Dell Data Protection Advisor Reviews

We use Dell Data Protection Advisor for backup operations. Dell Data Protection Advisor is very useful for the central view of the whole backup process, monitoring success and failed backups, and the status of all products which are used in production and other environments. The predictive analytics feature in Dell Data Protection Advisor provides predictions about backup size and capacity for future periods.

The most common use case is gathering data, monitoring, and reporting our backup infrastructure from a central point. We are using Dell Data Protection Advisor for all customers.

The benefits of Dell Data Protection Advisor are that deployment and enablement are very easy. You can see everything in the backup infrastructure centrally. The real-time data gathering and monitoring process is robust. The predictive analytics feature in Dell Data Protection Advisor provides predictions about backup size and capacity for future periods.

Dell Data Protection Advisor is somewhat complicated, but this depends on the software limitations. However, you can scale it if you work on the virtualization platform. There are no limitations regarding scalability.

I have worked with Dell Data Protection Advisor since 2004, approximately 11 years.

Dell Data Protection Advisor is really stable because we use it for all customers, with over 300 customers using Dell Data Protection Advisor. All backup operations are monitored in Dell Data Protection Advisor platform, and versioning is important. The current versions are stable.

The technical support of Dell rates a perfect 10. Our operation team is authorized and certified with Dell products. Their core business is selling protection solutions, which is excellent. We rarely need to seek support from the vendor for this product.

Positive

The initial setup of Dell Data Protection Advisor is not complicated. You can deploy it in a very short time.

The pricing of Dell Data Protection Advisor is very competitive among other vendors, and the license model is more economical than other vendor products.

Dell Data Protection Advisor is very useful for the central view of the whole backup process, monitoring success and failed backups, and the status of all products which are used in production and other environments. We are a Titanium partner of Dell. Our corporation is a cloud provider locally, and we sell this solution to all customers who take managed service and cloud services from our corporation.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Dell Data Protection Advisor an 8.

The main use case is data privacy.

The solution includes compliance management features such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS.

From the integration perspective, Dell Data Protection Advisor can integrate with VMware, physical tape library, other backup solutions, Oracle solution, and CA Arcserve, making it a comprehensive solution.

From a service perspective, improvements are needed at Dell because when customers call, it takes a long time to get a response for calls or emails.

Response time is the main problem that needs addressing.

I have been with HCL for 17 years, and for most of that time, I performed data center transformation with Dell and HP, which has made me aware of most of their products.

I have never found any glitch in any Dell solution to date. I have worked with Dell for more than 20 years now without encountering any issues.

There are some limitations regarding scalability, though I am not certain about the specific details.

I cannot provide an example of those limitations.

I would rate support at seven or eight; while it is not particularly bad, it needs some improvements.

Positive

The deployment and initial setup with Dell Data Protection Advisor is very easy and not very complicated to deploy.

From a customer perspective, this is definitely a good solution financially as it protects their privacy, and currently customers are primarily focused on data privacy.

The product is satisfactory regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing.

VMware is the leading vendor due to their customer support and user-friendly product, while Dell holds the second position.

I am currently working with other companies on data center solutions.

In our data center, we work with HP, Dell, and Nutanix on data center build-up and migrations.

I work with Dell Data Protection Advisor for cloud, though not extensively, and we provided that solution to one customer and are awaiting their approval.

I am a reseller and service provider. We implemented Dell Data Protection Advisor for data privacy, and another team handles data protection and related issues.

I did not work extensively on specific features, so nothing particularly stands out.

From my reseller and end customer perspective, I would rate Dell Data Protection Advisor an eight out of ten as it is a good solution.

As a system engineer, I am deploying Dell Data Protection Advisor solutions, especially in the areas of protection like Avamar, NetWorker, and Data Domain. Our team has deployed these solutions for three organizations in Africa and India.

Dell Data Protection Advisor provides proactive support by giving predictions before any problems occur. It also offers valuable information about the usage of disk space and directions on adding capacity to target devices. This makes the system very beneficial for our clients.

The product's ability to give predictions and advice on how to protect data is incredible. The integration with other Dell Data Protection solutions is also seamless. The product provides a single sign-on and has its own data store to store information. These features are necessary from my perspective.

At present, I have not encountered any significant issues that require improvement. However, some minor adjustments could be made regarding the graphical interface and customization options. In terms of pricing, it could also be adjusted to be more competitive.

I have been providing services using Dell products in my company for the last three years. Our company has been working with Dell solutions for over fourteen years.

From one to ten, I would rate the stability of Dell Data Protection Advisor as ten. It is very reliable.

I would rate the scalability of the product as ten out of ten. It is simple to deploy and expand, whether in Linux or Windows environments.

I have had a very positive experience with Dell's technical support. The support team is responsible, provides thorough explanations, and responds quickly to our issues. Therefore, I would rate their customer service highly.

Positive

In addition to Dell solutions, we have worked with other vendors such as Veeam. However, Dell provides discounts and seamless integration, which makes it our preferred choice.

