BDRSuite Reviews

We are a managed service provider (MSP). We have also started to sell it recently. We have been using this solution at our company, and after testing the product for close to six months, we realized this is a good option moving forward.

We are a managed service provider. For us, this solution is even more beneficial because we can control the licenses, renewals, and other things for customers from a managed service provider's panel, and we get an option to upsell and cross-sell to clients.

Its ease of use and price are most valuable. It is simple and straightforward. Someone who has never used any backup software will easily understand it from the first installation. It is that simple. Price-wise, it is much cheaper than its counterparts. 

It also has very less overhead on IT in terms of the product, service, and outcomes. Another good feature is that you don't really have to install any agent on the server side, especially when you are taking Hyper-V backup. We are using Microsoft Hyper-V, and we are taking backup. No agent and other things need to be installed on your machines.

I have done a couple of restores on a trial basis to check the integrity, and I did not find any issue in terms of the reliability of the restores. It was smooth.

It would be a great improvement if they can give a console to control the systems. All other vendors let you simply log in to the cloud console and control everything from there, but for Vembu, whether you choose Vembu Cloud Backup or Vembu Disaster Recovery, you still need to install the Vembu software on your on-premise system and configure it from there. It would be great if I can get a cloud console to manage the systems. 

They can also give an option where if you don't want to install an agent, you can use your own server and manage it, but if you want to manage it from the cloud console, you install the agent. It should be my choice. I should have control when I am sitting at home. I should also have control over the cloud so that I can monitor everything and do whatever I like. If my organization policy does not allow me to do that, then obviously I don't do it, but Vembu should provide such an option.

I have been using this solution for close to six months.

It looks good to me. So far, I haven't found any glitches. It is always there, so it is stable. You run it through the browser, which makes it simple.

It is scalable. We started with a 30-days trial, and after that, we started using its free version. Today, we upgraded from the free version to the enterprise version. We are also working on putting 10 TB backup on Vembu cloud as well as going ahead with almost eight servers for the disaster recovery offsite. 

To upgrade from the free version to the enterprise version, I simply had to synchronize the license, and everything was set. You can scale it very easily. You just need to activate the license under your account, and then you can log in to the Vembu console and just synchronize the license, and you're done. If you want to go from an on-premise backup to the cloud, you should have a cloud license. You can then synchronize and configure it. That's it. 

In terms of the size of the environment, one of the implementations is done for a government organization, and there are around 20 or 25 users with close to 5 terabytes of data and two virtual machines. We don't have plans to increase its usage in the same organization because this is a small subsidiary of a big government office. With the same client, there is nothing more we can do. They have a limited number of users, but we are working on implementing it for other clients.

I have used their support, and I had a very good experience. We were basically installing a demo for another client, and they were using 2008. We were getting a particular error while doing the installation, and for that, they needed to reboot the server, but you just cannot reboot the server in a live environment. You need to fix up a time for that. For example, if we have to reboot your servers, we need to schedule it with you, and you will schedule a time for it with your management.

Vembu's support is available 24/7. They said that whenever we are ready, we should just send them an email, and they will do a remote session with us, which is what precisely happened. When we were ready, I sent them the intimation that we will be ready in about 15 or 20 minutes, and their support guy connected with it and helped us.

Its ease of use and less price set it apart from other solutions. I have used many solutions, such as Acronis, Veeam, Symantec, Veritas, etc, and all of them are a bit complicated. I found Vembu to be the simplest one. In terms of features, it is similar to others. It has encryption and retention features and multiple backup options that every backup software provides.

Currently, we are also using Acronis, and slowly, we will be migrating from Acronis to Vembu. It is cheaper in price than Acronis. Of course, Acronis gives other benefits such as patch updates, cybersecurity, ransomware protection, and so on, but people have their firewall, endpoint protection, and antivirus. They don't really need to invest again in something that they don't need. The only thing that they particularly need is a backup solution that is encrypted, so there is no point in protecting them from all these things because they are already protected. If you go for Acronis Cyber Cloud, a client is not going to stop using the firewalls or endpoint protection. There is no point in loading double onto that. It is a good addition for those people who are very specific and know what they want. If you just don't know what to do, then you can go on a shopping spree.

With Acronis, all you have to do is to install the agent, and then you can control everything from the cloud. Wherever you are, you simply log in to the console, and you have your servers over there, and you can do whatever you feel like. With Vembu, you have to install the Vembu BDR software onto the server, and from there, you can basically dump the DR or a backup onto the cloud.

It was very straightforward. You simply install the software, plug in the storage or wherever you want to dump that, and create a profile. That's it. These were the three steps, and of course, the fourth one was to activate the free software. You can start with the full-fledged version after 30 days. You can convert the trial version into the free version, which is available online. It is easy. 

