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BDRShield vs IBM Disaster Recovery Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BDRShield
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (18th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (9th), MSP Backup (1st)
IBM Disaster Recovery Services
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery as a Service (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

TA
IT Director at Boom Logic
Can automatically pull the virtual machines that we have in an environment
I like the fact that BDRSuite can connect to VMware ESXi and automatically pull the virtual machines that I have in that environment. I also like that you can choose to back up the compute to the backup server or go straight to the cloud. BDRSuite enables you to recover data instantly. When we need to recover data, I only need to start a backup job or a restore job. Depending on the speed of the server and the Internet, it should be able to download the files from the cloud and split them back up the way they were like nothing ever happened. The restore options BDRSuite provides are crucial because we use it for a lot of healthcare companies that have HIPAA requirements. BDRSuite is HIPAA compliant. We need it to be readily available and accessible in case something goes wrong. It lets you schedule backups to run every 15 minutes. I don't believe you can do it at shorter intervals because there's no way the original backups will finish in 15 minutes. It allows you to adjust the schedules. For example, if you don't want it to go during certain times, you can set that up. You can also choose between a full or incremental backup. There are settings you can adjust to make it work how you want it. Incremental backup is crucial because a full backup would increase fees or affect the local server because it would back up the entire volume every time. Instead, it does one full backup—say 12 terabytes— and adds to it in increments of 100 gigabytes, 200 gigabytes, etc. Whenever you want to add a backup job, there's a wizard that pops up telling you how to make a new backup job. It asks you what you want to name it and what you want to back up. Then, it asks you if you want to schedule it. There's an interactive display on how to do that.
Şefik Mert Polatay - PeerSpot reviewer
General manager at Atlas Consulting Bilisim Hizmetleri Ltd.
Ease of use, performance, availability, and scalability
The initial setup is very easy, user-friendly, and not complex. It mostly comes with all installed, an operating system, database, and security, all included in Power Systems. So users can easily install, configure, and use it. It's integrated with other systems. You can run different systems from IBM Power Systems, AIX Linux, or IBM I operating system. It's also integrated into Windows systems and other databases and servers.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"There is an option to back up a specific folder from a specific source, not the whole virtual machine."
"The best thing about it is that it has been adaptable to our business model. We are in industrial networking, and they were adaptable to give us offline installers and offline licenses. That has been the biggest thing. They also allow us to order the licenses on a perpetual basis."
"The main difference I see between Vembu and the other solutions we've tried is that with Vembu, you don't need anybody to tell you what to do. Once you have done the installation you just look at the user interface — it's very friendly — and you can do things yourself without resorting to help from anybody."
"Their technical support is very good to work with, as they are able to propose alternate solutions to problems that work well for us."
"Their support is great. I think they work 24 hours a day. I get a very quick turnaround time from them no matter the day or time that I send them an email."
"Because all our servers are hosted on VMware, the VMware backup is the most valuable feature. The integration and backup with VMware are very good."
"We have seen ROI. The real return is when something bad happens. All the proof of concept work that we did, all the testing we did, it all panned out for us. We're already seeing a return on that."
"The main benefit is that it's inexpensive. We get a lot for a little bit of money. I'm very happy with the savings and with the features. It allows me to do everything I need."
"The initial setup is very easy and user-friendly."
"The solution works well for very large organizations. It can scale quite well."
"Disaster Recovery Services is stable."
 

