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it_user1199073 - PeerSpot reviewer
Backup Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Provides a single console, internal workflow automation, and fully automated deployment; no need to access an OS or app platform
Pros and Cons
  • "Among the best features are the BMR (Bare Metal Recovery), Live Sync, and IntelliSnap, which is used for snapshots of hypervisor storage. It's predefined so you only need to enable it and it works. I haven't seen anything like this in other backup tools like Veritas NetBackup or Dell EMC or TSM. We will use snapshotting for all our machines."
  • "They should move the CommServe outside of Windows machines and the database should be distributed among servers. It's still a single point of failure."

What is our primary use case?

We're using it mainly to back up operating systems like Windows, Linux, and databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL.

How has it helped my organization?

It has simplified disaster recovery and we have used it for migration as well. For migrating from old FX servers to new FX servers, it was not possible to use any new feature from VMware. There was just vMotion and the success rate of migration of the whole disk was less than 50 percent. It was not possible to manage it that way. We used Live Sync and it was able to migrate 150 machines every day during the weekend, without major problems. That saved us a couple of weeks of time, probably 50 percent of the time it would have taken us. Without Live Sync it wouldn't have been possible to manage it.

The fact that the solution is a single platform has definitely enabled our company to accelerate growth because you don't need to leave the Commvault console. With NetBackup or TSM (IBM Tivoli Storage Manager) when it comes to customization of scripts for databases, you have to go into the client at the operating system level and modify the scripts. With Commvault you don't have to do that. You don't need to access the operating system, which simplifies the work.

Commvault helps minimize the time spent on backup tasks, creating time for other projects. I'm able to write a workflow in Commvault's internal environment and I can automate any action I did manually before. For example, deployment of remote offices can be fully automated.

It also saves us money on infrastructure because the configuration which will be used for IntelliSnapshotting is very simplified.

Another company I worked for previously was being attacked by a ransomware virus. The company lost its whole Windows infrastructure, so it didn't have Active Directory. Commvault was on Windows as well and the Knowledge Base which ran on Linux was authenticated with AD. Everyone lost their workstations.

The recovery process was that we got the database from Commvault, because part of raising cases includes the ability to upload databases to Commvault. The Windows team found a backup of the main controller and the most important thing was to start communications and for every one to have Active Directory. With Commvault's support, we were also able to develop a process which recovered Volume C, and that was sufficient to fix the images. Within two months they were able to recover the whole infrastructure from scratch. Without Commvault, or with another solution based on Windows, I don't think the recovery would have been possible. 

I had never seen this kind of disaster. Nobody expects to lose everything. You think about losing the primary location or a remote office location, but no one thinks about losing the whole platform.

What is most valuable?

Among the best features are the BMR (Bare Metal Recovery), Live Sync, and IntelliSnap, which is used for snapshots of hypervisor storage. It's predefined so you only need to enable it and it works. I haven't seen anything like this in other backup tools like Veritas NetBackup or Dell EMC or TSM. We will use snapshotting for all our machines.

Live Sync replicates incremental data to remote locations. If you lose your primary data center, you enable the replicated machines in your DR location so you don't need to restore data.

It's great as a DR solution because it has a lot of capabilities for syncing with a cloud provider. But if you want to keep everything in-house, it's great that way as well because the replication is done by incrementals.

When it comes to the user interface for managing on-prem, cloud, or multi-cloud environments in one place, it's always better to have everything in one. I myself like multiple consoles, a Java console and an admin console. I only work with the Java console. It's great because it's possible to configure everything from there. But operations has that nice console, and having that one console is better than having multiple consoles.

What needs improvement?

They should move the CommServe outside of Windows machines and the database should be distributed among servers. It's still a single point of failure.

Also, I work a lot with workflows, which means a combination of XML files and commands. It would be helpful if they unified the use of workflows.

Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault at my current company for almost two years but I have a total of five years of experience with it. I'm a Commvault engineer. I have built Commvault from scratch using the approach that is best for the client, and then prepared the documentation.

We are using service pack 16 because it is a new deployment so we have to deploy that before we push updates.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't seen a crash of the database. The stability is great.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When I started with Commvault and compared it with NetBackup, I found that Commvault had features that NetBackup didn't have. Currently, we are able to cover 12,000 virtual machines.

Commvault has what it calls a HyperScale Appliance which is a media agent with the disk. This is the best option for storing data. The media agents are in clusters so they share data. It's a nice feature and I haven't seen any other backup company that has integrated this kind of solution. They always use a third-party vendor for this capability. But that involves communication over the network, something which HyperScale skips.

