldn't access the web interface of the server and we had to restart the server. But that was during the migration progress where a lot of the equipment was updated and changing, so we cannot blame the product itself. Since the environment stabilized, we haven't faced any issues at all with the product.

We haven't encountered any issues with scalability. We gave it fewer resources than the server needs. Initially, we configured it with 16 gigs and then we cut it in half, giving it just 8 gigs, and the system is still performing and acting stably and within our needs and expectations.

Our building hosts around six companies. Currently, the product is used only for one hypervisor and one of the companies but the plan is to expand: First, the licensing for more hypervisors, and second, to expand the enterprise solution because we might need to use the Replication function that we are not using at the moment.

Their technical support is excellent. The speed at which those guys are replying is like chatting through email. They reply immediately and, in most of the cases, they have the answer available right away. It is very acceptable and we appreciate that.

We were using Symantec Veritas Backup but it was an old-fashioned solution - at least the version that we were using. It was doing backups on the level of application, taking a backup of a database or directory structure or the like. We switched to Vembu because it allows us to back up the entire virtual infrastructure and then we minimize the downtime in case of an emergency or a failure.

The initial setup was straightforward because it was an appliance. We downloaded an already-installed and already-working virtual machine which is acting as a backup server. There were minor issues to connect it to our local network and set up some iSCSI drives and volumes, etc., but it was next to nothing when compared with having to install it from scratch.

We downloaded the virtual appliance, activated it, and then configured the network interfaces. After that, we connected the server to our hypervisors and the system was up and running. The deployment took four hours.

We didn't use a third-party service provider at all. We directly contacted Vembu, and the back-office and support personnel were very helpful. Every issue was solved within hours.

In terms of money saved, it's hard to say because we need to calculate the man-hours that we spent on monitoring the old system, and the employees that had to visit the computer room and replace or change tapes, etc. So it's not that clear. But the fact that we were using an old solution for about 12 or 13 years, I expect the amount of money we will save is going to be huge.

We have only been using the product for two months in production now, so the return on investment is not easy to see in that short period. But I believe that it's not going to take more than the next six months to see a return on investment, considering the man-hours that we are saving, that we aren't spending any more monitoring an old backup system.

Pricing is fair enough.

What was not clear enough in the documentation on the website was that that you're licensing per CPU socket and you are only licensing on the restore sockets, not the backup sockets. It's a bit technical, but it was very well explained during the demonstration that we had during the evaluation period. The technician explained exactly how the licensing is working. That was information that I couldn't find on their site and it needed to be explained by their representative.

We had in mind to use another solution that was not based on Snapshots. It was based on replicating on the sub-second level of the VM virtual disks. Although it was compelling, and we considered that solution, it didn't have that direct access to information that the Vembu side was giving us.

To get a quotation on that product you needed to find a representative near you and have them do a quotation for you. It was not that direct and immediate. On the other hand, Vembu had all the pricing and documentation listed on their site, so we had all the information we needed. It was within the budget and we decided to test it. That's why we chose Vembu as our solution.

Although Vembu doesn't seem to be very fast for some environments, for example, banking, because it's based on Snapshots, which is a rather slower procedure, it has been just fine. But I would evaluate another solution that is not based on Snapshots. I can for sure recommend Vembu if high-availability is not a requirement.

We are using the compression that is embedded in the system. We downloaded the Linux virtual appliance, Linux Ubuntu, and this appliance is now part of our live organization, it's a live system. The embedded compression system is very satisfactory and we didn't have to alter anything within it. 

We didn't need to activate encryption because our infrastructure is only available within our local network, it's not available outside the firewall, and the destination drive is actually an iSCSI volume that is only accessible through the Vembu backup server. That's why we didn't need to encrypt our backups and possibly add delays to the whole procedure.

We don't use Microsoft Hyper-V, we only use VMware ESXi. The virtual environment that we're backing up through the Vembu solution is one ESXi that hosts three virtual machines. It's an end-to-end VMware solution. During the evaluation period, we also had the option to use the Replication function. We tested it and it's an option for the company to purchase, to upgrade the license to activate it, but this is going to be decided in the future.

The number of end-users using the functionality of the backup solution is around 70, but the end-users don't know it is being used. There are just two system administrators who use the Vembu console as administrators. One is full-time and the other one is part-time, so we need one-and-a-half people to run it. The maintenance is so minor. We just follow up on the emails the server sends saying that we successfully finished a job or that there was an issue. We then visit the web interface look at the reason for that failure - because the server was busy or the like. The maintenance is very easy.

