DD Boost Reviews

We are using the product as a back-up target solution. 

I am an infrastructure group leader and we are customers of Dell. 

I like the stability of the solution. We are using firewalls and the data domain is very stable, the back-up target and the application and compression are very good. It's a Dell EMC data domain boost.

The capacity of the solution is very low which is why we're moving to a different product. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The main downside of the solution is the capacity, otherwise it's a good product.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution as an SQL backup. We also use the DD Boost protocol.

The extreme stability of the solution, as well as the deduplication compression ratio, are the most valuable aspects for our organization.

There is nothing that's very difficult about this product right now. However, the GUI can use some improvement. When I compare Cohesity and Data Domain, I think Cohesity is more user friendly. In terms of Data Domain, the restored items should be converted from the Rockwell SQL end. That is the one thing which puts me off being a Data Domain administrator. I should have the authority to restore whatever comes to my end. I should get that capability as an admin. Being an admin, I need to be able to restore the things from my end rather than waiting.

We have been using this solution at our company for three and a half years so far. However, I personally have had experience working with the product for the last 15 or 16 years.

We find the solution to be extremely stable.

The solution is quite scalable. An organization shouldn't have any problem expanding if they use this solution.

Our company extensively uses this solution. We did have issues with upgrading and we had to call back the Dell EMC team to assist.

For now, we have plans on expanding depending on the amount of storage we receive from our Cohesity box. We're still a very small team of three.

We are planning to have it on data center locations as well, but it is still in the planning stage so there are plenty of products that will be brought on later in the data center rooms so we can implement that in my own department.

Technical support is okay but could be improved. I've sent a lot of complaints their way and I feel like they might be able to respond a bit better.

Everything around DSM, an IDM tool, was pretty complex in terms of handling the Rockwell SQL backup. When we migrated over to Data Domain, it's much easier for us to switch and work on that.

It took around six to eight months to make it into the production and do the deployment.

We needed a consultant. They had an SQL background as well. It was kind of 60/40 split in labor. 60% was work from our side. Then we got back to them and they gave us a calling order to assist.

We're always evaluating other options. Right now we're comparing this solution to Cohesity. We've learned, however, that Data Domain is much more scalable than Cohesity, so we are not likely to switch to them.

We don't have a business relationship with EMC. We're just customers.

Data Domain, on a scale out of ten, I would give an eight due to the amount of compression and data retention it offers. It's very stable as an infrastructure for backup, and we can use it as a storage as well.

I'd advise other organizations to do some comparisons with other solutions, however, and especially look into scalability and how that might affect their decisions. They should also do their homework to find out things like how soon it's possible to restore an item.

We primarily use this product for cost savings and saving server capacity.

Because of how it functions we do not have to make additional investment in hardware and services.

Data Domain Boost has a unique protocol. I don't think other vendors have a similar protocol and controls from the products I have had experience with. There are alternative solutions, but Data Domain Boost is really efficient. Compared to these other products, I found the efficiency of Data Domain Boost to be superior.

Like any product, it would be good to improve performance and the ease of dealing with operating the system. It needs a more familiar interface to make it easier to use for everyone. Other than that, I don't think so that there are more features that will be necessary and important for every user. To me, all the features are suitable and convenient. If I was looking for something for Dell to add to the product, it would be notifications.

As far as improvement, the stability of the connection could be improved. The tool itself is okay, but not the gateway between the on-prem Data Domain and the cloud. We have to find a workaround or use third party products. So in the next release, I'd like to see a better connection gateway between cloud and on-prem.

Improvement of the pricing would be a welcome change.

I strongly recommend companies or any organization to go with this product if they expect full features and stability.

For now, I am very happy with the scalability. We have around 500 people using the solution and scaling has not been a problem. I once work system admin, now I'm a solution architect. Mainly system admins and architects directly use the platform.

The technical support is very special, really. I like it and overall I am very satisfied with the services.

We are actually using both Veritas and Data Domain simultaneously. Between these two, Data Domain is more efficient for me and very scalable. There is a limitation to the scalability at some point, but there is a different architecture so it does not really become a problem.

I think the initial setup was straightforward. I cannot say it was very complex but that may depend on your experience and complexity of your network.

I'm doing all parts of the implementation. We are a gold partner with Dell EMC now. Prior to that, we were a reseller.

I think it is important that Dell reconsider the pricing. I don't know what we pay off-hand, but I do know that the pricing is high compared with other competing products.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Dell EMC Data Domain Boost as a ten. I strongly recommend this product for all its capabilities.

I do self-study and read articles about this product to learn about capabilities and solutions even though I am familiar with it. It is good for users to do self-study to get the most out of the product.

Data Domain is valuable, especially for restoring data. For normal data, the restore from Data Domain is very efficient and fast.

The experience of restoring VMware or Veeam Backup is difficult when the backup you are using is a  solution for backup, which is already having a deduplication. When you try to restore from Data Domain, it doesn't work perfectly, because Data Domain is already having a deduplication as well.

This is only a deduplication issue. If you are restoring databases with a normal backup, it will work very fast. However, if you are restoring your database at the deduplication by VM backup, then the deduplication for it will be very slow.

