IDERA SQL Safe Backup Reviews

We use it to back up and restore databases.

It has reduced our backup time and simplified our backup processes across all the servers.

The compression, because it drastically reduces the disk space.

I would like to see the pieces that they have put in the web only to be put into the thick client sitting on the desktop client. They moved a lot of the features to their web-based version of it. Because of the large number of databases that we have along with our backup, their web product can't handle it. So, we can't use it. So, we are missing out on a lot of the new features.

The way the filtering goes, if you filter on your view, there is no indication that you have made a selection. Unless you can remember day-to-day that you may have something deselected or selected, your view may be different than you expect, and there is no visual indication of it.

Over the years, we have had stability issues. By and large, IDERA has been pretty good about addressing stability issues in a timely manner.

We do have trouble with scalability. We backup a large number of databases across our enterprise. It has a hard time handling the influx of backups when they happen all at once. We are backing up on average somewhere in the neighborhood of about 50,000 to 70,000 backups running during the course of the day. Sometimes, it has a hard time keeping up with this.

By and large, their tech support has been pretty good over the years. Recently, because we have been a customer of them for years, I know some of their tech support guys have moved on to other positions within the company. The tech support is lacking because of this.

The knowledge of the people there now along with the turnaround for stuff to get corrected is lacking. I had a support call with IDERA yesterday, and I am still waiting for a response back, not for this product, but for another one.

We did not previously use another solution.

The setup is pretty straightforward. A few prompts, and everything is installed.

The product's pricing is a good value. They have a straightforward licensing model.

I evaluated several products. This is one we chose, and this is the one we stuck with. We evaluated LiteSpeed and one other solution.

It has been a solid product for us over the years.

Make sure you check your backups on a regular basis. Backups do get missed with this tool, for whatever reason. We constantly have to look at backups that have been run to make sure that nothing got overlooked with the number of backups that we do and the number of databases that we back up with the tool. We have a little different environment than possibly somebody else. It may be easier for somebody to look quickly, and say, "Oh yeah. I missed a backup." 

I am not talking about an error. I am talking about an actual backup just being skipped. That is what I would caution people on.

Compression of standard backups is quite good and speed is pretty good too. I want to add additional comments here after the product has been in production use for 6 months - the total footprint of our backups has reduced drastically. It is far better than the native SQL compressed backup utility, and even though we are seeing approximately 1.4 : 1 de-duplication ratio (using compression at Level 3) we've saved so much space that we still have more than 33% free space on our backup appliances.

We've had a huge reduction in the nightly backup footprint size, even though it doesn't de-duplicate very well on the ExaGrid backup appliances. We've saved quite literally terabytes of space on our appliances. One of the biggest improvements it has made for us is that we can now recover 12 of our largest production servers into our DR site in about 4 hours and 15 minutes - this has dropped significantly from the previous RTO of about 12 hours!

Idera treats a backup of a SQL Server as if it is essentially a single backup job of each individual database. You can't see any metrics about how long it took you to backup the entire server. It doesn't handle restoration to different drives very easily, and it won't create folder structures if they don't exist already. It cannot be used to implement replication on another instance without first converting files back into SQL Server .bak files. There appears to be LOTs of shortcomings. [All of these short-comings are still very much present even after 6 months of feedback to Idera. No solution is in sight.] Still has a focus on individual databases and not for entire server recoveries. Have tried adjusting max threads values, but it seems to have little affect and Idera is still researching the issue.

We've been testing this product out since October 2015.

When using compression on backups, it does not generate the exact same sized compressed file twice in a row even on a static database and dedicated test server...therefore it inhibits de-duplication of data on backup appliances.

It does not provide any useful method of backing up an entire server instance and porting it to another server elsewhere which may be configured with different drive structure. It doesn't even pull the default data/log file locations from the Server properties when selecting the MOVE FILE option on a restore.

We have frequent needs to move around or replicate entire database servers, and this product isn't tailored to support anything but single database backup and recovery operations.

Other than licensing issues being required for different domains, it has been relatively stable.

Not so far, but we've only started using it on 4 of around 110 servers so far. We have our hands full trying to shake out many issues in order to keep it running in production mode so far. Revised: Now operational on 121 instances of SQL Server and no problems have been observed with scalability.

Poor. Still waiting (for 2 weeks now) to learn who our 3rd sales/customer representative will be. We've needed additional licenses to implement the product on our DMZ and still haven't gotten them. Not sure what the high turn-over rate bodes for us.

Pretty good as far as "how to" questions/issues, but absolutely terrible beyond that. No explanation in last 2 months about why it produces a different size backup file when using a fixed compression level. Numerous bugs have been reported. Support says that we will be placed on "interested party" list for fixes released in the future. For a supposedly mature product, it lacks basic functionality that the built-in Microsoft SQL Server backup/restore programs provide and being told we'll be added to interested party list isn't very satisfying.

Only the SQL Server built-in utility.

Somewhat complex, but okay I suppose.

In-house teams only.

A lot less than anticipated because we had hoped that we'd see much better de-duplication rates from our ExaGrid appliance. We don't see them because SQL Safe produces different sized backup files with every run.

I'd look around at other alternatives if you have a choice.

Remember to test out full backup and restore of a entire server to see if you like the way it works. Also - make sure that don't use this product if you have to run transactional replication - SQL Server doesn't work with .SAFE file types and running the Idera conversion utility took 5 times longer to create SQL backup file from a SAFE backup file than it does to just take the backup in SQL Server mode to begin with.

I do like the central management console where you can see a global status for all your backups and manage restores.

Not really. We wanted to switch to something better from Seagate EVault but our goals were to have a reliable tool and to monitor all the process related to backups and their restoration. SQLafe did not save us any money or changed our business processes.

Talking about disk space savings - we did not get any because we use Transparent Data Encryption and SQLsafe cannot compress backups in this case.

Lots of room for improvement. This thing is crumbling. I have never experienced anything as buggy as SQLsafe. Backup jobs can just stuck and you will find out about this in weeks later (everything in the onsole is green and shiny). New features are available only in the Web Console and it is barely working. UI is non-intuitive and simply horrible. Classic Console and Web Console have different functionality. You cannot minimize or maximize wizards and they are always on top. You cannot filter one type of backups (full, diff or log). If you have an error your only way to get rid of it from the console is to re-run a particular backup, another well-performed but scheduled backup does not count. And SQLsafe is full of this stuff. I regret buying it.

Several months.

Yes, sometimes agents just do not want to install automatically and you need to do this in manual mode. Sometimes services do not want to start. Sometimes you just need to contact their support and wait because you cannot understand why if everything is installed you still cannot connect an agent even with appropriate routing and shut down firewalls.

Yup. Usually I write one or two new letters to Idera support every week because something is wrong.

Idera is just interested in selling you something. Afterwards you can do what you want, they forget about your existence.

Satanic. If it is something from their Wiki they are ready to help. If not you can spend weeks until they shrug and tell you that they do not know what to do. I have something like ten tickets which are archived because I just got tired of giving them the same information over and over again. 5 tickets were forwarded to developers.

We used Seagate EVault before. We switched because it does not really suit SQL Server backups. It works better with simple files. EVault does not have any adequate central management.

The initial setup is too complex. Too many edit fields and check boxes. It is just over complicated without any purpose.

Do not buy it unless you have a hefty discount. Or do not buy it at all.

The main rivals was Dell's Lightspeed but is two times more expensive.

Ask for more testing licenses and test it in a complex environment. I believe we would not have bought it if our testing was more solid.