Dell Avamar Reviews

It specifically caters to the backup needs of our data, ensuring secure and compliant operations.

The scale is small, yet it efficiently handles all tasks in a unified manner. The entire system operates seamlessly, with minimal hands-on involvement, allowing us to focus on monitoring rather than constant adjustments or deployments, as seen in larger, more dynamic environments.

The challenges we do face typically revolve around aligning specific features with our accustomed tool usage.

I have been using it for a year.

I would rate its stability capabilities eight out of ten.

Since it's limited to the PCI pages, it might not necessarily be scalable to serve as our enterprise-wide tool, especially when considering larger-scale environments. Focusing on the requirements outlined in the RFP and the demonstrations conducted as part of the RFP process, I find it satisfactory and that it meets our needs.

Its technical support is excellent. It stands out as a primary factor in our decision to choose Dell. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

We transitioned from using Veritas appliances to the Dell solution in the same environment.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The installation process was smooth as we transitioned from using Veritas appliances to the Dell solution in the same environment. A third-party company, Plus House, subcontracted by Dell, handled the installation remotely, working closely with our junior team members. The initial setup was completed within a day for each site, and an additional day was required to configure the clustering of backups, including SQL backups. This extra day was dedicated to finalizing the clustering and ensuring that all configurations were in place. Maintenance is handled by a team of approximately seven individuals who undergo training and manage regular tasks.

They deliver substantial value in return.

I am highly satisfied with the pricing structure provided and the discounts we get. The overall cooperation with Dell has been exceptional; they consistently go above and beyond to align with our budgets. The global transition and the impact of exchange rates, particularly the fluctuation between the South African Rand and the U.S. Dollar, have introduced some complexities, but nothing major. The current pricing is generally satisfactory. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Despite falling under Vodafone globally and dealing with VBC, the procurement company, there were instances where Dell offered superior deals in South Africa compared to what VBC could secure with other vendors. This was a key factor in our decision to stick with Dell rather than exploring alternatives like Huawei or HP.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Our use case for this solution is robust and involves backing up various systems.

The solution is very user-friendly.

The product could be improved by simplifying the components available. Currently, there are many endpoints and GUIs to run.

We have been using this solution for approximately three years.

The solution is scalable. Currently, only three employees utilize the solution in our organization, and thousands of clients use it.

The initial setup was complex. It took about a week to complete the deployment, and we required an engineer to assist.

The solution costs approximately 20,000 annually.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

We're using it in our company. We primarily use the solution as a backup.

The backup functionality with Data Domain is good.

Overall, it works quite well.

It's very easy to install the solution.

The product is scalable.

It's stable and offers good performance.

It cannot replicate the backup, it can only do the backup. If you want to replicate you need RecoveryPoint.

Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution.

I've been using the solution for one year. 

The solution is stable. The performance is good. It's good for vSAN. We haven't dealt with bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze.

We have found the solution can scale well. If you need to expand it, it's not a problem.

All of our production is backed up with Avamar.

After we buy Nutanix and an Azure Stack, since we are a service provider and in the future, we will make our service catalog on the Azure Stack and Nutanix Cloud.

Technical support is pretty good. We are pleased with their level of support.

I also work with Veeam and NetBackup.

With Veeam, the advantage is you can back up and replicate with the same product, and it is compatible with all virtual solutions.

The initial setup is simple. We buy the service from Dell. 

I was not a part of the deployment as I am a pre-sale manager. I do not handle the setup process directly and cannot speak to how long it takes. 

The cost is lower than Veeam, however, how much it actually costs depends on the customer and the use case.

I'm not sure of the exact licensing costs.

We were a partner and resellers. In my last job, I was a preferred partner.

I'm not sure which version we're using. I'm not the backup administrator.

We will stay with Avamar for this platform, however, maybe we will look into Nutanix, and that's why we are searching for another solution. Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution.

I'd warn potential users that it's not the best solution if you have other products other than VMware in your production. If you are just using VMware, it's a very good option.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten as it doesn't work well with every solution, only VMware.

We've been using this solution to backup our servers. It is a simple backup and restore data application.