We plan on using IntelliSnaps more and we are testing the cloud backup. We will use the cloud as a hot-DR location. I expect that will happen this year.

How are customer service and support?

From my experience, I have had the best support interactions with Commvault. I always get a response within a couple of hours. If there is a task for Commvault's development side involved in the issue, I get an update every three days that someone is working on it. 

I have yet to find a support engineer at Commvault who has to speak to someone else. They are always able to troubleshoot the issue on the first strike. I can definitely recommend Commvault support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our company previously used NetBackup and TSM. One of the reasons we switched to Commvault was that our company was not satisfied with IBM's support. It was challenging. If support is not able to help you manage problems, you can't use the solution.

The plus with Commvault is that it really focuses on automation for deploying machines and discovering databases, etc. A Commvault administrator doesn't need to understand, in-depth, the application he is backing up because he doesn't need access into the application. It's much more focused on snapshotting for the synchronization between locations. The BMR process can be used across the cloud and on-prem solutions, so you can easily move machines from your environment to a cloud environment. And from that cloud environment you can convert to another vendor in the cloud.

That is all built on the BMR process, which is better than any other backup tool I know. Some of them, like TSM, don't even include a native BMR solution. Instead there is a third-party vendor that does it, so it's not fully-integrated.

I like it when everything is in one console and things can be automated via an internal workflow and deployment is fully automated so I don't need to access the operating system or application platform. Those are all benefits of Commvault.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was really easy for me because I already had experience with NetBackup and TSM. It wasn't difficult for me to understand Commvault's logic. But, in my opinion, it's very easy to understand because the logic involved is minimal yet it offers a lot of configurable options. Because the process for the installation of agents, such as for databases and applications, is fully automated, you don't need to touch the application at all. That is one of the main reasons I prefer Commvault over other tools, where you always need to touch the client.

A basic implementation of Commvault depends on the size of the company. Installation of the server takes a couple of hours, but that is the same as with other backup tools. But the installation of it on clients and their configurations will take days if you don't want to customize it because Commvault comes with pre-defined groups. The process will take a number of days for a small company.

In terms of staff for deployment and maintenance, it could be just one person involved, depending on the roles of the people in the company. This person has to be able to do a lot of things, so it depends on whether he has these responsibilities and the capabilities.

We have about 100 users of the solution because we have a lot of operations.

What was our ROI?

The ROI is there, but I don't have figures on it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our deployment is primarily on-prem. We are trying to assess the cloud capabilities but it looks like the cloud is more expensive if you want to have the whole infrastructure.

What other advice do I have?

Commvault is more administrator-friendly than other backup tools.

We are using Commvault for cloud support, but that part is at the PoC stage. But it's the same as the on-prem solution. Whether the library is on physical disk or in the cloud, it looks the same in Commvault, so that's not an issue in terms of configuration or use. There are even more cloud vendors than I had heard of and it looks like Commvault supports all of them.

We don't use it, but there is an archive function in Commvault which allows you to move data from primary storage to another type which is much cheaper.

Version 11 of Commvault has been on the market for something like seven years now. They have changed the naming so what they called service packs are now called feature packs. That means they are no longer changing the version number and they do what they call a "platform release." That was changed in SP19. In each new pack they add new features every three months. They also have hotfix releases every week or so.

I'm still surprised that they continue to come out with features that are really nice and that you didn't even think were possible.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1055571 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of the Company at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
Integrates with many cloud providers and with any technology we bring on, and can be implemented on any hardware
Pros and Cons
  • "All workloads can be integrated with Commvault. If we use a new technology, Commvault integrates with it. Commvault is a data management solution with support for building the DR side of things. With Commvault we can rapidly back up and restore any application we add to our environment."
  • "One issue we face is the complexity of the console. That could be improved on. It takes users time to get familiar with Commvault. On average, it takes our customers between one and three months to learn it. The console and the way you configure Commvault have very advanced settings. It takes time to understand how it works."

What is our primary use case?

We are a partner for Commvault and our role is to implement the solution for our customers. Our customers in Egypt are in the banking and financial sector. They use Commvault to back up their data. We help in sizing the workload of the customer, designing the solution and implementing it. We also support the customer if they face any issues.

We have a hybrid implementation. The first target for the backup is on-premises and the offsite backup is on Azure cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution provides us with a single platform to move, manage, and recover our data across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud locations. We completely depend on Commvault for managing our data, from backup to restore to replication.

Commvault saves significant time for administrators. It also saves on infrastructure costs by being able to manage what were disparate data management solutions in one place. It saves us on a monthly basis. It also has embedded deduplication which works well. It saves about 90 percent of the front-end data.

