Cohesity DataProtect Reviews

We have two primary use cases. The first was a replacement for magnetic tape backups via Backup Exec. We were tired of continually handling physical tapes, the increasingly long backup windows, and the cost of all of the tape infrastructure. We are backing up about 20TB of data between VMware and legacy NAS appliances.

Our second use case was a replacement for a legacy IBM/NetApp device and a legacy NETGEAR NAS. Both devices were substantially older with no inline compression or dedupe. We were running out of space at a time when we knew that modern storage features such as compression and deduplication would give us substantial space savings.

The change has been night and day. Our backups have gotten MUCH faster and MUCH simpler. Our weekend full-backups were taking close to 48 hours to write to LTO8 tape. We are capturing a full backup nightly now in under three hours for all of our VMware and NAS data. We are able to replicate that data to our colocation facility seamlessly.

The storage features have been easy to use right out of the box. We have been able to provision "copies" of our legacy NAS devices into Cohesity for testing purposes in seconds. Speed is substantially faster than our legacy devices, even with Cohesity's lowest tier of storage.

The backup features have saved us enormous amounts of time and money already. We have been able to stop buying media, stop licensing BE, stop paying for service on the physical backup server, stop paying for service on tape library, and stop paying for another Windows Server license.

The restores are easy to do and have made it so that we can incorporate restores into our troubleshooting processes. The fact that we can provision copies of storage in a few seconds has been great for testing. Cohesity has a growing pool of third-party apps that can run on your Cohesity environment. Antivirus tools and tools to analyze file usage patterns are things we are looking to utilize in the near future.

There were a few things that required quick support calls in order to get to function correctly. We were told that the issues that impacted us were going to be corrected on the next release and would not impact other customers.

We would love to see direct compatibility with HPE Simplivity, which we also leverage.

Cohesity could do a little better job communicating features in new releases and helping customers to understand when features will be released. For example, I found literature indicating that version 6.3.1 would have support for Active Directory backups when installed. That feature appears to have been pushed to version 6.4, but is still available in 6.3.1 if you call support and have them toggle it on.

We have had Cohesity installed for about six months.

This solution is very stable. Upgrades are easy and do not require downtime. Set and forget.

We haven't had to scale and don't anticipate needing to do so in that we bought enough capacity to last us for some time. However, based on my other experiences with the software, I don't think this would be an issue.

We have had a few support tickets, which have been dealt with quickly and appropriately. We did have one ticket where we requested an escalation and this was also handled appropriately. Support did a good job of periodically checking with us to verify that the fix resolved our issue, which it did.

We previously used Backup Exec teamed with an IBM Tape Library for magnetic tape backups. Legacy IBM/NetApp and NETGEAR NAS devices were also replaced by Cohesity.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It took a couple of hours for each cluster at each of our sites.

Our Cohesity sales engineer along with an engineer from our VAR assisted in getting the solution in place. Each cluster in each location took a day to deploy.

We have not calculated a formal ROI, but we have already saved tons of time. I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years.

We looked at Rubrik and StorageCraft.

Rubrik seemed like a solid product but was substantially more expensive then Cohesity. They also did not do anything outside of backups. StorageCraft offers good value but doesn't have the same expansive features as Cohesity.

We have been very happy with Cohesity and it has solved several major problems for us. At the same time, they are aggressively adding and further refining features.

We are now backing up our O365 email via Cohesity, which is something we didn't even know it could do when we purchased it.

They really are developing a great platform for unstructured data and backups.

We primarily use the solution for data protection and data platform. We are backing up VMs, physical servers, and other applications. 

We are even using the Exchange cluster backups in our environment. It became easy for us to administrate the data and for handling recovery as well. The best part is the UI. I have never seen this level of enhanced UI. 

The best use case is when we are facing issues while taking the exchange backups. Cohesity made it easy for the exchange backup and restore processes. We are happy with the Support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.

I am very satisfied with the UI of Cohesity. Day to day, they are enhancing it.

We are now easily managing the data from Helios for all the clusters centrally.

Cohesity has made it easy for exchange backup and restore functions. 

We are happy with the support provided by Cohesity.

When we are facing issues while taking the exchange backups, Cohesity makes it easy for the exchange backup and restore processes. 

We are happy with the support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.