It's very slow to backup and store information. It has two consoles and an application which are more difficult to use than a solution like Veeam. 

For future releases, Avamar should improve on the compression speed of their backups. This is a core feature of a backup and restore solution. The interface of Avamar could also be improved but this is something they are working on. In comparison, you don't need to wait three hours to restore Veeam.

This is a stable solution but does not offer fast performance. 

In certain scenarios, the support for this solution has been good. Often, the team take too long to resolve issues. 

Neutral

I have previously used Veeam at a different company. It is very good as a backup and restore solution. For example, I could restore a server on Veeam that has two terabyte storage used and it took approximately 20 minutes. On Avamar, it would take three hours. 

Veeam has a support team is very good with good technical skills.

This is a fairly expensive solution. It cost approximately 21,000 each year. 

I would advise others to use Veeam over Avamar. 

I would rate this solution a six out of ten. 

We have three sites. We deployed Avamar on one site three years ago then added the same setup for the other sites. Following best practices, we're using Avamar with Dell Data Domain for data compression and deduplication.

Avamar is mainly for backing up the machines.

Avamar's user interface could use some work. When we open a ticket, they are working with Linux commands. It's not easy to manage everything through the web interface. I would like to do everything through the interface that you can do with Linux commands.

I've been working with Avamar for two years. 

Avamar is stable. We don't face any daily issues, and it sends clear notifications directly to your account if anything happens.

So far, Avamar covers everything we want. We are replicating to other sites for disaster recovery, so it's working well for us.

We have an annual subscription for support, so we contact them for upgrades and stuff like that. There is some inconsistency. Some of the support engineers are experienced, but others are new. It sometimes takes time at the first level of support, but all our issues get solved in the end.

Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that. I would rate the overall deployment experience eight out of 10. We have two system engineers for deployment and maintenance as needed. They're not managing the solution full time, but they handle new bundles, fixes, etc.

We had a partner, but they weren't so experienced. It seemed like we were the first customer that had implemented Avamar. 

It was a package, so I don't know Avamar's exact price. However, it was nearly $200,000 for the VxRail nodes, Data Domain, and Avamar. That includes everything for three years. Then we have to pay annually for support. 

We were looking for Veeam at the same time. It's good and has the same features, but we were buying all our solutions from Dell, like VxRail servers, Data Domain, etc. I think it's more complicated but otherwise fine. 

I rate Dell EMC Avamar nine out of 10. If you don't have Avamar experience, you need to work with a partner. It's not straightforward, but it's effective. However, Avamar only takes what has been written in a day. It takes a backup of a short time and doesn't do any duplications.

We use it for our desktops and laptops end-users. We have a network in place for server backup and archive.

I have not yet explored this solution in its entirety. Maybe six months down the line, I will be able to tell you about this solution with more confidence.

I believe it is a good backup and recovery solution based on our limited experience in the short period we have been using it.

It is easy to use.

More integration would be helpful, as well as the addition of more applications.

The technical support should be improved. They could be more responsive in the future.

We have been working with Dell EMC Avamar for six months.

I assume we're using the most recent version because it was just installed by our implementation team.

In order to make an opinion, we must compare the performance to established benchmarks. We are still working on it, and we're still evolving.

Scalability is determined by the number of licenses purchased. Only a few have been accepted.

We have approximately, 100 users, but we have plans to expand very soon.

We may have some remote offices set up, in the near future.

We experienced a problem with the network backup installation, so we called technical support. One of the backups failed continuously.

We were not exactly satisfied with the turnaround time. It was an issue that was unique for them to resolve, but we were not able to assistance instantly.

The support could be better.

When you consider the hardware involved, the initial setup was not straightforward.

In the beginning, there were a lot of trials and errors to suit our exact requirements. Our installation was the standard that most normally have.

This solution was not installed by us. We agreed that the implementation team would complete the installations.

Licensing fees are paid annually.

I am not sure if the fees are comparable; I would like to compare them to other solutions.

We have Data Domain and network backup software.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar, an eight out of ten.

