Dell NetWorker Reviews

I am using Dell NetWorker for backing up mission-critical business databases.

The most valuable feature of Dell NetWorker is its quick configuration and handling of large databases.

Dell NetWorker could improve the GUI to include rack recovery.

I have been using Dell NetWorker for a few months.

The solution is highly stable.

We have four engineers using this solution in my company and we plan to increase our usage.

Dell NetWorker is a scalable solution.

The support from the vendor was quick.

I used IBM Spectrum Protect prior to Dell NetWorker. We choose to use Dell NetWorker because it has quicker recovery time objectives and the integration into DD is a lot better.

The initial setup of Dell NetWorker is straightforward. The process took a few days to complete.

We had some assistance when we did the implementation. However, after a while, we can do it ourselves.

We have observed a return on investment by utilizing Dell NetWorker, and we deem it a worthwhile expenditure compared to not having the solution.

The solution follows a subscription model for licensing. We pay annually to use the solution and the price is high.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Dell NetWorker an eight out of ten.

This solution had multiple options like configure management, user data, and server and enterprise data. The solution is simple to understand. Some products only use storage media, but Dell NetWorker has multiple options.

The implementation process could be improved. It requires a skill set to set up. In addition, the product line should support all brands and solutions.

We have been using this solution for about a year, and it is deployed on-premises.

It is a stable solution. It has worked for a couple of years without any troubles or significant issues.

It is scalable after a specific limit. It is suitable for medium-sized enterprises. We have about 1,000 users.

We have used Dell technical support. I rate the technical support team a six out of ten.

Neutral

I rate the pricing a six out of ten, where ten is a good price, and one is a high price. The price could be lower.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Veeam Backup is a competitor in the market because it has a lot of utilization. It is easy for people to get a license with them, and they benefit from one solution. Regarding potential future improvements, they should look at IT and compare it to other products because things are becoming streamlined for all the product lines, new storage is readily available, and things are moving to the cloud.

The management of Dell Networker is quite cumbersome because we have to operate on a separate interface for reporting backup jobs. In addition, we have different interfaces, so we recommend it be consolidated into a single interface for all its operations. For example, my team and I have to hop on other interfaces and different applications to manage Dell Networker. Hence, it becomes pretty cumbersome for operations.

We have been using the solution for six years.

The solution is scalable, and approximately 1,000 users utilize the solution in our organization.

We have had a good experience with customer service and support. I rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

A partner did the initial setup, and we shared the venue. The setup was not difficult because we outsourced it to a consultant. So that consultant came in and deployed the solution for us.

The pricing could be more economical for organizations, so organizations like ours can adopt and utilize it to its full potential. However, at the moment, we have challenges with the pricing as it is quite costly.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good, but it can be improved by consolidating multiple interfaces into one.

Usually, you can use this product to do the backups for almost everything. For first-party products, like SAP, it works well. It's good for security and protection and offers a repository for backups. 

The possibility of recovering up-to-the-moment data is very useful. You can have any backup registry onsite. There's a special database, which will contain all index orders. The only thing you have to do is set up the backup medium with the proper backup. It's very easy to use.

There is really broad coverage as to what can be protected. That's the thing from the point of view of the usage and from the point of view of the technology itself. It's very important how it can operate easily and how it can be integrated with Data Domain.

Once it's set up properly, it works very smoothly. It's a pretty straightforward setup.

The solution is stable. 

It has lots of great features, and we don't find anything lacking. 

It is very scalable. 

The interface could have a different appearance. It could be green or blue instead, for example. 

Users need to have specific knowledge of the product before they jump in and use it. 

I've used the solution for 21 years. 

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

It's scalable. You can scale on one single computer up to hundreds of them on computers, or thousands of virtual machines with the same Networker products.

Typically, issues are escalated to me, and I deal with problems on my own. However, I have been in touch with support. They are helpful and responsive. 

Positive

I've also worked with Avamar. 

For the DevOps environment, I would prefer to go with Avamar. However, if I needed to set up something at the enterprise level, I'd prefer Networker.

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. It's not difficult to set up at all. 

Backup systems are one of the most tricky to maintain as there are so many factors that can influence the backup process. Not only the backup - also the computers themselves, the operating systems, can play a role. It takes a moderate level of maintenance.

I can't speak to the actual pricing of the product. 

I'm working with the latest version of the product.

I'd advise new users to know the product before you start to implement it. Very often, people start to deploy the system without product knowledge. Sometimes the product implementation is really bad. If the implementation is bad, so it won't work for you smoothly. So know the product implementation and features, and you should know which ones will be the design architecture of the system.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We use NetWorker to provide disaster recovery and availability for Unix servers like IBM Power Machines and enterprise database solutions like Oracle and Db2.

The most valuable feature is NetWorker's integration with the data domain that transfers the data directly into the Dell appliance, so the data doesn't need to pass through the network. NetWorker acts like a pipe, allowing the data to flow directly from the database or the VMware environment to the data domain. 

When you're working with VMware, you need to use vProxy machines. You have to install the vProxy for every host in the VMware environment.

Also, if the customer needs to integrate or add additional products, it will be integrated with the NetWorker and data domain, the recovery point for VMware, because it covers the gap between the backup windows. You can take snapshots every few minutes depending on the size of the VM to cover the gap between the backup windows. You can restore from any point in time for the backup.

I've been using NetWorker for almost a year now.

NetWorker is stable if you follow Dell EMC's recommended best practices. For example, in the VMware environment, you need to install a vProxy machine for every host. If you don't set it up correctly, it will not be stable. 