Knowledge sharing has become easy by technical sharing and galaxy also evolving drastically.

For Oracle DBs, we have observed a few bugs. This can be done better.

We'd like to see easy Administration and non-disruptive upgrades and node additions.

For a few engineering issues, we've observed delays and they are asking for an upgrade of the cluster. It would be good if they modified it with gflags.

Knowledge sharing has become easy by technical sharing and has been evolving drastically.

I have been using Cohesity for the past 3 years, from 6.3 to 6.5.1.d Hotfix 10.

We are happy with the Support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.

We'd like to see easy Administration and non-disruptive upgrades and node additions.

For a few engineering issues, we've observed delays and they are asking for an upgrade of the cluster. It would be good if they modified it with gflags.

The Cohesity Cluster solution is a great second-tier data management cluster for the backup of various sorts of servers like VMware VMs using the VMware API, Baremetal hardware using a Cohesity Agent, but also for hosting file shares and archiving data like emails and DBs.

In the past, we had a two-node cluster for backups and a second two-node cluster for archiving purposes. We were able to replace these four other systems with a two-node Cohesity cluster solution. 

The new web-based UI has made administration much more central and a lot easier than it was with the software-based tool for the old systems.

It makes our administrators' lives much easier to combine backup, archiving, and services like hosting file shares in one central system with only one user interface.

One dashboard for all services, no need to have multiple ones to check.

An instant recovery capability that includes indexing of the backed up data helps a lot.

I would like to see minor features added to the user interface, such as the software version in the dashboard.

I would like to see Microsoft Exchange DAG supported as soon as possible. I have been told that it's on the roadmap.

I have been using this solution for four months.

The cluster is modular and can be expanded without any problems.

We have moved from Actifio Data Management and a Dell EMC Centera archiving solution to a Cohesity Cluster.

Cohesity is available on your own hardware or on hardware like HPE.

We purchased support from Cohesity to ensure that should we face an issue, we don't have to deal with different service providers. This makes the solution probably a little bit more expensive, but I'm sure it will safe time and money later on when support is needed.

We evaluated Cloudian Hyperstore prior to choosing this solution.

To me, the Cohesity Cluster solution is almost complete. There are only minor things that I would like to see added to the user interface.

Replacing our old disk-based backup system with a modern hyperconverged solution. Also, we are saving valuable datacenter rack space, which is critical as we evaluate co-location options.

Administratively, my staff is relieved at the ease of management and ongoing administration with Cohesity. Backups are quick and painless to set up.

• Integration with VMware
• We are looking forward to the next release, so we can take advantage of the AHV backup for our Nutanix environment.

• I thought physical RDM's were supported, but apparently that is not the case. 
• The rack mounting instructions did not appear to be correct, but we were able to overcome it.

No issues.

No issues.

I have not had to call them yet, but we have heard great things.

We used a previous solution. We switched because the ongoing maintenance costs were growing astronomically, and it was not really built for the virtual datacenter environment.

Super easy!

Vendor team and in-house team together. Our Sales Engineer was awesome.

Unsure at this time.

Ensure that you understand the per TB licensing model. Also, Exchange backups are not native to Cohesity and require Kroll.

We evaluated Rubrik, Commvault, and Veeam.

We are using Cohesity DataProtect for all our platforms, including the VMware platform and the site server. 

I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud.

DataProtect's recovery time is too high. It takes a long time to recover things from the cloud. I'd also like them to increase the capacity of the file server. 

DataProtect is very stable. We haven't seen any great problems with the platform.

DataProtect is totally scalable. 

We've contacted Cohesity support at times. It's good.

We were using Symantec. It was so expensive to add new hardware. We have more capacity on Cohesity than with the Symantec appliance.

Setting up DataProtect was very easy. With two people, we could deploy it in a couple of weeks. 

We had help from a consultant to deploy DataProtect.

We evaluated Rubrik. Cohesity is less expensive, and I think it gives us more capacity.

I rate Cohesity DataProtect 10 out of 10. I would advise new users to be careful with traffic from the cloud. If you don't manage your traffic, it might spike one month, and you end up paying a lot. 

We use the Data Protector to back up all our VMware virtual machines, as well as a SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange. We're not that big of a company anymore. We have three people who know the product: two specialists and someone from second-line support who can handle the tickets. 