Its initial installation took less than an hour. This includes downloading and setting it up.

Price-wise, it is much cheaper than its counterparts. I like its pricing, and its price is okay. The lesser they take, the more profit we can make, but we are happy with its price.

It is very affordable. We were working with a client, and they were looking for backup software and had a very tight budget. When I told them that Vembu is only going to cost around $400 to $500, they were shocked. They didn't believe me, so I showed them the website so that they can check the price themselves. Of course, if they agree to that price, we get a 15% rebate as a managed service provider.

You choose the type of license you want. There are two types of licenses. One is a subscription license, and the other one is a perpetual license. If you go for a perpetual license, next year, if you want, you can renew the support. It is up to our clients whether they want to renew the support or not. They have an option. They also have an option to go for a subscription.

Every IT scenario differs from others. It is a good product, and just give it a shot. If it fits your organization, you will save a lot.

I have been in IT for over 25 years, and I had never heard about this software. I came across this through a consultant who was also working for a government organization. They asked us to install the free Vembu backup software, and I wondered which is this solution. I checked their website, downloaded the software, and installed it for the first time. I was amazed why there is no marketing for this. I get so many marketing emails and other things, but I never got any email related to Vembu. I also didn't come across it while doing research on the internet.

We have been using this solution for only six months. There are many features that we haven't used, but whatever has been phased out and tested was okay. We haven't yet used Vembu to back up Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or AWS, and we also haven't used Vembu's Download VM to help in migrating physical machines to a VM environment. Similarly, we haven't used its Instant Boot VM feature for instant access to VMs or physical machines after a crash. 

It provides multiple options to recover data during hardware failures or accidental deletion of files, but I haven't tested this option. Having such a feature is a good addition because if some resources are not there, you can restore your data to different ones. We will definitely be using Vembu's data integrity check feature after the enterprise installation.

I would rate Vembu BDR Suite an eight out of 10.

It sits on a hypervisor and backs up two virtual machines. 

The main benefit is that it's inexpensive. We get a lot for a little bit of money. I'm very happy with the savings and with the features. It allows me to do everything I need.

I don't spend much time on it. I interact with it occasionally and check that everything's still going fine. It's very good in that aspect.

It provides multiple restore options for recovering data in a granular manner, which is pretty important because different issues require you to use different approaches. It's good to have as many options as possible.

Our backup strategy is pretty simple. We have just two virtual machines, but it's very good to know that all the other options are there to back up physical and cloud workloads, as well as endpoints, applications, and databases. I'm not planning to use any of them, but I'm very happy that it's there. If there is something that I need to do that doesn't fall under what I'm currently doing, I can always expand quite easily.

It provides incremental backup processing, which saves a lot of space.

The fact that it has a web portal is valuable. One feature that I haven't yet fully implemented, but we're looking forward to, is the heartbeat monitoring which checks the health status of virtual machines to back up.

The interface could be better because I have to fumble around to find things. I can't just sit down at the terminal and know exactly what to do. It could be just me, but I have used a number of different backup products, and I found them simpler. However, its features are very good, so I don't mind sacrificing a bit of extra time to do what I need.

The reason why I haven't implemented heartbeat monitoring is that I can't change the encryption. In order to do heartbeat monitoring, it needs its own default password for encryption, whereas I've got them encrypted with a custom password. I just wish that there was a way to add password history into a job so that it was possible to change it later on without having to delete or re-add. I might manually get around that.

It has been over a year.

Its stability has been alright. I haven't had any issues. The only thing that I ran into was that before we paid for the license, there were things that weren't available in the free version.

We have a small office. I'm the sole IT team in the office. We have two servers that are replicas of each other. Vembu sits on the main server which has got a little bit more power. It takes backups of two server virtual machines that we've got. It backs up to a local NAS as well as a disk. I was really impressed with it because there's a specific backup destination for this type of thing, which I hadn't seen in any other software. Basically, we're backing up to a disk that we swap out after the backup is done and take it off-site. I was just impressed that it exists in the software. We're doing this because of the bandwidth. It allows us to not have to spend an entire week uploading another copy.

In terms of the number of users, I'm the only one who actively interacts with it, but our company has about 25 people. It benefits 25 people.

It's absolutely scalable. If we ever open a new office, it would be easy. For our needs, it's as scalable as we could hope for.

I've interacted with them on one or two occasions. They were fast, and they got quite a few people involved right off the bat. I was impressed. I'd rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We never had multiple backup solutions. We have only used one software at a time. 

We previously used tools from other companies. We used to use Symantec. We also used Altaro. We also used a Chinese one. That one by far was the simplest one. Its interface was super simple. However, anytime it has to apply logic to things, you could almost expect it to break. It wasn't good for just setting up and forgetting about it.