In terms of recovery, it depends on the teams that we restore for. Sometimes we restore for the database team, and other times for the application team when they add a new feature or change something and they need to roll back. Also, sometimes our users are attacked by ransomware or by a virus or trojan, and their data is encrypted or deleted. Commvault has helped us in these scenarios. It has always been successful in restoring the backup. 

What is most valuable?

Commvault's compatibility matrix is tops. It supports almost any workload and technology our customers have.

It provides fast backup and fast restore. The amount of time it takes depends on the size of the restored data, but Commvault has a good feature through which you can add many streams when restoring. That helps us in restoring rapidly. In my opinion, Commvault is one of the fastest solutions when it comes to restoring. I use competitive solutions, such as Veeam and Rubrik, and Commvault is the fastest among them, in both backup and restore.

It integrates with many cloud providers, like Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform. Also, all workloads can be integrated with Commvault. If we use a new technology, Commvault integrates with it. Commvault is a data management solution with support for building the DR side of things. With Commvault we can rapidly back up and restore any application we add to our environment.

Commvault software can be implemented on any hardware. This helps when we are competing against another backup solution. It helps win customers.

The Command Center is good. It has a good dashboard and it's very easy to use. It gives us a view of about 85 percent of the environment, because something like tape configuration and monitoring are needed. In the new version they have added good features and they have worked on improving the documentation.

The dashboard provides a good view into any issues so that users can address them. It provides understandable messages when there are errors, telling you where the issue is, and you can research the error code or send it to Commvault for help.

What needs improvement?

One issue we face is the complexity of the console. That could be improved on. It takes users time to get familiar with Commvault. On average, it takes our customers between one and three months to learn it. The console and the way you configure Commvault have very advanced settings. It takes time to understand how it works. 

After a customer understands it, he can improve and add to the configuration.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for around three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a very stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is also scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The efficiency of Commvault's support is something that, it seems, the vendor needs to pay attention to. At times, when we open a support case, it can take two to four days to find a solution and close the case. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup process is complex. The person who implements it has to pay close attention to certain things. The index cache must be in SSD storage, and the same is true for the deduplication database. The sizing of the CommServe must be done well. In terms of agents, and other features, everything must be calculated very well. All these things will affect the performance in the future.

It can take hours or days to implement, depending on the project. The administrative part of the deployment takes about a day, but the integration part can take from three days to a couple of months, depending on the size of the project.

After we do the first implementation, the customer can do future implementations. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Commvault has advanced its licensing in the last year with its complete licensing solution. The complete license gives us options for all the features. Commvault does not license based on storage or the management components. It can integrate with any storage vendor. That means that when we are out of storage and need more, we can integrate without additional licensing.

In my opinion, Commvault needs to reduce the licensing cost by 20 to 40 percent to make it cost-efficient.

What other advice do I have?

You need to size the CommServe and the agents very well because it will help the performance.

Overall, Commvault is a good solution for midsize and enterprise companies.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Backup Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Allows us to easily deploy multiple clients at a time and back up multiple clients
Pros and Cons
  • "We use Commvault Command Center for backups and restores and for the creation of new clients. We use it for other functionalities as well. In terms of VMware, I can go directly to the Command Center, enter VMware, and I can search it directly. Command Center is very useful and it can be used for more advanced techniques."
  • "I need documentation for Azure backups. One expectation that I have is regarding PDF documentation. When I was trying to browse the documentation, I could not locate that."

What is our primary use case?

Right now we are using on-premise and cloud backups. We run 300 to 400 jobs per day.

How has it helped my organization?

Compared to other products out there, we have found that Commvault is best suited for our needs. We can easily restore and deploy the data.

Previously, before the introduction of Commvault, we used other software including Rubrik. But with Commvault we can deploy multiple clients at a time and we can back up multiple clients without any issues. Right now, we are using about 1,000 VMs. Before Commvault we used to back up about 200 servers and 100 VMs. Previously, backups took nine hours. With Commvault it takes minutes.

The solution definitely helps our admins to minimize the time they spend on backup tasks and to spend time on other projects. If we need to run backups for dozens of servers, it can be done in one minute because it can be done in a click. We can select the backups by selecting the client computer groups. We can categorize those groups and, based on that categorization, we can run the backups and we can restore the VMs as well. It can be done in minutes. Running backups twice a week, it saves us about 5 to 6 hours each time.

It is also saving us on infrastructure costs and has helped optimize infrastructure usage, like storage space. By using Commvault we have saved about 3 TBs of space.

