Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Rubrik comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jan 2, 2023

We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Rubrik based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: A small number of PowerProtect users say that the initial deployment is complex, but many users say that it is straightforward. Rubrik users say that the initial setup is a straightforward process.

  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    PowerProtect reviewers say that it performs well and has good deduplication, monitoring, and security features. Some users mention that PowerProtect should have more cloud integration options.

    Rubrik users like its instant recovery features and automation options and say it is user friendly and fast. A number of users mention that they would like the reporting tools to improve.
  • Pricing: Most users of both products feel that they are costly solutions.
  • ROI: Users are satisfied with the ROI of both products.

  • Service and Support: Users of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Rubrik’s users report that, in addition to being a powerful solution, it is simple to deploy and work with and therefore it comes out on top in this comparison. According to reviewers, PowerProtect’s deployment process can be difficult.

To learn more, read our detailed Deduplication Software Report (Updated: February 2023).
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Q&A Highlights
Question: What is the biggest difference between EMC Data Domain and Rubrik?
Answer: As Neil Mistry said, they are quite different products: Rubrik is a complete solution where Data Domain is deduplicating storage that requires software to drive. I used to manage a B&R for a company that had a Data Domain in each data center which supported 4, Tivoli Storage Manager instances at each site and the Data Domain replicated all data cross-site. It was a simple setup but we did run into some performance issues since our TSM servers were all VMs and networking inside VMware is hard to determine performance. In the end, the customer didn't like the cost of DD disk and our devices ran out of capacity. Turns out only database full backups deduplicate well. All else, including transaction logs, can go to much less expensive disk and simply be compressed.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The stability is excellent.""It is a stable solution.""We are very satisfied with this solution. It's easy to use and efficient.""The most valuable features of Dell PowerProtect DD are reduplication and compression. It provides a lot of data savings for backups. Additionally, the Dell PowerProtect DD solution offers a bundled backup software and storage option. If desired, users can also connect to cloud technology to create an additional copy of their data in the cloud. This solution supports synchronization with various cloud vendors, including Azure and AWS.""Stable and scalable suite of solutions with deduplication, apart from data protection, storage, and backup.""Good starting capacity and scalability.""This solution has a feature called Domain Boost, which allows for source deduplication and compression.""PowerProtect is a flexible solution that you can cover various cloud and on-premise environments."

More Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) Pros →

"The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds.""I value the options it has for storage tiering (i.e. whether it should be a flash, SSD, or pushed to the cloud) depending on the data provided.""It has also saved us time managing backups. It's pretty stable. So it sends us a report if something goes wrong, then you get a report. You don't really need to manually monitor this software over time. If something happens, you'll get an error and you'll get an email notification and then address it. We found the product pretty stable if it's configured correctly. So it has reduced management time.""The management and ease of installation are the most valuable features.""Rubrik is cheap, and you get good performance.""Rubrik, when compared to Cohesity, Dell, and Veritas, was the best of the four.""The solution is extremely stable. They've been phenomenal, especially for a young company.""The feature that I have found most valuable from Rubrik is its protection against ransomware attacks. Rubrik is a very nice, very good solution because it is able to protect your data and you have the possibility from the backup to detect any abnormal behavior, like a ransomware attack. You are able to detect and restore very easily with this solution. This is a major differentiator in comparison to the other competitors."

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Cons
"Dell PowerProtect DD should come out with its own system so we do not have to use Data Domain. For example, something similar to what Symantec has done.""Technical support needs improvement.""I would like to see integration with public cloud.""They need to make migration easier.""We would like faster instant recovery.""The software from Dell that can be used to operate Data Domain needs to have enhancements made to the user interface. It is too complex.""The only problem is that it's more expensive than any other vendors available in the market.""The downside of PowerProtect's flexibility is that you have so many options. It can be a little confusing. It's like having a car with too many buttons on the dash. You can do so much with it, but it takes some time to learn what everything does."