The stability is there actually.

The problem with Data Domain is you have to size it to the right size for your workloads before you choose. Upgrading the platform is not that easy.

You can add some more shelves, but this will not give you that much capacity for your workload. You have to ensure that you study the workload well.

To be precise, it is not scalable if you are jumping from small to medium or from medium to large. Within the medium tier, however, it is scalable.

Excellent. The technical support at EMC is one of the best I have known.

The initial setup is a bit complicated. It's a difficult task to set it up. After this, however, things go fairly smoothly. After you define the main things, there is no need to do anything else.

Study the workload very well before you go into the sizing phase. You have to study your workloads, so you can anticipate them and avoid any unplanned workloads.

I would rate the solution as eight out of ten. It is quite sufficient but needs a little bit of improvement.

We use the solution mostly on-premises.

The functionality is very good. DD Boost and DD entry replication are used in almost all backup concepts. Those are the most used features.

The management interfaces are quite good at the moment. The multi-tier functionality can be improved, but it is quite good. They could improve replication and perhaps support additional sharing network protocols. I would also like to see a better implementation of NFS Version 3, but it is already implemented and quite usable as it is.

It is stable to use.

The scalability depends on the licensing model, but it is quite good.

Usually, my direct customer is an enterprise, but we also have customers in the small and mid-range sectors. The hardware platform is cost intense, so for small and mid-range, this product is not the best choice.

The support for the DDB is about eight out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward. You need to have experience in handling storage platforms, but from that point of view it's quite straightforward.

I would recommend this product. I would rate it as nine of ten, overall.

The backup aspect of the solution is its most valuable feature.

The solution needs to have a more transparent environment.

The solution needs to be more user-friendly for the end-users.

The solution is extremely stable.

Scalability is good. I understand the concept, so for me, it's easy. Most of our clients are medium sizes enterprises in the financial sector.

Technical support is okay. We've only had limited interactions with them.

The initial setup can be a bit complex. It depends on the parameters of the implementation.

We're a partner, we're not end-users of the solution itself.

I would recommend the solution because it has a very good integration process.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

As a cloud-based solution, customers buy cloud applications like Veeam or Backup X6, and they need storage to put data on the cloud. We recommend Data Domain to them and we implement a solution using Data Domain Boost with their backup solution.

I implement and troubleshoot for the customers.

In the last six months, the deployment model we were using is on-premises. I have only deployed on the cloud once, and it's easy for our customers. It's a pleasure to do.

All of my experience is on-premises.

An example of how this solution can improve an organization would be with one of our customers who has a data exchange server. Every backup takes two or three and a half-hundred gigabytes of storage. 

When the customer was using another backup solution, QNAP, it was taking seven hours to perform a full backup. When we used Data Domain on his environment, we found that the time was reduced to two hours and thirty minutes.

Also, with Data Domain we found that the data was compressed by thirty times. For example, with the other backup solution, the data was three thousand gigabytes, whereas in Data Domain it would be one thousand gigabytes.

The most valuable feature is the support for plug-ins. For example, when backing up a server through data domain, it can take a long time. However, when you are using Boost, you just install a plug-in on the target server and the backup job is scheduled.

There are some limitations where you cannot use it as a shared server or as a file server, it is limited for the only backup.

We have customers asking for a file server that can be used to share data with their employees, with an organization, or to use it on VMware as a storage unit, but this solution is not suitable.

When we receive requests like this from the customers we recommend building EMC Unity, it's a full package, you can backup, you can share and you can use it as a LAN in your virtualization environment.

This solution is stable.

This solution is scalable, but it's expensive.

The initial setup was easy. If you work with the manual and follow it step-by-step, it is easy and straightforward.

It takes about forty minutes to install the application and install the Data Domain on-premises in the data center.

The cost is monthly.

There are good and bad points to having this solution only for backup.

It's good to protect your data from attacks such as ransomware. You only use the storage for backups, so you don't have to share folders.

The main difference between EMC Data Domain and EMC Data Domain Boost is that the Boost is an add-on you install that allows you to transfer the backup job quickly.

After performing a full backup, you would schedule it to run every week, and instead of it doing a full backup of all of the data, Data Domain Boost will back up only the data that has been added or that is different from the original data.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use for this solution is backup. We have an on-premises deployment.

The most valuable feature of this solution is deduplication. It's very good.

This product is expensive compared to other storage so the price can be improved.

The restore and deduplication features are good, but they can be further improved.

This solution is very stable. It doesn't crash and there are no errors.

The scalability is not good because if we want to upgrade then we need to purchase a higher version. We have approximately seven hundred and fifty employees, and all of their data is backed up.

We have not had any trouble with technical support. Sometimes we do not fully understand our problem, then people from technical support arrive and replace the hard disk. It's very good because you have the monitoring.

Prior to this solution, we used a tape backup. We switched because this solution is easier and you don't need a tape. Backing up files is very, very fast.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. It's easy.

We purchased the box and then performed the implementation ourselves. We always have a technical meeting before anything is disconnected, and then deploy after that.

The price of this solution is very high.

This is definitely a solution that I recommend. It is good, although it is very expensive.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.