Cohesity DataProtect Reviews

We primarily use this product for backups, reporting, and auditing.  As we are a publicly listed company, we rely heavily on the reporting that comes out of Cohesity to ensure that we are compliant across all aspects.

The backup and restore solution is a big step forward from our last solution and packs more than just backup in a box, allowing for additional features such as Disaster Recovery and utilising the space available in the cluster for storing files.

The auditing and reporting features are as important as the backups themselves.

We moved over from another backup solution that wasn't as innovative, which made it an easy solution to move away from. Cohesity uses up less rack space in the datacentre and allows for more than just backups, paving the way for more hyper-converged solutions, not just physically.

The initial contract with Cohesity is an improvement in terms of pricing above our previous solution but it remains to be seen what will happen after the contract comes to an end. The fundamental tasks of backups are restores are ahead of its game, relative to our previous solution.

The backup and restore feature is the most valuable.

Instant recovery options are a big benefit for urgent restores, as we don't need to wait for hours or days for a restore to complete before being able to access the files.

The restore to the appliance itself allows for faster (instant) access that saves us from waiting for the restores to happen to the datastores/volume/containers, which can take upwards of weeks in our case if we were to restore the larger VM guests.

We have seen many iterations of this such as restoring to the cloud but the outcome has always been a hit-and-miss solution.

The canned reporting could be improved. Many of the reports are basic, at most, and at times we had to open a support ticket to help find or develop a report for our needs. This is something that even our last solution had in place already.

Error reporting could also be improved. Rather than 'errorcode -2', it needs to be more descriptive or at least, provide KB articles related to the error or problem. This would save time in creating a ticket and try to describe to the support engineer what happened to cause an 'errorcode -2' that most of the time, we don't know either.

We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for seven months.

Stability-wise, so far so good.

The initial implementation requires a lot of babysitting and reporting on issues is a bit lacking. Hopefully, you've purchased a good support contract to help with those teething issues.

The solution is very scalable. It doesn't require a replacement appliance to expand for more capacity. Simply purchase another block/node and it's done.

My experience with support is mixed. There are times where the response and resolution are quick but at times, there are large gaps in the response. I'm not sure whether this is timezone-related. 

We switched over, as the previous solution was very lacking behind in innovation. It was missing basic features such as finding VMs and we were told to simply use "ctrl+f" to find them. However, this didn't help if the screen spanned across multiple pages.

The initial setup was straightforward, as we engaged with the company to help with the deployment. As long as the provided templates are completed and networking is done properly, it should be a smooth ride.

Our deployment was completed by a mix of both. The vendor team was very qualified and personnel was made available at each region to assist the local teams with implementation.

This is difficult to measure and quantify but the time saved across the regions baby-sitting the previous solution would be about eight hours per week.

My advice is to always negotiate for better pricing.

A contract with any backup vendor will always be a long-term deal, so think ahead and force them to sharpen their pencils. Never sign up without evaluating the price of other vendors over a three to a five-year term.

We evaluated Rubrik, Veeam, Nutanix Mine, Barracuda Backup, and Commvault.

Although the NPS score was rated highly, this should not be the only factor to consider.  There may be other factors involved that affect this score and as mentioned, backup solutions are a long-term deal. Not many companies will be willing to jump ship, risking their backups that are kept on proprietary platforms.

We primarily use Cohesity as our backup solution, however, we are leveraging Views to replace our MS Cluster file shares. We run these in 2 separate clusters. We are backing up 600+ VMs, multiple file shares, and leveraging other pieces, such as Kroll for Exchange, to recover our data quicker. With Views, we currently have what were once FileShares stored in an MS Cluster leveraging the speed and protection of Cohesity. We are also using Insight and Spotlight from the Marketplace to gain further insights into unusual file activity and audit trails.

We have been able to not only backup more of our data at faster speeds, but also recover that data quicker. What used to take us hours to recover is now done in minutes. Since deploying Cohesity we've been able to help our end-users get their data back quicker than ever. This savings in time has increased their productivity and helped them avoid complete data loss. On top of this, the performance boost we've gained in using Views has made our file shares much quicker to access and use, not only for normal file explorer use but for applications that write to those Views as well.

The ease of use and the GUI have really been most valuable to us. Configuring the system to do what we need is simple and straight forward and a lot of guesswork has been removed. One of my favorite features with Cohesity is Kroll for Exchange item-level recovery. The software is simple to use and fast. We've been able to recover individual emails in minutes instead of hours, some of which were time-sensitive matters. Helios has also proved useful to give us a look at all of our clusters and their performance.

The product is still young and is continually improving. There have been a couple of buggy releases in the software that have caused us minor issues, so possibly some better QA before releasing would prove to be useful. We have also been inquiring about new app and functionality via the Marketplace that was teased months back but has yet to come to fruition. The apps are coming, but slower than expected. While we know they are working at getting more of these features out and doing so as fast as they can, a better product roadmap would be helpful.