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"The Polaris piece could use improvement. When you get a report and you have events that are suspicious, you cannot drill down and find out why it's suspicious. You only know it's suspicious, but you don't know the root cause. Other than that, everything works well.""The only thing that can be improved is catering for open source databases because at the moment it doesn't cater for Mongo, MySQL, and Postgres.""The integrated reporting is not really that nicely built. The reporting functionality could definitely be a little bit more customizable from an administration perspective, with an easier to understand interface.""It is a lot more expensive than other solutions, but you get what you pay for.""Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I need to create reports to know whether something is available or not, how much frontend data is being protected, etc. Rubrik gives a lot of things in the report, which can be confusing. It isn't very easy to get reports. It shows all the backup, index, replication, and everything else in one report. So, I have to export, filter, and then do the calculations.""The dashboard and user interface could be improved to make them more user-friendly.""They support Hyper-V and it works with our CloudOut, the cloud DR, but they seem to add features for VMware first and Hyper-V gets added second or sometimes several releases after the VMware feature comes out.""If there was something that we could get Rubrik to fix, it would be when our DBS takes snapshots of a server or the database, the replication doesn't kick off fast enough. They can't remote it to the peer site and manipulate it back up in order to move it over, take a copy of production, slap it over, and test it out. As I understand, they are working on it. Replication works. We also get spoiled by how good things are now. We get to a point where it is so easy but when something isn't instant gratification, it seems that everything else is so amazing, why isn't this right?"

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It could be more competitively priced. Its licensing was for five years. Obviously, the support will get renewed at some stage, but that's it."
  • "The price is on the high side."
  • "Becoming more expensive."
  • "The solution is expensive. However, if you pay less you receive less, it is cost-effective."
  • "Pricing for this product could still be improved, though several years ago, its price was very high. When buying an IDPA product such as Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), you don't have to buy anything else, because you'll have an integrated solution: a data domain appliance plus software."
  • "The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect DD could improve, it is expensive."
  • "The price of the backup appliance is slightly expensive. Compared to other vendors, the pricing will be slightly higher."
  • "If we do not move to the cloud solution and stay with our on-premise version we will miss some new features."
  • More Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "You pay a premium for Rubrik, but you're getting a premium service that comes with immutable backups, instant recovery, and world-class support."
  • "Rubrik's support is definitely on the expensive side, but I consider it to be top of the line. We incur no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
  • "Some people say it is expensive, but you get what you pay for. If you want a Maserati, you have to pay for it. If you want to buy a Porsche, you have to pay for it."
  • "We pay annually for the license for Rubrik. There are no additional costs. Initially, we needed to set it up, negotiate and finalize the offer."
  • "Rubrik is priced high, but it was the solution that was providing us encryption and was secure. The solution price is high, but you get what you pay for."
  • "Its price tends to go up with time. Its pricing definitely has room for improvement. If you negotiate right with them, you might get a good price. Support is a part of the package, and every three years, when we renew our contract, we get new hardware."
  • "There is a license requirement for the solution. If you expand or if the maintenance period expires, there's a license renewal as well."
  • "We are on an annual license to use Rubrik and it is priced well."
  • More Rubrik Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Miriam Tover
    NeilMistry - PeerSpot reviewerNeilMistry
    Real User

    The biggest difference is Rubrik has native software and hardware on one platform. Data Domain is only a disk target and a very good one but you still need backup software such as Networker, Veritas, Commvault, etc. That software requires both a master and media server which drives a lot of complexity. Rubrik is hyperconverged data management, there is not software licensing, end of year true-ups or additional infrastructure. Policy-based backup and restore functions with cloud archiving integration. It’s also really fast! Finally, if you’re running Nutanix and its native hypervisor AHV then Rubrik can protect that hypervisor and VMware.

    JohnBowling - PeerSpot reviewerJohnBowling
    Real User

    I agree with the other answers - With Data Domain, you still require a software solution to go with the back-end storage. I.e., Avamar, Networker, etc.
    Rubrik is a Software Defined Solution or can be deployed with its own set of hardware\storage.

