Commvault Cloud Reviews

Our primary use case for Commvault is to archive our files. It allows us to move images from temporary storage to permanent storage. Commvault moves everything from the source to the destination, with categorization of the image archive.

Archiving and storage are very good.

It's the leader in backup and archiving.

The solution needs higher availability.

Its competitor, Veeam, includes backup and replication in the same product. I don't know if Commvault has it or not, but they should if they don't.

Also, they should have a module for reporting and supervising, like Veeam. 

The solution is stable.

The pricing for the solution used to be very expensive, but over the last year or so it's been lowered. 

We use the on-premises deployment model.

Commvault is an industry leader. Also, the price is competitive with other solutions, like Veeam. In Morocco, all customers chose Veeam because it's very simple and also their price is not expensive. Now that Commvault has adjusted pricing, they are another solution that people should consider.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

We provide our clients with this solution. Most of my customers use Commvault as a backup solution only.

This solution solves a lot of issues for the customers. Other solutions, such as EMC, offer an entire set of software products as part of the solution, whereas Commvault offers everything in one software application. This makes it very easy to replace competing backup solutions.

Secondly, the solution does not restrict our customers in terms of backup infrastructure. They can go and buy appliances from different partners, such as NetApp. Competing solutions are more strict with respect to the backup infrastructure, and customers don't like it. With an enterprise-level customer, you can imagine how the backup infrastructure costs grow.

The most valuable feature is the backup functionality. This solution is very good for server application backup, backing up laptops, desktops, file shares, etc. The architecture is well suited for it.

The highlight of the solution is the licensing. This is a one-window solution where you don't need to purchase different products. If you compare this to Veritas, they have different solutions such as Backup Exec, and NetBackup for servers. In Commvault, it's single product management.

The backup appliance makes it very easy for the customer to plan for future growth.

The database architecture of Commvault does not require you to have a particular database for different kinds of workloads. For example, the server, desktop, and laptop use a single, global application database. You don't have to create a different database and don't need to expand your backup infrastructure altogether.

From the perspective of the enterprise cloud archiving software, it does not resolve all of the data solutions that the customers are expecting. It works, but it is not up to the mark. They still need some time to improve the archiving and offer it within the single console management. We do not pitch the Commvault archiving solution to our customers. If they ask for it due to reasons of legality or compliance then we can supply it, but we prefer not to offer the Commvault archiving solution.

We did a POC with one of our customers who is archiving more than fifty thousand email accounts, all over the world, on a daily basis, and Commvault failed miserably. It was not able to provide that kind of performance. It can be good for up to three hundred user mailboxes, but not more than that.

The stability of this product, as a whole, needs to be improved to compete with archiving solutions such as Enterprise Vault.

Support for this product needs to be improved because I have seen a couple of cases where it is taking more than the required time to solve issues.

The documentation is not up to the mark. They need to improve their support documentation because it is a little bit weak.

They need to expand more into private, hybrid, and public cloud systems. They need to be even more open than they are now with respect to integrating with public cloud systems. Cloud is the platform that system integrators are now selling, so it is important to have that support.

Between two and three years.

The backup performance and management are ok. However, when something is not working, it is probably fifty percent due to product immaturity.

The scalability of this solution is fine. It is much more scalable and flexible than everything else in the market. It is the one thing that they are good at. There is no doubt that they have simplified the licensing and purchasing model.

One of our enterprise-level customers for this solution is a very large telecom. They have lots of users. There are different databases and applications including Oracle, their ERP solution, Financial Suite, Greenplum, their CRM, filesharing services, and others. They also have a heterogeneous environment that includes Linux, Unix, Solaris, and Windows. There is also virtualization using VMware and Oracle virtual machines. Commvault is the only software that they have for performing backups, so they are one hundred percent reliant on it.

I do not have direct contact with technical support, so to be fair, my opinion is based on everything that I hear from the implementation team. In this context, I feel that the support for this solution, overall, needs improvement.

The documentation is weak, and they need to improve their support portal. They should be aware of the known issues in the market and address them. In general, their support needs improving.

Our large telecom client switched to the Commvault solution because of both cost and complexity. This product provides them with a simplified, unified solution. What they used previously was a set of several solutions. There were different backup solutions for the different platforms, desktops were backed up separately, there was different hardware to store it, and there was another tool for regulatory compliance. Each task used a different software application, and by implementing Commvault it brought everything into one solution and solved all of their problems.

The initial setup is straightforward. However, issues do not start at the initial setup stage. Once the environment is set up and you are going to take the backup job, pushing the enterprise policies, then problems can arise. It may be because of the backend infrastructure or the network, or something else. Whatever the issue, it is at this point where our customers sometimes need better support.

When it comes to the implementation and deployment, from day one until the backup process begins, it should not take more than one week. This is for a new system.

The deployment time for our enterprise-level, telecom customer was longer than average, in part because they already had an existing backup solution and they had to migrate to Commvault. It needed to be planned and implemented gradually, which required some cutoff dates. From start to finish, including streamlining the documentation and handing over everything, it took approximately one month.