We didn't go with Altaro because it was a lot more expensive. There is a free version for up to two VMs which cuts out about half the features. That's fine for a start, but when you want to upgrade, there is a big jump. If the first paid level gives you, for example, 100 virtual machines, which costs a thousand pounds a year, it's a big jump from paying zero to paying a thousand pounds. I don't have the exact number, but the reason we didn't go with it was the big jump between the free version and the first tier of the paid version, so I started looking for other products and came across Vembu. It did pretty much everything that I wanted on the free one, but it had good features in the premium version that would just make your job easier, and because the premium version was not expensive, it just made sense.

It's deployed on-premises. It's deployed on a hypervisor. When I first set it up, it was on a free account, and I didn't know the first thing about it. It didn't follow the tutorial or anything. I managed to get through it without too much difficulty. It wasn't the easiest thing. I didn't find the interfaces as intuitive as the other ones I've tried before. However, there are lots and lots of features there and lots of things you can do on the scheduler. I'm very happy with that.

I installed it myself. In terms of just installing it, it was pretty simple. There wasn't any way to incorporate the backup history that we've already got, but our backup strategy is to have a month of backup. So, there was a month when we had two different solutions in play. After that month, it was just a clean cut to them. It was easy to integrate.

In terms of duration, it's not a fair representation, but it took me about a week. That's purely because I was going through the manual trying to figure out what it can do, and I had the luxury of already having a solution running, so I could have some time with it. I'm sure I could have deployed it in a day or two.

It was just me who installed it. 

In terms of maintenance, I was wondering about that. I tried to go in and see if it needed to be updated because I realized that I have never done it, but I couldn't figure out how to update it. So far, it hasn't needed any maintenance.

It isn't tangible because we haven't had any outages yet, but I have noticed that I spend a lot less time worrying about the backup.

We're ISO 270001 and ISO 22231 certified, so backups are a big part of our overall management system. I used to spend a lot of time on backups and making sure that we could recover in case of a crash. My time investment in that has dropped by 50% percent.

The price point of this software is good, and I can do everything I need.

In terms of the affordability of the solution for businesses with a tight budget, we're on a small business enterprise package, which is half the price of the regular enterprise package. It's super affordable. The features you get for it are enterprise-level. I'm very happy with the pricing.

It's very cost-effective. If I had to manually do what the software does automatically, it would cost a little more. It's like a net positive cost.

In terms of cost-benefit, you get a lot for very little, and it's much cheaper than other products. I've used other products, and it's just as good as others or better than others in some aspects, so it's the one to go for if you aren't scared by it. It takes some time to learn the interface and get familiar with it, but you get a lot for what you pay.

Coming from a small business mindset, it's very cheap to get and try it. You can experience all of the automation features and figure out how much time you're saving by having it in place. It will be worth it. You can buy the pro version and try it because it isn't all that expensive, and it can't go wrong. Just deploy it for a couple of machines, and if it doesn't work, you haven't really lost anything.

I haven't tried to instantly recover data, but I believe that it enables you to instantly recover data.

We haven't created backup repositories in cloud-based object storage because of the size of the backups and our outgoing bandwidth. We might try that at some point next year once the bandwidth situation changes, but for now, we haven't stored the data anywhere other than within our office.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

We're deploying it to support the backup of some on-premise VMware vSphere workloads.

Vembu has been a great benefit to us and it's been very positive. I would definitely say it's been a good thing.

We're using some very specific components of it like the on-prem backup to back up some separate systems for DR.

The restores have been reliable. We went through testing validation and we haven't had any issues.

We just started to use Vembu's Data Integrity Check. We need to validate the backups to see that they're able to be restored. This feature is pretty important. It's a big deal.

The restores have performed very well but our infrastructure is highly connected. Our infrastructure is the way it was before. We have a 10-gigabit infrastructure. So the performance of our backups has occurred the same as it did before, and it's been very good. We haven't noticed any difference between what we were doing before and with Vembu now.

It's important to us that Vembu provides multiple options to recover data during hardware failures or accidental deletion of files. But it's not critical because we back up the entire environment. So if we had a problem, we pull back the entire system. There's only a couple of instances where we pull back individual files. Being able to recover the entire virtual machine is the most important piece.

We used the Instant Boot VM feature for instant access to our VMs when we did the testing, but it's not necessarily something that I think is going to be an absolute requirement for us. It would be important if we lost everything

We do a lot of internal automation, so the Vembu API definitely has some gaps. The Vembu API could definitely use some improvement. We do rely a lot on automation outside of just the regular interface. We've noticed that the Vembu GUI is good, but we do leverage the APIs for a lot of stuff, and there's definitely some room for improvement there.

