We use it to back up everything in Office 365: our Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams. And we use it for Azure Active Directory. The thing we use it the most for is recovering email messages or mailboxes.
Director of Information Technology at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Makes backup of O365 mailboxes more efficient, and reduces our backup management workload
Pros and Cons
- "The granularity of the Office 365 Backup & Recovery feature is very good. We've used all of it, recovering data from each of the four systems that we back up with it, and it works very well."
- "The speed of the Office 365 Backup & Recovery feature is adequate. Microsoft controls the amount of bandwidth that people have when they're using Azure and the O365 environment... If they could work out something with Microsoft to improve the speed, that would help."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We moved our email to Office 365 and, when we did that, we were using an on-premises Commvault solution but that was not an efficient way to back up the O365 mailboxes. Metallic has definitely improved our ability to back up and restore email, as well as the other online systems.
Also, we spend very little time with the Metallic solution because it just runs, so it has reduced the amount of manual work required to manage our backup operations. With our former solution, I was spending two hours a week on that, so it's saving me that much time. The other benefit is that I now have three or four other people on my team who can do the backups and the restores, as necessary. With the on-premises solution it was very complicated and I was the only one who could do it. Not only have we reduced the time from two hours a week to almost zero, but we now have multiple people with the ability to use the tool.
And when it comes to infrastructure costs, it's saving us about $25,000 a year.
What is most valuable?
It is very easy to use and that's been good for my team because I can have multiple people use the solution. It's very intuitive.
In addition, the granularity of the Office 365 Backup & Recovery feature is very good. We've used all of it, recovering data from each of the four systems that we back up with it, and it works very well.
It has also been very reliable.
What needs improvement?
The speed of the Office 365 Backup & Recovery feature is adequate. Microsoft controls the amount of bandwidth that people have when they're using Azure and the O365 environment. It's not really a Metallic issue, it's more of a Microsoft limitation. If they could work out something with Microsoft to improve the speed, that would help. But, generally speaking, it's been fine. I don't know of anything else that I'd want to see improved.
Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
August 2025

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For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Commvault for about 18 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We're very satisfied with the stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is excellent. Any plans to increase our usage of it in the future will come naturally with time.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted their technical support a couple of times and they were very good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched to Metallic from Commvault's enterprise backup because that solution is not in the cloud. Given that it was on-premises, trying to back up the resources in the cloud was inefficient. Metallic is in the cloud and it can talk directly to those other cloud resources. It was designed better for what we need to do.
How was the initial setup?
We used Commvault Metallic's implementation services. There was an engineer on the phone with us and he walked us through the steps and everything worked as it should. It was very simple. The configuration is all done through a web browser; just point and click. The deployment took about an hour. All I had to do was get it up and running and show my team how to use it.
Our experience with the Commvault engineer was excellent.
There are four of us who use the solution, including me. The others are all system administrators. We haven't had to designate anyone for maintenance.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to measure the ROI of a backup solution. It's like car insurance. You have to have it but it only pays for itself if you have a catastrophe.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is licensed based on the number of objects that we're going to back up, and that's a known quantity. As a result, we get predictable costs for our backup requirements. The actual storage on the back end of the system is included and that means we don't have to plan for any storage growth or changes there. We just have to plan for the number of employees that we have. That makes it very predictable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We researched Veeam Backup & Replication. The main factor in deciding to go with Metallic, at the time, was to stay with one backup vendor so that we did not have two different solutions in place.
The evaluation was to compare what Metallic was capable of doing with what Veeam was capable of doing for what we needed. We thought that Metallic was adequate so we stayed with that.
What other advice do I have?
Use their professional services for the implementation. That was very helpful because whenever you're configuring anything that works in Azure, or AWS for that matter, there are complexities. The professional services walk you right through that so you don't stumble. After that, it's very simple to use.
The solution is definitely appropriate for an enterprise-level environment. The performance for both backup and recovery, in an enterprise, is very good.