We normally handle the implementation of this solution for our customers. If we are having a problem, or the transition is not smooth, then we involve Commvault to assist with the implementation.

I do not have direct experience working with the Commvault support, but I have heard that they are fair. 

Without stating numbers that are confidential, I can say my understanding is that our clients have seen ROI.

The licensing is very simple, and one of the advantages of this solution. They have a subscription-based license, as well as a perpetual option, but that is all they have. It is easy to understand. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees.

The licensing fees depend on the size of the solution and the kinds of workloads. There are hardware costs, software costs, licensing, subscription, and support costs. Support contracts can be for one, two, or five years. All of this needs to be considered.

Overall, this solution provides value for the money. In my experience, compared to solutions like Veritas and Veeam, while they do have their technical pluses and minuses, Commvault can save you on average 40% initially, and then 20 to 25% annually.

We are partners with several different vendors, and I evaluate solutions based upon the customer's needs. These include solutions from Veritas, Commvault, and others. Before I reach out to them, I know what their hardware costs will be, and how much it will cost to maintain each solution. I also know what the costs are to maintaining their existing solution, and can compare this for them. This is how I can show them, for example, that their ROI will be realized within a couple of years.

I have been using backup technology for more than fifteen years.

Commvault claims that they are doing all kind of things with archiving and compliance, but I have discussed this with my implementation team and they have not been receiving good feedback. There are a lot of issues in managing it.

When it comes to a backup solution, however, I do not suggest anything other than Commvault. It gives me room so that I can meet the customer's requirements both in terms of budget and performance, and they are happy with it.

For anybody who is implementing this solution, I would suggest only doing a POC if absolutely necessary. It drags out the implementation, so it should be minimized if it is done at all. 

In summary, this is a unified product that is simple to use. It is a good backup solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

It's for the file system backup, reel backup, and databases.

We have been using the solution for four years.

We have a physical server with actual machines, applications, and databases running on it. We do a daily backup on these.

In the VM, we have Live Recovery, Live Mount, and Live Sync.

We are happy with the stability.

We are happy with the scalability. We have 30 to 40 physical servers with 100 VMs. With this product, it is not about users, but about the amount of nodes utilized.

We will probably increase by two or three nodes in six months, depending on the requirements of our project.

We are very happy now with the technical support, as it is Indian. We previously had difficulty with the support being foreign.

We did not previously use another solution.

The implementation should be done by a certified Commvault engineer to avoid issues in the future.

We are waiting for the new version to come out.

For the past five years, I was part of a big team as a solution architect that was designing Commvault as a solution for different connector projects and enterprise sectors within the region: the Middle East, North Africa, and so on.

Commvault is unique in the backup and recovery category. It has many features. If you are using the Commvault as a backup, you don't need any additional software to have an archiving solution. While with other products, you do. We use Commvault for backup, recovery, and archiving.

From the cost perspective, it minimized the costs which reflected on the investment of the storage, even the investment on the network side. The algorithm and the technology that Commvault is using will be reflected in other parts of the IT components, like network, storage, etc. 

Global deduplication and the indexing of the data object are the most valuable features. It saves costs on the product side by doing compression and deduplication. It will help you and make it easier to reach the data that you need within the minimum downtime when it's required. 

The setup is not that straightforward or easy. Even the documentation is not generic or public like other products. You have to be a partner or you have to have a specific account and download it from the vendor themselves. 

More than five years.

It is very stable. The product setup went well. It was deployed without any problems.

It is scalable. Commvault has recently changed the licensing. The licensing methodology makes things much easier and easy to scale up and scale out. Usually, the rate of technology they are accomplishing with other partnerships with vendors like Fujitsu is using the scale appliances which are massively scalable. 

We have more than 11 customers over here, and in total, there are around 400 users. Some of them are in the financial sector and the government sector.

The amount of people we require for maintenance depends on the project. If it's a medium project, then it's around five. 

Their technical support are very good. You can chat with the support engineers that are available 24/7 and can provide you with anything you need. I haven't had any major incidents that I've really needed them for.

We used Veritas. We switched because if I wanted to use a backup and recovery feature plus an archiving feature I would need to buy more software. With Commvault, I only need one license. It was not a centralized solution like Commvault is. 

The initial setup was complex. The company itself and technology do not have a market share here in the region. Compared to other software or solutions which have most of the market share in the Middle East, it might be that people could use on the other software or other solution better. From the Commvault perspective, the way to install this solution is totally different than others. The mentality of how the solution should work is totally different than other competitors. In the Middle East, we don't have many technical people to work on it. 

The time it takes to deploy will depend from sector to sector. If it is an enterprise with more than 1,000 users it can take around three weeks. If it's mid-range like SAP accounts it could take one week. Taking into account the features that you want to enable will not take that much time.

We integrated it ourselves. 

It is not expensive. The prices are competitive. Other vendors are now adjusting their prices to compete with Commvault. Compared to other competitors and vendors the pricing is fair. 

