Dell NetWorker Reviews

We have a Hyper-V installation, with a mixed Linux environment.

We have an on-premises deployment.

Configuration for Hyper-V needs to be improved. Our original configuration did not work because of an issue that differed between versions.

We are able to do direct backups, but analyzing the logs is not straightforward. There are a lot of things that have to be done from the client-side in order to locate and identify errors. This should be made easier.

This solution should support part-loaded data.

I would like to see support for the enactment of errors, where the error should be very clear-mannered, on board, with NMC control only. When some backups fail, we investigate all of the possibilities and sometimes have to enter the admin from the client-side. We then have to render the log and investigate that. If it is a Microsoft issue, for example, then we will contact Microsoft. This entire process needs to be enhanced.

As long as all of the requirements are met, this is a very stable solution. It is used for our daily operations.

Scalability of this solution is very good. We have approximately four hundred employees using this solution.

Technical support for this solution is very good. They are nice people and whenever we need support, they turn up and investigate. Within an hour they will start an investigation.

The initial setup is a little bit complex, but it is very good. In terms of configuration, you have a basic administrator account. If you are going to be configuring Hyper-V or another technology then you have to have an admin account for those, as well. Without a proper administrator account, you will not be able to perform backup and restore functions.

There are also other things to consider, such as the network port and user compatibility. Hyper-V has issues to consider with respect to configuring the backup.

My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to first check to make sure that your environment is stable, and compatible with this product. Even before doing a POC, the environment needs to be considered. Once any incompatibilities have been ruled out then a POC should be done, where everything needs to be tested.

This product can be complex and difficult to understand, but once you have some experience it is very good.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We used the on-prem version of this solution. Our primary use case of this solution is for backup and recovery software. 

The deduplication needs improvement and it could use better integration. 

It's very stable. 

NetWorker has very good scalability. 

They have good technical support. They had good solutions for any problems I had. 

We are in the process of switching to Commvault. It was a business decision, not a technical problem with NetWorker. 

This solution might be a bit complex for an end-user but it's a great solution for a technical person. 

I think it's a very good solution. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. No solution can be a ten. 

It's a very good solution if you are using an Oracle-like environment. It's a very good, very powerful solution, but at the same time, it's a legacy solution. That's why we moved from NetWorker to Commvault.

They need to improve their level of support.

The software also isn't user-friendly like Commvault or Rubrik. The solution errors and management aren't so good in comparison.

The solution is very stable, especially if you are using a RAC environment.

The scalability of the solution is okay.

I was very dissatisfied with technical support. It's one of the reasons we switched to Commvault.

The setup was very difficult. 

We used an integrator for the implementation.

We use the on-premises version of the service. We were also using a legacy solution from EMC.

In terms of recommending the solution, it would be my third choice, behind Rubrik and Commvault. There are newer versions, which are hyper-converged, but I would have to seriously evaluate them before I could recommend them.

I would rate this solution five or six out of ten.

I was hired as a solution architect and implementation specialist for this solution. We are maintaining this solution for a customer in Hamburg, Germany.

I am working with an SAP on Oracle solution at the moment.

Our customers use this solution for backup and disaster recovery.

The usual deployment model for this solution is on-premise.

The most valuable features for us at the moment are NFS, file system backup, and IP backup.

The main problem that we are having had to do with stability. We are looking forward to better stability in future versions.

Our customers often ask for better integration with Microsoft Exchange.

Stability is something that needs to be improved.

This is a highly scalable solution, but on a larger scale, it is not very stable.

I was contracted to migrate our client's disaster recovery environment from Tivoli Storage Manager to EMC NetWorker.

The solution itself was easy to set up, but configuring a global disaster recovery environment was quite complex.

I am a consultant who implements these solutions for our clients.

When it comes to choosing this solution, it depends on the environment and the scenarios that you're focused on. There are many advantages with EMC NetWorker compared to other disaster recovery solutions, but the software is lacking in some areas that other vendors focus on. It really depends on what you want to get from the solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for disk storage, and to administer Save and Restore functionality in our client's data center.                                                             

When it was required that data had to be restored for our customer, it was accomplished successfully and this has kept our end users satisfied.                                                    

Stability of NetWorker is very good.

We would like support for tape space reclaim, using either the same or another pool.

NetWorker uses only a stage directed to a clone pool, which is not enough to recover space on the tape.

Our primary use case is for our critical servers. We have servers across Unix and Linux environments. We back up our critical servers daily, some are scheduled and some are done manually. 

It has deduplication capabilities, where you have two similar data sets. This helps to speed up backup processes because it takes a shorter amount of time to do a backup because it has the deduplication feature already. Though, you have to buy this deduplication software separately from the license.

The security features need backup and encryption. It would be nice if they added this feature. I would also like to be able to decrypt when restoring the security features. Hackers can sense these vulnerabilities today, and we need to have our enterprise prepared. 