We use Avamar for all of our backup and data management solutions in our co-location facility. I have two co-location facilities with one in Carrollton, Texas, and one in Austin. 

I have data domains, Avamar platforms, and Avamar software that we use across our enterprise. 

I manage a global technology team and a global infrastructure team. We use those platforms across all of our data centers, as well as on our sites where we have on-premises storage for either our Burrtec solutions or Isilon solutions that we have in territories, where we have to have data remain in the country due to the compliance requirements. We use it globally.

The most valuable features are scalability and integration.

The problems are, that it has issues with support. Dell has issues in that area.

I think the other problem is, that when we've had to do upgrades, it's a bit problematic. Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them. 

EMC was very thorough and if you got a piece of software that you had to upgrade, you knew that it had been thoroughly tested and it was going to work well. 

We have had issues with the consistency and the reliability of the code that is coming out for upgrades and enhancements.

I have been working with Dell EMC Avamar since 2017.

We are working with the most recent version. We recently updated it.

The stability has been okay. It hasn't been on par with what we would have expected, based on the fact that this would have been considered an EMC solution. 

With Dell purchasing EMC, there has been some degrading in their capabilities in that area.

The scalability of this solution is one of the best features.

I manage the global infrastructure team. My team is responsible for all the storage and backup infrastructure globally. It's my team that uses it, all around the world.

The technical support needs improvement.

I last used Commvault in 2017.

Dell EMC solution is much more scalable. It is built for an enterprise environment where you have high-end requirements for the movement of data. 

Commvault is not as advanced. It doesn't have all of the features and functionality.

When you talk about data management, storage management, comparably you're talking about companies like Rubrik, Cohesity, and Dell EMC, who are the major players out there.

The Avamar solution has a lot of the same features and functionality that Cohesity and Rubrik have, and is a very high-end enterprise solution for data management, data recovery, and  Commvault isn't quite at that level.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is a true enterprise solution. It has a lot of configurable options that you may or may not use based on your environment.

I have engineers that are all over the world, and I have those that are global to manage this solution, and a storage and backup team.

We have 10 people globally. There is a director who manages that group as well as a principal storage lead or principal storage engineer who does a lot of design and architectural work.

It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity.

You have to be really concerned about the Dell support model, the quality of their upgrades, and their support team's knowledge because they have issues in that area.

When you consider rating this solution, there are two parts to consider. There is the physical platform, the data domain, and the Avamar software. There is support for both of those. 

The physical platform is pretty reliable. I would rate it an eight, and for the support and the software, I would give it a six because of the issues that we've experienced with it.

Overall, I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of ten.

It is a backup solution. So, we do daily backups of around 3,000 VMware guests. That is normally just an image backup where it goes to the VMware API, backs up the image file, and then puts it on the backend to Avamar into Data Domain. It has a specialized storage system that does dedupe and compression, so we can get more on a single disk array. We have more than one site. We have a primary site and a secondary site.

At the Data Domain level, we replicate site to site every backup every day so that we have the availability in our secondary site for every VM. The replication is done with the architecture of the Data Domain itself. 

We have the rapid recovery solution that allows you to stand up any box at either location and have it come up online within just a minute or two. That's done via NFS. It becomes a data store into VMware, and then you vMotion it out. So, it has got rapid recovery at both locations as well.

We are using its newest version. We keep it up to date.

There are occasions where we have a problem with the system, and we can either try to fix it or recover it. With rapid recovery, we can get the system operational where people can get access to it in less than 10 minutes. So, we can have a problem with a system, and instead of messing around with it, we can bring up the copy. If it is a system that doesn't allow you to have a lot of daily change rate in the data, we can bring up yesterday's copy or last night's copy and have it up and running online in less than 10 minutes.

Every product is good and bad, but its claim to fame is that it is scalable. We're doing more than 3,000 VMs. Every single night a complete image backup to disks and replication are easily done in under four hours.

It is stable, and it ties very well with VMware API. If you've got VMware in-house, it is a very solid product.

It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first.