The initial setup is straightforward. Dell Data Protection Advisor can be deployed within three to four hours in single data protection applications. The integrated data protection appliance (IDPA) might take longer.

Our team of eight members specializes in modern data center and cloud deployment. We do not rely on third-party services and handle the implementation ourselves.

I am not directly involved in pricing decisions. From what I have seen, the product is competitively priced.

We have considered other backup and security solutions from different vendors, but Dell’s integration and discounts make it more attractive.

Dell Data Protection Advisor is a highly compatible and effective solution for data protection. It is particularly beneficial in preventing ransomware attacks. For the best use, it's important to undergo necessary training beforehand.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

The solution is primarily used for reporting. In the user environment the client has different queries so reports are needed to understand the size of the data that will be backed up for a week or a month. Basing on that we can forecast the size to which the data will grow. For instance, if a backup is is failing  continuously for three days, days, then it triggers an alert  for us  so that customer can pay some attention. 

The reporting feature and the Dell's continuous improvement of the solution are the most valuable features. The solution not only supports Dell Power Products but also other products. 

The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users.

I have been using Dell Data Protection Advisor for more than seven years. 

The stability of the solution is good. I rate it nine out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. There are many users using the solution from mid-range to high range enterprise customers. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment of the solution takes three hours. 

If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing. 

If customers are depending on enterprise products, then one can hopefully go and use this DPA. And and apart from that, you have a wonderful support from Dell EMC, and in case if you want to have not a predefined reports, if you want to have a customer's reports, there are Dell engineers who can help you with that.

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

We use Dell EMC Data Protection Advisor to receive reports on the health of the daily backups of our data in our organization. The reports give us information in many areas, such as capacity, compression, high and lowest deduplication, workloads, and the number of failures.

The solution is easy to use, flexible and has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality. You can configure the dashboards or you can use a script. However, to fully utilize its capabilities you will want to use a lot of scripts which you will need advanced training. The reports can be customized for many things, such as chargeback billing.

Additionally, we are using this solution for Dell, but Data Protection Advisor (DPA) can be used for other backup solutions, such as NetBackup, pfSense, and Veeam Backup. However, you would have to have a license.

There is a steep learning curve to use the interface and to create new reports, this could be made easier. If the solution could provide more drag and drop functionality to build more advanced reports that would be very helpful.

In an upcoming release, there could be more analytics for our data giving us more detail. The types of information I would like to see from the backups would be, for example, how many files are old, what are the large file sizes, or unstructured or structured data. Additionally,
many other solutions today are able to tell you a lot of additional information, such as how much space is used in your backups or other information if you change your policies. It can also give you advice on how to optimize your environment for the backups to allow cost savings. DPA should follow suit to stay competitive and it would provide a great benefit to users.

I have been using this solution for approximately seven years.

The solution is stable.

In our data center managed services environment, there is not a very large space where we have a team of approximately 15 people using the solution.

Technical support is good and they provide break/fix support. Anything that does not work or your DPA has an issue they are helpful. If you upgrade the solution using standalone DPA and you wish to upgrade it to a higher level, they will give you support documentation on how to do it. Alternatively, they will show you how to do it, but they will not assist you with the actual deployment unless you run into a problem them then there will come in as prefix support.

The initial setup is straightforward. It comes built-in with IDPA. Previously, if you were using this solution separately, with a license for NetWorker, and you bought Dell EMC Data Protection Advisor then you would have to install it. Otherwise, if you are using an appliance, such as IDPA, then it comes built-in and there is no effort to install. There are a lot of built-in reports that are easy to select the type and pick the destination devices, such as Avamar, NetWorker, and Data Domain. Once you have selected those parameters and scheduled them, you are done. If you want to save the report to a portal or to an email it is flexible.

If you are doing the installation separately it could take a couple of hours to install and configure. However, the time will also depend on your environment and it may take quite some time to configure new reports in that new environment as they have to be configured manually.

For the main deployment, we had professional services from DELL do the IDPA and some other aspects of the installation, but they did not need to work specifically on DPA. We did the configuration of the reports. 

If you want more advanced reporting you need to engage with professional services if you do not have skilled employees to do the configuration.

The people who designed and configured the reports are limited in my organization. There are a couple of people who do the design of the reports and management. The rest of them receive the reports as end-users. Additionally, there are times we send the reports to management to get customized for customers.

You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately.

I have evaluated many other backup solutions, such as NetBackup, pfSense, and Veeam Backup.

My advice to others is if you are using Dell EMC, DPA is a must. You are going to need a good reporting tool and DPA is the tool that is required to provide that level of reporting. 

It is worth noting, DPA comes with the same data protection advisor bundled with Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) and you would be using the same reports.

I rate Dell EMC Data Protection Advisor an eight out of ten.

We use the product for data protection purposes.

The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention.

Dell Data Protection Advisor's feature for data domain protection needs enhancement.

