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Backup & Recovery Section Head at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Mar 20, 2021
Scalable with a straightforward setup and good performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable and offers a good level of performance."
  • "The product could be more convenient in terms of working with different solutions and having more integration between the different products in the market."

What is our primary use case?

I'm using the backup email feature with the hypervisor backup on VMware. I'm also working with different databases.

What is most valuable?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The solution is very stable and offers a good level of performance. 

The product can scale if a company needs it to.

We've noticed that technical support has recently gotten much better.

What needs improvement?

We've had issues with the solution not restoring certain environments. There also issues we find when we want to restore, for example, a cloud environment.

The product could be more convenient in terms of working with different solutions and having more integration between the different products in the market. It really should integrate better with, for example, VMware or Nutanix or Hyper-V. It would be really, really helpful if that were the case.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've dealt with the solution for the last three years or so.

Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product has been stable. There are no bugs or glitches. So far, it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product can scale if a company needs it to. It does have the potential to expand as needed.

In our company, we have about 1,300 people using it.

How are customer service and support?

When I started to work with Commvault product, it wasn't very good, however, there has been a huge development in service. Their support is now working fine. They're much more helpful and professional. They've come a long way. We're satisfied with the progress they've made. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also worked with other products, such as NetBackup and Veeam.

The pricing is a place where they all vary. While Commvault is cheaper than Veeam, it's more expensive than NetBackup. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not overly difficult or complex. It's simple. It's straightforward.

I'm unsure as to how many people are required to maintain the solution. It's not an aspect of the product that falls under my responsibility.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution isn't the cheapest. It's also not the most expensive. It's basically somewhere in the middle. However, it's a fine price. It's what you would expect to pay for a full solution. That said, for some environments, it could be considered a bit expensive.

What other advice do I have?

We are resellers.

I would advise those considering the solution, that, if they use it in conjunction with Nutanix, there may be some limitations. You can't back up, for example, on Nutanix and restore things to Veeam or other environments.

That said, we're mostly satisfied with the solution. I'd rate the product at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1096965 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator Team Leader at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 24, 2020
Excellent technical support, good visualization, and a pretty straightforward setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The product is a reliable solution."
  • "We've faced problems backing up our virtual machines."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for all infrastructure. We're using it for the five pillars and for database backups and management.

What is most valuable?

The visualization backup is the most important aspect for us. It provides snapshot protection. 

The digital application and the compression of the disc at the storage site are great. That's one of the best features of this solution.

Technical support is very helpful.

What needs improvement?

We've faced problems backing up our virtual machines. A few of them, at least. However, we opened a ticket, and then we found out how to troubleshoot this issue and how to do a snapshot backup. We were able to understand exactly what was the root cause of the issue and a solution was provided to us.

We have already submitted a feature enhancement request to Commvault. They are working on it. That's in relation to the Commvault Metallic and is related to the workflow approval. We requested they implement workflow approval, just in case you want to allow, for example, general users to access the Commvault Metallic and browse what mailboxes they need to check if it is approved by the legal department. We can run them independently, this access without even referring back again to the IT division, however, we requested the workflow has to be based on approved access.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for a year and a half at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is a reliable solution. We have experienced only one case where there was a total shutdown and a total disruption of service. This was a weird case. We were able to sort it out and submitted the case for investigation to understand what the root cause might have been. Later on, we had to upgrade a few things. However, since then, we haven't had any issues whatsoever. I'd describe the solution as quite stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of scalability, it is a skill level solution. You can scale up at any time by adding additional nodes.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is always good. Most of the time the call comes from the U.S. They don't have local support. They are always providing remote support in the U.S. and India. Most of the calls come from those two countries, however, we find that we get help mainly from the U.S.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward. We had a proper prerequisites exit sheet. We filled it out properly at the outset and the architecture was very clear. We started with the architecture. We were able to understand all of the components in this hyper-scale design, and we submitted a change request to our infrastructure. We were able to meet all of the requirements on time. We started up the implementation shortly after that.

In the end, it was a straightforward design. There was nothing too complex.