When it comes to the GUI, it could use some UI modifications to make it a little bit easier to navigate, filter, and sort information.

We just made the purchase. We just went through the evaluation and we purchased it in the last two months.

So far, it has been very stable for us. We haven't had any problems.

We're not a big shop. We don't scale to thousands and thousands of workloads, but it's scaled very well for the things that we've needed to do.

We're 100% into Vembu right now. I don't know that we'll be looking to do anything more. That all depends on what the infrastructure requires of us, but right now it's working very well. I don't think we're going to scale out and do Hyper-V, Office 365, or any of that stuff, at least not right now. If that does become a need, we'll be using Vembu for that because we know it can do that kind of work, but right now that's not in scope for us.

We have a little over 150-some odd workloads, virtual machines, and we have six hosts. Spread across six hosts, we have 150 workloads. It's not a big environment.

Technical support was very good. We engaged them. They did respond very quickly. We were able to get them in and work through the issues that were there. They did have to go back to the team a couple of times to get some answers for us, but it was certainly no more than one business day between them going back, figuring out what's going on, and getting back with us. They were very good.

We did use another solution but it was for the exact same kind of thing that we're using Vembu for.

It worked fine for a while but the updates weren't happening on a regular basis and the product wasn't moving forward the way that we wanted it to. Vembu has a lot more time under its belt in terms of development and whatnot. It turned out to be a much better solution for us.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

Vembu has two options for deployment, Windows or Linux, and so we had looked at both options. Both options for setup and configuration were pretty straightforward. There were some bugs that needed to be worked out, so we had to engage the Vembu support team. That team engaged very quickly and worked diligently to get the issues resolved. There were two or three things that needed to be addressed. Ultimately, we chose to go down the path of Windows deployment for Vembu, not necessarily because there were problems with the Linux platform, but because the Windows platform seemed to work better for us for some of the automation that we're doing. Overall, it was very good. 

The initial proof of concept to deployment was about a two-month venture for us. It was not very long.

Three people were required for the deployment. We're all engineers and I have the decision-making ability.

We have seen ROI. The real return is when something bad happens. All the proof of concept work that we did, all the testing we did, it all panned out for us. We're already seeing a return on that.

They do have a pretty good breakdown online. Their product detail and data sheets and all that kind of stuff listed out pretty well what it does. So we knew right away that it was going to probably align with what we needed to do. It was pretty easy for us to understand how well it was going to be aligned.

I think it's priced well. Obviously, we're happy with the pricing.

There were a number of different technologies we looked at. They were all the same basic feature functionality that we were looking for. In some cases, it was the price. A couple of the products that we were looking at are more than twice the cost of Vembu. We're not a big environment so to pay twice the amount of money for effectively the same solution just didn't make a lot of sense for us. There are some less expensive solutions too but they didn't offer some of the automation that we needed. They didn't offer an API. They didn't offer as easy a path to getting into Vembu as Vembu offered. Vembu wasn't the least expensive and they weren't the most expensive, but it did align with what we needed. And a lot of what we needed was VMware and vSphere backups, automation, those kinds of things, and we felt that Vembu was the way to go.

We do have a tight budget. We're not a big shop or environment. It was very affordable. The cost was a big deal but it was very affordable for us.

Look at it to align it with what you need it to do. See if it is well aligned with the way your infrastructure operates and the needs that you have with what Vembu can offer. Obviously price and budget are concerns, but I think that initially, it has to meet your needs. You're not going to go out and buy something that only gives you half of what you need. It's really all about evaluating the business needs first.

I would rate Vembu an eight out of ten.

BDRSuite is used for workstation backup to the cloud.

BDRSuite enables us to instantly recover our data. It is essential for our organization to be able to recover data instantly.

It is important that BDRSuite provides multiple restore points for recovering data on a granular level.

While the solution's incremental backup processing is a nice feature, it is not essential for our needs. We use the solution primarily for disaster recovery. This means that if there is a breach or we need to restore our systems quickly, we can do so without losing any data. This is more important to me than being able to recover individual files. In fact, we have not had a single request to recover a single file in the past year. What is important to me is that we can recover from an organizational breach quickly. We have had some bad ransomware attacks in the past, and we need to be able to get our systems back up and running as soon as possible.

BDRSuite's backup or replication scheduling options work as intended.

Adding and removing backup jobs using BDRSuite is easy and also includes great documentation.

BDRSuite's comprehensiveness is great because it can back up and recover virtual, physical, and cloud workloads, endpoints, applications, and databases.

BDRSuite's comprehensive backup coverage allows us to now offer a single solution for all of our customers' needs. We have customers with Linux servers running CentOS, as well as customers with file-level, image-level, and cloud backups to Microsoft 365, AWS, and Google. By bringing all of these capabilities together in one platform, we can provide our customers with a more efficient and cost-effective way to protect their data.

