Rubrik alternatives and competitors

Originally, I was looking for a solution that allowed us to replicate our critical workloads to a cloud target and then pay a monthly fee to have it stored there. Then, if some kind of disaster happened, we would have the ability to instantiate or spin up those workloads in a cloud environment and provide access to our applications. That was the ask of the platform.

We are a manufacturing company, so our environment wouldn't be drastically affected by a webpage outage. However, depending on the applications that are affected, being a $15 billion dollar company, there could be a significant impact.

Zerto is very good in terms of providing continuous data protection. Now bear in mind the ability to do this in the cloud is newer to them than what they've always done traditionally on-premises. Along the way, there are some challenges when working with a cloud provider and having the connectivity methodology to replicate the VMs from on-premises to Azure, through the Zerto interface, and make sure that there's a healthy copy of Zerto in the cloud. For that mechanism, we spent several months working with Zerto, getting it dialed in to support what we needed to do. Otherwise, all of the other stuff that they've been known to do has worked flawlessly.

The interface is easy to use, although configuring the environment, and the infrastructure around it, wasn't so clear. The interface and its dashboard are very good and very nice to use. The interface is very telling in that it provides a lot of the telemetry that you need to validate that your backup is healthy, that it's current, and that it's recoverable.

A good example of how Zerto has improved the way our organization functions is that it has allowed us to decommission repurposed hardware that we were using to do the same type of DR activity. In the past, we would take old hardware and repurpose it as DR hardware, but along with that you have to have the administration expertise, and you have to worry about third-party support on that old hardware. It inevitably ends up breaking down or having problems, and by taking that out of the equation, with all of the DR going to the cloud, all that responsibility is now that of the cloud provider. It frees up our staff who had to babysit the old hardware. I think that, in and of itself, is enough reason to use Zerto.

We've determined that the ability to spin up workloads in Azure is the fastest that we've ever seen because it sits as a pre-converted VM. The speed to convert it and the speed to bring it back on-premises is compelling. It's faster than the other ways that we've tried or used in the past. On top of that, they employ their own compression and deduplication in terms of replicating to a target. As such, the whole capability is much more efficient than doing it the way we were doing it with Rubrik.

If we lost our data center and had to recover it, Zerto would save us a great deal of time. In our testing, we have found that recovering the entire data center would be completed within a day. In the past, it was going to take us close to a month. 

Using Zerto does not mean that we can reduce the number of people involved in a failover.  You still need to have expertise with VMware, Zerto, and Azure. It may not need to be as in-depth, and it's not as complicated as some other platforms might be. The person may not have to be such an expert because the platform is intuitive enough that somebody of that level can administer it. Ultimately, you still need a human body to do it.

The most valuable feature is the speed at which it can instantiate VMs. When I was doing the same thing with Rubrik, if I had 30 VMs on Azure and I wanted to bring them up live, it would take perhaps 24 hours. Having 1,000 VMs to do, it would be very time-consuming. With Zerto, I can bring up almost 1,000 VMs in an hour. This is what I really liked about Zerto, although it can do a lot of other things, as well.

The deduplication capabilities are good.

The onset of configuring an environment in the cloud is difficult and could be easier to do. When it's on-premises, it's a little bit easier because it's more of a controlled environment. It's a Windows operating system on a server and no matter what server you have, it's the same.

However, when you are putting it on AWS, that's a different procedure than installing it on Azure, which is a different procedure than installing it on GCP, if they even support it. I'm not sure that they do. In any event, they could do a better job in how to build that out, in terms of getting the product configured in a cloud environment.

There are some other things they can employ, in terms of the setup of the environment, that would make things a little less challenging. For example, you may need to have an Azure expert on the phone because you require some middleware expertise. This is something that Zerto knew about but maybe could have done a better job of implementing it in their product.

Their long-term retention product has room for improvement, although that is something that they are currently working on.

We have been with Zerto for approximately 10 years. We were probably one of the first adopters on the platform.