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:There are many different licenses, so you pay for what you need. There are various aspects you can add on, like extra speed, or something just for reading data. There are licenses to do replication as… more »
    Top Answer:Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting it up is a relatively simple affair. For the most part it prompts you from screen to… more »
    Top Answer:The Live Mount feature is excellent; it's useful for the backup administrator and end user.
    Top Answer:We use Rubrik Go, the provider's evergreen subscription purchasing program, and it's affordable. There are additional costs for add-ons, and they recently upgraded a new cluster, which also carries a… more »
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    8.5
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    Also Known As
    DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
    Learn More
    Dell Technologies
    Video Not Available
    Overview

    DD series enables your organization to protect, manage and recover data at scale. As the next generation of Dell Data Domain appliances, DD series sets the bar for efficient data management from edge to core to cloud and includes the ecosystem support and comprehensive data protection that customers have come to appreciate from Data Domain. The DD series offers a super-fast, secure, and an efficient solution that is built for multi-cloud data protection and to keep up with future demands. The DD series consists of the DD9900, DD9400, DD6900, DD6400, DD3300, and a software-defined option, PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).

    DD series empowers organizations to protect, manage and recover data at scale across their entire diverse ecosystems. DD series provides broad ecosystem support, efficiency, powerful data protection, cloud-enabled capabilities, and the cyber resiliency that our customers demand.

    The DD Operating System (DDOS) is the brilliance that drives the DD series. DDOS contributes the agility, security, and reliability that pushes DD series to deliver high-speed, scalable, and standard-setting protection storage for backup, archive, and disaster recovery. DDOS integrates seamlessly with many existing infrastructures, permitting ease-of-use with leading backup and archiving applications, and provides superior performance in conjunction with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite. When you decide to purchase a new DD series appliance you can easily consume DDOS as a subscription providing greater flexibility for deployment while minimizing your overall upfront costs.

    DD series does a great job to minimize the threat of data loss and adds to the value of protected data while meeting ever-increasing demands of SLAs and increasing ROI. DDOS drives DD series to deliver up to 38% faster backups and up to 45% faster restores at significantly higher compression levels.

    DD series supports high availability within the single rack. Additionally, DD series can greatly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by minimizing downtime in the unlikely event of a hardware failure. DD series delivers amazing high-speed networking connectivity with support for 25GbE and 100GbE network adapters.

    Benefits of Dell PowerProtect DD

    Fast, secure, efficient data protection:

    • Provide 1.5PB usable capacity in a single rack
    • Allow for Up to 3PB capacity for long-term retention
    • Logical capacity is increased by up to 30% per TB when compared to the previous generation
    • Allow for instant access and instant restore of up to 64VMs and 100k IOPS
    • High-speed network connectivity – 10GbE, 25GbE and 100GbE
    • Seamless fast integration and outstanding performance with PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite
    • Supports many of the leading enterprise backup and archive applications

    Industry-leading multi-cloud protection:

    • Provides software-defined protection storage on-premises and in-cloud with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).
    • DDVE scales up to 256TB in-cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others).
    • Greatly improves in-cloud restore performance by as much as 10x when compared to previous versions.
    • Cloud Tier delivers super simple and value-added long-term retention to public, private, or hybrid clouds
    • Cost-efficient disaster recovery to the cloud

    Operational simplicity:

    • Enhanced DD System Manager supports a complete chassis view
    • Significantly lower administrative costs
    • Grants a single point of management for all DD series by PowerProtect DD Management Center
    • Deploy Smart Scale for PowerProtect appliances directly from PowerProtect DD Management Center. Smart Scale helps drive down management complexities while increasing storage efficiencies. 

    Reviews from Real Users

    One user, who is an enterprise IT architect at a tech service company, says that “Dell PowerProtect DD is highly stable and reliable. I have not had a time when the system did not work and in an emergency this is critical.” He rates the ROI it has brought his company a five out of five.