The most valuable thing about Cohesity is how it operates as a whole. We are very satisfied with the product as a whole—all the backup functions, the data protection functions. We are very satisfied with those, and the product is very simple to use. 

We have had our share of minor bugs over the past two years and a few bigger ones. But I think it's because the product has so many features, and they try to add new stuff reasonably quickly. For example, Cohesity adds certain functionality in what they call a "feature release." This doesn't mean a long-term release. They added new functionality very quickly, and it was things we needed that were not yet available in a long-term release. When I say "long-term release," I mean one that is more static and gets updated once every few months. We wanted the feature, but we had more issues than some of us might've liked.

On the other hand, they managed to fix all the bugs without significant issues like data loss or anything like that. So it was more an inconvenience than it was a real problem. But if I have to have any criticism of them, maybe it's that. There are some minor improvements on SQL Server backups that we are waiting on, five services. We had one problem that will be solved in one of the subsequent releases, but those are small things. We are not waiting on any major stuff. The product currently meets all our backup needs.

We have been using Cohesity for just two years.

Cohesity's stability is very good. We haven't had any major issues with that.

I would say Cohesity support is somewhere in between good and very good. But, of course, it depends on which region you get. We know that if we log a ticket before noon here in Belgium, we are not in the region where we want to be. It's something we told Cohesity about, as well. We asked them if they could arrange it so that our ticket will always get picked up by the people in Cork. For one thing, they're in our title. They're also much more capable compared to the other regions. But that's our experience. Generally, we are very satisfied with the support we are getting.

Setup is pretty simple, especially compared to the product we had before. It was an older legacy product that was much harder to implement. We deployed with the help of an integrator, but we do all the day-to-day maintenance on the product by ourselves.

We paid for the entire solution because we have done a few expansions already. I think it's between 400 to 600k. That is the price for the complete system, including the hardware, the support, the subscriptions for the software, I think for four to five years.

I rate Cohesity nine out of 10. So, I would recommend it because it's quite a simple product and can do a lot. With the last product we used, you had to be a specialist to navigate in it. It's a much more straightforward and modern interface—very intuitive to use. And the speed of the backups, we do much more backup than we ever did before. So, I would certainly recommend it, yes.

It is used to backup our VM environment plus the few physical servers we still have. 

It is also used to replicate our backups offsite. We have used it several times to spin up a test environment. Cohesity makes it easy to test backups to ensure that they are valid.

It has allowed us to focus on other aspects in IT. No longer does it take several hours to backup a VM or troubleshoot a backup issue.

The dashboard is very easy to use. 

It is also very easy to determine which VMs are being backed up and which ones aren't. This is helpful to make sure nothing is being missed.

We are waiting on the AIX agent to be released. We are also waiting for SQL Clustering to go from testing to live.

Support has been great. The response time has been very quick. I have even received responses on the weekend.

We used EMC Data Domain and NetWorker. We switched because of cost, but also because of how hard it is to use EMC products. We do not need separate VMs with Cohesity to back up.

Initial setup was very straightforward. It can be complex if you need to change IP addresses. Hopefully, they improve that in a future release.

We implemented with a Cohesity engineer.

Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day.

We evaluated Rubrik as well as Veeam. 

Primary backup of our VMware environment with archiving to the cloud. By archiving to the cloud, we can cut out the need to purchase additional hardware for replication at our DR site.

Cohesity will reduce the complexity of our backup and recovery system. Our current system requires us to set up and maintain many proxy servers to facilitate the backups. Cohesity does not need this and out performs our current system.

Converged system. It makes much more sense to have the backup server running on the same hardware as the storage for backup and recovery. This reduces the complexity of the environment and ensures that it just works.

Add the ability to delete View Boxes and External Targets in the GUI. Currently, once you setup a View Box or External Target, there is no way to remove them (if you set these up for testing, for instance).

No issues.

No issues.

Cohesity customer service is the best that I have ever used. They are extremely fast in responding to cases, fixed all issues, and answered every question in a very timely manner.

Yes, we did. Cohesity out performs our old system at a reduced cost as well.

It was very straightforward.

Vendor team. The vendor's expertise was excellent. They included all the knowledge transfer that we needed to begin using the unit.

Not sure.

Setup was extremely easy from racking to backing up was about one hour.

Yes, we also evaluated Rubrik.