We have been using Cohesity for over a year now.

Overall, Cohesity has been very stable. We've had a few hiccups with some software releases, but have been able to get Support involved and resolve those in a timely manner.

Cohesity is easily scalable, simply adding more storage or nodes when needed.

Customer Service and Support are top notch. Each issue we've thrown at them has been answered and addressed quickly. We've even had times where we're not expecting to hear anything until the next day and we'll have a Tier 3 engineer on the phone within minutes. Overall their Support has been one of the most impressive things about them.

We previously used CommVault. We switched due to costs and speeds primarily.

Setup, with Cohesity's Support, was very straightforward. We had it up and running jobs in a matter of hours.

We used Cohesity's team to implement our solution.

I don't have an exact figure, but when you save dozens if not hundreds of hours for multiple engineers, the savings add up quickly. We've been able to focus our attention on bigger issues and some other lingering problems instead of worrying about our backups.

Setup was very easy and pricing/licensing were very straightforward. We didn't feel like we were getting nickeled and dimed for every little thing.

We looked at CommVault, Cohesity, Veritas, and Veeam.

If you're on the fence about moving to Cohesity, I suggest making the jump. We have been amazed at what we've been able to accomplish with it in such a short time.

We were backing up about 160 TB to tape per week. We are still moving over to Cohesity, however, we will not have the need to have the hardware related to tapes next year. Also, the money we spend on new versions of tapes is not going towards more clusters. In Cohesity, my backups are running faster and I have more frequent crash consistent data. 

Cohesity will save us money, time, and manpower. We will have quick redundancy to AWS for our Cohesity node. I am new to backups and I have been able to quickly learn the basics in the tool. 

This tool is very straightforward and clean. The menus are not over complicated or cluttered. I have very little experience with backups, but Cohesity has made it simple to learn the basics. There are also more complex integrations and programming that can be done if desired.

Cohesity is working on this, however, I would like to see a more expanded KB section. They have created a few videos also, more would be great. Their documentation is also currently being expanded.

We chose to go bleeding edge with the 6.0.0a release. We have encountered a few cluster crashes because of indexing on XFS file systems this should be fixed in 6.1.0

Not yet. 

So far support has been amazing. 

We used NetBackup. We are tired of using tapes and Cohesity has the features that we're interested in.

With the help of our local tech, the setup was quite easy. 

We used our local Cohesity sales and tech team. 

During your implementation stage, make sure you have a good Cohesity rep. Ours had completed over 200 implementations. He was very knowledgeable.

Rubrik was the main tool we looked at. 

At this time I don't, as I learn more I will update my review. 

We are the largest organization in Europe and have 10,000 servers in-house being protected by Cohesity. We use several solutions including Archive, DR, SAP, Oracle, VMware, and others.

Our business thrives on Cohesity storage. Cohesity makes data management as simple as Sign Up, Connecting, and Protecting through new SaaS offerings for backup and disaster recovery.

We have been testing DataProtect delivered as a service for some time, and we are very pleased with its performance. The UI is simple to navigate, and data ingestion and retrieval have been a snap.

However, the solution shared and features released are pre-matured. It needs more testing and hardening.

Before Cohesity, we were mostly de-centralized in operations. After implementing it, our operations are now managed in a single pane of glass.

We have achieved a single source of operation and observation for backups. Every team has a stake in operations, and policy management helps to delegate the proper roles.

The storage costs and storage area occupied are now reduced dramatically.

We are using almost all of the features available in Cohesity today.

Our favorite feature is DataProtect but there are many good features that are part of the DataPlatform. 

We use Cohesity to eliminate mass data fragmentation by consolidating our silos onto a single, easy-to-manage software-defined platform that is managed using a single pane of glass.

The dashboard is very rich and provides the details needed for a moderator.

Cohesity needs more hardening, in terms of stability. From our experience, we noticed gaps in the product function and the solution guides and documents. Better documentation is needed because the lack of information has necessitated having our team depend more heavily on Cohesity support. We need to have a more self-sufficient system.

More automation is needed for easier management.

We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for the past five years.

Stability-wise, Cohesity is moderate and needs more hardening.

We found scaling Cohesity to be very challenging.

The product team and Cohesity representatives are always reachable and fill the gaps that are not available in the documentation.

Prior to using Cohesity, we were using Agility Data Backup and Recovery.

We are moving to Cohesity by migrating existing backup/storage solutions. We switched because were not confident in delivering backup solutions and managing SLAs.

The pricing model is impressive and very effective.

Prior to implementing Cohesity, we evaluated solutions by IBM, NetApp, Commvalut, and Rubrik.