I rate it at eight out of ten because, during the evaluation period, we had a server that was sizing at about 1.8 TB and the product took about 26 to 27 hours to restore it. So the slow restore is an issue. Eventually, we minimized the amount of data. Now, we are less than a terabyte, around 800 gig, so we expect the restore to take less time. But it's the slow restore that makes me give it an eight.

Backup virtual machines on VMware.

I am able to verify we have availability of our VMs in case a failure occurs.

• Quick backup and restore
• Very simple and understandable interface

I am still testing restores and it seems some problems may be related to our hardware. Because we have not implemented the correct hardware yet I cannot be sure where the problem is.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

I run into the problem of their chat service not being available frequently. I like chat as it is quick.

When it is not available I have to get a support ticket going. I was asked to provide a TeamViewer number and that was fine. However, I was waiting for a while and needed to go to lunch. If the TeamViewer session could be accessed either within 15 minutes or scheduled, so I know when they will connect, it would be helpful. It is really necessary that I be available during the session as there are questions. I do not want to be chained to my computer while I wait for the session to start.

The prior solution took hours to restore a computer. When it was done it had an error that the support staff couldn't figure out. While they were trying to figure it out, I installed a trial version of Vembu BDR with no assistance from Vembu support as it was so simple. I was able to perform a backup and restore easily. And the most important item was the restore time which took 15 minutes.

Very straightforward. It seemed to be mostly intuitive, although in some areas I had to think about the functionality. I then referred to the instructions and had no issues.

The pricing structure is in line with other solutions. However, the option to replicate offsite to a unit at another office or at home is a big cost benefit. Instead of paying monthly for cloud storage, you replicate offsite for free. If preferred, you can also replicate to Vembu offsite.

We currently use StorageCraft ShadowProtect which is a really good product. As we move forward with Vembu we will want to standardize on Vembu. It seems it is more flexible as a total solution for physical, virtual, file/image backups and offsite provision.

Download the product and give it a run through. With some products, this is a tough process as you spend a lot of time testing and they don't work correctly or have enough benefit to justify a purchase. Then, you have wasted all that time. But Vembu was quick and simple enough, it did not waste a lot of time.

We use it for backup copies of key virtual servers in our company.

Fortunately, we have not had to recover lost data. However, it is reassuring to know that we can recover lost data, if needed.

The most valuable features are ease of setup and configuration.

I have not been impressed by the data compression of the backup images. They seem to take up nearly as much space on the backup drive as they do on the server.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not faced any challenges with its ability to  scale.

Their technical support is very good to work with, as they are able to propose alternate solutions to problems that work well for us.

We did not previously use a different solution. Vembu was selected after reviewing, then trying several different products.

The initial setup was straightforward and well-documented.

We were able to take advantage of a promotional pricing campaign. 

I do not know how often Vembu offers the promotional pricing campaign, but it can be cost advantageous.

In addition to Vembu, we evaluated Veeam, Unitrends, and Virten as alternative solutions.

Verify that you can restore a virtual machine (VM) from its backup and ensure the notification of backup results (success or fail) is readily available.

It is a backup and disaster recovery solution for small businesses. I use it primarily for Vista machines.

The backup is constant so it makes things simpler for me. To put it simply, it just works.

• Snapshots
• Constant backup for SQL, application services, and Active Directory
• External disaster recovery
• Small memory footprint when running

It's also easy to use because of the graphical user interface. It's simple enough for a child to use. With Vembu Cloud I can view the status of all my clients' backups. I can configure backups from the interface. I am able to do 99 percent of what I need to do from the GUI.

I suggest that the dump of the database have the option to either be backed up to Vembu Cloud or be backed up to all backup sites and not only to default storage.

If the backup server crashes I create another backup server and use the backups and the database dumps. I have to use the default path of the backups. It would be a great option if I could just import the backup files.

In the past, I had some stability issues but I no longer have them. It was corrected in the last version. It is working without problems now.

Scalability is not a problem.

The support from Vembu is very, very good. These guys have saved my life two or three times.

I have used many solutions up until now. I switched to Vembu because of the price.

The initial setup is simple. It is not complicated. The only thing that makes it more complicated is when there are a lot of databases.

I would rate it at 9 out of 10. It's a great option for a small business looking for a cheap solution requiring two or three different backup sites. Vembu provides strong support. I am not giving it a higher score because it is complicated to recover a crashed backup server.