We have used it to recover data when there was a problem with our database. It took about four hours to bring the data back. But recently, we introduced HA and it has saved us more time. With HA the data can be brought up in one hour. With other solutions it would take 10 to 24 hours.

What is most valuable?

We do monitor all the backups using the user interface. It is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and easy to create solutions with it. It is very comfortable. We can do multiple operations at a time.

We use Commvault Command Center for backups and restores and for the creation of new clients. We use it for other functionalities as well. In terms of VMware, I can go directly to the Command Center, enter VMware, and I can search it directly. Command Center is very useful and it can be used for more advanced techniques.

The cloud support is good. The on-premises cloud is working for us as is traditional cloud. All the clouds we're using are working with Commvault. We have Office365 and Azure.

What needs improvement?

I need documentation for Azure backups. One expectation that I have is regarding PDF documentation. When I was trying to browse the documentation, I could not locate that. The documentation should be in PDF format where it can be downloaded easily.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for the past five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been good. We haven't had any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling can be done easily.

I am now looking into an orchestrator. High-availability is another future use case for us.

How are customer service and technical support?

We do not have any issues with support. Everything is fine. Commvault helps in fixing any issues and they help us to deploy the data whenever we need help. And they provide the security as well.

In the first year we raised many issues, but now it is easier for us to manage. We refer to the documentation.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used to use Rubrik but we found Commvault to be a better solution. It provided time savings, handled more complexity, and provided more security.

How was the initial setup?

With guidance from their team, and based on the documentation, it was easy to install. The deployment took one-and-a-half hours.

There are updates every quarter and they are getting easier to deploy.

We have about seven staff members on my team, IT analysts, who handle the solution, to account for different shifts and meal breaks, etc. Within the company there are 10 clients using it, mostly within IT.

What other advice do I have?

We are very satisfied. It is a very useful product, daily. 

Commvault is constantly developing new use cases based on customers' requirements. They are developing new features on a regular basis. In version 11, 19 new features were added. For example, in previous versions we did not have the Command Center and whenever backups failed we could not restore the data. Now, there are options for restoring the data. These kinds of advanced techniques are introduced from day to day.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
it_user1310628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Provides us with one product, one console, and one license for our VM backups
Pros and Cons
  • "The most important feature is that everything can be controlled using a single console."
  • "I would like them not to push Command Center. It is good, but I would like them to enable all the features for the Java console. Some things are not in the Java console, like Office 365 agents. In fact, they are there, but one of the engineers had to show me how to configure it. It's not done the same as in the Command Center."

What is our primary use case?

We are mainly using it for backing up our VMware environment, some file servers, and some SQL databases. We also use it for some replication.

How has it helped my organization?

Before Commvault we had one product for backup, one for replication, and a few consoles. That was hard to manage for the administrator. With Commvault it's just one product, just one license. It does not require a special, separate license for deduplication or other stuff. It's easy to manage everything now.

Commvault provides us with a single platform to move, manage, and recover our data across on-premises locations. We usually have daily, incremental backups and a full backup weekly. That leads to reduced storage space for our Commvault storage. It's saving us about 30 percent.

The fact that the solution is a single platform has enabled our company to accelerate growth. We have a database and there are some major changes that happen to it at the end of month, or sometimes the developers have done something to change it in a whole different way. Before they apply those changes, we take a backup with Commvault so if something has gone wrong with the update, we can always revert it back.

Also, because it has alerts enabled, the solution helps our admins to minimize the time they spend on backup tasks so they can spend time on other projects. We don't monitor the backup system all the time. We only look at it when we get email alerts. If something has failed, then we'll look at what the error is and what's happening. There are daily backup reports configured so that at 10:00 am, every day, I get a backup report. It says what has been backed up and what has not.

In addition, we have had a few crashes of our VM environment and we have had to restore some VMs, as well as some files that have been deleted by users off our file server. We had another solution before, but that was before I started with the company. People say it was pretty crappy and that sometimes, when they were doing recovery, it took about eight to 10 hours for a VM. But with Commvault, the last time I did a recovery of a 500 GB hard disk with a VM, it took about one-and-a-half hours. That is good.

Finally, Commvault has helped by telling me there are outdated tools in the VM environment.

What is most valuable?

The most important feature is that everything can be controlled using a single console. That is the best feature of Commvault.

What needs improvement?

The user interface is a bit tough, to be honest, but once you get the hang of it, it's okay. In the beginning it was tough, but now I know what I'm doing. We had free training but after that, just to learn the interface took me four to six months. There are still things to learn because with every service pack there are changes. Service Pack 18 was recently released and there are some features that I haven't even seen yet.

