Commvault Cloud Reviews

We use Commvault to back up all our enterprise solutions, like MS SQL, Exchange, file servers, and MongoDB, but we don't use Commvault for multi-environment management. There is a primary site and a disaster recovery site that we control offsite with one console.

I know Commvault has another interface for the multi-site, but I've never used it before, so I don't have any experience with that. However, we have a passive primary server at the disaster recovery site, and if we have trouble at the main site, we can use the disaster recovery server. 

Commvault makes it easier to back up new additions to our environment. For example, when we added MongoDB, we found it in Commvault and could start backing it up. 

Right now, we are trying to integrate Kubernetes platforms into our environment, and I'm sure that Commvault can back up those. Commvault keeps up with new technologies, and if you upgrade to the latest stable version, you can find everything you need.

Backing up with Commvault doesn't require much effort. Commvault's reporting features are also excellent and user-friendly. It's easy to find anything we want. The workflow feature is handy, too. For example, we schedule an automated monthly backup and restoration test that we used to do manually. That has been integrated with Commvault's workflows and running automatically every month for four years. 

It runs all the tests and emails us the reports. We take daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots, and I integrate the storage snapshot scripts with the Commvault workflow. The Commvault workflow runs all the scripts and sends us the reports. It also features cloud-side reports and workflows. Commvault has many tools for backing up, restoring, and archiving, but we use another service for our archives. 

Commvault can show us unprotected workloads, servers, and SQL databases. It's a good feature, and I periodically get reports on this. However, it's a low priority because we are waiting for our inside customers to tell us whether they want something backed up or not. They must follow that, but we are using terabyte-based backups. We don't separate the agent— MS SQL or others—and we are only looking at the terabyte trends, so it's predictable for us. 

Our main pain point is that some of our hardware is old. For example, the SSD disks for our application database are slow. It's hard to avoid a slowdown in our environment because the size of our backups is growing every year. If you're growing and don't upgrade the environment, you will see slower backups and restores. You must enhance the environment if you are growing.

I've used Commvault for about 10 years, and we used it at my last company for around six years. 

Commvault's stability is good.

We have no problems scaling Commvault. I don't remember the numbers, but we have a terabyte license size. It's about 400 terabytes, but the backend is in the petabyte range. 

Troubleshooting is easy because Commvault support responds and finds the root cause quickly. When I've contacted support for other solutions, some of them ask you to recreate the scenario. They ask you to increase the debugging level and reproduce the scenario to get the error again. As a result, we waste a lot of time troubleshooting those solutions. With Commvault, we don't need to devote much time to the operational and troubleshooting aspects. 

I've used NetBackup before, and I think it's a good solution. It required more effort than Commvault, but I prefer it over EMC NetWorker. NetWorker was labor-intensive, buggy, and hard to use. We spent a lot of time dealing with EMC support. They have a large, competent support team, but we spent too much time with them. 

NetBackup is better than NetWorker, but it has fewer features than Commvault. NetBackup also has an old-fashioned interface that is harder to use than Commvault's. It's not user-friendly. Commvault is the best of the three.

Setting up Commvault was straightforward. You set up the primary server first, then the media agents, disks, and agents for clients. Each of those steps is easy. It's like a "next, next, finish" Windows installer. You can deploy it in half a day in a smaller environment, and it's maybe one or two days for a large one. 

Of course, it depends on the size of the agents and how many you need for your physical environment. If you have a rigid environment, it's effortless because you only define the vCenters or the Hyper-V management console, and that's it. You can take backups. 

On the other hand, you must install all the agents if you have too many physical environments. Still, Commvault makes it easy because you can install everything from the user interface on the primary server. In total, we have five people, including me, managing Commvault and all our other storage solutions. 

I rate Commvault 10 out of 10. If you're planning on implementing Commvault, I suggest doing a PoC first to try out all the features and to compare them to other products. We did a PoC for backup solutions to test some new features for our enterprise solutions, and some of the products didn't make the cut, so I would recommend a PoC.

We primarily use the solution as a backup.

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. 

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We are using Commvault Cloud to back up a VM. We mainly use VM backup. We have kept our storage backups so that in case of a disaster or test environment, we should be able to recover within fifteen to twenty minutes. This is our benchmark.