When we signed up for it, it was a Microsoft Azure-based storage solution and Commvault has its relationship with Microsoft. We're just leveraging what Commvault offers, so there's not really any flexibility, but that's okay with us. We just subscribe to the service and it does what we need it to do. We didn't need storage flexibility or anything like that. We just needed what the solution had to offer.
What I've learned from using Metallic is "keep it simple." We use a very simple approach to back up everything and it works just fine.
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.

IT Service Manager at Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank
Backing up doesn't require much effort and the workflow and reporting features are helpful
Pros and Cons
- "It runs all the tests and emails us the reports. We take daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots, and I integrate the storage snapshot scripts with the Commvault workflow. The Commvault workflow runs all the scripts and sends us the reports. It also features cloud-side reports and workflows. Commvault has many tools for backing up, restoring, and archiving things, but we use another service for our archives."
- "Our main pain point is that some of our hardware is old. For example, the SSD disks for our application database are slow. It's hard to avoid a slowdown in our environment because the size of our backups is growing every year. If you're growing and don't upgrade the environment, you will see slower backups and restores. You must enhance the environment if you are growing."
What is our primary use case?
We use Commvault to back up all our enterprise solutions, like MS SQL, Exchange, file servers, and MongoDB, but we don't use Commvault for multi-environment management. There is a primary site and a disaster recovery site that we control offsite with one console.
I know Commvault has another interface for the multi-site, but I've never used it before, so I don't have any experience with that. However, we have a passive primary server at the disaster recovery site, and if we have trouble at the main site, we can use the disaster recovery server.
How has it helped my organization?
Commvault makes it easier to back up new additions to our environment. For example, when we added MongoDB, we found it in Commvault and could start backing it up.
Right now, we are trying to integrate Kubernetes platforms into our environment, and I'm sure that Commvault can back up those. Commvault keeps up with new technologies, and if you upgrade to the latest stable version, you can find everything you need.
What is most valuable?
Backing up with Commvault doesn't require much effort. Commvault's reporting features are also excellent and user-friendly. It's easy to find anything we want. The workflow feature is handy, too. For example, we schedule an automated monthly backup and restoration test that we used to do manually. That has been integrated with Commvault's workflows and running automatically every month for four years.
It runs all the tests and emails us the reports. We take daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots, and I integrate the storage snapshot scripts with the Commvault workflow. The Commvault workflow runs all the scripts and sends us the reports. It also features cloud-side reports and workflows. Commvault has many tools for backing up, restoring, and archiving, but we use another service for our archives.
Commvault can show us unprotected workloads, servers, and SQL databases. It's a good feature, and I periodically get reports on this. However, it's a low priority because we are waiting for our inside customers to tell us whether they want something backed up or not. They must follow that, but we are using terabyte-based backups. We don't separate the agent— MS SQL or others—and we are only looking at the terabyte trends, so it's predictable for us.
What needs improvement?
Our main pain point is that some of our hardware is old. For example, the SSD disks for our application database are slow. It's hard to avoid a slowdown in our environment because the size of our backups is growing every year. If you're growing and don't upgrade the environment, you will see slower backups and restores. You must enhance the environment if you are growing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Commvault for about 10 years, and we used it at my last company for around six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Commvault's stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have no problems scaling Commvault. I don't remember the numbers, but we have a terabyte license size. It's about 400 terabytes, but the backend is in the petabyte range.
How are customer service and support?
Troubleshooting is easy because Commvault support responds and finds the root cause quickly. When I've contacted support for other solutions, some of them ask you to recreate the scenario. They ask you to increase the debugging level and reproduce the scenario to get the error again. As a result, we waste a lot of time troubleshooting those solutions. With Commvault, we don't need to devote much time to the operational and troubleshooting aspects.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used NetBackup before, and I think it's a good solution. It required more effort than Commvault, but I prefer it over EMC NetWorker. NetWorker was labor-intensive, buggy, and hard to use. We spent a lot of time dealing with EMC support. They have a large, competent support team, but we spent too much time with them.