I would like them not to push Command Center. It is good, but I would like them to enable all the features for the Java console. Some things are not in the Java console, like Office 365 agents. In fact, they are there, but one of the engineers had to show me how to configure it. It's not done the same as in the Command Center.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault since 2018.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. 

Sometimes the Java console might not respond. It might happen one out of 20 times that the Java console might crash. And then we have to use Task Manager to end it and reopen it. Other than that, the server has never crashed nor has the database ever crashed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have actually moved into 365 recently. We had to buy some licenses but they agreed to give us some trial licenses for testing, but it is based on the user base. Commvault is supporting everything that we are doing.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support in the India region is a bit disappointing, but after 6:00 pm it is switched to the U.S and European teams, and they are much better in supporting and understanding the issues and fixing them. Sometimes the Indian team is also good, but we don't usually raise a ticket until after 6:00 pm. If it's a small issue that doesn't cause any harm to the production environment, we will go to the Indian team and some of them are good enough to help us.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our company switched to Commvault because it had some issues with recovering data and the recovery time was high. Also, the local support team for our old product was not available when we needed them. That's why they were looking for something new and they found Commvault.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward. We didn't have many complications. When we had to install the agents on the servers, there were some issues with authentication with the SQL database, but that was from the database side. That was sorted and there was nothing much more than the usual administrative stuff.

The initial deployment took about three weeks because we had some complications with database servers. Some of them had to study the user account permissions. After that was sorted out, it was fine.

Our strategy was to install it on critical servers. After the vendor installed the physical servers for Commvault, we had to download about nine to 10 GB of their setup files. After that, they installed and there were some prerequisites to complete such as .NET. After that, it was pretty easy. Once we installed we had some local support. We also had to plan and provide retention periods.

What about the implementation team?

We had support from the local distributor. They were very friendly and they were cooperative and concerned with our requirements. They addressed them properly. Overall it was a good experience. 

And they provided us with the training after the deployment. We played with our environment for two to three months after the deployment, and then they gave us the training. That approach was better because we had an idea about what we were learning. We had questions when we went to the training so it was very good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Commvault licensing is a perpetual license so only the support is being renewed yearly.

What other advice do I have?

I don't like the solution's Command Center. I don't know why they have pushed it. The old Java console is much better. Maybe it's because I was used to it. One good thing about the Command Center is that it has reduced the steps we have to take. If we had to do 10 steps on the Java console, it's been reduced to four or five steps in Command Center. But I'm confused about whether I'm doing things right because there are some steps missing. For a newcomer, Command Center would be good. But for me, I still prefer the Java console.

Currently, there is only me, as a system administrator, and another guy on the database team who use Commvault. That's all. We don't have many administrators.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Technical Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Scalability, and the ability to back up on-prem and restore to the cloud and vice-versa, are key for us
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's interface is easy to use. For manageability, it doesn't matter where the resource is coming from or going to. That's the great power of the Control Panel: It's easy to use and does not matter if you manage on-prem or cloud resources."
  • "The solution's breadth and depth of cloud support are good, but could be better. Some cloud features that are common-sense, especially on AWS, are not completely integrated yet in the product. They are a work-in-progress."

What is our primary use case?

We use it in the most traditional way: for backup and restore. We don't use it for all the other things that are also possible with it because we are quite a big company. We have all the specific tools we need for specific purposes.

We tested Commvault in the past for archiving, but in those days it was not really stable yet. So we selected other solutions for that.

We use Commvault on everything. We are using it in our own data centers but also in the cloud. We use Azure for most things, but we also are working on testing some things on AWS.

How has it helped my organization?

The benefits to our company are the performance and scalability and the willingness of Commvault to connect to talk with us about any requests we have for changing the product, and to do understand what we're looking for. If possible they also implement these things in quite a short amount of time. If a new feature is needed, or it should be doing A instead of B, they're always willing to listen to requests and build them. That's great.

The fact that the solution is a single platform has enabled our company to accelerate growth and drive innovation. We're using it in a traditional way but our resources and services are moving to the cloud. It helps that the way the product works, what we are used to doing in the traditional way on-prem, can be done the same way in the cloud. That makes it easier overall and makes the transition easier.

There are ways the solution helps our admins to minimize the time they spend on backup tasks, but in some ways, the solution doesn't. But that's more related to our way of working and not related to Commvault. Using it saves us about 40 hours in a month, thanks to its automation features.

In terms of saving on infrastructure costs, in our environment that's not measurable because we have a dedicated platform and dedicated infrastructure for it. But we see the benefits of the deduplication. It's saving petabytes in our environment.