Most backup applications are similar in terms of their features and functionality. However, BDRSuite stands out from the competition because it offers its services at a significantly lower price. This makes it an excellent value for businesses of all sizes.

The product is co-branded, not white-labeled. I am concerned that we are providing a robust solution for our customers, but by letting them see that we use Vembu, we are also letting them know that they can go get their backups themselves once their contract with us ends. This could cut into our profits, as they may then ask us to manage their backups for them. 

In order to prevent this, we have to manage everything ourselves. For example, if a customer wants a Firestore backup, we have to manage it on their behalf and give them the option to select the date and time range for the backup. Then, our help desk has to go in and restore the backup themselves. If the product were white labeled, we could simply give the customer access to the platform and let them handle the restore themselves. This is not a major problem at the moment, as we have not had any file recovery tickets. However, the fact that it is a possibility means that we have to maintain the ability to handle it. This is not a deal breaker, as we still use Vembu and are working on onboarding more of our stack and infrastructure to use it. However, I do wish that BDRSuite offered a white-labeled service.

I have been using BDRSuite for six months.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten for stability.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten for scalability.

We previously used NinjaOne but switched to BDRSuite due to its lower cost. NinjaOne charged $40 per terabyte, while others charged only $4.

The initial setup is simple. We used our RMM to push the agent to the server. Once the agent was configured on the server, it started working.

Once the service is configured, we add a user account and push the agent. This is all part of the onboarding process. It takes between five and fifteen minutes to add the account and add the users to the account, either on the server or on the console. Once the users are added, the agent is pushed automatically to the endpoints. I deploy the solution for our clients.

I implement the solution for our clients.

We used to pay $3 per agent. Now we pay about $0.50 per agent. On average, storage costs $4 per terabyte. Over time, we will see a significant return on investment for our organizations and our clients.

The cloud service is comparable to other services on the market. In fact, it is probably a little more expensive but it includes six terabytes of storage space. The on-premises version requires more work from us. We have to use an agent or set up a server to run the backups. However, I think it is a good value for the price.

We evaluated Veeam Backup & Replication and other typical solutions. We happened to come across BDRSuite through a Google search. It sounded too good to be true, so I started with a trial. BDRSuite worked so well that we decided to use it.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten.

We are the Managed Service Provider. We use Vembu to provide the service for us. We have multiple Remote Management tools that provide a backup option. Currently, we use the RMM for more robust customers who pay for our larger packages. We use them because it has worked out for us. For example, if they have a cloud presence, such as 365 or Google Workspace, then we will use them. If they only have workstations, then we will use our RMM. It really depends on how we sell to the customer and what they choose to have. But we manage all of this.

Organizations with a tight budget can use Vembu, an affordable backup and disaster recovery solution. However, they will need to have a technical point of contact on-site to manage the solution. This is because business people typically do not have the knowledge or skills to install, configure, or restore backups. For example, they may not know how to set up an AWS bucket. Having a technical point of contact on-site can help ensure that the solution is properly installed and configured and that backups are restored quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster.

The maintenance is minimal. I simply check to make sure everything is running as expected.

For someone thinking about switching to Vembu but concerned about the cost of implementing the solution I would say, cost is not an issue. If we are talking to an MSP, I would recommend making a change. If we are talking to a business provider, the business is not the issue. The technical point of contact will be the issue. If they have the technical expertise, in other words, I would say go ahead and make the switch to Vembu. If they do not have the technical expertise, then the issue will be finding a technical point of contact who can input and push the change for them. Once they have added that in place, then I would say make the change. An organization can always have an expert set the solution up and then leave them to maintain Vembu on their own using the documentation. They can reserve tech support for any hypothetical issues. I would say that may be a good route for a budget-conscious person.

It is important to have a technical point of contact before trying to implement the solution for the first time.

Mainly, we use it for our backup recovery. If you have relevant data, we need to make backups similar to the data to ensure that we can export it in the case of any emergency or disaster. The main use case is disaster recovery for relevant data to be able to survive after any disaster.

I have two deployments. One of them is Hyper-V deployment with backup for Hyper-V virtual machines. The other one with backup for the Vembu virtual infrastructure version. Both of them are on-premises. There is nothing on the cloud.

All our clients have been happy with the backup and restore features.

It is easy. You can save a lot with their features, without a lot of hassle. You can design your backups closely and flexibly without a lot of details or variables. It is very straightforward. You can put what you want in the right place in a very short amount of time.

The speed of the solution’s restores is good. It is dependent on the infrastructure and the nature of the connection between the storage and servers. Overall, it is good. There are no problems when using it.