In terms of maintenance, we usually do a health check which is basically a checklist we run through in the morning. The system will still struggle from time to time if there are any recent updates that need to be done. It is a system that does the update by itself, and it shares with you all types of events that need to be taken care of. Therefore, it's pretty automated.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We bought the solution and the agreement was for three years. We simply pay in installments for three years. We'll do the payment at the beginning of every year. 

What other advice do I have?

We're just a customer.

We do recommend the solution. However, a company needs to look again into why they need it. With Commvault, you can deploy on-premise or on the cloud. It is compatible with several cloud vendors. However, the deployment depends on what you need it for. For example, if you need to back up Office 365, then there are two solutions from the providers, from Commvault. Recently they have started talking about Commvault Metallic. They started trying to promote it in other regions. We've done a profound study in the Commvault Metallic for our Office 365 in the past. We compared it with two more products. We compared it to a Barracuda email protection and we compared it also with Veeam.

Any company should do the same and run comparisons. They need to know exactly for what purpose do they need to acquire the solution. If it is for Office 365 then there are two solutions for that. One of them is the Commvault Metallic, and it is a SaaS model. The SaaS model is fully manageable. The user will not even look into infrastructure. It will be fully managed by the Commvault team in the background. There is no need to worry about the storage consumption on Azure if you also choose to go with Microsoft Azure cloud. When you need infrastructural backup, then there is the Commvault hyper-scale solution. That's the only available option and is very powerful.

Overall, I would rate the solution ten out of ten. We've been very happy with it so far.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Mark Torpy - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Protection Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 19, 2020
Seamlessly backs-up and restores data and information
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very user-friendly. It supports a wide range of workloads. It's quite easy to use, it's very powerful and it's scalable."
  • "We've run into some issues when attempting to restore very large numbers of files. Of course, that's more of a design issue."

What is our primary use case?

It's an enterprise backup tool. It is the competitor to Dell and IBM, TSM and Symantec NetBackup, or rather what's called Veritas NetBackup. 

It's an enterprise data protection tool. It's almost in the top three or four solutions out there.  

We have one environment with 500 servers, and another environment with 1,000 servers.

We definitely plan to continue using Commvault. We basically support the customers, their MSP. We use Dell as our own data center MSP product but we are supporting this for other customers.

What is most valuable?

It's a very good competitor database.

It's very user-friendly. It supports a wide range of workloads. It's quite easy to use, it's very powerful and it's scalable.

It's got the ability to do automation, that's another good thing about it. It's got workflow automation built-in. It enables you to automate certain tasks.

It can create backups, restore, and be used for DR testing. It's got all those features which are better than many other tools out there. It also has good reporting as well. 

It has a very easy-to-use interface that allows you to do everything within a single pane of glass — everything is right there. It's superior to many products in terms of its management interface.

What needs improvement?

We've run into some issues when attempting to restore very large numbers of files. Of course, that's more of a design issue. For example, if you have, say, 10 million small files with added encryption, and you want to restore them, it can end up taking days to restore them. That is a file-level restoring operation. One option is to go for Image Level backup and restore the entire image, which is much faster. Then you can extract whatever data you want from that image.

IntelliSnap is a storage snapshot application for storage snapshots. The tool is very good but we could not use it because we didn't have compatible storage. That would've helped us a lot because that's one of the very few tools which integrates with lots of storage products out there. It's very flexible, very easy-to-use. We had the VMware vSAN version which is not supported by Commvault IntelliSnap. 

The thing about Commvault is there are a lot of moving parts. You have to design it properly for resources, hardware and software, and licensing because you can install it on any of your Intel servers and then you can use any other storage as the destination. It just comes down to proper lower-level design in sizing.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for the past five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Commvault is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The environment can scale nicely. It's got the ability to scale for multi-node clusters, but you need to ensure that you keep it updated.  

How are customer service and technical support?

Commvault support is usually very, very responsive and they always help us quickly resolve any problems that we may have — they are excellent.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very easy, actually. We did it within one day.

What about the implementation team?

We had a professional service engagement with Commvault and they did it in a matter of roughly one day. Implementation and configuration of the policies — it only took one day to set it up and test it.