NetBackup is better than NetWorker, but it has fewer features than Commvault. NetBackup also has an old-fashioned interface that is harder to use than Commvault's. It's not user-friendly. Commvault is the best of the three.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up Commvault was straightforward. You set up the primary server first, then the media agents, disks, and agents for clients. Each of those steps is easy. It's like a "next, next, finish" Windows installer. You can deploy it in half a day in a smaller environment, and it's maybe one or two days for a large one.
Of course, it depends on the size of the agents and how many you need for your physical environment. If you have a rigid environment, it's effortless because you only define the vCenters or the Hyper-V management console, and that's it. You can take backups.
On the other hand, you must install all the agents if you have too many physical environments. Still, Commvault makes it easy because you can install everything from the user interface on the primary server. In total, we have five people, including me, managing Commvault and all our other storage solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Commvault 10 out of 10. If you're planning on implementing Commvault, I suggest doing a PoC first to try out all the features and to compare them to other products. We did a PoC for backup solutions to test some new features for our enterprise solutions, and some of the products didn't make the cut, so I would recommend a PoC.
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.
Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
August 2025

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Manager (Utilities & Offsites) at a pharma/biotech company with 11-50 employees
A very reliable solution with a single window console to manage all backups
Pros and Cons
- "We switched to Commvault because we were looking to centralize management. This reduced IT administrator time as well as providing stability and reliability for data backups in a single console."
- "When we started using Commvault, we felt that there were some technical issues with managing it, but we are comfortable enough with managing it now. There were many issues, like index corrupting, when we first started, but all those issues were resolved by the Commvault tech team."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for server, laptop, and desktop backup.
We are using the latest version.
How has it helped my organization?
Commvault helps our admins minimize the time that they spend on backup tasks and other projects since we are now managing a single console to administer all the backups, instead of a full console.
What is most valuable?
It is a very good tool for server backup. We can restore any server, e.g., physical or VM, in a very short amount of time.
Commvault Command Center is very good and user-friendly. We can select any user's data or a server in its Console.
Commvault provides us with a single platform to move, manage and recover our data across locations. Especially for our IT, this is a very important part of our data storage.
The recovery option is very good. It is a user-friendly option to recover any data.
What needs improvement?
When we started using Commvault, we felt that there were some technical issues with managing it, but we are comfortable enough with managing it now. There were many issues, like index corrupting, when we first started, but all those issues were resolved by the Commvault tech team.
Its major disadvantage is it's expensive. Otherwise, the solution is good.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for the last six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a very stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is very good.
How are customer service and support?
We use a third-party to resolve issues first. They first try for L1 or L2 support. If they are unable to fix it, then they escalate it to Commvault technical support.
The support is very good. I would rate them as eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Symantec Backup, which did not have features like centralized management. Commvault has a centralized, single console where you can manage multiple locations of user's desktop data, which is one of the important features of Commvault.
We switched to Commvault because we were looking to centralize management. This reduced IT administrator time as well as providing stability and reliability for data backups in a single console, and we didn't get these features from Symantec.
What was our ROI?
It reduces IT man-hours by an hour per day.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost for Commvault is very expensive, even support is very expensive. The full cost of the solution is 50,000 INR per year, which includes 20 VM backups, server data backup, and 200 desktop and laptop agent licenses.
They have recurring support changes.
They should reduce the support and license costs so anyone could start using Commvault. Due to its cost, customers are reluctant to use Commvault.
The first time, when building infrastructure, the cost is quite high.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Veeam and Veritas NetBackup.
We chose Commvault based on some customer feedback and technical reviews of Commvault. The main difference of Commvault is the single console to manage everything.
What other advice do I have?
Go for Commvault. It is a very strong, stable solution. Technically, it is a very reliable solution with a single window console to manage all backups. Definitely, we recommend customers should go for Commvault. Though, it would be nice if Commvault could compromise on the pricing part.
I spend two hours every day on Commvault monitoring and managing performance as well as fine-tuning.
We implemented on-premises, so it is not connected to any public networks. Therefore, hacking is very difficult.
