Veritas NetBackup Appliance Reviews

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.

There are a lot of new features that operate to protect the data from ransomware attacks. They launched the Veritas/Appliances to protect our data. Veritas has been doing its job well.

I have used Veritas NetBackup Appliance within the last 12 months.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance is stable.

I have found Veritas NetBackup Appliance to be scalable.

They provide a good level of support.

The initial setup is straightforward.

This solution is expensive.

The main difference between Veritas Netbackup and NetBackup Appliance is the NetBackup Appliance provides the built-up system. They have one operating system and they have their own storage in the network of the appliances. We can use our external storage. For example, we can use our storage from Dell, IBM, any other vendor. These are the main differences, with Appliances, everything is in-built.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance an eight out of ten.

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. 

We have a library attached that we back up and store off-site, on a weekly basis. 

It only offers NDMP backup capabilities, we follow a traditional method. Mostly, we are creating backups of NetApp's shares.

We think the latest products and hybrid solutions are great, but considering the amount of data backup we have to perform — hundreds of BB data —, the hybrid model is not that efficient if we want to off-site data; it takes a lot of time to upload the data on a regular basis. 

The reporting is very good compared to other tools. Even though Commvault has some better features, the Veeam/Veritas center is a very good feature; it's really helpful for our reporting purposes. To clarify, I am referring to Veeam and Veritas NetBackup, as we have applied them both.

Because Veritas NetBackup Appliance is integrated with the cloud, it's hard to say. The block-level backup features could be improved.

I have been using this solution for three years.

This solution is both scalable and stable. Everyone in our company uses it and there are no issues.

The technical support is very good; I would give them a nine out of ten.

They have a standard two-hour response time but sometimes the response times vary. That needs to change.

We have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for a long time and never switched. Initially, we were using NetBackup. 

The integration was easy.

Overall, Veritas is a good solution; the problem is the cost. For a large enterprise, it's great.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

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.

We primarily use the solution for backup and for testing in the system.

I'm not extremely technical, so I'm not sure if I could discuss the benefits of certain features in great detail.

The solution overall has all the features we need.

The pricing is pretty good. We don't find it to be too expensive for us.

The solution is pretty easy to use. Users can easily learn as they go. There are other solutions on the market which are much more difficult. Some, like IBM, need specialists to handle them. That's not the case with NetBackup.

The solution has a very easy-to-navigate user interface.

There aren't any real outstanding features. Right now, the solution works well for us, and I don't think there's much missing per se.

It would be a better solution if we were able to make more reports in regards to the backup system.

I've been working with the solution for three years.

The stability of the solution is quite good. Any problems or issues are resolved quickly and they don't affect the overall reliability of the product.

The scalability of the solution is good, from what I understand. I've never tried to scale myself, however, I know individuals who have and they have told me it's quite easy to do. If an organization needs to scale, they should be able to do so using this solution.

Our organization has about 600 employees and has just about 14 terabytes of data within its servers. We use the solution quite extensively.

I've personally dealt with technical support in the past and I can say that I'm satisfied with their service. They are quite responsive. They know what they are talking about. They always help us solve any issues we have.

This is the only backup solution we're currently using. However, we previously used an IBM solution. It was ultimately difficult to use and we needed a specialist to run it, which is why we switched to this solution.

We have a team that handles the setup and management of the solution. I didn't handle the setup myself. I couldn't say, from experience, if it was difficult or not, however, I don't recall the team running into issues or requiring outside assistance.

Our in-house team handled the deployment. We didn't require the assistance of a specialist.

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with the solution.

The pricing is okay. It's not too expensive.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The solution offers good scalability and stability. It's easy to navigate and offers good pricing. For the most part, what we need is right there, however it could use better reporting.

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. 

Veritas NetBackup Appliance's most valuable feature is information backup. It works fast to back up and restore the data using snapshots.

There are a few people in Veritas NetBackup Appliance's community support. In case of technical issues, it becomes difficult to find solutions from other users. They should improve this area so that customers can resolve issues correctly. Additionally, an auto command feature could be included in it, similar to Rubrik.

We have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for one year.

The product is stable compared to Veeam.

It is a scalable platform. We have less than 20 users for it in our organization. At present, we are evaluating the virtualized infrastructure. Based on the report, we will decide on expansion.

The technical support services could be better. 

Positive

The product's price is high. Although, we need to buy appliances, which makes the pricing competitive compared to Rubrik and Veeam.

It can restore data in case of any crisis. They should improve security features for ransomware attacks similar to Rubrik. I never encountered any event of malicious activity using Rubrik.

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance a seven out of ten.