You can restore all your data or partial parts of it. You can restore a specific version of the data. It has a lot of options for restore, so you can have the correct data that you want to restore. This is very important. You must know what you are going to restore. Otherwise, you may be overwriting correct data with other data. You must know what specific files you are restoring as well as which version. Partial restore is very important because there might be some files which are newer than the backup and some files that are corrupted. You need to restore some files from the backup, but not all the files.

We have the VM replication. We can copy a VM to another host with VM replication.

Maybe they can add some features regarding working with the vCenter cluster to be able to have more power over the cluster overall, not just over a single or specific host. Also, I would like some enhancements in technology for the web interface, e.g., some interactive technologies to advance the interface of Vembu. Although the current interface is very good, maybe they can use more advanced technologies for its web development.

I have been using it for about a year.

For the entire time that I have used Vembu, I didn't encounter any issues. It is very consistent and nothing failed nor was corrupted. 

I have three people trained on the solution, and the main person is leading the support. They are IT specialists. The role of backup administrator is assigned to them. They keep track of the backup operations done daily or weekly. If something needs to be restored, they are responsible for restoring it.

Scalability is good.

I am backing up two environments: Hyper-V and VMware. One of them is about 40 VMs, and the other about 60 to 65 VMs, supported by three machines that are dual sockets each.

The main component in the backup solutions is compatibility. The backup is located on the hard disk, and I didn't face any corruption of data, which is very valuable. When something happens as an error, there is technical support who gives us the reason why this error is emerging. In most of the cases, the errors are emerging from the operating systems in which you are trying to back up. Sometimes, the client refuses to connect, etc. All this is under control and can easily be solved.

I refer a lot to the knowledge base on the website, which is very good. I haven't needed to contact support persons interactively. 

I tried to install it twice on Linux just for testing, and I succeeded, but it was picky sometimes, because there are a lot of options with command line interface. So, it was a challenge to get it to work on many operating systems. However, on Windows, the setup was very straightforward and no problem at all.

Using Windows to deploy takes not more than five minutes. It is very fast. For Linux, it takes about half an hour to an hour, according to the problems that we would face.

We tried to restore it mainly on the physical machines, not virtual. The hardware that it is deployed on is very reliable. We faced problems on the backup machine itself. The machine, which functions to store the data, must be very reliable. You also need to keep it away from any disaster or security exposure.

I did contact their technical guys for some technical discussions before we deployed one of the instances that we used. They were very good and helpful.

Manually restores or restores from manual backups are very hard. They take some time. Restoring from a platform software, like Vembu, makes things very easier, particularly the speed to restore which version, which state, and to where. So, you speed up the overall operation by 20% to 25%.

The ROI is very good because you have the safety of being protected by backing up your data a lot. If an incident happens, then we can restore valuable data, save a lot of money, and preserve the continuity of the business. This is a big benefit which provides a lot of value. 

The pricing of Vembu is one of its strong points. The license is not as much as other competitors, and it has a variety of licensing options: subscription-based, perpetual licenses, and a virtual machine license. You can design whatever license that you adopted to your environment, and that can support your environment without extra cost, providing more than you need. So, you can design a license that fits your environment and budget. The pricing is very good and can be used when the budget is tight.

I used Veeam software for a while, but as a trial. I didn't support it because their prices are very high. I think Vembu provides the most resolution for our backups.

I use the Microsoft Windows Backup tool sometimes. However, it feels like a very heavy tool, not a sophisticated tool.

I know that there are features that are more advanced with other competitors, but those are not needed often.

I used Vembu's Data Integrity Check once when doing an integrity check for the backup. If I have doubts that the backup is good or bad, it might be good for that, but I haven't used it a lot.

I encouraged you very much to engage with Vembu. Vembu is a really good software. I was convinced to use the company and software the first time that I saw it. I recommend it to everyone I know. It is a very powerful backup solution with a good price.

I would rate it as nine out of 10.

Vembu has been a great solution for my smaller clients who don’t need a lot of storage. The entry price is excellent for small businesses who want to use cloud backups.

I have 8 clients currently using Vembu Cloud BDR.

Moving to cloud backups eliminated the need for clients to change USB drives or worry about drives being stored offsite.

I can restore through the Vembu client or pull the file from anywhere via the browser. So far, it has been adequate in meeting my clients' needs.

There are a lot of cloud backup solutions that can handle documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, and pictures, but they are more limited for those who need cloud backups for applications like SQL. 

I have had issues with new client registrations. There are frequent connectivity issues to the cloud servers. Multiple times, I have had to prove to support that it wasn’t a problem on my end. It always works out in the end, but it is troubling to have the same issues repeated across different clients. Issues eventually get escalated to the cloud team and are mysteriously resolved with no changes on my end. I don’t know if it is an AWS issue, capacity issue, or something else. However, it is concerning for clients when they get several failure notices for their backups, though through retrying the job was eventually successful.