What is most valuable?

The backup and restore activities are valuable and being able to use it in a hybrid space. You can easily back up on-prem and restore to the cloud and vice-versa. The scalability is also good.

The solution's interface is easy to use. For manageability, it doesn't matter where the resource is coming from or going to. That's the great power of the Control Panel: It's easy to use and does not matter if you manage on-prem or cloud resources.

What needs improvement?

Commvault works quite well as it is. But we are an MSP, so for us it's fairly hard to customize it for branding it.

There is also room for improvement in the multi-tenancy and security. That's been a hard thing for us and for Commvault as a vendor. Sometimes it's hard to implement new features in multi-tenancy environments. The new features are great, and it's good that they are there, but they are not always usable in an MSP environment.

The solution's breadth and depth of cloud support are good but could be better. Some cloud features that are common-sense, especially on AWS, are not completely integrated yet in the product. They are a work-in-progress. Overall, cloud is moving and innovating also very fast. That also makes it very hard for Commvault to comply with all the new features. Sometimes a cloud provider like Microsoft changes something and a feature is broken in Commvault.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with Commvault as a backup product for about 12 years now. As an MSP, it's very hard to switch from vendor to vendor. But the solution also works great. We have no real reason to switch to another product at this moment. We are always looking at the competitors, but not all the competitors can comply with all the things that we need.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. We have some little issues with it, but when we have issues they're always related to the application we want to back up, not to the product itself. We ask a lot of the product; we use it in a fairly hard way on several things. Sometimes we hit the boundaries of the product and we encounter issues. But in day-to-day business, we don't see any real issues related to the infrastructure or the load we can give it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales very well. If we need more capacity or more power for performance, then we add additional nodes without needing to do a complete redesign of the product or the environment. We can easily add extra power.

We have about 10,000 clients running with approximately 2 petabytes of data being backed up. That will double in the upcoming year to two years. We also have about 1,000 end-users of the product and most of them are doing restore activities.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is very good.

But a hard thing for them is understanding how to work with an MSP. They assume, sometimes, that as an MSP, we have access to everything. But that's not the truth and it's not possible. That makes troubleshooting hard for us and for them as well. But they are quite fast in responding and try to help as quickly as possible. Still, most of the cases that we have with customer support need to be escalated directly to development.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used an IBM solution. The main reasons we switched to Commvault were cost and complexity.

How was the initial setup?

The setup of Commvault was complex but that's related to our environment. As an MSP we have very high security guidelines, so that made it hard. But that's not related to Commvault, it's related to our security environment.

Our deployment took almost a year. We had to make sure our design was good before we did anything. Most time of the implementation time was in the design phase. The actual building-up of the solution was quite fast. We were done in a month, starting from scratch.

For deployment and maintenance we need four to five people who are backup system admins.

What about the implementation team?

We did it by ourselves.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI in several respects, but not as fast as we want.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We look at everything on the market. Every year to two years we do a new evaluation of the new techniques and products. We are always comparing it with Veeam, for example. We have Veeam running in several places. We test the two solutions and compare the results with each other.

Out-of-the-box, the manageability is one of the big differences. For end-users, sometimes Commvault is too complex and, while it's getting better and better with the latest versions, it is still not there. The most important thing is what my end-users say to me about using Veeam. It's very straightforward, easy-to-use, and does what it needs to do. Veeam and other competitors are point solutions. They are very good in specific situations and specific environments.

On the other hand, Commvault is a product that can manage a lot of things, and most competitors don't have the scalability and the large support-matrix for as many products, versions, and applications. Commvault allows us to use one product for almost everything. It's better than the competitors. We want to have everything in a single console, if possible, and that's what Commvault does for us.

What other advice do I have?

The biggest lesson I have learned from using Commvault is to take your time. Especially in complex environments, the design stage takes a lot of time, but you need to do it well. Otherwise, you will have trouble in your implementation. We learned that the hard way. We wanted it built fast but, when the design was ready, we needed to rebuild several times.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1273227 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Supports multiple platforms and applications, and the multi-tenancy is critical to our business
Pros and Cons
  • "The multi-tenancy is the most valuable feature for us because it's the only software that is fully multi-tenant and that has all the features we need to provide to all our tenants. It provides us with advanced features for MySQL and Oracle, among other platforms"
  • "There is room for improvement in its user interface and web console, called Command Center. They are improving it every year so if they continue in that direction, I think it will be a very reliable console."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for backup as a service for our tenants. We are service providers. We host Commvault partially on our cloud and we also use some physical servers for a part of the Commvault infrastructure.