We have been using Dell Data Protection Advisor for 15 years.

It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

Dell Data Protection Advisor has efficient scalability capabilities, effectively accommodating diverse networks and client infrastructures.

The technical support services are good.

Positive

Veeam is suitable for small businesses, while DPA is preferred for enterprise-level companies.

It is simple to install and configure.

DPA helped us generate around 75% of ROI in a very short period.

The product is affordable.

I recommend Dell Data Protection Advisor to others and rate it a ten out of ten.

The tool is used as a backup for Dell clients. 

I can increase the tool's licensing as per my requirement with no conditions applied. 

We have encountered issues where we were unable to pull data from the database server. It should also improve the backward compatibility. 

I have been working with the solution for five to six years. 

I would rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten. The solution is rock solid with no issues.

I would rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. My company has more than 200 users for the solution. 

The tool's tech support is very helpful. For level one support, we have Dell-certified engineers in our own organization who provide the basic troubleshooting requirements. There is a regional office in Bangladesh where we can request for technical help. We can reach the tool's support via email and toll-free numbers. 

Positive

The solution's setup is straightforward. The duration of deployment depends on how much data the client has to pull up for backup. If there is only one machine, then deployment can be completed in one to two hours. However, it can also take about three months to complete, depending on the scale of the solution. You would need one admin to oversee the backup policies. 

You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten. 

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I'm using this solution for backup. We upload our backup to the cloud, but it is not a hybrid environment. I use it for backup mostly and access the backup on-premise. We are resellers.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

We have plans to increase usage of backup and deduplication that we are going to apply to end users.

As an example, we improved our RTO and RPO. Before using this solution, we had a ransomware event and suffered because of it.

The deduplication is probably the most valuable feature of that requirement.

It is difficult to manage the solution with the available tools. You need to know exactly what are you are doing. In some cases, we needed to contact Dell to solve some problems.

I have been using this solution for about two years.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is great.

The solution is not that easy to use, but Dell's support is great.

Initial setup was complex. I would rate it 3 out of 5.

We required two people for deployment and maintenance.

We used a consultant.

We have seen ROI in the two years we have been using the solution.

For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable.

There are a lot of additional fees, because we needed consultants to implement the solution. The majority of the cost of the implementation was consultants.

We evaluated Veeam Backup. The price was the reason for our decision to use Dell, and because it includes the data store.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

It would be a 10 for me if there were more features for disaster recovery. For someone who wants to implement this solution, my advice is that they need advanced knowledge about the solution. It can't be implemented without technical experience.

We do not use it very often because the other data domain products that we use make it obsolete. 

DPA only has value as a reporting tool for auditors. It has provided no value as a tool to improve the efficiency of our backup environment. 

DPA can provide daily report cards for our auditors, which fulfills our reporting requirements. 

The functionality of the Data Protection Advisor is limited and is something that is lacking in this solution. Other solutions like CloudIQ and DDMC provide a much better outlook on how data protection should be done. DDMC provides a single pane of glass overview of our PowerProtect systems and CloudIQ can predict future issues based on current trends. DPA, contrary to it's name, provides no ability to advise. It only runs simple reports based on imported data.

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a stable solution. 

I would rate this solution a three out of ten. 

Our use is limited to backup and recovery.

It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs. As far as creating customer ports this solution has definitely evolved and become more of a construct to where you can build reports as long as you know your data sets and really customize them for your customer's environment.

In the same hindrance — this is a plus and a minus —, because Data Protection Advisor is a multi-platform, multi-vendor product, if you look for something that you know is called X in one product, it may not be called X in DPA. Column for column, that creates a mapping challenge. An example would be policy. In policy, it's called "group" in DPA.

There's always room for improvement. EMC, Dell as of late has dragged behind in their Java protocol, keeping up with Java and security vulnerabilities. They should empower their customers with the ability to upgrade this solution as long as it's in the same major release or in another way that allows those security vulnerabilities to be addressed quicker.

I'd like to see better hooks into other analytic applications, like Splunk. That's really a partnership relationship versus EMC Dell control.

I have been using Dell EMC Data Protection Advisor for almost a decade.

For the most part, it serves my needs. There hasn't really been a report that I can't create as long as the data is collected for the backup product. Regarding general ability, it's fairly light on the agent side for the clients.

Throughout the years they've been very, very good. In the early days, I ran into some SQL corruption back in the 5X. When they went to 6X, they redid their database; there was definitely a performance change and some different nuances. They did pretty well over the duration.

The initial setup all depends on what your requirements are for deployment. In a simple lab, it's very easy to deploy. If you're setting up a two-data store and application server, there is a little more to it because you've got to deal with that secondary data store, but also if you're dealing with it in a cluster, there's another level of complexity. It's all dependent on how you're deploying it.

As an engineer architect, ROI is not really my area of focus. Does it provide from a technical perspective, what I need? Yes, to do my job.

Know your client and understand their policies. Licensing is a big one, which a lot of people get messed over.

overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.