We were looking to replace our legacy tapes and Veritas Backup Exec. We were tired of spending money on tapes and the time it took to physically handle and transport the tapes as they cycled through the system. We were also looking to do something to get rid of some of our older legacy NetApp devices. In the end, we were looking for a solution with redundancy and support for encryption for data at rest. We were also hoping for something that would enable on-prem storage, but at the same time, give us cloud capabilities down the road when the organization was ready to make that leap.

We were able to eliminate tape backups by utilizing Cohesity to backup our VMs. We then replicated the backup data to a second offsite Cohesity cluster. In the future, we will archive older backups to the cloud as well via Cohesity. We have also been able to utilize Cohesity as a replacement for our older legacy NAS devices  - serving up unstructured data on file shares. This was a major win for us, as it greatly simplified our environment and we saw a substantial increase in speed from our legacy NetApp devices.

The overall ease of implementation and use has been outstanding. Upgrades are easy because of the way that redundancy is built into the Cohesity solution. You simply go to the web-based GUI, download the update, and apply. 

The system automatically takes down the nodes one at a time and performs the upgrade and brings the node back up before proceeding to the next. Upgrades can now be done at any time with a high level of confidence. 

The engineering team also seems to be working hard to constantly add new features. Since we purchased the product, Cohesity added the ability to perform Office 365 backups and AD backups at no additional cost. The features just showed up in the new release, which was great.

There have been a number of improvements since we purchased the product two years ago that has since made it even more attractive to users. Things liked education and training have been a greater focus. Cohesity now offers "Cohesity Academy" for education, and recently launched Cohesity User Groups for people to join other Cohesity users in discussing best practices, use case scenarios, etc.  

In terms of the product itself, there have been a handful of patches that have had to be applied outside of the GUI via the command line. It's very straightforward and easy and in the same redundant fashion, but not quite as simple as one or two clicks. I'm hoping that will decrease going forward.  

I've used the solution for about two years.

The stability is absolutely rock solid. I'm not aware of any issues with file services and the backups have been 100%.  We have not had any file share outage or issues with SMB which is awesome as SMB fileshares were a critical part of decision to purchase Cohesty.

The solution is very scalable. If you want to buy the boxes, this solution will work at the largest of enterprises.

Support has been very good - particularly in the last 6 months. They seem to have grown the support organization as the install base has increased and the quality of the engineers is very good. The remote support functionality in the product makes it very easy for Cohesity staff to diagnose problems and either guide you through the fix or even perform it themselves.

Previously, we used Veritas Backup Exec and LTO tapes. On the storage side, we had legacy Netgear and NetApp NAS devices that Cohesity replaced with a single device.

Cohesity sent a local sales engineer out and in an afternoon we had it racked, networked, and backing up.

Cohesity sent a sales engineer out and it was done in an afternoon. They made the whole process incredibly simple.

It's hard to estimate a dollar value for the peace of mind in knowing that my files and backups are there and they work. In the face of ransomware and other threats, I can roll back in a few clicks. Upgrades are simple and Cohesity has a security focus. I wish we could have made the change years ago.

The costs vary, but the vendors will sometimes work with you depending on your purchase and what time of year it is in order to make deals happen. The Cohesity licensing was pretty straightforward, which was also attractive in that we didn't have to license a whole bunch of features. Everything was bundled together.

We looked at Rubrik, which was pricier and did not offer file services at the time. We also looked at a budget play in Storage Craft but were not sure if the product was going to have enough market support to continue. Also, the features seemed rough compared to Cohesity, which felt more polished and finished.

We have been very happy with the performance and ease of use of the solution. Support has been very good - even as they have grown and scaled up in size.

We use this product for the enterprise data life cycle and data retention.

With the ability to stage an entire lifecycle through versioning, integrated with AWS, it has made it possible to protect our corporation from end to end.

Integration with AWS has been invaluable to us. To have one platform that can leverage a cloud platform, as well as on-premises, has given us a full solution.

Technical support being outsourced is a downside but not different from every one of Cohesity's competitors. I was an early adopter when technical support was with actual developers and engineers, and not technical support staff. So, you can understand my point of view.   

Features I would like to see include a more visible data lifecycle monitoring tab, and an easier to read backup status dashboard. For example, I would lie to be able to see the status of all VMs for all jobs without drilling into each one.

Chat customer/technical support would also be great.

We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for three years.

I've used many different solutions including Veeam and Rubrik.

We switched because the return on investment was much greater with Cohesity.

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to have a high-level understanding from your engineers before committing to a package. Cloud integration is a must. Do not pass up the licenses even if you are not currently using them.

Veeam and Rubrik were both evaluated and turned down.

We did not choose Veeam because the technical complexity was just not there to give us a full solution. Rubrik was passed over, due to the price. 

In my opinion, Cohesity is the way to go, with no doubt.