How has it helped my organization?

We need the solution for our tenants. We need a reliable solution with as many platforms and applications supported as possible and a solution that is multi-tenant. Commvault has helped us to win some customers against our competitors because we have this solution and they don't have anything like it. They don't use Commvault.

It provides us with steady growth in our sales. It's a unique solution. In our region, we are the biggest provider with the Commvault solution. We're not so big compared to Europe or the US, but we are big here.

Commvault has helped us in some unusual cases when we needed to move a tenant's environment to our cloud or to migrate a tenant from one data center to another. Commvault has been the best solution for this. It has helped a lot.

It has also minimized admin tasks a lot because it has a very good number of settings and tools. You need to spend some time configuring it. After that, you click the start button and everything goes okay. Occasionally we have to check that everything is okay and that nothing is broken. But it's excellent in manageability. It saves us a significant amount of time.

In addition, we have managed to save some costs because the solution supports so many platforms and has so many supported applications. So we need one solution and not ten. It has reduced our costs in terms of infrastructure. If we didn't use Commvault, we would spend 50 percent more on several other software solutions similar to Commvault to replace it. And it has significantly reduced our storage. One of the categories that we measured when looking at software to use for our backup as a service was storage efficiency. Commvault was one of the few that has a deduplication engine and our storage is about one-eighth of what it would be.

What is most valuable?

The multi-tenancy is the most valuable feature for us because it's the only software that is fully multi-tenant and that has all the features we need to provide to all our tenants. It provides us with advanced features for MySQL and Oracle, among other platforms. Many backup solutions have support Oracle backup, but not many have as many features as Commvault for this kind of backup.

The user interface for managing multiple environments in one place is okay for our engineers. It has all the needed features, all the needed settings, available in both the old console and the new web console. I think our tenants are also happy with all the available features from the Commvault consoles.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in its user interface and web console, called Command Center. They are improving it every year so if they continue in that direction, I think it will be a very reliable console.

For how long have I used the solution?

As a company, we have been using Commvault since 2015. Personally, I have used Commvault for six or seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is okay. It's stable. We haven't had many problems with the solution. If you know the solution and know what you are doing, the stability will be okay. But you must have a deeper knowledge of the solution. For this, they have good Education Services on their site, and they will help you a lot. If you do it yourself you will make mistakes and encounter some problems with configuration. It will be much slower and more painful for you. Or you can use help from Commvault Education or Commvault Services.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have scaled out since our initial configuration. Our initial configuration was around 300 TB and now it's around 1.5 PB, if we measure it by backup size. If we measure it by servers, initially it was around 10 servers and now it's around 50. We have around 60 tenants. Some of them are smaller and some of them bigger.

How are customer service and technical support?

Commvault's technical support is very good. I have experience with other software products and their support so I can compare Commvault with the others. Commvault support is very good. We have had about 160 tickets and almost 99 percent of these tickets were resolved very efficiently and very quickly.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have a second solution just for our virtualization platform.

We searched for a solution for other areas of protection, such as agent protection or protecting applications and virtualized cloud platforms that our previous solution could not handle. Our previous solution, EMC Avamar, was more restricted in terms of applications and platforms that it could protect.

How was the initial setup?

In both my current and my previous company, I was the one responsible for the initial setup and it is straightforward. But the next step is the initial configuration and that is difficult for a less experienced person. Now, I can say that I could set it up and configure it much more quickly.

From deployment to production, in my current company, took two to three weeks.

Our initial setup was one CommServe, so it was a simple deployment, without disaster recovery clusterization. In addition there were two MediaAgents. We are extensively using a firewall proxy setup as well. The setup has grown over the years and now, the infrastructure of Commvault is around 50 servers.

We're planning to deploy another one in another installation. The current one will be preserved as it is, and we will deploy a new one with some improvements from our side and perhaps with a different overall design.

What about the implementation team?

Because it was my second installation of Commvault, I did it mostly myself. After the installation, I had some questions about the initial configuration and they were resolved by Commvault's standard support. I opened an incident with Commvault and they helped me with this very quickly.

What was our ROI?

Its efficiency has returned our investments over the course of about two years. Mostly it was an investment in infrastructure.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our cost is around $20,000 per month. The previous year, it was around $30,000 per month. It now costs less because Commvault changed the licensing type for providers. It's not that we are using Commvault less, but it's just due to a licensing change.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated EMC Avamar, Data Domain. And the second one was Symantec NetBackup, at that time, which is now Veritas NetBackup. Veritas NetBackup was the closest competitor when we decided on Commvault.