It can maybe have customized automatic routing. We have a Cisco ACI network. It is like a point-to-point network for everything, even multiple locations. It is flat, and that confuses Avamar Data Domain because it changes underneath Data Domain. It has some problems. They could do a little bit more on having an adaptable network or what's called a dynamic route network where it can be given a route and not care about it, as opposed to having to predefine it.

It has been in this shop for seven years.

It is very stable.

It is unlimited. Basically, it is great.

Being a backup solution, there are no users. We have the backup administrators to operate it, and if a user or a system administrator makes a request for our system, we restore that for them, but there are no users on it, per se. For our three locations, we have one backup administrator. Oklahoma City has two physical locations, and we have one location in LA.

It is currently being used extensively. We're going to the system as a software model where basically everything is deployed like the Kubernetes model. You basically have a few systems, and then everything is layered on top of it. It is sort of like a hypervisor but without the hypervisor layer. If we truly go that way, we'll probably have to go for a different backup solution that manages that better. We're testing that right now, and we're not sure how it's going to work for our shop, but that's what we're looking at.

I have interacted with them several times. We've had problems where we've got to have their help. They're average. It takes a while to get to the guy who knows what he's doing, but they've got support 24/7. You can call anytime day or night. So, they're average or a little better.

We used to use HP Data Protector. It was a nice product. It was an old-school kind of roll the tape, and we don't do tapes. We used Data Protector directly to tape. That was a nice product for physical boxes if you had a few. At that point, we had 200 or 300 physical boxes, and we backed them up. It took about a 10-hour cycle from about the time we quit work to about the next morning. We would run through this whole cycle and get that done.

It was complex. You have to have proxies. You can't just have one piece of hardware to back up all the systems in two facilities. You have to deploy proxy servers to every single VMware cluster. We've backup on a private backup network that had to be configured because we fundamentally do web service and financial targets out front, and we didn't want it to cramp that network. So, it is not simple; it is complex.

To do the primary site, it took very long. At that point, we were doing physical and virtual machines. We had some HPX physical, and we also had a mini mainframe seven years ago. It probably took a solid week to get it installed and get it completely operational. There were a few more details to it, but basically, we were up and running within about a week, but it is not going to happen in a day.

The first time we deployed it, they came out and set it up like a demo or a proof of concept. We took the model that they provided in that proof of concept, and we installed it ourselves, but we did have a proof of concept before we ever bought it. It was in-house for 90 days, and it included one Avamar, one Data Domain, and a couple of proxies in one of our clusters.

I had to mash a vendor. EMC is out to make money, and then they want to capitalize their ability to make money. That's not necessarily a negative thing in the business world, but I don't care for a lot of that. Once a product is in-house, I want to talk technical, and they technically knew what was going on. They were good and very professional. They knew their products.

Its licensing is weird. It is not just the licenses; we also purchase hardware. With most software products, such as Veeam, Commvault, and Data Protector, there is no hardware purchase at the same time. Because Avamar and Data Domain are tied together, they have an integrated pipe. You can separate them, but basically, they're designed to work as a couple. Because the Data Domain backend is designed to do dedupe and compression, we get 60:1. When you count it, you count it as a straight compression, but of course, that's with dedupe and some other stuff. You have to buy the hardware, the licensing, and the software at the same time. So, it's not just software.

It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years.

Be sure it is what you need. We bought it simply because we're a VMware shop, and we knew we were going to grow that particular core from our business and discontinue using physical hardware altogether. If that's a model that you're doing, it's a nice product. If it's not, you don't need it. 

I would also upfront negotiate the licensing model with them so that you know what to expect before you get into it. What we did not do is buy the cloud extension or an archive solution, and that is now becoming a fairly predominant piece of the pie that we don't have any licensing for. So, make sure it fits your environment, and you get the pieces that we didn't—the more modern archive and cloud control—so that you can have part of your environment out in the cloud. Many people are doing that. We're doing that. We just don't back it up that way.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar an eight out of 10 simply because it is stable. It does a very good job of tying into the VMware API. EMC owns VMware, so they are more or less the same company. So, they're not going to make a change in VMware that adversely affects their software products. I've got to give it an eight just for that.