We needed to have professional assistance from Commvault as it can be a little difficult to deploy. It can be done, but it's always handy to have professional assistance from Commvault factored into your own solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Capacity licensing is very good with Commvault.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend using Commvault. On a scale from one to ten, I would give Commvault a rating of eight.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1062186 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Manager at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Nov 8, 2020
Good backup and restore capability for physical and virtual servers, but the reporting needs to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "This product has allowed us to recover data when we've had issues."
  • "It is a little more complicated than it really needs to be."

What is our primary use case?

I am primarily using Commvault for backing up the physical and virtual servers.

How has it helped my organization?

This product has allowed us to recover data when we've had issues.

What is most valuable?

This product does what it says it's going to do, and generally backs up the data that you want it to back up.

What needs improvement?

It is a little more complicated than it really needs to be.

Reporting could definitely be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault, personally, for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It works, and there are definitely some bugs, but nothing major.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As it gets larger, it gets a lot more complex in terms of the configuration. Generally, the larger it gets, the harder it is to manage. We probably have about 1,000 servers right now that it is backing up.

How are customer service and technical support?

In general, technical support is okay. I would rate them a seven out of ten.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to Commvault, we used Tivoli Storage Manager from IBM. It is a bit lacking in terms of features, compared to Commvault.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was relatively straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is a little bit high.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing Commvault is to do their research. It's a good product for most use cases, although it's not the best. My main complaint is that it needs better reporting.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1131192 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Senior Systems Engineer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Nov 1, 2020
Easy to use with great technical support and easily integrates across platforms
Pros and Cons
  • "They have a strong development team and are market leaders in the space."
  • "The solution needs better Office 365 data backup management."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution as a backup.

How has it helped my organization?

Our other solution deploys every agent on every single server, and then you back up that way. However, when you have to deploy to the APIs using the Commvault to their instance, due to the fact that we are a VMware shop, we are capable of leveraging the snapshot capability within the VPI. And then we back it up, the entire VM.

The license is counted as one VM. The other option is based on the capacity model. The cost on a capacity model is more expensive than the VM path model. That's why we switched. The functionality is very similar. 

What is most valuable?

The VSA, the virtual system agent backup, is the most useful aspect of the solution for our organization. Based on our use case, it cuts our costs significantly. Early on, when we had the software at one point, we were using the front-end data protection, the DPE model, with the licensing using an agent. Then, as the technology continued to evolve, they added additional features like the VSA path, VM path model and other things. We are switching from the DPE model to the VSA model. That helped us to eliminate some of the costs.

Once you get comfortable with the solution, it becomes pretty easy to use.

People are going to be very impressed with that kind of support that they get from Commvault. It's excellent. 

It's a comprehensive data management for all platforms. It works with multiple clouds and vendors.

They have a strong development team and are market leaders in the space.

What needs improvement?

With any product, there could be improvements made. 

I can't think of exact features that are lacking.

It's been a while, however, it's my understanding that they have new features coming out. 

Our cloud is still pretty old-school, I continue to use the console as the traditional admin tool for daily troubleshooting. In a newer version, they're using something called Command Center. I haven't played around with that yet. I heard that it's very sleek. At this point, the console is pretty dated, so it's good they're doing an update.

The Chargeback feature has recently changed as well. I haven't had a chance to explore it, however, I believe they've improved on it quite a bit.

The solution can be a bit complex for new users.

The solution needs better Office 365 data backup management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for six years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is very solid. They are the number one data management platform on the market. They are leading in that sense above the competition.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

At this point, there are no plans for increasing usage right now. We are reducing our footprint on-prem and we've moved everything to Azure. Unfortunately, we leveraged some of the native protocols from Azure side. Commvault has gotten reduced. Due to that change,  the pricing or licensing that supports the functionality of it may be impacted a little bit.

How are customer service and technical support?

While you can call support for anything, they have great online documentation that you can reference for assistance. It's easier to check out that before reaching out to them directly.

Their support is the best. They're worldwide, 24/7. I give credit for that. I deal with a lot of other vendors. Their support model is far superior. Once you open the ticket, if, after an hour, it's not resolved, you can click on it and another engineer will come online within the hour to assist, depending on the severity of the case. 

I'd rate them nine out of ten for sure.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

At one point, we almost tried to switch to another vendor. However, due to the economic scale and other factors, we didn't move forward. We decided to stay with Commvault in order to leverage all the modeling and pricing, and we were able to accomplish what we needed.