I would rate Commvault as eight out of 10.
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.
Assistant Manager of IT at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Enables us to monitor all users from a single place
Pros and Cons
- "Commvault can perform a backup no matter where you are, and it takes a backup every four hours. No matter when you come to the office, it'll take a backup if you're connected to the internet and check the system for online availability."
- "Sometimes the web page doesn't work. I don't know if it's an outage or if there is maintenance going on in the background. From time to time, Commvault will suddenly stop taking backups for some intervals."
What is our primary use case?
We use Commvault to back up our employees' data. I work for a retail organization, so our users aren't in a single office. Before we were using a backup solution that could only take a backup in one office at a particular time. This was a disadvantage for us because the users kept shifting from one office to another. In some cases, we'd need a critical backup, but we couldn't do it. That's why we switched to a cloud-based solution.
How has it helped my organization?
Commvault can perform a backup no matter where you are, and it takes a backup every four hours. No matter when you come to the office, it'll take a backup if you're connected to the internet and check the system for online availability. Commvault has reduced the time administrators spend on admin tasks. I can monitor all users from a single place and see when they have performed the backup or when they've notified us of a lost backup.
Before, I spent at least one or two hours each day monitoring the backup solution. With Commvault, I log in once in the morning or the evening for 10 to 15 minutes, and I can check everything on my laptop. Now it takes me, at most, half an hour to oversee the backups of the 300 users I monitor.
What is most valuable?
The interface is easy to use. I would rate the interface nine out of 10. It's a single console where you can create, modify, and delete users or you can transfer permissions to other users. Even if I remove the license, the laptop will still be there in Commvault for some time. If your laptop is dead, it's still a live location, so we can check it. If the laptop is connected to the internet, we can see exactly where it is, whether it's in India or the US. Restoration is super easy. From the admin console, we can restore a user's data no matter where they are. If a Commvault instance is installed on that laptop, we can restore it.
Ransomware protection is another special feature in Commvault. They have predefined some extensions. When Commvault identifies a ransomware attack, it will stop taking the backup on those extensions. We haven't had that happen yet, but Commvault can contain and control a ransomware attack.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using Commvault for three years. We completed our two-year subscription and renewed it, so we're now in our third year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Sometimes the web page doesn't work. I don't know if it's an outage or if there is maintenance going on in the background. From time to time, Commvault will suddenly stop taking backups for some intervals. We'll raise a ticket to the support team, and they'll get it sorted out. Still, I would say it's working 99 percent of the time. We can take the backup, restore data, and everything else. But sometimes it stops work. For example, today it went down for a minute.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are no limitations for us. We are interested in indefinite backup for deleted files. Even if I delete the file, it'll be there permanently. I don't foresee any issue with that.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Commvault support nine out of 10. When you raise a ticket, they immediately assign the engineer. If that person can't solve the problem, they will escalate to a higher engineer or management, who will get it fixed immediately. The size of the account doesn't matter either. If you have an issue, they will try to fix it quickly. They don't give special preference to their larger customers.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were previously using a homegrown solution called Retrospect. We switched to Commvault because it's cloud-based.
How was the initial setup?
I was at the company when we first deployed Commvault. The overall deployment takes time because it depends on the users' availability. We can't take all the backups together also because we also have time constraints. It depends upon the user availability we have completed this activity. Our IT team has five members responsible for maintaining Commvault, so all five know how to work with Commvault. We also have different offices with varying levels of access, but they can't perform configuration changes,
What about the implementation team?
Commvault worked with our team during the user acceptance testing. In the UAT phase, everyone was a little uncomfortable because we didn't know what all the options were. But Commvault has a team in India who helped us to check everything. We were satisfied with that. When we had issues, an engineer took the call and sorted everything out. After that, we didn't have any problems with the configuration.
What was our ROI?
