Veritas NetBackup Appliance Reviews

The NetBackup appliance features customized software that is designed for storage.

The NetBackup software is based on Red Hat Linux, but we should have multiple software options for that. We should have more OS options. Also, there are too many tools and intermediaries. Everything should be built into an all-in-one solution.

I have been using NetBackup for more than 10 years.

NetBackup is stable. If it is in a remote place, we can put lead backup plans in place for backing up and sending metadata to the main data center. 

NetBackup is a scalable solution, but it costs more to scale up. 

I work with multiple backup tools, and Veritas is in the middle. The support isn't great.

Setting up NetBackup is straightforward, but we sometimes get some weird errors while we are trying to configure it. There are so many processes to deal with because all of these products are legacy backup tools. They are a little more complicated than next-generation backup tools like Rubrik or some of the newer ones on the market. It doesn't require many users for maintenance. 

I rate NetBackup six out of 10 for pricing. 

Veritas is becoming stable again, but two or three years ago, everyone was switching from Veritas to Commvault or emerging tools like Rubrik due to the bad support and high cost.

Today, everything is a converged backup solution with everything built in. However, Veritas started in the 1990s, so everything was added to that software. I think we need to have a very huge version change in Veritas to keep pace with modern requirements and simplify things.

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance seven out of 10 overall. 

It’s an enterprise solution. It is a preferred option for archiving data. It is useful, especially if we do not have a public cloud as a backup and need something to be resident in our data center. Veritas NetBackup Appliance comes in various tiers and sizes. It can accommodate any enterprise of any size.

We can add multiple appliances to the product. They are all interconnected. It is a valuable feature. The product provides security to our data. The data is encrypted from the client side all the way to the data source. With ransomware breaching a lot of organization's data, we need stability and sustainability in the environment. It provides good data protection and data governance.

The product should provide more AI and ML features.

I have been using the solution for more than nine years.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Though the vendor provides good support, it is always worth it for a company to have in-house skills. If the in-house skill is unable to resolve the issue, Veritas’ support team is just a phone call away.

Positive

The initial setup was very simple and easy. I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The appliance is on-premise. We can also utilize any hyperscalers for cloud storage and backup. The time taken for deployment varies depending on the client’s requirements. On average, the deployment can be done within a day. We need one engineer to deploy the product.

We need a backup solution that will last us a fair amount of time before looking at alternate solutions. Veritas is ongoing in terms of developing the actual software and appliances. It is a dependable organization to strike a partnership for backup. We have seen a 20% return on our investments.

I have never used tools like Rubrik or Brocade. Veritas works perfectly well. I haven't had a need to look at an alternative product. It is a robust tool. It provides both on-premise and cloud solutions. Innovation is built into the solution. Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.

Regarding use cases, it is used for backup.

In our organization, we like the flexibility of the solution. We have a very complex IT environment, and we are able to cover it from physical appliances and servers to virtual environments and different OS. It managed to cover it all.

Sometimes, the user interface doesn't work smoothly. As it is on Java clients, It has some disadvantages, like sessions need to be longer. It is closing too soon.

I have been using this solution for over sixteen years. We are using Veritas NetBackup Appliance Version 10 in our organization.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is very scalable. We are using it for an enterprise-sized organization.

The support is very good. Our engineers know our environment very much, and it's very helpful to try to resolve our problems and the device.

Everything depends on the enterprise. If you have all servers in a virtual environment, they could be covered by other products. However, we have a very complex setup with old operating systems like Slice, running on fixed physical servers that new products like Veeam cannot cover. Therefore, it may seem like an obvious solution.

The installation and configuration of the solution is easy.

So, every year there is something new.

If you already have backup targets, appliances, or other servers or storage, the first environment will be deployed within a few hours from the beginning. There are only two engineers required to deploy.

We also have maintenance services from Veritas. It works very well.

The solution is not cheap.

If you have a new backup software for a couple of clients, it works simply the best.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We are using Veritas NetBackup Appliance to save data and for data backups.

The most valuable features of Veritas NetBackup Appliance are the ease of use and the familiar interface.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance could improve by having a site recovery feature.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for approximately four years.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance is stable.

We have administrators that use the solution. We plan to increase the usage in the future.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance's initial setup is simple. The full implementation took approximately one day.

The reseller did the implementation of this solution for us.

There is a license needed to use Veritas NetBackup Appliance and there are not any additional fees.