It can still mature in some ways. The agent interface can be improved and the portal could be more informative.

I have been using Vembu Cloud BDR with clients since 2019.

I have had no issues doing restores. Throughput on restored data is an issue for some other cloud backup solutions. However, I have never had an issue with Vembu Cloud BDR.

We have always gotten to a solution eventually. Sometimes, it takes some time though. 

I had an issue that had to be escalated to the cloud team that was only available 9 to 5 local India time. Having to stay up for a support call at 2 AM (my time) was frustrating. I had to pursue it to prove a new client registration issue was not a problem on my end. Not being believed by support and having to go to that extreme should not have been necessary. I was correct in the end, as they eventually found an issue on the Vembu client provisioning side. I think the whole situation could have been handled better.

Most of my issues were resolved, but there is rarely anything on my end that needs to be fixed. Most resolutions say something like, “We detected a problem on our servers and took steps to resolve the issue.” Then, things start working again. While we get a resolution, I don’t have much visibility into what was done. Since we generally get there eventually, I will rate the technical support as seven out of 10.

Neutral

Mozy used to be the major player in this market space. Mozy’s demise, with its purchase by Carbonite, left a void for a solution that could handle SQL cloud backups and meet small business needs. Vembu Cloud BDR has been filling this void for my small clients for a few years now.

I have clients that have used many solutions. For those who switched to Vembu Cloud BDR, most are coming from Carbonite (originally Mozy) or Backup Exec with local storage.

It is straightforward when it works. I have had issues a couple times with new client registrations.

Deployment takes less than an hour.

My implementation strategy is to register the cloud account, install the client agent, configure the jobs, and then run.

I deploy and maintain the solution.

Backups are like an insurance policy. You pay for the protection and hope you don’t need it. You don’t really expect a return, just security if needed.

The pricing is good. The tough part is estimating storage needs.

We used to be able to license regular PCs at no cost. We just paid for storage. The recent addition of the workstation license has changed that. For clients who use Vembu Cloud BDR for backup of remote user laptops, they now have licenses that they need to buy in addition to their server license.

The solution has excellent affordability for businesses with tight budgets.

I checked up on just about every cloud backup solution that I could find. This solution provides SQL application backups with a good entry point for small businesses.

It is a good value. While there have been some issues, that happens with any solution. Vembu Cloud BDR is a good entry product for small clients and can also scale to larger environments. I have not seen anything that diminishes its value.

Restore speed has been fine. Luckily, I have not had to do a complete restore, only occasional files or an SQL database.

Most clients were using local USB drives for backup storage prior to moving to Vembu Cloud BDR. Speed of restores was not an issue coming from a local source. The only clients who have seen an increase were those that previously were using another cloud backup provider that has notoriously slow restore throughput.

I will increase usage as client needs dictate.

I would rate it as eight out of 10. 

I use it to back up the virtual machines running on VMware ESXi. I also use it for backing up Windows Server. I don't use it for Microsoft 365. I have a daily backup, and I also have a monthly backup to capture all the data and changes.

I started with version 3.0, and now, it's version 5.3.

The backup window is very reasonable. Recovery is also easier. We have scheduled incremental and full backups, and it helps a lot with our infrastructure. I feel comfortable running this in the virtual environment.

We can instantly recover data. This instant recovery is very important because there are some files we need to recover immediately. We can easily recover a single file or folder. That's a very helpful feature.

It provides multiple restore options for recovering data in a granular manner. We have daily and monthly backups, and sometimes, we need to go back, not just to yesterday. We have multiple restore points, and we can just select one from the menu. It's a very easy and very important feature.

We are running the daily incremental backups. They've reduced the backup window. These incremental backups are very important because we cannot do the full backup during the weekdays.

When it comes to backup scheduling, similar to all backup solutions, it provides scheduling options. We just can't do backups manually. We have pre-configured it with the daily incremental and monthly backups.

It isn't hard to add and remove backup jobs using BDRSuite. You select a machine or a hard disk, and then you can go to the next step and schedule the backup. That's it. I don't need to open the interface every day. I schedule the backup, and I just receive the notification message in my mailbox. That's it. As long as I see a successful message, I'm fine. I just let it run.

Provisioning disks for restoration is easy. You can just select a disk, and you just recover. They'll provision the disk for you.

The most useful feature is that you can back up the virtual machines in different ways. You can back up from a vhost, and you can also back up from a Windows server. It doesn't matter what type of infrastructure or hypervisor is there. It's very flexible, which is its most useful feature for us.