NetWorker is highly scalable because Dell uses the vProxy. You can scale as much as you want because you already do the load balancing through the VM proxy. You can install a hundred servers with no problem because the data is transferred from VMware to the appliance, through the disk, or through the tape. While the vProxy makes the installation more complicated, it can scale as much as you want.

I rate Dell EMC NetWorker eight out of 10. To people who plan to implement NetWorker, I suggest a high availability architecture, with a  minimum of two NetWorker appliances to replicate each other, and you need to have a vProxy machine for each host in a VMware environment. If you have a tape library, you need a dedicated tape-out server.

I use Dell EMC NetWorker for system backups.

The solution is very user-friendly. After setting up five machines for our customers we teach them how to set up the agent and start doing their backups. It is very easy for them once they see how to do it, they like to do it on their own.

Dell EMC NetWorker is a complete solution, providing end-to-end, disk to disk to tape backup features, which makes it more suitable for customers here in Oman.

I have used Dell EMC NetWorker within the last 12 months.

The solution is stable.

The customer support is very good.

I have used Avamar.

The major differentiator between Dell EMC NetWorker Avamar is the Tape Out function, we recommend mostly NetWorker because customers here in Oman have compliance policies to keep the tapes out. Most of my installations are NetWorker and we only have a few on Avamar.

The price of the license could be cheaper and it would be a benefit if they came up with a new pricing model. The competitors here in Oman sell universal licensing where a number of virtual machines are hosted at the customer place which can be licensed, or you can license the CPU sockets in those servers. However, NetWorker offers only CPU sockets or overall storage capacity to backup, but there is no universal licensing where you can provide a number of VMs. They should offer more options to stay competitive with other solutions, such as Veeam.

I have evaluated Veeam solutions.

I would recommend Dell EMC NetWorker to any large enterprise. For entry and mid-size customers, I would recommend it only if it falls within their budget requirements. If they do not have the budget, they can purchase a solution that works with normal storage while purchasing NetWorker or Avamar requires a storage solution also, such as  Dell Data Domain. It works in combination and delivers the best solution, but it is a little expensive. This is why it is best suited for enterprise customers who can afford it.

I rate Dell EMC NetWorker a nine out of ten.

The GUI is the best feature. It's very good and easy to use.

It is very easy to manage and easy to configure the backup.

We are having some issues with some of the features. For example, the reporting, or the display of current licensing on the portal need improvement.

The reporting is not to our satisfaction and our main area of concern. It doesn't provide any form of analysis.

There is a delay in the offering from Dell.

Support is definitely an area of concern because of the time it takes to resolve our issues. We should not have to wait long periods of time to have issues resolved. When a complaint is logged the issue should be resolved within a reasonable amount of time.

I have been using Dell EMC NetWorker for 20 years.

We are currently working with version 19.0.

Version 19 has been stable, but there were several versions in between that had some issues, such as versions five, eight, and nine. In addition to the stability issues, there were some concerns with the performance.

Scalability for us is limited because we are using this solution for system backup. and not beyond that. We don't have any cloud, and we do not have any snapshot; it is simply a file system backup.

We have not yet explored scalability. Our requirement is a very basic one.

We have contacted technical support for the issues that we are facing with some of the features and their response to us was that they are faced with some delays in resolving these issues. This is the reason that we are exploring other backup solutions.

We have several cases that are pending and have been for a very long time.

Support from Dell needs improvement. We are not getting the type of response that we were expecting from Dell.

The responses we have received from Dell have not been encouraging.

The initial setup is not an issue, it can be installed easily.

We have a total of 35 servers, that were installed individually.

The licensing model can be traditional licensing or capacity-based licensing. We have traditional licensing rather than capacity-based because of our long history.

We are currently evaluating other products as we would like to replace Dell EMC NetWorker with another backup software. We would like to carry out some PoCs to see which is the best. Feature-wise, we would like to know which is the best on the market.

We are also evaluating other products to see which features this solution is lacking.

I would recommend this solution, but if asked specifically about the support then I would not recommend this solution's support.

As far as performance is concerned, and the working functionality point of view, definitely it is a good solution.

We have also used this solution for the last 20 years. Definitely, there is a level of comfort.

However, as of late, maybe when Dell had taken over from EMC, we have noticed there is an issue as far as support is concerned. We are not getting good support, which is what we are supposed to get from them, especially since we have been long-standing customers of EMC NetWorker. Regardless of what we were supposed to get, we are not getting it.

I would rate Dell EMC NetWorker a seven out of ten.

We use it for backups and data protection.

It has the ability to support all kinds of backups. It can be used to back up databases, operating systems, virtual machines, Lotus Notes, and Exchange. It can also do remote image backups for remote sites.

It integrates and works with Data Domain. It is an enterprise-class product that can be used for anything and everything across multiple sites and locations. It is also very scalable.

Its console UI should be better. It should also have more out-of-the-box reporting functionalities.

It should also have easier cloud integration. They have got cloud boost and things like that, but if you want to directly back up to the cloud, I'm not too sure whether you can do it. For example, you can easily send data from Commvault to AWS, Azure, or a container, but it seems to be not so easy in NetWorker.

I have been using this solution for a few years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. It is used by our customers, and their user base is quite large with around 3,000 users.

Their technical support is very good.

It takes half an hour to one hour. You can do it yourself, but sometimes, you may run into issues and require tech support. We have five people for 24/7 support for our customers.

If it is a virtual machine and you're upgrading the Networker version, you have to take a snapshot image before you upgrade it so that you can roll back to the earlier version in case you run into a problem. EMC doesn't support upgrades.

We do need to purchase a license, but sometimes, it comes as a part of the Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). It has a capacity-based licensing.

I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using it.

I would rate Dell EMC NetWorker a nine out of ten.