I feel like we've gotten a lot of value relative to what we've spent. Employees no longer have to be in the same office to access the backup solution. If a user working from home wants to restore data, I can directly restore it to his laptop. There's no time delay for solving user issues. We've also cut down on storage costs because an in-house solution requires you to spend money to keep that much data.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have evaluated three or four cloud-based backup solutions, but the other ones in the market didn't even come close to Commvault. We looked at solutions by Sophos and Veeam, but those didn't have even 50 percent of what Commvault offers.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Commvault nine out of 10. It's a wonderful platform for IT professionals. I would suggest Commvault as the backup solution for any company. However, it still has some room for improvement.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
System Analyst at CtrlS Datacenters Ltd
We can immediately recover and enable services on a standby server
Pros and Cons
- "We have multiple workloads, including SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, especially Sybase, as well as file systems, VMs, and Exchange mailboxes. Commvault provides very good support for them."
What is our primary use case?
It is used as an enterprise backup solution.
How has it helped my organization?
We have a very good disaster recovery solution with Commvault. We have a standby CommServe where logs are being deployed every five minutes. If something goes wrong, we are immediately able to recover and enable services on the standby server. We are achieving 99.9 percent SLA with respect to the backups.
It also helps to ensure broad coverage through the discovery of unprotected workloads. We can easily identify them in the Web Console where we can see which of our servers is not protected. And if there is no backup for more than one day, we can get a report, and we have also enabled alerts. Those features are really helpful to us in identifying and addressing issues.
Commvault minimizes the time we spend on backup tasks. I only have to check the health of the CommCells, and the rest of the time I can work on the other tasks.
What is most valuable?
It's a very good enterprise backup solution with multiple features. We are able to take a backup of multiple databases. We don't need to use scripts to schedule any kind of local backups. We have a direct plugin for Commvault so that we are able to take backups of any of our databases or application systems, like SharePoint. Commvault is also enabling backup for PaaS services that are deployed on the cloud.
Commvault provides encryption mechanisms with the latest standards that our customers are looking for.
The CommCell console is very good and user-friendly. I have experience with NetBackup, HPE DP, and Backup Exec, but I'm really comfortable with Commvault. The console makes it easy to identify exactly what we need to see. For example, there are multiple categories. If a backup needs to be performed on multiple systems, we just configure one client or one group and we can push the agent straightaway. That's a very good feature that helps us to complete tasks on time.
We can integrate our multiple CommCells in the single Web Console as well and that helps us easily identify how many servers are getting backed up and how many servers are not being backed up. We can see the SLA and the success rate. And even though our customer is huge, we can give them access and they can easily see the SLA and the success rate of the backups. Commvault also recently launched the Command Center. It is very good, enabling us to deploy server plans. It is very good and user-friendly.
For disaster recovery, there is a feature called Live Sync, and we are also able to export disaster recovery backups to the cloud. If something goes wrong, we are immediately able to recover and continue with business.
In addition, if something goes wrong and a backup fails, we can trace the issue using the log. Each service has a different log that clearly gives us information about the exact reason for the issue and what needs to be done.
We have multiple workloads, including SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, especially Sybase, as well as file systems, VMs, and Exchange mailboxes. Commvault provides very good support for them. We perform 70 to 80 restores on a monthly basis. Over the past year, I have faced challenges with one or two restores. All the rest were completed successfully. And if we get stuck, we can easily use the logs to identify the issue and to make some changes to the configuration. So we are approaching a 100 percent success rate with respect to restoration.
Commvault has very good procedures for performing backups and restores of SAP HANA databases. As far as I know, no other technology provides an option to perform a restore directly from the backup tool itself. We log in to HANA Studio when we have to perform a restore and Commvault enables this by default. We are able to do the restoration from the Commvault GUI itself.
Commvault also provides workflows. If you want to decommission a client's systems, there is a workflow where we just have to add the client to it and we can easily complete the task. This is useful when we are informed that a customer is moving out. It would be a huge task for the backup team to retain the backups for such-and-such a period of time and to release the license. Running this workflow makes our work very simple and reduces our efforts as well. The multiple workflows really help us in completing tasks quickly.