The response time of the support could be improved a little bit. Sometimes, I need to wait for two or three hours to get support. With VMware, we can get urgent support in an hour.  Other than that, I'm pretty good with BDRSuite.

It has been more than three years.

It's very stable. I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

I don't have too much experience with scalability because our infrastructure didn't change too much. 

I'd like to get quicker technical support for urgent issues. Sometimes, it took longer than I expected. For example, I expect support in one hour, but they may get in touch with me within two or three hours. That has happened twice last year, but it doesn't always happen. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We were previously using Veeam Backup. Their features are a little bit different, but they both are doing the same thing. 

We switched because my manager wanted to try this option. The Veeam Backup costs more than Vembu. They also don't support some editions of ESXi, whereas Vembu BDRSuite supports all the versions and all the editions.

It was straightforward. It was set up a long time ago. There was no big change after that. We just upgraded to the latest version.

I implemented it along with the support person. I searched on the web to select the vendor.

It doesn't require much maintenance from our side. There are just patch updates, and they don't happen during the backup window. They do not affect production. It's good.

I'm not sure. It might have been in less than a year. It's cost-effective. It didn't cost too much. We are completely satisfied with the cost.

It's very affordable. We are very satisfied with the cost. It's very affordable for us.

We didn't evaluate any other solution.

I'd advise running the trial of on-premise and online versions to see what's the difference. In the initial setup, you may need to adjust some services or the local backup storage called the repository. Test it first and make sure it's working. There are so many backup tools in the market. You can't just read the white paper to do the selection.

Overall, I'd rate BDRSuite a nine out of ten.

We use Vembu to back up and replicate virtual machines. We run virtual machines using VMware ESXi, and we back up and replicate our virtual machines.

The best thing about it is that it has been adaptable to our business model. We are in industrial networking, and they were adaptable to give us offline installers and offline licenses. That has been the biggest thing. They also allow us to order the licenses on a perpetual basis.

Backup and replications are most valuable. It seems that these servers are better because we can do application-aware backups on them. 

Windows 10 does not have application-aware backups. From my point of view, that's what's existing needs improvement. 

Something that I would like to see them do is an on-premise immutable solution.

It's probably getting close to about a year mark.

There are some bugs but not major ones.

From my point of view, it can handle as many VMs as I'm going to see. We have pretty small sites. We range from 3 virtual machines to probably 20, and I feel confident that it could handle as many as we needed.

There are five or six users who are currently using this solution. They are members of the network team here at my company. They are network engineers or network admins.

We have plans to increase its usage. Currently, we have a lot of existing sites that are using a different solution, and their licenses are still good. In the future I see us expanding more. As long as Vembu keeps the same business model, I do see us using the product more.

For the most part, they're responsive. There has never been a time when we opened a ticket and didn't hear from them for days. They're usually pretty quick to respond. We provide them with what they need, and they normally give us an answer whether we like the answer or not. Overall, they're responsive, and they at least give us an answer. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We previously used Veeam, and we made the switch due to the change in their licensing. They don't do perpetual licensing anymore. They're going to a subscription-based model, which doesn't fit with our business model.

It was straightforward. The setup is pretty intuitive. We don't need to follow a whole bunch of technical documentation in order to set it up at a site and set up the jobs. The user interface is friendly, and even for offline licenses, they provided a simple document on how to do that. That's straightforward as well. 

Its setup probably took 10 to 20 minutes.

We did it on our own.

So far, we haven't had any actual disaster situations where we've had to use the restore, but overall, we have got a return on investment. It's doing so far what we want it to do.

Its price is fair, and they still allow perpetual licensing, which is extremely important for us. They also have offline licensing.

I am not aware of any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. In terms of the affordability of the solution for businesses with a tight budget, you aren't going to beat it.

I didn't have any initial expectations of the solution based on its pricing. I found Vembu by just searching for solutions, and I didn't really have an expectation, but it can be said that Vembu has been better than my initial expectation. Its price is definitely fair.

I tested at least five or six different ones. We're in industrial networking, which is very different from a corporate IT network. First and foremost, the thing that I liked about Vembu was the licensing model, and the second thing was its simplicity. All we do is backup and replications, and they have a product that focuses on that without having this big ugly interface with multiple options that we don't even use.

I haven't fully tested all the other bells and whistles on it, but for backup and replications, it's simple, and it does the job. It does exactly what we want it to.

I haven't had to test restores a whole lot, but initially, I tested it, and the restores were fine. They were what I would expect. They were not crazy fast but also not slow. It has not increased or decreased the speed of restores from our previous software. It's about the same.

I'm glad Vembu exists because, for bigger companies like Veeam, it's good that there is competition. That way they can't fully control this market. Vembu is a solution that is more friendly to actual businesses and small businesses.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.