    A pre-sales and technical manager at a tech services company says that "The features that I have found most valuable with Dell PowerProtect DD are its deduplication feature and its DD Boost protocol for fast transfer, which is amazing."

    Chris C., lead infrastructure architect at ThinkON, relates that Dell PowerProtect DD “allows our organization to send more data to this device compared to others. It also allows us a fast recovery of files or Virtual Machines if needed being on-premise.”

    Rubrik is a backup and recovery solution that can be used as a converged data management platform for physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. The solution works to protect your data and applications from ransomware, operational failures, and rogue employees, and also helps your organization simplify data management and accelerate cloud mobility. In addition, Rubrik is designed for cloud integration and infinite scalability to enable hybrid cloud for all enterprises.

    Rubrik’s software is also built to support most operating systems, databases, hypervisors, clouds, and SaaS applications, and the solution integrates with on-premises hardware if necessary.

    Rubrik Features

    Rubrik has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Instant recovery
    • Live-restore
    • Single console
    • Automatic incremental backups
    • Policy-driven automation
    • Instant search
    • Live Mount capability
    • Compliance and capacity customized reporting
    • Quick and efficient snapshots
    • Multiple backup destinations
    • Deduplication and file compression
    • Intuitive web interface
    • Good performance
    • Easy to use
    • Low maintenance
    • Flexible deployment

    Rubrik Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing Rubrik. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Single policy engine: Because Rubrik is policy-driven, it functions through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the data lifecycle. Management is automated through one programmatic interface.
    • Customized reports: With Rubrik, you can create customized reports and utilize data visualizations.
    • Advanced security: Regardless of location, data remains secure in transit and at rest throughout its lifecycle, as it is stored and backed up.
    • Compliance: With Rubrik, you gain granular role-based access control while automating compliance reporting, which helps complete various industry and internal audits.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Rubrik users.

    PeerSpot user Chadd B., System Administrator at a manufacturing company, says, “The solution is easy to use with an intuitive web interface, helpful support, good performance, and saves us time. The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds. The VM backup and the SQL backup are blazingly fast for both backup and recovery.”

    A Storage Administrator at a healthcare company explains that the solution “Cut our backup management time significantly, and the near-instant recovery reduces our downtime. He also comments that “The scalability is wonderful. That is one of our biggest advantages with this.”

    Burhan S., Systems Engineer at Harvard University, mentions, "There is a live-restore feature, their Live Mount, and the way it works we can instantly recover a VM, a past backup, to be directly attached to our VMware environment. Rubrik will act as a disk for it. It's like an instant restore. Within a few minutes our VM is up and running. And then, if we want to restore it, we can just migrate it to our actual storage."

    Kevin M., Head Of Operations at University of Reading, states, “The solution’s SLA-based functionality means we don't have to manually manage backup windows, and recovery times have been notably reduced. Its web interface is really easy to use. It's just click and go. It's fast and intuitive. We've never had any problems in navigating.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)
    Learn more about Rubrik
    Sample Customers
    The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
    Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Insurance Company21%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government9%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    University12%
    Healthcare Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    Deduplication Software
    February 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: February 2023.
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    Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is ranked 1st in Deduplication Software with 30 reviews while Rubrik is ranked 3rd in Backup and Recovery Software with 22 reviews. Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is rated 8.4, while Rubrik is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) writes "Stable and easy to scale suite of deduplication, backup, data protection, and storage solutions". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rubrik writes "Easy to use with an intuitive web interface, helpful support, good performance, and saves us time". Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is most compared with HPE StoreOnce, Veeam Backup & Replication, ExaGrid EX Series, Cohesity DataProtect and Commvault Complete Data Protection, whereas Rubrik is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Commvault Complete Data Protection, Veritas NetBackup and Azure Backup.

    We monitor all Deduplication Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.