Overall, it isn't intuitive enough. It is a bit complex and not evolving with the technology. 

The stability is 80 percent out of 100. It hardly goes down. When there are issues, we can check the logs and see how to resolve it. We have never had the whole system fail. 

It is pretty scalable. This is not an issue. 

The response time of the tech support is swift. The support is fantastic.

The initial setup was straightforward. The configuration was not difficult. We used user guides which helped us with best practices. 

When choosing a solution, I always consider:

• Support
• Availability of parts
• The technology of the solution.

Primary use is a mixed and match backups, which include my file server, the Linux server as well as a the SQLs. As of now, we won't have that much of a challenge. But, sometimes it was required to make some manual intervention for any additional things. With Networker, we are having DD 25 MB as a back up solution. In addition, we are keeping the backup. So, currently it is working.

Earlier, we used the Veritas backup solution. Before, we had a lot of manual steps. Now, with Networker, we do not have those steps.

Currently, the best feature is the DR replication for us. So, whatever data we are taking in the backup, it will get replicated end of day to our DR site.

In Rubrik, we were getting less time for backup the things because snapshot feature is there. So we asked that our EMC account manager help us. He suggested some block based backup, but we have seen that it won't stand as compared to the rubric snapshot back up. Rubrik and Veeam has the directly cloud interface. So, you have to just  configure the credentials for the cloud access and you can start taking the backup from Rubrik, which means the local backup is after schedule. So currently we don't think there is anything  like this with the Networker. We would like Networker to have a cloud side approach, which it does not currently have.

In addition, we have been facing some problems what with the initial configuration. I heard that Networker has released some beta versions. 

The stability is not so good, in the middle range.  Within the last 3 months, we were having some issues while just storing the backup. But it has been resolved within a one to two weeks. In regards to another case, it took a bit longer.

This solution is bundled with this DD 2500. But, there is some limitation for scalability of the DD 2500 shells. I can add only one more single shell, and that is a limitation.

We have used them, but we need to renew the service.

I have used Rubrik and Veeam in the past.

The implementation was difficult and, due to some reason, it was not done properly and we had to suffer a lot. The problems were only rectified only a month ago, after multiple follow- up with EMC teams.

When considering a vendor, I think it is key to find a solution that has:

• Minimal manual intervention
• Low cost

Any person who is going to be installing this product should have full knowledge, and they should deploy whatever most valuable features are there. They have to explain it to the end-user and get it utilized for them.

The low cost is important.

Dell EMC Networker is really the best in the market! After evaluating the solutions, we automatically decided to use this solution.

• Management GUI
• Pools to direct backups to storage

It allows us to not worry about our backups.

Some functionality is restricted to Data Domain.

21 years.

No.

No.

Excellent.

The initial setup was complex in 1996, but now our environment is simpler, thus requiring two servers.

If you need to backup multiple OS platforms, this is the product to purchase

It is application aware for Meditech, Exchange and SQL. We do not want to check for successful backup in multiple locations. We want the backup application to handle all of that.

It has not improved functionality for us. At least the unsupported version we are on is difficult to administer. Most of the functions it can perform are not being used by us because of the complexity.

Reduce the product's complexity.

Eight years.

Stability is an issue.

No.

A seven out of 10. We must engage a reseller who supports it. They also are having difficulty troubleshooting it.

Complex in this version. It is not intuitive and logs are not easily accessible or decipherable.

Be sure to do a PoC.

DD Boost integration for capacity reduction and backup window.

This product has provide our backup and recovery capabilities for Service Restoration and Disaster Recovery for more than a decade. We have evolved with the product over the years and it continues to meet our requirements.

Automate/role-based Virtual Machine protection and automated DR recovery capabilities.

Initial install was in 2001 with Legato 6.4. We just completed the latest upgrade to EMC Networker 9.1.

All x.0 versions that we have deployed have had issues which get worked out in the subsequent releases. We generally never deploy the x.0 version and wait instead for the x.1 SP 1 release.

Early on, we had limitations in the number of servers as a single DataZone could manage when pushed up to deploy multiple DataZones. Those numbers have significantly increased but for large environments, this could still be a limit. The number of connections that the solution uses with the VMware Hypervisor can cause issues with vCenter's performance, but that is more a limitation with VMware than EMC NetWorker.

Over the years, it’s been up and down. For this latest version, I would suggest that it’s average, with not a large number of EMC specialists understanding how all the latest features in the product are supposed to work.

In a larger environment with multiple servers types and network security zones, it’s a complex installation to ensure stability with performance.

Don’t install the newest x.0 version of the product. Make sure you understand you own requirements and expectations of data protection in terms of Service Restoration and Disaster Recovery to ensure you are implementing the solution appropriately to meet those requirements.