Cons

"I don't know if it exists, but it would be helpful to get email notifications when there are issues with the backup. I'm sure it probably exists, but I just don't know how to do it. They also have an Azure proxy feature where you can restore to Azure. It's not really well documented. I think they should document how to do that a little better."
"Vembu BDR currently supports backups of O365, although it does not currently have an email archiving function to the O365 backups."
"The process is a bit cumbersome when you remove an agent, delete that job, and add the agent to the same server. Even though the agent is already installed in that server, the system does not recognize it. We have to uninstall the current agent, restart the server, install the push agent - a new agent - and then restart the server. I think they should try to avoid that."
"I would like to have a different set of products instead of having a single software which does everything."
"One thing that I reported with the backups: When there are accentuated characters in a path, then we can't restore documents into a folder. There is a bug with the restoration and restoring files with accentuated characters in the path. Hopefully, they have repaired this because otherwise we will restore files and find out that they are not there."
"Our initial experience with BDRSuite highlighted the need for improved user onboarding materials."
"There's a feature that does syncing with AWS Cloud backup online. It's not that straightforward to get it set up."
"We do a lot of internal automation, so the Vembu API definitely has some gaps. The Vembu API could definitely use some improvement. We do rely a lot on automation outside of just the regular interface. We've noticed that the Vembu GUI is good, but we do leverage the APIs for a lot of stuff, and there's definitely some room for improvement there."
"The infrastructure level of IBM's recovery systems could be improved."
"Disaster Recovery Services could provide better value for money."
"Stability could always be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has actually benefited my operation a fair bit. VMware requires a special hardware while Hyper-V runs on pretty much anything. It doesn't require any special hardware, so it saves a bit of money. Because Vembu does Hyper-V backup, there is no limit on how many VMs you can have. The newer version has a 100 VM limit on the single license, which has been greatly beneficial, because on one host a 100 VMs is a fair bit."
"I deployed Veeam and it worked very well, but the problem was that its price was very high. As a result, I searched for another solution and found Vembu. I deployed it and we have been happy with it. For us, the major difference was the pricing."
"It's just the license per host with one CPU, but if I did choose offsite cloud replication, they do charge for the data. They charge per gigabyte, or something like that. They have plans."
"Price-wise, it is much cheaper than its counterparts. I like its pricing, and its price is okay. The lesser they take, the more profit we can make, but we are happy with its price. It is very affordable. We were working with a client, and they were looking for backup software and had a very tight budget. When I told them that Vembu is only going to cost around $400 to $500, they were shocked. They didn't believe me, so I showed them the website so that they can check the price themselves. Of course, if they agree to that price, we get a 15% rebate as a managed service provider."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable."
"We chose this solution because it was cheaper and easier to use than Veeam and other solutions of this type."
"The pricing structure is in line with other solutions. However, the option to replicate offsite to a unit at another office or at home is a big cost benefit. Instead of paying monthly for cloud storage, you replicate offsite for free."
"With the free version of Vembu, you receive three virtual machine backups. However, if you buy the NetworkBackup Enterprise version, you don't have access to the features seen in the free version. This is a situation that Vembu should solve. This caused a misunderstanding between sales and us. I was hoping if I buy the licenses, then after the trial I would not have to purchase virtual machine licenses. Maybe they should offer these three virtual machine backups as part of the Enterprise license."
"The pricing of the solution is based on the scale of the project or business. It's based on the server amount and the amount of data being stored. For our client, based on the amount of data they have, it may be around $20,000 USD. It could get much more expensive on the customer side."
"Disaster Recovery Services is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise10
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BDRSuite?
The best part of BDRSuite is how user-friendly it is and how it does not require any maintenance after the initial setup.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BDRSuite?
BDRSuite is cost-effective because you can purchase a perpetual license that covers multiple environments. You only renew the support costs annually. It offers advanced features at roughly 75 perce...
What needs improvement with BDRSuite?
I really don't know what could be improved about BDRSuite Backup & Replication. I've never had anything that I thought would be nice if that was possible. Every time I thought that, it was alre...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Disaster Recovery Services?
The pricing is perfect. It's not expensive because it's all-inclusive. The operating system, database, security, different file systems. So, overall, it's cheaper than Oracle or UNIX systems with O...
What is your primary use case for IBM Disaster Recovery Services?
The use case is for high availability and disaster recovery.
 

Also Known As

Vembu BDRSuite, BDRSuite Backup & Replication
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NASA, Intel, CISCO, PHILIPS, Atos, HEXAWARE, Motorola
i-Virtualize, QD, Continuum Managed Services LLC, Royal Arctic Line, Department of Science and Technology of the Republic of the Philippines, Idwala Industrial Holdings Limited, A-Plant c.a.r.u.s. Information Technology GmbH Hannover, eASPNet Taiwan Inc., Mobile Mini Inc., TriDatum Solutions Inc., M7 Managed Services Ltd., Hospital de la Concepci‹n
Find out what your peers are saying about BDRShield vs. IBM Disaster Recovery Services and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.