This solution is very useful and stable.

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance a nine out of ten.

It's a backup solution. I use it for backup and recovery.

I like the solution. It works well. 

The integration to the VMware environment is good.

The documentation is okay. You are able to follow it and it is helpful.

One big feature which we really like is that it is a little bit immutable. There are a couple of storage locations.

I don't like the interface of Veritas. It could be improved. It's not that user-friendly right now.

It's hard to get to the backups. There are too many tabs.

It's like to see replication in Veritas.

The setup is a bit more complex than Veeam.

It's quite new. We implemented the product this year. 

It's very new. everything is working. It's quite stable and reliable. We haven't had any issues. 

We have three people using the solution right now. 

We are working with one model replaced as we're going to take a higher model. It is possible to scale. We're going to expand usage. 

We haven't been in touch with technical support.

We use both Veeam and Veritas. The platform is different from Veritas.

Working on Veeam, is very simple and very vertical, very English. With Veritas, you have to work on it to get into the backups. You have to go through so many tabs and menus to reach the backup. The way you handle it is more complicated than Veeam.

I don't see replication in Veritas. Right now, Replication is purely on the Veeam side. Veeam is doing both.

I did find the Veeam setup easier. 

It took us a day to deploy the product. It did not take long. 

I'd rate the ease of setup at a three out of five due to some general complexity. 

It's a new appliance. Right now, it is working fine. We don't really need to worry about maintenance. 

There were vendors involved in the deployment. We did not handle it on our own. 

I'm not involved in procurement and pricing. I can't speak to the exact cost.

My understanding is that the solution is a bit on the higher side in terms of cost.

We're working with the latest version of the solution. We are running a POC and will become a customer. 

I'd rate the solution five out of ten. The functionality is complex. I prefer Veeam.

I personally find Veritas NetBackup Appliance hassle-free. All that is needed is a web control or Java control to operate the NetBackup software, and I don't need to take care of anything else. 

The other valuable feature is the performance. When we deploy to a server and install network software on it, there is a lot to take care of. With Appliance, everything is on the go and is already pre-installed and fine-tuned. It already matches the performance and metrics. It is great for replication, network performance, CPU performance, and storage performance.

Veritas NetBackup is software, so there are multiple OS issues, OS packages, and updates.

I would like to see the Java control replaced with web control in the next release. There is currently web control, but it is confusing when using Java control. Web control requires no granular settings. Web control should be enhanced so that it looks and feels like Java control. This would enable a person switching from Java control to Web control to not be hesitant to adopt the web version. Currently, Web control is entirely different from Java control.

Veritas NetBackup would benefit from better-explained error codes. The technical documentation should be easy to read, easy to set up, and be more understandable. There are two or three possibilities for one single error, so Veritas should try to bifurcate or separate the issues so each has its own ID.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for a year.

Veritas NetBackup Applicance is stable.

The solution is scalable. It is sufficient for our existing environment. I have not encountered any situation where I have had to scale up the Appliance. Our administration team uses Veritas NetBackup. There are currently three people managing it.

I used customer service and support frequently during the initial setup because I was new to the product. Veritas support needs improvement. They contact you on time and follow up on time, but they are unable to understand the problem and develop a solution.

Neutral

NetBackup software is embedded into the appliance, so I do not need to worry about installation. The initial setup is very easy.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance is priced well compared to other solutions.

We compared Veritas NetBackup Appliance with Rubrik and Commvault HyperScale X. Veritas was more affordable and better priced. HyperScale X is very expensive. Veritas has a good reputation in the industry and a good market presence.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It has a lot of very good features. The virtual tape library (VTL) feature is most valuable. Overall, it is easy to use.

Feature-wise, it is quite good, but it is very costly. Its price has gone up quite significantly over the years, and that makes people like us look at alternatives.

I have been using this solution for more than 10 years.

Its stability is very good.

Its scalability is very good. We have installed it for hundreds of servers.

Their technical support is excellent.

It is quite easy. It is not super easy. We have a lot of different environments. Some of them are quite challenging, but the common environment is quite easy.

It is not good for small environments. It is good for huge and complex enterprise environments, and at the end of the day, you get an ROI. I don't recommend it for small environments because out of 50 features, you probably need only two or three features, but you have to pay for all the features. That's why it doesn't suit small environments. You see a return on investment in very complex, multi-platform environments. 