With respect to stability, on-premises, it's been so many years of having it there that it's baked in. It is stable, for sure. The cloud-based deployment is getting there. It's strong enough in terms of the uptime or resilience that we feel confident about getting behind a solution like this.

It is important to consider that any issues with instability could be related to other dependencies, like Azure or network connectivity or our on-premises environment. When you have a hybrid environment between on-premises and the cloud, it's never going to be as stable as a purely on-premises or purely cloud-based deployment. There are always going to be complications.

This is a scalable product. We tested scalability starting with 10 VMs and went right up to 100, and there was no difference. We are an SMB, on the larger side, so I wouldn't know what would happen if you tried to run it with 50,000 VMs. However, in an SMB-sized environment, it can definitely handle or scale to what we do, without any problems.

This is a global solution for us and there's a potential that usage will increase. Right now, it is protecting all of our criticals but not everything. What I mean is that some VMs in a DR scenario would not need to be spun up right away. Some could be done a month later and those particular ones would just fall into our normal recovery process from our backup. 

The backup side is what we're waiting on, or relying on, in terms of the next ask from Zerto. Barring that, we could literally use any other backup solution along with Zerto. I'm perfectly fine doing that but I think it would be nice to use Zerto's backup solution in conjunction with their DR, just because of the integration between the two.  

In general, the support is pretty good. They were just acquired by HP, and I'm not sure if that's going to make things better or worse. I've had experiences on both sides, but I think overall their support's been very good.

Zerto has not yet replaced any of our legacy backup products but it has replaced our DR solution. Prior to Zerto, we were using Rubrik as our DR solution. We switched to Zerto and it was a much better solution to accommodate what we wanted to do. The reason we switched had to do with support for VMware.

When we were using Rubrik, one of the problems we had was that if I instantiated the VM on Azure, it's running as an Azure VM, not as a VMware VM. This meant that if I needed to bring it back on-premises from Azure, I needed to convert it back to a VMware VM. It was running as a Hyper-V VM in Azure, but I needed an ESX version or a VMware version. At the time, Rubrik did not have a method to convert it back, so this left us stuck.

There are not a lot of other DR solutions like this on the market. There is Site Recovery Manager from VMware, and there is Zerto. After so many years of using it, I find that it is a very mature platform and I consider it easy to use. 

The initial setup is complex. It may be partly due to our understanding of Azure, which I would not put at an expert level. I would rate our skill at Azure between a neophyte and the mid-range in terms of understanding the connectivity points with it. In addition to that, we had to deal with a cloud service provider.

Essentially, we had to change things around, and I would not say that it was easy. It was difficult and definitely needed a third party to help get the product stood up.

Our deployment was completed within a couple of months of ending the PoC. Our PoC lasted between 30 and 60 days, over which time we were able to validate it. It took another 60 days to get it up and running after we got the green light to purchase it.

We're a multisite location, so the implementation strategy started with getting it baked at our corporate location and validating it. Then, build out an Azure footprint globally and then extend the product into those environments. 

We used a company called Insight to assist us with implementation. We had a previous history with one of their engineers, from previous work that we had done. We felt that he would be a good person to walk us through the implementation of Zerto. That, coupled with the fact that Zerto engineers were working with us as well. We had a mix of people supporting the project.

We have an infrastructure architect who's heading the project. He validates the environment, builds it out with the business partners and the vendor, helps figure out how it should be operationalized, configure it, and then it gets passed to our data protection group who has admins that will basically administrate the platform and it maintains itself.

Once the deployment is complete, maintaining the solution is a half-person effort. There are admins who have a background in data protection, backup products, as well as virtualization and understanding of VMware. A typical infrastructure administrator is capable of administering the platform.

Zerto has very much saved us money by enabling us to do DR in the cloud, rather than in our physical data center. To do what we want to do and have that same type of hardware, to be able to stand up on it and have that hardware at the ready with support and maintenance, would be huge compared to what I'm doing.

By the way, we are doing what is considered a poor man's DR. I'm not saying that I'm poor, but that's the term I place on it because most people have a replica of their hardware in another environment. One needs to pay for those hardware costs, even though it's not doing anything other than sitting there, just in case. Using Zerto, I don't have to pay for that hardware in the cloud.