Commvault Cloud has helped in reducing the cost for hardware as we are just using standard storage to store the backup instead of requiring special hardware equipment. It allows for server-level hardware backup, which helps in managing storage backups efficiently.

The most valuable features of Commvault Cloud include deduplication and compression. Deduplication and compression are critical for us because they provide good compression, which is essential in data management. The time to recover from the disk is a critical requirement. The ransomware protection feature was one of the key considerations for choosing Commvault Cloud.

In terms of improvement, the cost factor is a significant area for enhancement, especially during the annual renewal. Competitive products have emerged with less cost, making the pricing a challenging factor. The implementation of field-level restore where you can restore a particular table or field without having to restore the entire backup is something I would like to have.

I have been using Commvault Cloud for almost three years.

So far, we are all right with the stability of Commvault Cloud.

We have some questions regarding scalability with the current storage setup, particularly with the Synology basic storage we are using, which causes continuous issues. We are evaluating backup storage solutions due to underlying hardware issues.

I do not have any negative feedback regarding Commvault's technical support. They have been clear and helpful in addressing our concerns.

Positive

We previously used Aksel backup, but we faced challenges with VM level backups and required protection against ransomware, which Commvault Cloud provided. The ArcServe backup software did not have these features, and as a result, we switched to Commvault Cloud.

I was not involved technically in the initial setup. I was involved in the evaluation process, and subsequently, my team handled the implementation and deployment with our partners. The setup took approximately three to four months and involved minor implementation challenges.

The deployment involved our team and partners. From our side, we had two people handling it, and from the partner's side, one or two guys were involved, making it a team of around four to five people.

The major ROI was using simple storage instead of expensive high-end storage for backup. It is more compliance-related, and we utilize cloud backups for redundancy and compliance purposes. We have not seen significant ROI from the backup solution as a whole.

Pricing is a significant factor for our company as the annual renewal is challenging. There are competitive products in the market that have lower costs, which adds to the challenge of the pricing factor.

We evaluated Veeam backup as an alternative. Commvault Cloud provided better pricing at the time, along with ransomware protection and deduplication. Additionally, at our time of evaluation, Veeam did not support mixed backups, which was a consideration for us.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The solution has the fastest backup and better licensing.

Compared to Rubrik, MongoDB Data Protector, and NetBackup, Commvault is better. The licensing team was quite tricky recently because they stopped the unlimited files for that license. Commvault made a bank of 500GB only, a node-based license can take it, which is disappointing. Reporting needs to be more granular. Also, there should be a showback of data being backed up, and the backup cost to share the cost internally with the department.

I have been using Commvault HyperScale X as a customer. I have almost nine HyperScale nodes and expect four more nodes this year.

The product is scalable. To scale, we need to buy more agents. We’re using HP hardware for HyperScale. We’ve three backup administrators working with the solution.

The customer support is interesting, but they need to work on their competency. My team is happy.

Positive

I work with a couple of other solutions, such as HP Store, Veeam, NetBackup, MongoDB Data Protector, and Rubrik. Commvault is the most competitive in the market because local support is easy and faster.

The solution is easy to implement if you have a proper infrastructure and require two people to set up.

The solution is bundled with hardware licensing. If I want to increase the hardware, I have to buy exactly the same because it's based on the core hardware license. We cannot tell discount because we have an NDA signed with Commvault because of my academic license. The solution is more expensive than NetBackup and Veeam but cheaper than Rubrik.

The solution is easy to use after four months of training. Before implementing, make sure you negotiate well and agree to the terms and conditions in advance. Once you implement it, you will use it for at least the next five to six years. So, you must negotiate and file a contract, the best way to know the cost of ownership in the beginning itself. Overall, I rate the solution an eight-point five out of ten.

We use it for server, laptop, and desktop backup.

We are using the latest version.

Commvault helps our admins minimize the time that they spend on backup tasks and other projects since we are now managing a single console to administer all the backups, instead of a full console.

It is a very good tool for server backup. We can restore any server, e.g., physical or VM, in a very short amount of time.

