Expert IT Infrastructure and Systems at ITGSTORE CONSULTING
Real User
Enables our customers to meet their goals but it is hard to manage
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a good solution."
  • "The management of this solution is a little bit difficult for IT administrators. They have to be trained before going through the system."

What is our primary use case?

As solution providers, we provide solutions to meet the objectives and goals of customers. We provide a general global architecture and the right solution that will solve a customer's problem and meet the goal at the fixed cost. If the customer doesn't mention a specific provider, then to meet the goal, we use the provider that we have to.

What is most valuable?

It's a good solution.

What needs improvement?

The management of this solution is a little bit difficult for IT administrators. They have to be trained before going through the system. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Dell EMC Avamar for two to three years. 

Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar
April 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't worked on the extension or scalability of Dell EMC Avamar. We didn't find it fairly straight forward. When we have to upgrade or scale it, a lot of things don’t fit.

How are customer service and support?

Dell EMC Avamar is hard to manage because of the support. It’s very difficult to get support. Our solution is complex which makes it more difficult to get an answer from them. We have multiple vendors in our environment. Support only looks at their own solution and not the solution as a whole. It would be easier if our whole infrastructure was Dell EMC. It’s very difficult to get help with troubleshooting. When you have an architecturally multiple-vendor solution, like we do, it’s hard to find a solution to the problem. It’s normal that they only focus on the part that corresponds to their company, but I would like for them to look at the environment as a whole.

How was the initial setup?

I did not find the setup to be fairly straightforward. There are a lot of things that don’t fit when we try to upgrade or scale it. We have to break every chain and reduce it from scratch.

What other advice do I have?

It's difficult to manage the Dell EMC Avamar template, so we try to avoid that program. The return process, when there was no space and we had to create some space, was very time-consuming. There are solutions that are simpler than Dell EMC Avamar.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a six out of ten. 

From my IT experience, there are much simpler solutions than Dell EMC Avamar for management and recovery. Dell EMC Avamar would not be my first choice.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Maciej-Kieliszek - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at EXnIT
Reseller
Top 20
Backup for end users, computers, servers, and storage paths
Pros and Cons
  • "I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end users and integration with EMC products for businesses."
  • "The interface could be more helpful for people."

What is our primary use case?

We use the on site version.

How has it helped my organization?

I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end-users and integration with EMC products for businesses. Customers choose this EMC product because they also have this brand in their infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

I think the biggest advantage it offers is backup, for end-users as well as computers, not only servers and storage paths. The solution can also backup end users. One of the most important things is also deduplication.

What needs improvement?

The interface could be more helpful for people.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using this solution for about seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It works smoothly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's easy to scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give the technical support nine out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'm not sure, but perhaps the pricing could be done better at the moment.

What other advice do I have?

I can definitely recommend this product, but I don't have any other advice.

I would rate this product around eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Dell Avamar. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,065 professionals have used our research since 2012.
System Admin at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Easy to deploy and has good capabilities but the technical support needs to improve
Pros and Cons
  • "It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
  • "It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution."

What is our primary use case?

We recently stopped using this solution but it was being used to back up our servers and client machines.

We were using an on-premises deployment.

What is most valuable?

It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that wanted to backup.

What needs improvement?

It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution. It was very tough, and a case of having to contact the Microsoft Partner Network.

Technical support needs to be improved.

We could not integrate this solution with our tape backup.

For how long have I used the solution?

We had been using this solution for between one and two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We had about one hundred users on the platform.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would not rate technical support high for this solution. We had a problem and nobody could be specific about the issue, or what it is that we needed to do in order to resolve it.

Technical support could not resolve the issue that we had in terms of integrating with tape.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were not able to back up the Exchange database with this solution. In the end, we had to discontinue using it. We switched to EMC Data Domain, and the cost was one of the factors that influenced our decision.

What about the implementation team?

Our in-house team implemented this solution, although I was not part of the process so I do not know the details.

What other advice do I have?

This is a solution that I recommend. It is a good product. It's stable, it is easy to deploy, and the visibility of the backup and restore is good.

If I had my way then we would be using this solution for other applications and we would be running them side-by-side as a comparison. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Samuel Sencion - PeerSpot reviewer
Supervisor de servicio técnico at Hyh solutions
Reseller
Top 5
Direct activity feature is very helpful; good tech support
Pros and Cons
  • "Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups."
  • "This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for Dell Avamar is backup and verification.

How has it helped my organization?

Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups. We can tell machines to do backups in the application.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for me is direct activity.

What needs improvement?

This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of this solution a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of this solution a five, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

How are customer service and support?

My impression is that their technical support is quite good.

How was the initial setup?

I would rate the initial setup process a five, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My impression – and that of some other people – is that this solution is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to other people. 

I would rate this solution as a whole an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
General Director at miromix unitedMiroMIX United
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Backup and recovery software which offers good technical support, stability, and scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "Stable and scalable backup and recovery software, with good technical support."
  • "Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."

What is our primary use case?

Dell EMC Avamar is used for backups and data recovery.

What needs improvement?

Setup and deployment of Dell EMC Avamar is complex. It requires expert engineers. Making its setup easier is something that could be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Dell EMC Avamar is stable, especially because it's been around for a very long period of time.

We are preparing ourselves for a big project for the Ukrainian Railways, and I found that a lot of railways worldwide, e.g. in the US, England, and other countries in Europe, use Dell EMC Avamar as their backup solution. It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Dell EMC Avamar is a scalable product.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support for this product is good.

How was the initial setup?

Installing this solution was not easy. It requires engineers with expertise for a successful setup.

What about the implementation team?

Deployment of Dell EMC Avamar is not easy.

What other advice do I have?

We sell Dell EMC Avamar, but we have not sold that many, just several. We've been partners of Dell for a long period of time, so we have the partnership for Dell EMC Avamar, and we can sell it at anytime, but we don't have much expertise on the product. We sell it worldwide and it was not so difficult to sell because it met corporate standards, e.g. for companies in the same level as Ernst & Young, Xerox, Proctor & Gamble, Philips, etc.

We have not been certified to deploy this solution on the Cloud, but we're looking into this.

In general, when you look at the spec sheet for Dell EMC Avamar, it's a very good product.

We're looking forward to trying this product's isolated backup feature.

For the deployment and maintenance of this product, at least two engineers are required. We only have several clients using it, and they received the product from us, but it didn't require installation because the installation was provided remotely by the headquarters.

We sell backup software from Symantec, Dell, and Commvault. Our company doesn't have engineers certified in Dell EMC Avamar, however, because it is a difficult product. There's a lack of customers as well, so we didn't train and we didn't have our engineers certified for it.

Dell EMC Avamar is a product I can recommend to others.

I don't remember exactly the licensing policy for this product. You have to pay for it for three years, then you also have to pay for support after a certain period of time, but I'm unsure.

I'm giving Dell EMC Avamar an eight out of ten, because it's very good, but it's not easy to deploy.

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: Partner
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Has high compression ratios but their cloud options should be expanded
Pros and Cons
  • "We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."
  • "I think they could also move more towards cloud solutions. It already has some cloud tiering, but I think that could be more extensive. They should work with all cloud providers and I think in the future they will be on all cloud platforms."

What is most valuable?

We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market.

What needs improvement?

The price is the main thing I'd like to see them change. If they can come down in price, that would be a good thing. It's very cost-competitive in the entry-level range because Veeam pricing is much cheaper than Avamar.

I think they could also move more towards cloud solutions. It already has some cloud tiering, but I think that could be more extensive. They should work with all cloud providers and I think in the future they will be on all cloud platforms.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using this solution for three or four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is really good. We have no complaints. Everybody who has Data Domain with Avamar sticks with it. We have not seen anybody leave once they go in.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good. Data is getting expanded rapidly, so it really needs scalability and it was scalable. Of course, it did not support the data explosions that we had because of unstructured stuff and other complications. Now, there's a new product called Data Protector for that, which is scalable as well. It can scale out as well. The only thing with this solution is 60 terabytes is the starting point, which is a good high-end solution. I hope they will come back with an entry-level version for that as well.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support was announced a few months ago and we are still on the learning curve.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

You need to work with a specialist and EMC is a very huge company now. If, however, you go and talk to the right person who knows Avamar and data protection stuff, they can help you price the solution perfectly. That's not something that you should take for granted. There are so many tools available to do a proper sizing.

I would rate Avamar as six out of ten. I would like to give it a seven or eight, but the price is too high. It depends on who wants this solution. For enterprise companies, I can rate it as eight or nine. For entry-level companies, I would say it's a six, or perhaps even lower, like a four, because the price point is very high compared to other companies.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
PeerSpot user
Anteneh Asnake - PeerSpot reviewer
Modern Data Center and Cloud Engineer II at IE Network Solutions PLC
MSP
Top 5Leaderboard
Flexible and stable with great reporting
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable."
  • "The product could offer more integration capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution the database replications in web hosting, mostly.