All I pay for is storage, and that's much less than what the hardware cost would be. To run that environment with everything on there, just sitting, would cost a factor of ten to one.

I would use this ratio with that because the storage that it replicates to is not the fastest. There's no VMs, there's no compute or memory associated with replicating this, so all I'm paying for is the storage.

So in one case, I'm paying only for storage, and in the other case, I have to pay for storage and for hardware, compute, and connectivity. If you add all that up into what storage would be, I think it would be that storage is inexpensive, but compute added up with maintenance and everything, and networking connectivity between there and the soft costs and man-hours to support that environment, just to have it ready, I would say ten to one is probably a fair assessment.

When it comes to DR, there is no real return on investment. The return comes in the form of risk mitigation. If the question is whether I think that I spent the least amount of money to provide a resilient environment then I would answer yes. Without question.

If you are an IT person and you think that DR is too expensive then the cloud option from Zerto is good because anyone can afford to use it, as far as getting one or two of their criticals protected. The real value of the product is that if you didn't have any DR strategy, because you thought you couldn't afford it, you can at least have some form of DR, including your most critical apps up and running to support the business.

A lot of IT people roll the dice and they take chances that that day will never come. This way, they can save money. My advice is to look at the competition out there, such as VMware Site Recovery, and like anything else, try to leverage the best price you can.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees for the product itself. However, for the environment that it resides in, there certainly are. With Azure, for example, there are several additional costs including connectivity, storage, and the VPN. These ancillary costs are not trivial and you definitely have to spend some time understanding what they are and try to control them.

I looked at several solutions during the evaluation period. When Zerto came to the table, it was very good at doing backup. The other products could arguably instantiate and do the DR but they couldn't do everything that Zerto has been doing. Specifically, Zerto was handling that bubbling of the environment to be able to test it and ensure that there is no cross-contamination. That added feature, on top of the fact that it can do it so much faster than what Rubrik could, was the compelling reason why we looked there.

Along the way, I looked at Cohesity and Veeam and a few other vendors, but they didn't have an elegant solution or an elegant way of doing what I wanted to do, which is sending copies to an expensive cloud storage target, and then having the mechanism to instantiate them. The mechanism wasn't as elegant with some of those vendors.

We initially started with the on-premises version, where we replicated our global DR from the US to Taiwan. Zerto recently came out with a cloud-based, enterprise variant that gives you the ability to use it on-premises or in the cloud. With this, we've migrated our licenses to a cloud-based strategy for disaster recovery.

We are in the middle of evaluating their long-term retention, or long-term backup solution. It's very new to us. In the same way that Veeam, and Rubrik, and others were trying to get into Zerto's business, Zerto's now trying to get into their business as far as the backup solution.

I think it's much easier to do backup than what Zerto does for DR, so I don't think it will be very difficult for them to do table stakes back up, which is file retention for multiple targets, and that kind of thing.

Right now, I would say they're probably at the 70% mark as far as what I consider to be a success, but each version they release gets closer and closer to being a certifiable, good backup solution.

We have not had to recover our data after a ransomware attack but if our whole environment was encrypted, we have several ways to recover it. Zerto is the last resort for us but if we ever have to do that, I know that we can recover our environment in hours instead of days.

If that day ever occurs, which would be a very bad day if we had to recover at that level, then Zerto will be very helpful. We've done recoveries in the past where the on-premises restore was not healthy, and we've been able to recover them very fast. It isn't the onesie twosies that are compelling in terms of recovery because most vendors can provide that. It's the sheer volume of being able to restore so many at once that's the compelling factor for Zerto.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Zerto is to get a good cloud architect. Spend the time to build out your design, including your IP scheme, to support the feature sets and capabilities of the product. That is where the work needs to be done, more so than the Zerto products themselves. Zerto is pretty simple to get up and running but it's all the work ahead in the deployment or delivery that needs to be done. A good architect or cloud person will help with this.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Zerto is that it requires good planning but at the end of it, you'll have a reasonable disaster recovery solution. If you don't currently have one then this is certainly something that you should consider.

