Dell NetWorker Reviews

• Very nice tools (nsrwatch, nsradmin) in CLI for administration, monitoring, and management. And GUI is available with enterprise level as well.
• NetWorker’s commands are executed directly from shell/command line (you don’t need to log in to the DB or to any other kind of tool).
• Very good backward and forward compatibility between NetWorker’s versions. You are not limited by higher version on backup client side.
• Availability of cumulative hot fixes.
• NetWorker server is supported on Windows and Linux OSs (unlike Commvault).
• List of supported OSs and their versions is really long and it is the same for DBs and applications.
• Provided documentation from EMC is quite good and well organized.
• Block based backup and parallel save stream features are really helpful for classic backup of big file systems and lot of small files.
• DDboost protocol speeds up backups and saves bandwidth of your LAN.
• Possibility to create and use your own scripts in backup process or in administration.

Backup admins don’t need to dedicate so much time to installation and configuration of backups.

NetWorker’s code needs improvement. There are so many bugs in each version, so I have to wait until the last cumulative hotfix of each service pack is released, to be sure that I will not affect production and create more work for myself.

Since 2006.

I had some issues in the past, but I fixed them by updating the product. I would recommend installation of new, major or minor releases of EMC NetWorker if the second service pack of each version, and sixth or higher cumulative hotfix of that version, are both available.

This is difficult question. Honestly, EMC NetWorker technical support is not very helpful for me, because I have much more experience with it than the engineers who are initially assigned to an issue. I have to wait till my service request is moved to a higher level of support and, often, by the time that happens, I have fixed many service requests by myself.

On the other hand, EMC engineers are friendly and try to help as much as possible, so if you are not an experienced customer they can search in knowledge database for your issue and fix it via a WebEx session. This can be done over a live chat session or via a regular service request.

You can enable notifications (at the EMC support page) for security and technical alerts as well, so you will be informed about any big issues quickly.

I used Hiback from NovaStor a long time ago, but it was not as good as NetWorker. I switched because I was no longer responsible for the Hiback backup environment; I focused on EMC NetWorker.

Initial setup of EMC NetWorker is really easy work if you have basic knowledge of OSs, LAN and SAN, if needed. (A basic IT background is really needed). Just a few clicks in Windows or the installation of a few RPMs in Linux. I really like that EMC provides specific RPM packages and not only binaries in its archive, which are installed by installation script.

Ask your EMC representative for discount. They can provide really good discounts.

I did not do so.

Use EMC Data Domain (DD) system and EMC NetWorker. It really is number one on the market in backup and recovery solutions.

Provides backup automation and monitoring centralization. Having easy scalability of the covered data zone is also a big advantage.

All environment backups are monitored by a central management console. This allows us to have a global view and the statistics of data protection in the overall data center.

Native reports are not really user-friendly. This is the case because EMC wants to sell DPA, which can give more reports/details. I think this policy is unfair.

We have been using this solution for seven years.

There were stability issues, especially with version 9.0. The backup integration failed many times and the resolution was related to bugs fixed in later releases.

There were no scalability issues.

We did not use a different solution before this one.

The initial setup was complex. In fact, the NetWorker Management Console is divided into many tables. To configure a simple backup, you have to switch between many tables. You must have a good understanding of the configuration logic before you can manage this tool.

Use capacity licensing instead of the traditional one. With capacity licenses, you have all the capabilities enabled. With traditional licenses, you have to activate functionalities one by one.

• TSM : This solution does not offer the media server option, which means that all data that has to be backed up has to be sent to the TSM backup server before being backed up to media devices. In the NetWorker solution, we can define media nodes which write data directly to the backup devices. There is no need to move data to backup server beforehand. Also in NetWorker, we can define different retention policies for backups and copies. In TSM, the same retention applies to both the first copy and the second copy.

• DPM: This Microsoft solution is well defined for Microsoft environments, but for VMware and others (SAP, Oracle) EMC NetWorker suits better and does offer more functionalities/options.  
• Veeam: Suitable for VMware environments only. EMC NetWorker capabilities are greater regarding other platforms (Microsoft, SAP).

• NetBackup: This is the real EMC NetWorker competitor. For price reasons, EMC NetWorker was chosen in our case.

Take a training course before implementing this solution, especially if you are used to managing another backup solution. The backup integration generally takes a while to stabilize. However, once you have done it, you can forget about it. The backup will run automatically and backed up data will expire automatically based on configured policies.