Since I have worked here, the company has always used Commvault.

How was the initial setup?

The initial implementation has a moderate amount of difficulty. It's complex at times, however, it depends on what it is. Once you know it, it's not that complex to set up. Overall, it is easy to use. It's not that difficult.

Deployment is probably just a couple of hours. In that time, you can spin up the environment and then you can set it up and deploy it and get a backup.

While we have a lot of users on the solution, I am the main person who handles the maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

Most of the upgrades we do ourselves. In the cases where we have a major upgrade, we typically use a consultant. We did use a couple of consultants in the past for the upgrade. Early on, we didn't have the resource and personnel to handle everything. 

After using Commvault for six years now, I'm a bit more comfortable and confident in handling everything myself more and more.

We work directly with Commvault consultants.

What was our ROI?

The ROI comes from the fact that it's a solid product that works the way it is supposed to. When you need data recovery, it's perfect. That's your money's worth right there.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing costs are determined on a yearly basis. It might be around $40,000 or $50,000. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

What other advice do I have?

Originally, we were on a private cloud, however, we've since moved to a public cloud.

I'd advise others that the implementation depends on the skill level of those setting it up. It's best to consult with the technical manager or the technical team. They can give recommendations. The costs are very reasonable. It may be only $4,000 or $5,000 for three or four days worth of consultant work. They handle the consulting remotely, not on-premises. 

Of course, if you don't know the answer to something at any time, you can always call support. That's for break/fix scenarios. For most other things, the online documentation will get you through.

Overall, I would rate the solution nine out of ten. We've been very happy with the product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Sep 6, 2020
Reduces the amount of manual work required to manage our backup operations
Pros and Cons
  • "Integration with Active Directory and the Azure platform make it a complete solution."
  • "It's very easy to set up the storage across all platforms. This allows us to be dynamic and change on-the-fly."
  • "There is room for improvement in the Knowledge Base and error reporting. I would like to see best practices in the Knowledge Base, and have the ability to diagnose errors without contacting support."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for backup and disaster recovery. We protect Windows and Linux servers, Windows 10, SQL, and Office 365.

How has it helped my organization?

It has streamlined data recovery, via a SaaS solution, to provide overarching protection. Metallic has also reduced the amount of manual work required to manage our backup operations by about 20 percent. In addition, it provides us with more predictable costs for our backup requirements because the egress charges are known.

What is most valuable?

  • The SaaS offering is the most valuable feature because it provides endpoint, Office 365, and core server backup.
  • The overall ease of use is good. The user experience is very in-tune and they are constantly making improvements as a result of feedback from customers.
  • Its performance for both backup and recovery, and security, as an enterprise solution, is good. Integration with Active Directory and the Azure platform make it a complete solution.
  • It's very easy to set up the storage across all platforms. This allows us to be dynamic and change on-the-fly.
  • Metallic is also very nice because you're not connecting to a VPN to use the endpoint recovery.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in the Knowledge Base and error reporting. I would like to see best practices in the Knowledge Base, and have the ability to diagnose errors without contacting support.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault Metallic for three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. I've had some outages over the last week, but overall, it's stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems very scalable. We have plans to increase our usage of the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Commvault's technical support is responsive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

There are multiple systems in place. We're in the process of replacing them.

As for the process of switching to Metallic, planning goes a long way. It's at an intermediate level between simple and complicated. We did the free trial and it was easy to get going.

We went with Metallic because it's a SaaS offering. It was one of the few solutions that offered SaaS with their own storage.

How was the initial setup?

After doing it, it's straightforward, but it does require a little bit of understanding. It's in the middle between straightforward and complex. We're still in deployment but the initial setup took about one month.

Our implementation strategy is to cover critical applications: Office 365, Windows 10, and both Windows and Linux servers.

I've ran into some issues, which has made the configuration interface for configuring the solution for data protection more complex, but overall, if the instructions work, it's very simple.

What about the implementation team?

The Commvault Success team helped. Other than that, it was just me. Their team was responsive. They pride themselves on making the product work for the client.