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten.

Our customers mainly use it as a mixed backup solution of primarily virtual environments, whether it is Hyper-V or VMware, and also in some cases, physical machines. Some of our customers must have tape access, which is one of the reasons why we often propose and use Commvault.

We are a partner and service provider for Commvault. For some customers in Belgium, we are also implementing Metallic.

In Holland, we have some installations with cloud connectivity. However, in Belgium, we only use the cloud for archival purposes at this time.

Commvault helps to ensure broad coverage with the discovery of unprotected workloads. This is important. From the moment that we set it up, we mostly have customers telling us what they need to back up. Then, you can list the machines that are not yet protected. Sometimes, we can see that they are unaware of this, and say, "We didn't know that those servers were not protected yet," or "We did not back them up yet." 

Sometimes, if you have multiple admins working in environments, you will see a growth of machines and the backup people responsible are not always aware of this. Therefore, it is very important to explain to customers that they need to perform a check monthly. They should also check with their admins or application owners to see what is necessary, because sometimes application owners may need to pay for it or the customer will need newer licenses. It is important for them to know, especially these days. In the case where you have servers which are not yet protected, you have bigger issues.

We use Commvault's ransomware protection and detection on media agents. From the moment that we can configure media agents, we have already enabled that option. We will then address with customers the possibilities, a way forward, and regular checks with resources. As a service provider, if we configure a customer, then they will set up a monthly restore test. Also, if a customer demands it or finds it necessary, we can perform disaster recovery tests.

Commvault can do everything for every operating system and application. Whether it is cloud-based, like Office 365, or not, it is possible with Commvault. 

Sometimes for customers, it is difficult because you can see all the features. Sometimes, it is difficult for them to use or understand it. Once they have had some training from Commvault or us, they are really happy with the solution.

I would assess the Command Center as a very useful but sometimes difficult tool. It is multipurpose. It has all the features of logging and monitoring, especially for the actual setup. For us, it is easy because we work daily with it, but for customers who only use it once a week, they sometimes have some difficulties. Command Center is not user-friendly for beginners.

This is also the reason why we propose to customers to use the Web Console. I know that some older customers are not yet really aware of this tool. However, from the moment that they start using the tool and search possibilities, they will then go to that Web Console instead of the Command Center.

Ransomware is a major problem these days, and whatever improvements they can make to be more secure on this is always good. At this moment, they have a large install base and a very broad package for backup of applications, for OSs and Hyper-V, with a cloud integration. This will be a major part of their growth and change in the future. 

We would like the ability to restore to and from the cloud to on-prem. While they are already very big in this aspect, this could be an improvement over the next few years.

I have been using it for approximately three years. However, my company has been using it much longer.

It is a very stable product that has many features. 

Scalability is very good. It can go very far with the number of media agents and its database. 

You have hyperscale possibilities, which is not something that I work with a lot. However, if necessary, you can also use the appliances to scale. 

For normal environments with servers and media agents, it is rather easy to scale. We sometimes start with small media agents using a physical server. We always have the possibility to extend it with more disks. It is easy for Commvault to scale the disk capacity.

The technical support is very good. We have a general account with Commvault where we can open cases and get assistance. Up until now, it has always been very good.

Positive

Sometimes, they have already used Dell EMC NetWorker. When Dell EMC tries to sell them PowerProtect, we will suggest moving to Commvault because we know it is very good and has a stable environment.

The initial setup is straightforward because I know the product rather well. I can say that customers who see it or sometimes migrate from another product to Commvault find it difficult. For example, you need to have a CommServe server with a database. The database could be on another server or virtual machine. Then, you will need to have media agents.

By using our service provider solution, customers often have less work than before. They don't have to manage an environment themselves. They can get reports about whether backups fail or not. They can also ask us to perform restores, etc.