The advice that I would give someone considering this solution is that you need to have the right people and the right team to implement Commvault. Other than that it's a good tool. From the backup and recovery processes aspect, there's a feature currently they are working with us to enhance it. It does what it says it'll do. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because there is a little complexity of the overall product. 

We have it in our data center, and it's primarily used for our servers. We take backups of the data to protect ourselves. If by mistake we delete some data from the primary storage, we can restore the data from the backup.

For the last six months, we have been providing a graphical user interface for our customers for Commvault so they can, themselves, restore files and folders.

They are evolving. Any time we encounter a problem, an issue, we have a good relation with the development of Commvault, and they work tightly with us together to solve the problem. The fix then becomes available in the new service pack.

It's an enterprise product. It's a stable product. We have good support. Almost all databases are in the scope. I can't really say anything bad about it. It’s a good, stable product.

You need quite a lot of human resources to maintain a Commvault environment, to keep it operational. Also, it would be nice to if there were an easier way set up some Commvault components.

I don't know exactly when they came out with the new HTML interface because, until then, the interface was a based on Java. The HTML interface is a remarkable improvement. However, there are still some features that are not available in that interface that are available in the Java console, but I'm sure that will come with time.

Another issue that comes to mind, that we have to pay attention to is, when a new service pack or hotfix comes out, it can happen that something that was working before does not work anymore. We really have to test it in our lab, before we are 100 percent sure we can introduce it in production and be 100 percent sure that everything still works that was working before.

Stability is okay.

The new HyperScale solution from Commvault is a scale-out solution. We are not using it yet. One month ago, we did a book with the scale-out solution, so we do not have much experience with it. I expect a lot from it.

I'm not on the operational team, but what I hear from colleagues is that they are quite happy with the support. We have a good relationship with them.

Commvault is certainly a vendor that you have to take into consideration if you are looking into a backup solution. It’s worthwhile to have a look at it.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are cost and, perhaps, new features that Commvault maybe doesn't have, like backups to public clouds, for instance. But the primary factor is the cost.

I would rate Commvault at eight out of 10 due to the stability, our relationship with the development team, and the quality of their backup of their solution.

Earlier, the legacy was you needed to backup and, when you needed to do an archive, you needed to do an archive job again. With Commvault it is a single job, which does both backup and archive, so it does not touch the data twice.

Backup and archive with a single window, with a single backup job. You only need to type "c".

Actually Commvault is good software. I just wanted to compare the features, which are there in EMC NetWorker, which are not available in Commvault. We have things using Networker, I just wanted to see what is the advantage over Commvault.

Commvault is very stable.

It is scalable, and it can grow up the environment.

No, it was in manual backup earlier, now it is an automated.

It was pretty simple and straightforward.

Symantec, Veritas. We chose this one because it was the first which had all available storage types, deep storage, cloud storage, and it has a global database system.

• Single pane of management
• Policy driven backup

Cloud integration.

Training.

No.

No.

Good.

Complex.

Invest the time and resources to learn and develop your policies.

1. There are many features that I value Commvault for, but to name only a few:
2. Wide support for different OSS and applications. You can backup almost anything with Commvault.
3. Policy-based configuration, which allows for easily configurable policies for even larger environments.
4. Central administration: Management and deployment are done from one administration console. No need to login to clients neither during configuration nor during installation. Upgrades and SP installation can also be done automatically or manually from the administration console.
5. Great working global deduplication which saves a lot of space and bandwidth if you want to use replication. It can be configured as a source or target side.
6. Ability to easily configure data flows between primary and secondary storage using different storage (disk, tape, or cloud) with different policies for each storage.
7. Built-in reports provide better visibility with almost zero effort put into the configuration.
8. Great archive feature, OnePass, for the file system and Exchange servers.
9. Great stability and resiliency, and many others.

Licensing could be better explained. Sometimes, it's unclear what features are available in different licensing models.

If you set it right at the beginning, then it basically just works with very little administrative effort.

Commvault scales great in a scale-up and scale-out manner. E.g., if your backup server (MediaAgent) isn't enough anymore, you can simply add another. Same goes for disk space and other resources.

Very good. Guys from tech support are very quick to respond. On average, I had my issues solved in a day or two.

I use other solutions (TSM, Veeam, etc.) and Commvault is my number one for ability to easily manage very complex environments with very little administrative effort. Also, resiliency is it's strong advantage, i.e., if you backup SQL DBs with Commvault and someone does a backup outside of Commvault, it will automatically convert the next job (whether log or differential backup) to full where other solutions could simply fail.

Another great example is when doing VMware backups, Commvault automatically discovered hosts affected with a known CBT issue (in v6.0) and turn it off, where needed. This is the difference between just having a backup and having data that you can count on if you need it.

Initial setup may take some reading, but can be done pretty quick in simple environments. The administration console may be overwhelming at first look, but is very easy to use after some practice. I would say that given so many features and options hidden behind it, it is a job well done.

Evaluate different licensing models before buying. It can save a lot of money.

Commvault is very committed to their product, so with either a small or very large environment, you can't go wrong choosing Commvault.