In terms of administrators of the system, there is just me in my role of network engineer. The individual users don't log in. We're a small business with under 200 users.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Veeam and Rubrik. The pros for Metallic were that the costs were up-front and that it was a SaaS with dedicated cloud storage for endpoint and dedicated cloud storage for Office 365, separating those silos.

The drawback with Metallic is that it takes a bit of work to understand the process for registering clients, but once you have it down, it goes quickly.

What other advice do I have?

Take your time to run the trial and understand what you're getting yourself into.

The move from on-premise to a cloud solution is definitely a change. Be patient with the process and open to understanding the SaaS solution.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Aviation Attorney at a legal firm with 1-10 employees
Real User
Aug 19, 2020
Eliminates the time I spent on manual backups and protects my OneDrive data
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of the speed of backup, it operates seamlessly, so I'd rate it as excellent... with my daily use and workload, quite honestly I don't even notice when it backs up."
  • "The setup was a little bit difficult for a non-IT person like me. My OneDrive is protected by multifactor authentication, and to get the backup to begin behind that multifactor authentication took a little bit of almost customized support, even though I was following the instructions and the videos. That process could have been easier."

What is our primary use case?

It is used as a single backup for my small office's Microsoft 365 account, particularly the OneDrive files.

How has it helped my organization?

The best example is that it hasn't impacted my operations, which is exactly how it's supposed to work. It's supposed to provide a backup in the case of an unforeseen event or emergency, if something happens to the OneDrive. That's what it's there for. Otherwise, it shouldn't have an impact and it doesn't.

It provides daily backups and, since I'm not doing manual backups anymore, it has greatly reduced the time that it was taking me to do those. I was doing them every day so it has greatly reduced my workload. In addition, it has provided much higher reliability and efficiency. It's saving me on the order of 20 hours a month, as it does backups more efficiently and more often than I did or would have.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the one that I'm using, which is the backup of my OneDrive. Thankfully I haven't had to use a backup yet, but the solution itself seems to be working very well.

In terms of the speed of backup, it operates seamlessly, so I'd rate it as excellent. The first backup took a while because I already had quite a bit of information residing on my OneDrive, but now, with my daily use and workload, quite honestly I don't even notice when it backs up. It's completely seamless.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Metallic for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with its stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems like it has good scalability, which is another thing that I'm interested in because hopefully I won't be a small business for long. I've never run enterprise-level software, but I'm very happy with Metallic, as the owner of a small business.

As the business grows, as I add users, the ability to add backup features is there. It's something I've discussed with their customer support and tech support. I'm comfortable that as I add users and begin to use more features in my Office suite and elsewhere, Metallic will be able to provide backup. That's really the primary reason I have it: data backup and security.

I use it every day for the business. It's in OneDrive now but at some point I'm going to have employees and it will have to migrate over to SharePoint. I will then need it backed up in SharePoint as well for use by my team.

How are customer service and technical support?

In terms of ease of use, I'm not an IT professional. I own a small business. So it was a little challenging to get running, but Metallic's customer service — their technical support and their sales and customer contact representatives — were world-class; among the best customer service interactions I've had with anyone, anywhere, for any reason. That was very much appreciated. I appreciate their follow up, their diligence, their responsiveness. That was just world-class. There's no other word for it.

They're very responsive. When a question comes in, they follow up, even when they haven't heard from me. They check to make sure everything is working properly, and they answer any questions preemptively. I have the utmost regard for their customer service and their tech support and their ability to solve issues. They have done a phenomenal job of customer outreach, problem solving, and tech support; the whole nine yards.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I had a physical hard drive that I backed everything up to, manually. That was my backup plan, which was not a good backup plan. I'm much more comfortable with how things are operating now.

The reason I moved to Metallic was that my OneDrive files got too big. The manual backup was taking too long and it was not being accomplished as often as I wanted it to be. I knew I needed an automatic cloud backup.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was a little bit difficult for a non-IT person like me. My OneDrive is protected by multifactor authentication, and to get the backup to begin behind that multifactor authentication took a little bit of almost customized support, even though I was following the instructions and the videos. That process could have been easier. But considering that I needed the additional support, Metallic was phenomenally responsive and I give them the highest marks possible for their responsiveness and support.