The main reason that customers often choose us is because we can use Commvault as a service provider. So, the customer does not need to install a CommServe server and database on-premises. Instead, we can simply use a media agent with clients and back up their data on a temporary media, then replicate the data to our data center and servers. So, they will have double security, e.g., on-prem for fast restores. Initially, after one weeks to two months, they will have longer copies and retention periods on our site, where they have the possibility to perform restores or replication to their on-prem environment.

Sometimes, for customers, the setup is difficult compared to Veeam, which we sometimes also sell to much smaller customers. However, for the bigger customers, we use Commvault.

If it is a bigger physical and/or virtual environment with a lot of applications, Commvault is the way to go. We have noticed with Veeam, especially if you have physical database servers, that it is sometimes a hassle to configure and back up. For smaller customers who only have a virtual environment of around 50 to 60 VMs, Commvault might be too big, painful, and difficult. In these cases, we might propose the Veeam solution.

Rubrik and Cohesity have large cloud solutions. However, in Belgium, it is mainly the virtual environment that we need to protect as well as physical servers for bigger customers, which is why Commvault is the best solution for us.

I primarily still use the Commvault Command Center. We teach a lot of customers to use the Commvault Web Console because it is easier for them to use. Also, for future upgrades, the newer versions are aware of the web and HTML5 interfaces, but not Command Center.

It is good to have an assessment of the environment beforehand to really look at the retention of the customer's backups. If they are already using a solution, it is important to determine if the configured retention times are up to date. It is also important to know if cloud integration is necessary or will be in the future.

I would rate this solution as eight out of 10. There is always room for improvement.

In terms of most valuable features, I like the fact that if you have a bunch of backups, NetBackup gives you the ability to have one master and multiple media servers. What that means is you can have a bunch of sites that all have libraries and you have one master server that controls all the functionality of all the jobs. You don't have to deploy a standup NetBackup solution at each site. You can just deploy the media version for their tape library and have one master server that controls all the jobs.

What I also like about NetBackup, as opposed to most solutions like Rubrik and Cohesity, which don't really support backing up to tape environments, is that NetBackup does. If you are running on a legacy tape environment NetBackup is best. Most of the guys I've seen that use NetBackup have a tape environment.

The flip side about NetBackup is that it is not policy-based. NetBackup doesn't give you that feature. For example, Rubrik is a policy-based type of app, so when you create a backup job with it, say you have 30 servers in that backup, you can make one policy and apply it to them all. NetBackup doesn't do that. With NetBackup, you need to create a backup job for each server you want to back up and for each server you have. That is the only thing I don't really like about NetBackup. I can use Rubrik or Cohesity where you can create one policy, and apply it to many servers at one time where with NetBackup, you can't do that. You create a backup for each server. That takes more time.

If they can improve on policy-based backups, that would be great.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup for about 10 or 11 years.

I think that the last version I used was version six. They're probably up to eight or 10 now. But really nothing has changed. Maybe additional features from the last time I saw it, but not really much has changed. I think they made a version 10.

The last time I went online I didn't really see much difference from a feature perspective since I began using it. I think the GUI interface looks a little different, a little cleaner, but functionality-wise, I didn't really see much change.

In terms of stability, no problem. Like I said, if you have multiple tape libraries, you can have one master that has a bunch of multiple media services. So you can have tape libraries all scattered at different sites. The one master server you set up controls all the job functions. When you log into it, it just kicks off the jobs and you can pause jobs. For different sites, you can keep the job turned off. It controls all the functions and all the backup jobs for all the multiple sites. That's all the master server does. It doesn't actually do any backup. It's responsible for making the kicked off jobs to get backed up.

Their customer support is not bad. I don't have any issues with technical support. Technical support is okay.

The initial setup is very easy. Commvault has a lot more convoluted setup. NetBackup is really easy to set up. I've never used Commvault, but from other colleagues I know who use it, you need professional services because it's so convoluted to set up. NetBackup is not that convoluted. Commvault is nice. It's a very nice application, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to put it down or anything like that. Once it's running, it's a good product. But from being exposed to Commvault a little, I like NetBackup better. I just think the downside to NetBackup is that it's not policy driven. That's the only thing I don't like about it.