We pay annually. It is a huge figure for us.

It is probably among the top solutions. It has the most features that are there in the market, but its price is making us look at alternatives. We are looking at some of the other options, but we haven't explored many. We are open, and we are evaluating all of them.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We use the solution to back up everything we have, including SQL backup, Oracle, and VMware. It works very well. We like the solution and its price when compared with others. Data Domain and Veeam were fine, presenting the optimal solutions with the best prices. There was a period of many months that we had a lot of performance issues with Veritas NetBack Appliances, but since the upgrading has taken place it has worked very well. We do not encounter issues that are critical and the solution functions smoothly. 

The solution is the best for me, as it combines two solutions for use of our backup environment. Before 2016 we employed two solutions and it is now easier for us to manage our environment. 

The most valuable feature involves VMware Instant Recovery, which allows one to do restoration within seconds. It is very nice. We use it a lot for restoring VM.

The upgrade process of the solution needs to be improved since it is extremely complicated, especially without the benefit of a support person who can guide one through it. This can result in many problems. Occasionally we encounter issues with the backup process which necessitate support from Veritas. Consequently, I would highlight the upgrade process as being in need of improvement. 

We hope to see SQL Instant Recovery in the 9.0 version. It is the same as VMware Instant Recovery but its restoration processes are very fast, with the ability to handle a terabyte of data in a single minute. 

I have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance since 2015. 

I consider the product to be good and very stable, although there are many things in need of improvement, such as the upgrade process. 

From the research we conducted, scalability seems good, but I cannot properly comment on this point as the size of our environment is very small. 

I feel technical support could be better. When we first started making use of the solution, we had the benefit of local support in Brazil, but today this is only an option in the United States. The support is okay, but it can take a while to receive a definitive answer. One must go through the first layer of support before being escalated, a time-consuming process. Nowadays, I consider the support to be okay, not bad, but it used to be better. 

Prior to our use of Veritas NetBackup Appliance, in 2016, we utilized Avamar. Though Avamar was a good solution and worked well, we encountered many instances of interruption in data transmission. It was, initially, a good tool, with a good appliance workflow. However, the Avamar that has been made available within the past five years does not provide a good window to sync data with Veritas NetBackup Appliance. This process is time consuming, which necessitated our use of two applications for managing our backup environment. Once we switched from Avamar to Veritas Netbackup Appliance there was no more need for two applications and these were replaced with a single one for the entire management of our backup environment. 

The initial setup is okay. It is not very difficult. While the planning stage requires the use of much Veritas material, it's easy. This is because we are talking about an appliance which has everything predefined or preconfigured.

The deployment took a long time. I believe that the process lasted a month-and-a-half. This is because it required us to do many validations, as we were replacing our solution.

The department we engaged to assist us with the installation and appliance configurations of the solution was very helpful and we did not encounter any problems. The implementation was extremely nice. I should point out that when we bought the Appliance we didn't use NetBackup and everything was new to us. This said, we had to do much configuration and planning, as we were buying not only the appliance but the solution as well.

I cannot say whether our licensing costs are on a monthly or annual basis, as we have a global contract.

As the solution is towards the end of its life, we are looking to replace it with a new or different one. While we are considering the Data Domain by Dell EMC, we are also looking at an Appliance solution. This is because the Data Domain will still require the use of NetBackup, but will serve the purpose of acting as a storage destination. We will only use NetBackup as it relates to the Data Domain. I know much about the application and we are looking to book solutions here. We would be able to take all of our knowledge of Appliance, but to use NetBackup software for third party storage.  

Prior to going with Veritas NetBackup Appliance in 2016, we evaluated two other solutions, one of which was Data Domain. However, at the time, we decided to go with Veritas NetBackup Appliance because it offered better pricing than the other vendors, with Data Domain serving as an illustrative example. 

We have a total of three people working on the Veritas NetBackup Appliance environment, two for the short and one for the long retention.

The size of the backup is very important. If this is not accounted for in the beginning of the appliance stage, many problems can arise. This was the case in our use of Dell EMC and Avamar and with all other backup solutions. With Appliance we encountered site problems, Appliance did not work well with HashBackup and there were many backups which used batch files, something that led to compression and deduplication of the data. This required us to replace or dump files so that we could use an agent for providing a direct connection to the database server software. 

Once we changed the size of the backup, the problem was solved. The issue addressed is present not only with Veritas NetBackup Appliance, but with any solution that possesses deduplication architecture. 