• Support for various operating systems, we use, AIX, Solaris, Linux, VMware, and Windows
• Excellent deduplication with Data Domain Boost
• A good user interface, so we can, from a single console, manage the entire backup infrastructure

We are using a single product, with the same licenses, to backup Oracle servers, SQL Servers, Exchange, and our virtual environment. It also allows us to clone the backups to a disaster recovery site. With the integration with Data Domain Boost we are significantly saving backup space.

I think, first of all, the part that relates to backup virtual machines. I've seen better and faster solutions, for example: Veeam.

We've used NetWorker for about ten years. We are primarily using NetWorker to backup our core servers with Solaris. For the last three years, we use Networker to backup the entire infrastructure.

We're also using the NetWorker Module for Microsoft v8.2.1.8, and the NetWorker VMware Protection v1.1.1.50.

No issues encountered.

We had no problems with stability.

We had no problems with scalability. We have two data centers with different infrastructure.

I have worked with local EMC partners, I have had a positive experience.

I did not use technical support for NetWorker, but I have used it for some other EMC products and I think they were a little slow. 7/10.

Initial setup was straightforward. The documentation is good.

We did it in-house.

We use NetWorker Capacity Licensing Model. Estimating the backup environment's capacity is, for me, very complex, and I think not even clear.

It is a good product with some problems backing up virtual machines (slow restore). We use NetWorker Capacity Licensing Model. Estimating the backup environment's capacity is, for me, very complex, and I think not even clear.

It's easy to configure and manage.

In our organization, we are working with Networker on other sites, so we can share our knowledge and experience.

We pretend to start image backups from VMware, but we are also working with Xen and RHEV, and this product doesn't support those platforms.

I´ve worked on it for over 10 years, since v6.

No issues encountered.

Just in version 7.x.x, where they changed all graphical interface and had some stability issues.

When I used to work in a consultant office, we had to split one backup server into three to support the amount of clients. This customer had a lot of backup server instability.

It is great; EMC support is one of the best.

It is great, a good level of knowledgement and escalation.

I used to work with TSM as well, but Networker is easier to deploy.

There are some features that other software, like Avamar, does better, and that EMC could incorporate into Networker.

Ensure you have good architecture job before implementation. At our organization, we are scheduling all our backups from the same business line to ensure it's all done at the same time, to ensure all backups are scheduled at the same time.

Backup jobs can be scheduled and automated

Monitoring of backups and configuration tasks are centralized

Compatibility of the solution covers large OS/DataBases/Applications

In a large enterprise DataCenter there is traditionally a lot of applications/databases which are owned by different administrators.

Without a centralized backup solution, each application/DB owner has to ensure its backup separately and if a problem occurs, he has to execute recovery tasks. In these conditions, the application rower has to make some extra jobs : backup scripting, verifying backups have finished successfully, recovery jobs... This does impact his efficiency and the global enterprise efficiency.

If a centralized backup solution like Networker is deployed, the backup/recovery tasks will be on the responsibility of only one resource which is the backup administrator. This does directly involve that each application/DB owner can spend more time on his real job: optimizing the platform that he owns.

With Networker 8.0 I had an issue related to VMware VADP backups.
An Image level backup of a RHEL VM finished successfully, but when I tried to restore it the transfer speed was very low, and the restore operation took 20 hours to restore 17 GB which represents 50% of total VM size. I was then obliged to abort the restore operation because there was backup jobs planned and Networker was deployed with only one tape drive in this case (the tape drive can't write backups and perform restores simultaneously).

I contacted the support team to analyze this performance issue. They said that this happened because it was a Linux machine backed up with Windows Vcenter Proxy. For me this is not acceptable... I hope this will be resolved in the 8.2 version of Networker, because restore speed is important (RTO)

4 years

Deployment tasks are not really hard. Networker is well documented.

7/10

Initial setup was complex because I had to integrate Exchange Server and I had no knowledge on how it works.

I asked to the Exchange administrator to assist me on the deployment and together we setup up the Exchange backup job.

IBM TSM; HP data protector; Symantec Netbackup/Backupexec are main competitor to Networker.

I remember a customer asked me to advise him between deploying Networker or TSM. The customer wanted to integrate a Data Domain device to his backup solution. I advised him to use Networker because TSM is not compatible with DDBoost protocol which improves DataDomain performance: Deploying TSM in this case was a limitation!

The full backup is a great feature. Restoration is also good and very quick. 

The UI needs some enhancement to be more user-friendly.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

Once it's deployed, the solution is very stable. 

Both Veeam and Veritas are similar solutions. I went with Dell NetWorker because my hardware is Dell, so it's one call for support.

The initial setup doesn't take very long. It's only used by the backup admin.

Licensing is moderately expensive.

For anyone using Dell products, it's important to have a backup software like NetWorker in the same ecosystem.

I rate the solution seven out of 10.