It was configured through Azure. That was hands-on on my part. It was simple to understand. But even though I followed the instructions, I wound up doing a screen share with tech support that uncovered some additional items that the instructions did not cover. That was the source of the initial problem. But tech support and customer support helped me overcome those efficiently and they were really responsive and helpful.

I knew the setup would take a little bit of time and I set the time aside. When it didn't work and the backup wasn't occurring or was having trouble, I got in touch with customer support and technical support and they provided assistance. And then I would get busy and not be able to respond to them for some time, and then they would get back with me. The plan was to sit down and have it all done but it didn't work out that way. It took a little bit longer than planned, but that was not Metallic's fault.

I got everything installed, but I didn't have any backups accomplished till after the free trial expired. But again, that was not Metallic's fault.

What about the implementation team?

It was just me and the Metallic support. One of the customer support agents at Metallic, Alix, was fantastic. I don't recall the names of the tech support people who I spoke with, but they were also excellent.

I'm the only one using and maintaining it at the moment.

What was our ROI?

It hasn't saved money for my company on infrastructure costs but the idea is that in the event that something unforeseen or catastrophic happens, it will save me money. It's like an insurance policy.

It certainly provides me with more predictable costs for my backup requirements. And there is ROI because I've got a backup that I don't have to do manually. That saves me time and headache.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I looked at this at the beginning of the year and I don't remember what the prices were for all the other services, but I thought that Metallic's was fair. It was also highly rated, which was even more important than cost because I need a reliable, secure, backup method.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I looked into other options but Metallic seemed like it had the greatest ability to scale up, add features, and it had a good price.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend it.

The biggest lesson I've learned from using it is that when I expand, I'm going to need an IT consultant to assist, so that I don't have to spend the time doing it. I will want someone who can deal with the issues efficiently.

With the caveat that I haven't needed a backup yet, since nothing catastrophic has happened, I would rate Metallic and their team as a 10. I can only assume and hope that if, God forbid, something were to happen and I were to need the backup, it would be as good as the service has been so far.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
ICT-System Engineer – VMware & Backup at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Aug 13, 2020
Helps us to accelerate growth because it's easy to expand the whole environment being sure that data is always there.
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution also provides me with a complete view of our data. I write scripts to report information from the Command Center daily. I report it in HTML and have the status of the last day for the whole environment."
  • "What I need is deeper CLI documentation for both QCommand and SQL queries."

What is our primary use case?

We previously had two different backup solutions, one that covered physical machines and another one that covered the virtual machines. We decided to go ahead with an enterprise tool and we chose Commvault to back up both. It's backing up more than 1200 VMs and more than 150 physical machines.

How has it helped my organization?

We can follow any backup or restore situation in a granular way: Who did it and which files were restored. If they did a local restore or if somebody restored to another server or another location, we can see it down to a granular level. We can follow each action, including all the administration actions.

The fact that the solution is a single platform has enabled our company to accelerate growth. With the migration from Veeam and NetWorker to Commvault, the whole environment has become easy for us because we have one tool. It has helped to accelerate the growth because it's easy to expand the whole environment. As soon as we have more data to back up, we can easily change the way we back up the data or increase the storage devices for that data.

It is also a single platform to move, manage, and recover our on-premise data. It's not only easy to manage physical and virtual machines, it's easy to manage where you want to put the data and where you want to recover the data. It's clear to everyone inside the organization.

Another benefit is that Commvault minimizes the administration time. Administration that I personally do takes about two hours a day for the whole environment, and that is about a three-to-one reduction.

The solution has also helped us to optimize infrastructure usage by reducing storage space. With the deduplication option, we have reduced the end storage devices we need significantly. We need 70 to 80 percent less storage.

We do regular restore and recovery tests, five to 10 times a month, for files, folders, and whole machines. We haven't had an actual attack or virus situation. In terms of the time it takes to restore data, at the physical layer, it's four or five times faster than it was when we used EMC NetWorker. At the virtual layer, it's about 50 percent faster than Veeam.

What is most valuable?

I've worked with backup software for the last 25 years. I know NetBackup, Tivoli, NetWorker (Legato), DataProtector (Omniback) and Veeam. I have found that I can cover all what we need with Commvault. 