Pricing depends on the number of licenses and on the number of servers you have. It varies based on the number of servers that you're trying to back up.

My advice to anyone considering Veritas NetBackup is to validate. If you have multiple sites, it's better to have the setup. If you have multiple sites that are running a tape library and media servers, you can set up one master server. But if you only have one site, you can set up a backup as a media server and a master server. If you have multiple sites, you want to look at how many sites you are backing up. If it's multiple sites, then you want to set them up with one master server.

If you only have one site, then you have the media server and the master, and it does both. That would be my suggestion - to validate if there is more than one site you're going to be backing up. If you are going to be backing up more than one site, you want to properly set up the first time. If you only have one site you're backing up, set it up as a master media. If you have multiple sites to set up, you want to set them up as media servers and then set up one master server that controls all the functions for the remaining sites. That is really the biggest thing, to be honest with you.

You might want to confirm if it supports backing up to Azure or AWS. Some people want to do long-term archiving. You want to confirm whether or not NetBackup supports backup to Azure or Google Cloud or AWS from a long-term archiving perspective.

Some people backup to tape. Some people are going to say that you can't back up the disk with NetBackup. I just don't know if it supports backing up to cloud providers.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd say NetBackup is an eight. It's pretty strong. I don't have other problems. I would say it's definitely a strong eight. It's a pretty good product.

We primarily back up VMware and Hyper-V, and we have some physical boxes as well, both physical Windows and Linux boxes. We also use the scale-out capability going out to the public cloud. We don't have any NAS devices. So, there's no taking advantage of that. We're not using the instant recovery engine. I believe we use the Veeam ONE software as well. 

We have customers all over the place. They are using the current version and the earlier versions. 

In terms of deployment, it is a combination. In a lot of places, it is deployed in a private cloud environment with more than one site for replication, but we do have other customers that go out to the public cloud for an off-site copy. The cloud providers primarily are AWS and Microsoft Azure.

The normal backup and replication features are valuable. 

It is cost-effective. A lot of times, people pick Veeam because of its price.

Its native capability for talking to the public cloud needs improvement. Connecting to a public cloud is a little bit more of a challenge when it comes to Veeam than it is with Rubrik or Commvault. There are still some hoops that you got to jump through in order to send Veeam backups out to public cloud repositories. It is not as simple as it is with other products.

I have been using this product for three to four years.

It is very stable.

It scales out easily. The only challenge is that as compared to some of the other products, it is a little bit more difficult to do things when you're dealing with the public cloud. Other products integrate a little easier. Veeam has not gotten there a hundred percent. You've got to deploy additional infrastructure out in the public cloud. So, on a one to five, it is a three. It is a little bit more difficult, but it is scalable.

We have hundreds of customers who are utilizing Veeam. They are any type or range of engineers, IT directors, and IT managers. There is a whole different range of individuals who are supporting backup environments running Veeam.

There are probably plans for increased usage. A lot of it comes down to the requirements of our customers.

Their support is good. We never had a problem. They are always reachable and able to answer. The engineers we deal with are able to answer all the questions that we have.

We've got customers all over the spectrum. Some customers do switch to Veeam because of its ease of use and its price point.

We sell and support Commvault, Veeam, and Rubrik. If I had my preference, Veeam might not be the first choice, but a lot of people do pick Veeam depending upon their requirements and their price point because it is more affordable than some of the other products.

It is pretty straightforward. On a scale of one to five where one means incredibly difficult and five mean just effortless, I would rate it a four out of five.

I don't do a lot of deployments. It is mostly handled by a different group of people in my company.

We do offer professional services for implementation. Very often, we will take care of that, but it isn't really required.

The number of people required for its deployment and implementation depends upon the size of the environment. A small environment could be basically installed, maintained, and managed by one person. A much larger environment, depending upon how frequently you're doing restores and how complex your retention policies are, could require more people.

It is hard to give that because everything depends upon the size of the environment. Smaller environments are going to have a much faster return on their investment than larger ones. It depends upon what they're doing.