Commvault Command Center is very good and user-friendly. We can select any user's data or a server in its Console.

Commvault provides us with a single platform to move, manage and recover our data across locations. Especially for our IT, this is a very important part of our data storage.

The recovery option is very good. It is a user-friendly option to recover any data.

When we started using Commvault, we felt that there were some technical issues with managing it, but we are comfortable enough with managing it now. There were many issues, like index corrupting, when we first started, but all those issues were resolved by the Commvault tech team.

Its major disadvantage is it's expensive. Otherwise, the solution is good.

I have been using it for the last six months.

It is a very stable solution.

Scalability is very good.

We use a third-party to resolve issues first. They first try for L1 or L2 support. If they are unable to fix it, then they escalate it to Commvault technical support. 

The support is very good. I would rate them as eight out of 10.

Positive

We were using Symantec Backup, which did not have features like centralized management. Commvault has a centralized, single console where you can manage multiple locations of user's desktop data, which is one of the important features of Commvault.

We switched to Commvault because we were looking to centralize management. This reduced IT administrator time as well as providing stability and reliability for data backups in a single console, and we didn't get these features from Symantec. 

It reduces IT man-hours by an hour per day.

The cost for Commvault is very expensive, even support is very expensive. The full cost of the solution is 50,000 INR per year, which includes 20 VM backups, server data backup, and 200 desktop and laptop agent licenses.

They have recurring support changes.

They should reduce the support and license costs so anyone could start using Commvault. Due to its cost, customers are reluctant to use Commvault.

The first time, when building infrastructure, the cost is quite high.

We evaluated Veeam and Veritas NetBackup. 

We chose Commvault based on some customer feedback and technical reviews of Commvault. The main difference of Commvault is the single console to manage everything.

Go for Commvault. It is a very strong, stable solution. Technically, it is a very reliable solution with a single window console to manage all backups. Definitely, we recommend customers should go for Commvault. Though, it would be nice if Commvault could compromise on the pricing part.

I spend two hours every day on Commvault monitoring and managing performance as well as fine-tuning.

We implemented on-premises, so it is not connected to any public networks. Therefore, hacking is very difficult.

I would rate Commvault as eight out of 10.

We're using it mainly to back up operating systems like Windows, Linux, and databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL.

It has simplified disaster recovery and we have used it for migration as well. For migrating from old FX servers to new FX servers, it was not possible to use any new feature from VMware. There was just vMotion and the success rate of migration of the whole disk was less than 50 percent. It was not possible to manage it that way. We used Live Sync and it was able to migrate 150 machines every day during the weekend, without major problems. That saved us a couple of weeks of time, probably 50 percent of the time it would have taken us. Without Live Sync it wouldn't have been possible to manage it.

The fact that the solution is a single platform has definitely enabled our company to accelerate growth because you don't need to leave the Commvault console. With NetBackup or TSM (IBM Tivoli Storage Manager) when it comes to customization of scripts for databases, you have to go into the client at the operating system level and modify the scripts. With Commvault you don't have to do that. You don't need to access the operating system, which simplifies the work.

Commvault helps minimize the time spent on backup tasks, creating time for other projects. I'm able to write a workflow in Commvault's internal environment and I can automate any action I did manually before. For example, deployment of remote offices can be fully automated.

It also saves us money on infrastructure because the configuration which will be used for IntelliSnapshotting is very simplified.

Another company I worked for previously was being attacked by a ransomware virus. The company lost its whole Windows infrastructure, so it didn't have Active Directory. Commvault was on Windows as well and the Knowledge Base which ran on Linux was authenticated with AD. Everyone lost their workstations.

The recovery process was that we got the database from Commvault, because part of raising cases includes the ability to upload databases to Commvault. The Windows team found a backup of the main controller and the most important thing was to start communications and for every one to have Active Directory. With Commvault's support, we were also able to develop a process which recovered Volume C, and that was sufficient to fix the images. Within two months they were able to recover the whole infrastructure from scratch. Without Commvault, or with another solution based on Windows, I don't think the recovery would have been possible. 

I had never seen this kind of disaster. Nobody expects to lose everything. You think about losing the primary location or a remote office location, but no one thinks about losing the whole platform.