The solution also provides us with a complete view of our data. I wrote scripts to report information from the Command Center daily.(A bunch of predefined reports are also available). I report them in HTML and have the status of the last day for the whole environment. Using the interface, I have predefined links to open daily or to send to my supervisors so they can see what's happening. They find it easy.

What needs improvement?

What I need is deeper CLI documentation for both QCommand and SQL queries.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for about 12 years. Starting with Simpana

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When you talk about backup it must be stable. If not, we would change the tool.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are increasing the capacity because we have an increase, on average, of about 20 percent a year. It's really scalable. With Commvault, you have a lot of possibilities. You can use your hardware or you can use dedicated hardware from Commvault. There are a lot of options for how you back up your environment. It's really good in this area.

How are customer service and technical support?

One of the best points recently with Commvault is that it is a really good support organization. Overall, from one to 10, their tech support is between nine and 10. I used to place calls just to get know-how from the technicians, and sometimes because I really needed it. They always come back with fast and really accurate answers. It's really good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

As described before, we use NetWorker and Veeam and the idea was to consolidate the whole backup environment with ONE enterprise tool.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not complex for me. If you know the tool it's not complex. It could be a little complex for newer people because there are a lot of features. For a beginner, it's really not the best tool. It's not a tool for small business, it's more for medium and big companies.

We deployed Commvault, in this company, about four years ago, so I don't recall exactly how long it took. I think we needed three weekends to deploy and move all the data.

In terms of an implementation strategy, we have a team that takes care of backups. We first planned the whole architecture, what we wanted. Then we voted on the pros and cons of the architecture elements and decided where we were going with it. 

In addition to help from Commvault, we had an external analyst from a third-party who helped us with the initial deployment. Our experience with them was very good. I really appreciated it.

Internally, there are two of us in the organization who share the backup roles.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation took place with our resources, but we have also a contract, with a vendor and also with a technical partner.

Two eyes see more than one! And if you have a problem, ussualy, you are part of it :)

What was our ROI?

From a licensing point of view, we now have one license which covers backup for the whole organization. And we spend less time administering the whole thing.

The solution's model is cost-efficient, but it depends on your environment. For us it was cost-efficient because we reduced the number of licenses. We came from two backup solutions, covering two types of servers, to now having a global license based on the amount of tera or petabytes we have. We cover all this with our license and that is cheaper than other options.

Overall, we have seen ROI in terms of both time and money. We started saving 40% of our resources and covering more each day.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As I once heard from a car salesman in California: every car has its girlfriend / boyfriend.

Here it is more or less the same, for each case it is necessary to study which is the best backup tool, basing ourselves first on the technical aspect and then on the financial one.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

At the time we evaluated other options: NetBackup, HP Data Protector, and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.

There were two key points when we decided to change. One was the licensing type that was best for us, because the cost could have a big impact on our budget. The other point was internal knowledge of the tools. I cannot say one of these solutions is worse or better than the others. We chose what was better for our environment at that moment. We wanted a solution to cover our whole environment, including at the OS level and the virtual layer, and one with a license that worked with our budget.

Licensing is a key point when you decide to change or to buy new software. The licensing type has an enormous impact on your budget and your decision. If it doesn't work with your budget... And it's the same technically. If the tool is not good for you, then you cannot choose it. On one hand you have the budgets and the licenses, on the other hand, you have the technical needs.

What other advice do I have?

If you don't have know-how regarding this solution, you will need assistance from certain parties, providers or the company itself. That's not only for Commvault, it's for backup tools or any other kind of implementation, in general. You can really make wrong choices at the beginning that are not easy to repair when the whole system is in production.

Commvault has two interfaces, a Java interface and a full HTML interface. People who use the tool must have the know-how, so internally we teach the people who use the tool how to do backups and restores; we focus on these situations. For me, with my know-how, the tool is really simple, both the Java and the HTML. But for newer people, it might be a little bit complicated.

The biggest lessons I have learned using this solution are about the different ways to back up a virtual environment, and the different types of deduplication options there are.

The product is really good for us. I can't say that it would be really good for someone else, it depends on your environment. For us, Commvault is between nine and 10 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
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Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Commvault Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.