We primarily use the solution for backing up SQL Databases, Sybase Databases, SAP HANA, Kubernetes clusters, active directories, NAS services, some Azure services including virtual machines, Office 365 (Exchange mailboxes, Sharepoint Sites, Teams Data), VMware virtual machines, and much more

We're using Cohesity clusters in different locations which are replicating the backup data each to another location. Replication is working fine. 

We're using more and more NAS services for SMB Fileshshares, for example, for Citrix Profiles with FSLogix.

All backups are working flawlessly. The replication of backups has never been easier. Cohesity cluster replication is a great feature! 

There is no need to buy licenses for any new features or backing up new software products. If Cohesity is supporting it, you can just use it. Their list of supported backup sources is impressive!

You just have to license the amount of storage you are using. It does not matter how/for what you are using this storage. You can shift it from backup to NAS usage without any problem. 

The backup is radically simplified. Backup and replication have not been easier. It is simply working! Replication to the cloud? No problem! Backing up new software? No problem! Have to set up a new NAS service? No problem! 

Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software.

By using their Helios Cloud service, you have all your clusters, no matter where they are located, in one web portal. You can view all errors and information in one place and you do not have to connect to each cluster itself. There is also a Helios App for your smartphone.

Quality testing of upgrades should be somewhat improved. There really are many upgrades for new features and I really like that. Nevertheless nearly every upgrade brings its own bugs. Cohesity support, however, is really good and they always know how to solve these problems. 

While support does ask the customer if they are allowed to restart service XXX or set parameter X to Y, they never explain if this affects your business or if there can be any further problems by settings the parameters. As a customer, you have to agree to something you cannot really estimate. 

I've used the solution for about a year.

We had been using Dell EMC Avamar, however, we switched to Cohesity due to their pricing and due to the fact that Avamar was a mess. 

We use Cohesity for backup and recovery primarily, though we are starting to look into it for file service as well. We perform on-premises backups of Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, VDI Golden Images, and a host of Windows Servers and Linux Appliances.

We test the restores weekly with file-based restores. The product makes this surprisingly easy to search for folders and files. The elastic search puts Cohesity above the competition. We will be leveraging the long term retention to the cloud later this year, but with the level of support that we receive from Cohesity, we don't anticipate any issues.

This product has allowed us to finally remove tapes from our environment. Prior to this, our service desk would waste two to three hours a week swapping tapes and then an additional five to six hours each month shuffling the tapes all over the place. All that time has been recovered.

For the admins/engineers, we would spend ten hours a week trying to keep our old backup system running properly, and that includes needing to be up at 1-3 AM when their "follow the sun" tech support would return your call from 10 AM (with a two hour SLA).

It also has allowed me to stop focusing on fixing the backups daily and I can trust that they will run reliably.

The most valuable features are the rapid VM restores and the ability to quickly find files and download them directly to my desktop so that I can put them where I need them to be.

The elastic search function is unbelievable. It has saved us so much time, not just in finding files to restore but also in finding lost files or files that were misplaced by an employee. This has led to quick ticket turn arounds for our service desk and they are growing more confident in the backup solution. If they had to leverage our previous product, they considered the file lost.

The granular restore functionality in AD is also extremely helpful.

The best part about Cohesity is that there is an active user community that can request improvements and the developers will incorporate them as they move through releases.

The error handling could be improved. The errors shown on the GUI tend to be just what the log spits out and that can be quite confusing. The nice feature is that the logs are in the GUI, so you don't have to go hunting for them, you simply need click the drop down to show the information. There are a few cryptic error messages, thankfully the support staff is fantastic and knows what the errors mean.

There are a few user interface concerns with some of the functionality, such as what screens you get dropped back on when moving in between different areas. If you use the back button on your browser, you may not go back to the last page due to the coding. However, overall navigation isn't tough or complicated. 

I have been using Cohesity for four months.

There have been bumps in the road, but overall the solution is working wonders in our environment. A 38-hour full backup has been reduced to a 10-hour full (it was only needed once) and then 45-minute incremental backups after that.

I believe it will scale up where we need it to and it can scale down where we expect it to. I think that it is great in terms of scalability.

The tech support is fantastic. Even when I e-mail on the weekends I get responses within 20 minutes, tops. If I call, it is immediate. 

We switched from a previous solution because it was unreliable and their tech support was unable to adequately fix the issues we were having. 

The setup was simple. There was an engineer who was on hand to do all of the work, but I chose to do quite a bit of the work myself instead. From power on to the first backup was about 30 minutes.

The engineer that they provided to us was amazing. He was dedicated to getting the job done right and quickly. We couldn't have asked for better.

With respect to pricing, make sure that you look at both Rubrik and Cohesity as they are very similar and are quite competitive.

We evaluated Rubrik, Unitrends, Veeam, Dell, and Cohesity for this project.

Cohesity's elastic search gives it a leg up on Rubrik.