Among the best features are the BMR (Bare Metal Recovery), Live Sync, and IntelliSnap, which is used for snapshots of hypervisor storage. It's predefined so you only need to enable it and it works. I haven't seen anything like this in other backup tools like Veritas NetBackup or Dell EMC or TSM. We will use snapshotting for all our machines.

Live Sync replicates incremental data to remote locations. If you lose your primary data center, you enable the replicated machines in your DR location so you don't need to restore data.

It's great as a DR solution because it has a lot of capabilities for syncing with a cloud provider. But if you want to keep everything in-house, it's great that way as well because the replication is done by incrementals.

When it comes to the user interface for managing on-prem, cloud, or multi-cloud environments in one place, it's always better to have everything in one. I myself like multiple consoles, a Java console and an admin console. I only work with the Java console. It's great because it's possible to configure everything from there. But operations has that nice console, and having that one console is better than having multiple consoles.

They should move the CommServe outside of Windows machines and the database should be distributed among servers. It's still a single point of failure.

Also, I work a lot with workflows, which means a combination of XML files and commands. It would be helpful if they unified the use of workflows.

I have been using Commvault at my current company for almost two years but I have a total of five years of experience with it. I'm a Commvault engineer. I have built Commvault from scratch using the approach that is best for the client, and then prepared the documentation.

We are using service pack 16 because it is a new deployment so we have to deploy that before we push updates.

I haven't seen a crash of the database. The stability is great.

When I started with Commvault and compared it with NetBackup, I found that Commvault had features that NetBackup didn't have. Currently, we are able to cover 12,000 virtual machines.

Commvault has what it calls a HyperScale Appliance which is a media agent with the disk. This is the best option for storing data. The media agents are in clusters so they share data. It's a nice feature and I haven't seen any other backup company that has integrated this kind of solution. They always use a third-party vendor for this capability. But that involves communication over the network, something which HyperScale skips.

We plan on using IntelliSnaps more and we are testing the cloud backup. We will use the cloud as a hot-DR location. I expect that will happen this year.

From my experience, I have had the best support interactions with Commvault. I always get a response within a couple of hours. If there is a task for Commvault's development side involved in the issue, I get an update every three days that someone is working on it. 

I have yet to find a support engineer at Commvault who has to speak to someone else. They are always able to troubleshoot the issue on the first strike. I can definitely recommend Commvault support.

Our company previously used NetBackup and TSM. One of the reasons we switched to Commvault was that our company was not satisfied with IBM's support. It was challenging. If support is not able to help you manage problems, you can't use the solution.

The plus with Commvault is that it really focuses on automation for deploying machines and discovering databases, etc. A Commvault administrator doesn't need to understand, in-depth, the application he is backing up because he doesn't need access into the application. It's much more focused on snapshotting for the synchronization between locations. The BMR process can be used across the cloud and on-prem solutions, so you can easily move machines from your environment to a cloud environment. And from that cloud environment you can convert to another vendor in the cloud.

That is all built on the BMR process, which is better than any other backup tool I know. Some of them, like TSM, don't even include a native BMR solution. Instead there is a third-party vendor that does it, so it's not fully-integrated.

I like it when everything is in one console and things can be automated via an internal workflow and deployment is fully automated so I don't need to access the operating system or application platform. Those are all benefits of Commvault.

The initial setup was really easy for me because I already had experience with NetBackup and TSM. It wasn't difficult for me to understand Commvault's logic. But, in my opinion, it's very easy to understand because the logic involved is minimal yet it offers a lot of configurable options. Because the process for the installation of agents, such as for databases and applications, is fully automated, you don't need to touch the application at all. That is one of the main reasons I prefer Commvault over other tools, where you always need to touch the client.

A basic implementation of Commvault depends on the size of the company. Installation of the server takes a couple of hours, but that is the same as with other backup tools. But the installation of it on clients and their configurations will take days if you don't want to customize it because Commvault comes with pre-defined groups. The process will take a number of days for a small company.

In terms of staff for deployment and maintenance, it could be just one person involved, depending on the roles of the people in the company. This person has to be able to do a lot of things, so it depends on whether he has these responsibilities and the capabilities.