Overall it has great features that fulfill our customers' expectations.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Commvault for the past seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. If you don't follow the metrics and best practices recommended by Commvault, or if you mess up the setup, you may face challenges. If you follow the best practices, it's a very good, stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can easily expand our licenses and deploy Commvault for our customers, which keeps our business going. From a scalability point of view, I haven't seen many challenges.
How are customer service and support?
We get very good support from Commvault if we run into any kind of production issue. They maintain a very good SLA for critical and high-priority tickets. We are really satisfied with their support.
For example, let's say that something in production is down or multiple customers are impacted. SAP won't join a call and help us in resolving the issue. But if we have a critical CommServe-level issue, and multiple backups may fail, Commvault can easily jump on a call and can help us in addressing this issue. In reality, if something is wrong with a SAP system or if an OS is not functioning, a customer may not be able to do their work. Whereas, without a backup, they can continue their business, but they cannot recover things if something goes wrong. Still, if we raise a high-severity ticket, based on the criticality, Commvault support will definitely jump in. They can help us in one hour, at the most.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
In one of my older projects, deployment of Commvault was simple, but the current one is complex. It's a very big environment. It depends on the environment of the client and the requirements. If you have a shared mechanism and the customer has multiple firewalls at their end, it will be very difficult to integrate multiple customers into one CommCell. But if you have a single project and a dedicated customer in a single domain, it will be very easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Compared with other backup technologies, Commvault is a bit more costly, but we are satisfied with the support, the services, and the features that we get with Commvault.
We are using the capacity-based license and have a total of 10 CommCells. In the license file, we can clearly see what kinds of workloads can be backed up.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Veeam is very useful for Windows-related platforms but we chose Commvault because it does not have any kind of platform dependency when it comes to backups. It has multiple features enabling us to backup Oracle RAC, or Exchange DAG, and IBM Lotus Notes, and any type of PaaS services.
Commvault has a clear-cut, three-tier architecture, whereas others follow a two-tier architecture, other than NetBackup, I believe. With Commvault, every backup load will be taken care of by the MediaAgent, and administrative tasks will be taken care of by the CS. Evn the CommServe size also not be huge when compared with other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
With respect to security, in particular regarding ransomware, Commvault has built-in features that we enabled to protect our environment. As for storage targets, every storage array has its own built-in mechanism for encrypting or securing the data. It is very difficult for a third party to enter and to make any kind of use of the storage arrays.
Storage cost completely depends on the retention the customer is looking for. If they have, say, a 1 TB system and they're looking for more than two months' retention, there will be a lot of storage utilization. But we do get a very good duplication ratio, close to 90 percent for file system backups, which helps us to minimize the cost.
Overall, if your infra is very good, once you configure Commvault there are no challenges. It will function well. If something is wrong with the network, obviously, any backup technology will end up with issues. But Commvault is very good.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Premium Partner
Manager IT at Shriram Pistons
Reduced downtime and administrative time but the setup is complex
Pros and Cons
- "It's a software-based solution so we just need a license to expand it."
- "Setup is complex."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for taking backup of our virtual servers and some physical servers.
How has it helped my organization?
We were searching for a tool to backup our virtual machines when we bought Commvault. I was already using Avamar to backup our desktops and laptops on a daily basis. We are using Commvault to take backup of servers. Both are good, but if I compare Avamar and Commvault, Avamar is better than Commvault. Avamar has hardware, but Commvault is a software-based solution.
What is most valuable?
Prior to implementation of Commvault, we were doing backups manually; shut down the virtual machines, do backups of entire machines, and then restart the machines. The administrative time has been drastically reduced now.
We used do manual backups of every virtual machine. A machine of 50GB would take around two hours to backup. This is the downtime. We had to shut down the machines and take the backup. But with Commvault, the major benefit is that we never shut down the machines. Every server is online and the backup is also online. So we reduce the downtime and administrative overhead.
What needs improvement?
The setup is complex. It's not simple to install the machine and start a backup.
Commvault is software based, unlike hardware-type devices.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Commvault the last three to four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. We don't have any problem regarding the core part of Commvault.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. It's a software-based solution so we just need a license to expand it.