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance as an eight out of ten. 

The deduplication that is on this solution is its most valuable aspect. It's very robust. 

Overall, how the operating system is tuned is perfect.

The hardware on offer has no parallel. I would say that it has been more than eight years now, and in all that time, I haven't had a single hard disk failure or even hardware failure on this appliance. It's in excellent condition and works perfectly.

I can confidently say that I have managed more than 30 or 50 appliances over different time periods, and yet I never had a single hardware failure.

It is a very robust and very good product from the appliance point of view, as well as the software point of view, however, you need to have a certain level of skills in order to operate it properly. You need to be experienced at a certain level to easily manage everything. In that sense, it's not straightforward.

It's very difficult, for example, if you need to analyze the logs. If you don't know what you're doing, if you're not very experienced, you will find it very difficult to do things yourself. It's an enterprise-level solution, after all, and it has a lot of things to do. That might be the reason why it is like this. It's not for entry-level people.

In terms of implementing the solution, it's quite technical. You need to be knowledgable in order to pull off a successful deployment.

We've been using the solution since about 2011. It's been almost a decade.

I would say that it is very stable. Obviously, I had faced a lot of issues. I can't say that it is an issueless solution, however, it is very stable. You can rely on it.

Basically, I never go with the latest version. I tend to go with N minus one - one version below. That way, if there are any issues with the latest version, I'll just give time. I wait at least six months for the vendor to sort everything out before I implement it into our production environment. At that point, I would say that it is very stable. Most of the time, the issue might not be on the solution or on the appliance side. It might be on the client-side. 

In terms of scalability, you can scale it up. You just need to buy the hardware. That's the only constraint. You need to buy an appliance and just add it. Basically, as long as you have the appliance or hardware, it's very easy to scale out.

I've had vast experience with technical support.

Most of the time, I'm pretty happy with their support. I would say that there were a few instances where I was not satisfied with the support that I received, however, overall, I would say that at least 70 to 80% of the time I am quite happy with the support.

I've worked with many different solutions. A lot of them are at the top of the industry. However, I prefer NetBackup above the others.

If you know what you're doing, it's a very easy initial setup. First-timers always find it difficult. That said, if you're using a GUI, it's very straightforward. You can just photo screen. However, if you're an experienced user, you'ld probably prefer to do it on the command line, for which you need to know what you're doing. 

We're not using the latest version of the solution. We're using N minus one.

As an enterprise-level solution, you may need a bigger team to manage it, depending on your organization's size. We need a big team. Basically, it depends on the size of the solution. In the past 10 years, I've worked in different companies. At one time, we had around 10 appliances, and we had multiple people managing everything. 

One guy alone will not be able to manage it, though it depends on the sizing. Basically, if you know there is a good guy who knows the in and out of an appliance, if it is one appliance and depending on how many machines we are backing up, he might be okay. There are lot of factors that have to be considered when building a team that can handle it.

My advice to other would be, if your environment is big enough, to be aware that your biggest major expense is the on-premise solution. Even though we have top cloud solutions, if you're on-premise, if the infrastructure is on-premise and it's a large enough infrastructure, and if you have a good team to manage, the best, the most dependable solution would be NetBackup. That's considering all the other big players. I'm talking about the enterprise level, where we need to manage more than 200, 300 machines, or 300 VMs, or 300 servers, and then you need to protect these machines.

Based on the options that we have, and based on the enterprise solutions that are in the market, there are maybe five to 10 big players. Out of that, I would say that NetBackup would rank either first or second. I have personal experience with some of the other products too, or I have reviewed most of them basically.

Based on my experience, even though I had multiple choices or options to move out of NetBackup, after reviewing everything, I went back to NetBackup or I decided, okay, fine, I'll renew NetBackup. 

Overall, I'd rate the solution at seven out of ten. There are lots of things that can be done from the administrative point of view that, if accomplished, would rank them higher.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance is a total backup solution. We don't have to buy other applications to do it. 

The tool's pricing is expensive and could be lower. 

I have been using the solution for over five years. 

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

The product is scalable, and I rate it a seven out of ten. My company has two users for the product. 

The solution's support is good. 

Veritas NetBackup Appliance's deployment is easy for me. However, it will be difficult for beginners. The tool's deployment takes one week to complete. 

I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten. 

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance an eight out of ten.