We have about 100 users of the solution because we have a lot of operations.

The ROI is there, but I don't have figures on it.

Our deployment is primarily on-prem. We are trying to assess the cloud capabilities but it looks like the cloud is more expensive if you want to have the whole infrastructure.

Commvault is more administrator-friendly than other backup tools.

We are using Commvault for cloud support, but that part is at the PoC stage. But it's the same as the on-prem solution. Whether the library is on physical disk or in the cloud, it looks the same in Commvault, so that's not an issue in terms of configuration or use. There are even more cloud vendors than I had heard of and it looks like Commvault supports all of them.

We don't use it, but there is an archive function in Commvault which allows you to move data from primary storage to another type which is much cheaper.

Version 11 of Commvault has been on the market for something like seven years now. They have changed the naming so what they called service packs are now called feature packs. That means they are no longer changing the version number and they do what they call a "platform release." That was changed in SP19. In each new pack they add new features every three months. They also have hotfix releases every week or so.

I'm still surprised that they continue to come out with features that are really nice and that you didn't even think were possible.

We have used the Commvault solution to take mobile backups from our client locations. We had multiple data sites where data was not scattered in a distributed mode, and we utilized the Commvault client with all the users. 

We started collecting data from their machines to the centralized server. We especially used Commvault to back up Outlook and flat files, as well as databases like MS SQL and SQL using native services. For other databases, we used Commvault.

The solution saved us a lot of time, effort, and manpower. It helped us back up remote locations where it is difficult to reach. 

It also enabled us to take backups from all clients efficiently. The implementation of Commvault is very easy, especially if it's deployed on machines within the same network.

The feedback from users was phenomenal as they did not encounter any problems with backups, whether from Outlook or other data such as flat files and databases. 

The functionality and features of Commvault were much better compared to other solutions.

Commvault could improve in the area of monitoring and notification services. Upon backup completion, the user is not getting notifications. This might be a feature I'm missing within the system. If it’s not there, Commvault should enhance this functionality. 

Additionally, customer support should be improved for quicker real-time assistance, considering the time zone challenges.

In the past, support has been phenomenal, and the people at Commvault have been very supportive. 

However, recently, due to time zone differences, it has taken a lot of time to connect in real time with support staff. There is an issue in finding customer support services within India.

Positive

Commvault is slightly more expensive than similar solutions. We observed a pricing range of 15% to 17% more.

We have evaluated other solutions in the market, but due to the functionalities and features offered by Commvault, we opted to use it despite the higher price.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The product is a little honeypot server or technology we can deploy in our network. If an attacker gains access to our network and looks around for things, they would find assets that look real but are honeypots. We have a couple hundred of those deployed in our environment, looking like various servers, other types of technology, and workstations spread out across our network.

The tool gives us a lot of heads up if there's a potential threat in our environment. We've seen it when we have had penetration testers running tests. They trip all over it, thinking they're finding vulnerable services to exploit, but they were just alerting the security about their presence.

The solution looks like workstations and servers. If somebody tries to poke at one of them, they would think they're interacting with a real live service. The product alerts the security team about threats.

The solution must provide deception files across the network.

I have been using the solution for two years. My organization has been using it for four years.

I haven't seen any performance issues with the solution.

Once you have an appliance deployed somewhere, it's very scalable. It's pretty easy to deploy more traps. We have 14 different locations. So, we needed 14 different appliances that had to be configured, shipped out, and installed on the network. Generally, the product is pretty scalable, considering it has a physical deployment component.

The support’s excellent. The team is always willing to get on the phone and work through our issues. We can go straight to our account manager. It's very convenient.

Positive

We have a cloud management component of the tool, but all the hardware is physically deployed in different locations. We have appliances deployed to each location that run all the different VMs, and it looks like they're on those particular networks. The deployment will be a little bit of a heavy lift if we have a big distributed environment. We've just been using the products since we migrated from the on-premise appliance to the cloud-hosted one. We don't have to do any support or maintenance.

For the price that we spend, the peace of mind that the tool gives us is an ROI.

I’m happy with the pricing of the product.

It's a very good solution that meets most needs in the deceptions space. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.