Senior IT Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
User
Jun 20, 2017
Avoid it until it matures. I would wait until they support: * Hyper-V: If that is important to you * VLANs: To capture backups outside of a single LAN * Cloud Recovery: Virtual firewall, VPN appliance. Better security and controls. Datto is now merged with AutoTask. This may have an impact on roll-out of new features, capabilities, as their focus will be integration with their in-house RMM. Hyper-V Integration: Datto has VMware ESXi integration – direct hypervisor level backup of each virtual machine works well. Unfortunately, it cannot do the same with Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Keep in mind that Datto is geared towards the SMB market, where Hyper-V is quite popular. Each Hyper-V VM must install the rather heavy agent (StorageCraft + VirtualBox component). Lack of VLAN: Datto does not have the ability to create virtual interfaces, or VLAN tagging. This becomes an issue if you have a VM located in another network or DMZ – the backup will have to be routed to the datto appliance. This is often the case with Hyper-V guests, as the issue is exacerbated by the inability to backup natively at the hypervisor. VirtualBox: Simulated disaster tests clearly show that the datto appliance cannot really replace a busy server. This becomes painfully obvious with SQL servers, SharePoint, and Exchange. Datto uses a low-end ZOTAC “PC” grade appliance, and often times with SATA drives and insufficient RAM when compared to a server. How can it truly measure up to a real server with 128GB of RAM, RAID-5 or 10 with 8+ HDD? The answer: it does not. Datto is now rolling out KVM support, so expect better performance. Cloud Recovery: This has to be done with assistance from Datto support, in both real and simulated conditions. To simulate a disaster and cloud recovery, you need to schedule ahead of time (10 business days, last I checked) to obtain an engineer. Now, the recovery point will also be about two weeks old at this point, which for testing purposes is not a major issue. Unfortunately, the interface that Datto provides is quite primitive. You have the ability to console into the VM, and some port forwarding (For RDP, HTTP), but that’s it. Networking needs to be defined ahead of time (such as DMZ VMs, or VLANs). You will also need to reconfigure all the networking under Windows and Linux. There is no Firewall or VPN virtual appliance provided. In a real-world, complete disaster scenario, a client would have limited access to their “cloud servers” – unless you have a remote desktop server in your topology. Not only is your recovered infrastructure at greater risk/exposure to the Internet from the lack of a specialized Firewall, you also have to deal with limited connectivity. Anyone who takes the cloud recovery as a serious option, needs to plan and anticipate that need. You will need an OpenVPN client, or similar to connect securely to your "cloud" recovery area. I really wanted to like Datto. Their marketing is slick, no doubt about it. I expect that certain limitations are due to the fact that Datto does not own the backup technology used – it is based on StorageCraft. All Datto does is a web interface wrapper, built on Zotac generic brand appliances. They leverage opensource in almost every other aspect, but unfortunately they have weak implementations.
Datto Cloud Continuity for PCs is much more than just cloud backup. MSPs can protect clients’ Windows-based computers from downtime and data loss and more importantly, rapidly recover data if disaster strikes.
Avoid it until it matures. I would wait until they support: * Hyper-V: If that is important to you * VLANs: To capture backups outside of a single LAN * Cloud Recovery: Virtual firewall, VPN appliance. Better security and controls. Datto is now merged with AutoTask. This may have an impact on roll-out of new features, capabilities, as their focus will be integration with their in-house RMM. Hyper-V Integration: Datto has VMware ESXi integration – direct hypervisor level backup of each virtual machine works well. Unfortunately, it cannot do the same with Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Keep in mind that Datto is geared towards the SMB market, where Hyper-V is quite popular. Each Hyper-V VM must install the rather heavy agent (StorageCraft + VirtualBox component). Lack of VLAN: Datto does not have the ability to create virtual interfaces, or VLAN tagging. This becomes an issue if you have a VM located in another network or DMZ – the backup will have to be routed to the datto appliance. This is often the case with Hyper-V guests, as the issue is exacerbated by the inability to backup natively at the hypervisor. VirtualBox: Simulated disaster tests clearly show that the datto appliance cannot really replace a busy server. This becomes painfully obvious with SQL servers, SharePoint, and Exchange. Datto uses a low-end ZOTAC “PC” grade appliance, and often times with SATA drives and insufficient RAM when compared to a server. How can it truly measure up to a real server with 128GB of RAM, RAID-5 or 10 with 8+ HDD? The answer: it does not. Datto is now rolling out KVM support, so expect better performance. Cloud Recovery: This has to be done with assistance from Datto support, in both real and simulated conditions. To simulate a disaster and cloud recovery, you need to schedule ahead of time (10 business days, last I checked) to obtain an engineer. Now, the recovery point will also be about two weeks old at this point, which for testing purposes is not a major issue. Unfortunately, the interface that Datto provides is quite primitive. You have the ability to console into the VM, and some port forwarding (For RDP, HTTP), but that’s it. Networking needs to be defined ahead of time (such as DMZ VMs, or VLANs). You will also need to reconfigure all the networking under Windows and Linux. There is no Firewall or VPN virtual appliance provided. In a real-world, complete disaster scenario, a client would have limited access to their “cloud servers” – unless you have a remote desktop server in your topology. Not only is your recovered infrastructure at greater risk/exposure to the Internet from the lack of a specialized Firewall, you also have to deal with limited connectivity. Anyone who takes the cloud recovery as a serious option, needs to plan and anticipate that need. You will need an OpenVPN client, or similar to connect securely to your "cloud" recovery area. I really wanted to like Datto. Their marketing is slick, no doubt about it. I expect that certain limitations are due to the fact that Datto does not own the backup technology used – it is based on StorageCraft. All Datto does is a web interface wrapper, built on Zotac generic brand appliances. They leverage opensource in almost every other aspect, but unfortunately they have weak implementations.