It is more cost-effective than some of the other solutions, but a lot of that comes down to the fact that we're a reseller. So, depending upon the deal, we do negotiate different price points for different customers. The price varies depending upon the size of the customer, the size of the deal, and the discounts we can negotiate.

Price does come into play during the evaluation. We have dealt with customers who evaluated products like Backup Exec, Commvault, Rubrik, Veeam, and Simplivity. There are quite a few that are in the mix. More often than not, depending upon the size of the customer, people pick Veeam a lot of times because of its price.

The biggest thing is to do the research. Do a comparison of each industry-leading product and see which feature set you're looking for. There is the price point as well, but I usually recommend that the feature set is more important than the price. If you're looking for specific features and capabilities and they're not available in a product, picking that product because it is the cheapest could be a mistake. So, make sure that you're comparing feature sets and purchasing the one that has the features that you're looking for.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. There are other products that have more advanced features. They would be rated a little higher.

We use it for both local VM recovery, exchange, SQL recovery, and disaster recovery.

We have an on-premise exchange environment and it is really large and sensitive to backup impact, where it'll actually slow down the mailbox servers due to the stunning effect of trying to snapshot the VM. We previously had to do dedicated backup servers, which was an  additional consumption of on-premise resources of storage and compute. When we moved to Cohesity, we were able to target the passive copies of those databases so we no longer needed to have dedicated backup servers for the exchange environment, thereby reducing both the footprint of exchange and the resources consumed to support of the backup server.

I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser.

In terms of what could be improved, their UI requires a manual refresh. It doesn't seem like it updates itself sometimes when you're moving from screens or waiting for a change to take effect, so you have to manually refresh. I would say that is an area for improvement, and I would also say that they have room for improvement for being able to roll back to previous versions after you've upgraded. They don't have a good rollback methodology to go back to previous versions if there is a problem with the new version.

I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for two months.

I feel like it's very stable.

We are running with a full no-redundancy, so we can lose an entire node in the clustering and it will operate without any downtime.

Cohesity DataProtect is very scalable. You can add resources just by adding additional nodes to the cluster and it seems to be able to scale out as large as you need it to.

It is used primarily by engineering and by a couple people in the app team on the SQL side. I'd say maybe half a dozen people total use it in our organization and they're in a combination of apps and engineering.

Deployment and maintenance are all done by me and my counterpart for the most part, just senior engineers on the engineering team. There are just two of us that are primarily handling that.

It is being used extensively in both of our data centers for all virtual workloads, as well as the SQL Server and exchange application level workloads. Those are our use cases primarily for those applications and the VM.

They have excellent technical support. I give them high marks for that. They all seem to know the product well and be willing to assist with things and have experiences all around with the support team.

We previously used Rubrik and we switched due to Rubrik tending to focus more on public cloud solutions over the past couple years and also the overall price of the solution - Rubrik was very expensive. We wanted to have more of a competitive product up against it.

Initial setup is straightforward.

It took one day for each site. We have two sites. We deployed each site in one day for a two day deployment total, and then our overall deployment strategy was to begin ingesting at the VM level and then start focusing on the agent-based deployments to equal an exchange.

In terms of ROI, the time of management is lower than what we were previously using so we are getting some cycles back from an engineering perspective. Also, we were able to reclaim our exchange environment in terms of resources, so there was some return there that we were able to recoup immediately, and then just the overall cost across the duration of the licensing and the hardware is expected to be lower than what we previously had.

It is on a yearly license. It actually includes the cost of the hardware, as well. So the cost of the hardware and the licensing is all rolled into a single bundle with the support.

Before going with Cohesity, we spoke with Pure, Commvault, and with Rubrik and Cohesity and Rubrik were identified as the two finalists and we did a proof of concept for both of those.

My advice to anyone considering Cohesity DataProtect is to try it out because the performance seems to exceed the competitors in the market. If it fits well in your organization or your use cases, then give it a shot.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine. I did a lot of research into the different products and found this one to be pretty much top across the board and after using it, we are very happy with the performance and the results that we are getting.