What is most valuable?

The duplication capabilities are very helpful.

The native data protection capability and remote data protection capabilities make it a unique solution. It makes it possible so that it will fit with any kind of vendor the customer needs.

The backup features. for example, the exclusionary statement, are excellent.

Overall, the solution offers some really great reporting.

It's very flexible when it comes to the end-user device backup.

In general, the product has been extremely easy to use. It's one of the best aspects.

The solution is very stable.

What needs improvement?

The solution does not scale. It would be nice if there were much more scalability capabilities.

The solution could get better at data process managing. It can take more than three or four hours for supporting images. It's critical to do this faster.

It would be helpful if the product could support Linux patches. It's my understanding it only offers HTML.

The product could offer more integration capabilities. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for a few years at this point. It's been a while. I personally have been dealing with the solution for four years or so.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. The performance is very reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product does not scale. If a company needs something that can scale, they need something else.

We have three customers that are currently using the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Typically, we handle support-related queries from customers, however, we have dealt with Avamar's technical support in the past and they have been helpful and responsive. The response time in particular has always been very good.

How was the initial setup?

The installation process is not complex at all. It's very straightforward. A company shouldn't have any trouble with the process. It's easy.

Deployments typically take about one and a half hours or so.

What about the implementation team?

Currently, we have five technical engineers. Each one has its own specialization that they are capable of deploying Avamar. We can deploy the solution for our clients.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Customers do have to pay for a professional license in order to use the solution.

What other advice do I have?

We are integrators.

We tend to work with relatively new versions of the solution. It may not always be the latest version. Typically the versions we use have been released in the last six months or so.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations and especially to end-users.

In general, I would rate the solution at an 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: Integrator
PeerSpot user
it_user93819 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Engineering at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Since deduplication is performed at the source, backup times and network bandwidth are significantly reduced

“Are you backing up C:\myfiles? We just accidentally deleted the folder.”
“I know it’s not in our original saveset, but any chance you have a backup of xyx?”

Sound familiar? If you are a backup administrator, I know you have heard variations of the requests above. Traditionally, new systems get deployed and the owners give a specific saveset to the backup administrators. Then when a restore is requested, it never fails that the request will be outside of the original saveset.

I have experienced these scenarios numerous times with traditional full/incremental backup products. The more you backup, the more storage you consume and that means longer backup windows. When I first started in my current position, we were backing up 100 servers with specific savesets. At that time, we had over 500 production servers. As you can imagine, this was a nightmare scenario waiting to happen. We were only able to fulfill about 75% of our restore requests. Not because the savesets where corrupt, but because we weren’t backing up what was requested for restore.

Fortunately, we were able to invest in a new purpose-built deduplicated backup appliance. (EMC Avamar, but there are other products on the market). Avamar is a disk based global deduplication backup appliance. Deduplication is performed at the source and target. Since deduplication is performed at the source, backup times and network bandwidth are significantly reduced using the Avamar solution. Migrating from BackupExec to Avamar was an easy process, but understanding the benefits of deduplicated backup took some time. When we first migrated, we were using the same traditional philosophy: Specific savesets for specific servers. As time went on, we realized that each time we added a new saveset the increase in storage utilization on the deduplication appliance was less than minimal. We decided to start adding more servers, and increasing the scope of our saveset. Within 6 months, we were backing up full file system savesets on 1200 servers.

When we started this migration, we were convinced our environment was different. We were convinced our change rate was too high. We were convinced that backing up everything, every day was too much data. We were wrong, and I’m glad we were.

Typical deduplication rates stated by EMC Avamar Team:

  • File Systems: Initial = 70%, Ongoing = 99.7%
  • Databases: Initial = 30%, Ongoing = 90-95%

Deduplication rates that we experienced (average):

  • File Systems: Initial = 75%, Ongoing = 99.9%
  • Databases: Initial = 20%, Ongoing = 85%

We are currently backing up 1300 servers nightly with savesets totaling 350 terabytes, and our daily change rate is approximately 1 terabyte. Since moving to this new policy we have experienced the following benefits:

  • Restore fulfillment is 100%
  • No discussion on what to backup. Everything is backed up.

Deduplicated backup is a backup administrators dream. Less storage consumption, shorter backup windows, higher restore fulfillment rates, and the ability to sleep at night.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Dell Avamar Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Dell Avamar Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.