Commvault was slightly better in price and the licensing was simpler for us than on other platforms. Commvault was also better in terms of data deduplication. It's more efficient with storage.

What other advice do I have?

It's good software and you can create software that is diverse. It has just about every application platform and cloud platform you could need in one solution. You don't need several software programs to admin and to back up many solutions. It provides software efficiency. You can do what you need to do with one solution, not ten.

Use the Educational Services or Professional Services, if you don't have experience with this software. It will be a better experience if you have some background in the software. When I talk with people in my industry about Commvault, they complain that it is difficult, it's big, it's complicated, etc.. I say to them that we have no problems with it. Everything is fine. That is mostly because we read a lot about it through the documentation and watched some educational tutorials before we implemented it. And support is great. Support can help you to resolve questions, not only when something is not working, but also with configuration issues.

Commvault's breadth and depth of cloud support is okay. They continue to introduce new features and new ways to administrate, configure, and use cloud platforms. There may be some platforms that are better in certain areas, but Commvault is not bad and it's not excellent. It's good, it's in the middle. I can't say Commvault's cloud support has a major effect on our operations, but it has some effect. We have cases when Commvault is the only solution to move data from a given cloud to a private cloud or from a private cloud to on-premises. So for migration it's a great solution. But for cloud backup, we don't have a lot of tenants who use Amazon in our region. They mostly use private or regional providers, not global.

Everything is okay in Commvault and they're improving it by themselves. Every update brings new or updated features, which is great.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Data Storage and Protection Team Leader at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Flexible, stable, good cross-platform replication, and has a good management console
Pros and Cons
  • "We are using a KVM system in our cloud, and this solution works very well with it."
  • "This solution can be complex and difficult to administer because it supports all of the many platforms, so it would help if they could simplify it."

What is our primary use case?

We are using this solution to backup our public and private cloud data. It is very compatible with all backup types and environments. It backs up our databases, as well as other systems such as email and files.

We are using a KVM system in our cloud, and this solution works very well with it.

How has it helped my organization?

With Commvault, we provided trusted environment to our customer and increased our incomes with new customers.

What is most valuable?

The Commvault Console is very good, as it is capable of archive and backup in the same system.

This solution is very successful at cross-platform replication. 

What needs improvement?

Virtual machines backup window in GUI is not user friendly. Some improvements should be done to better user experience.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a very stable product, and in fact, one of the reasons that we choose this solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable product.

We have been using it more frequently in the past three months, and we have ten companies as clients who are using it for their backups. I do not know how many users they have. We are planning to increase usage.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have been using technical support, and the response time is very acceptable. We have had no problem with support for this solution.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Acronis as our backup solution in this company, but it is not a stable product. It fails as we need to restore a backup, and we needed a stable product. We also needed support for many different platforms. I had worked with this solution at my previous company six years ago and was familiar with it, which is why we choose it.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of this solution is not complex, and it was not hard for me.

The deployment takes between two and three hours.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed this solution in-house, with our experience. We have a backup team of five people who are in charge of deployment and maintenance, although the team consists of three main people. They are backup administrators and backup experts.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options before we switched to Commvault from Acronis.

What other advice do I have?

This is a product that I recommend because it is stable and has good support. However, it still has some limitations and can be improved.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Chief System Engineer at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Offers good stability, scalability, technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very stable."
  • "The back of virtual machines needs improvement. I know they're working on it. They're always doing new things but I think they still have a little bit more to do."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for backing up the .NES file system. I backup VMware and Windows cloud servers. It's deployed on-prem.

What needs improvement?

The back of virtual machines needs improvement. I know they're working on it. They're always doing new things but I think they still have a little bit more to do.

In the next release, I would like to see disaster recovery options for the cloud. It was always off the scope because they're not really meant to be a disaster recovery solution but now they're getting there. From what I see, that there's no reason why they can't do disaster recovery, they have everything they need for it. They're beginning to do things but I'd like to see them delve more into that.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for the last four years

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The other customers that had some issues with technical support but I, personally, have not had issues with them. I get good support.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't install Commvault. It's not complex, but it demands optimization to do. An integrator did the implementation. It didn't look too complex, but there some things you need to take into consideration and there were configuration issues, fine-tuning, and things like that. 

The deployment took around two days. 

What other advice do I have?

One thing is the pricing. I think they're expensive. They're very good, but they're pretty expensive. It's a complex system that you have to sit on a little bit. You have to work on it. You have to be very aware of any backup program but here specifically, because it does so much, you have to always be conscious of what's happening.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Commvault Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Commvault Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.