I have Avamar servers that we have recently updated storage-wise and capacity-wise. So we don't have any immediate requirement to increase the licenses of Commvault.
How are customer service and support?
We have the technical support of Commvault, but in cases where little support is required, we call F1 to help us.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex. The setup was implemented in one day, but the fine-tuning took longer to work through.
It has three to four parts. The server is one, storage is another, and the agent is another. It's not just a simple thing you have installed in a machine and start to do backups. It is a very new product for us, so we needed installation support from a partner. We are not the IT guys. We are a manufacturing industry, and we have a little knowledge of everything but are not really part of each type of hardware and software. It required an expert who had already implemented elsewhere to help us.
What about the implementation team?
We hired a third party, F1 Technologies, a local support partner who implemented the total solution with us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Commvault's license fee is per server-based for physical machines. For virtual machines, it's a 10 VM one-pack solution. Avamar is just a license for storage capacity-wise, around 8TB to 16TB. It's not based on how many servers you backup. In a price comparison, definitely Avamar is the winner.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate Commvault a seven out of ten.
If your organization does not have many hosts, I would recommend using Commvault. But if you have more than 50 to 100 hosts, Avamar is the better solution as it's more stable than Commvault. When you buy Commvault, you need to buy hardware separately; servers and storages are a different part. With Avamar, you have a complete solution with hardware and software, so it's better.
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.
Senior Project Manager at CAP Holding S.p.A.
We are now able to recover virtual machines without relying on the NFS system
Pros and Cons
- "We now have the capability to recover a virtual machine without relying on the NFS system, but instead are able to use certain features provided by Commvault."
- "They could work on the implementation of the features."
What is our primary use case?
We now have the capability to recover a virtual machine without relying on the NFS system, but instead are able to use certain features provided by Commvault. This is why we've opted for Commvault over other technologies.
What needs improvement?
They could work on the implementation of the features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We will be using Commvault Backup & Recovery for the next 3 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Every three years, we require server updates to either embrace new technologies or enhance our existing technology stack. Therefore, our approach involves reevaluating and refreshing our infrastructure every three years, so we can’t comment on this solution as we have started fresh.
How are customer service and support?
We usually interact with integrators, however if the issue is complex, we refer to technicians for further support and guidance
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are consistently exploring new solutions for our systems, and each solution must align with our server requirements and other objectives. Our timing is also a key consideration, as we operate on a three-year cycle. We have worked with SAP, Oracle, and Cisco.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is complex.
What other advice do I have?
I can’t fully endorse it, because it depends on the final use of the customer. I would conservatively, rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solution Architect at Tech Mahindra Limited
Good data protection, competitive pricing and a straightforward setup
Pros and Cons
- "The data protection itself is very good compared to other products."
- "The pricing could be more flexible in terms of licensing."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is primarily used to protect against ransomware. It helps protect data and allows for data recovery and backup.
What is most valuable?
The data protection itself is very good compared to other products.
The backup agents are helpful.
Its pricing is pretty competitive.
The technical support is responsive.
It is easy to set up.
What needs improvement?
I haven't had any challenges with the solution.
The pricing could be more flexible in terms of licensing. It would help attract more customers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three to four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around customers using the product with 5,000 or more users.
How are customer service and support?
The response in terms of support has been fine. Whenever they need help, the team can respond to the ticket. They do provide solutions to issues. That said, I don't really use customer care directly.
The vendor will offer support contracts. The customers can decide if they might need support or not.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. There are basic steps to follow for the installation. That said, I do not handle the setup directly. From my team, I have not heard of any kinds of challenges. I'm not sure how long it takes to deploy the product.
What about the implementation team?
We handle the implementation for clients.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's pricing is competitive. It depends on the number of users required and if any discounts are leveraged. Bigger volumes will lead to bigger discounts.
What other advice do I have?
We're provided the solution to clients. We are implementors. We are using the latest version of the solution.
I'd recommend the solution to others. I would rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Updated: August 2025
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