Dell Avamar Reviews

It is a backup solution. So, we do daily backups of around 3,000 VMware guests. That is normally just an image backup where it goes to the VMware API, backs up the image file, and then puts it on the backend to Avamar into Data Domain. It has a specialized storage system that does dedupe and compression, so we can get more on a single disk array. We have more than one site. We have a primary site and a secondary site.

At the Data Domain level, we replicate site to site every backup every day so that we have the availability in our secondary site for every VM. The replication is done with the architecture of the Data Domain itself. 

We have the rapid recovery solution that allows you to stand up any box at either location and have it come up online within just a minute or two. That's done via NFS. It becomes a data store into VMware, and then you vMotion it out. So, it has got rapid recovery at both locations as well.

We are using its newest version. We keep it up to date.

There are occasions where we have a problem with the system, and we can either try to fix it or recover it. With rapid recovery, we can get the system operational where people can get access to it in less than 10 minutes. So, we can have a problem with a system, and instead of messing around with it, we can bring up the copy. If it is a system that doesn't allow you to have a lot of daily change rate in the data, we can bring up yesterday's copy or last night's copy and have it up and running online in less than 10 minutes.

Every product is good and bad, but its claim to fame is that it is scalable. We're doing more than 3,000 VMs. Every single night a complete image backup to disks and replication are easily done in under four hours.

It is stable, and it ties very well with VMware API. If you've got VMware in-house, it is a very solid product.

It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first.

It can maybe have customized automatic routing. We have a Cisco ACI network. It is like a point-to-point network for everything, even multiple locations. It is flat, and that confuses Avamar Data Domain because it changes underneath Data Domain. It has some problems. They could do a little bit more on having an adaptable network or what's called a dynamic route network where it can be given a route and not care about it, as opposed to having to predefine it.

It has been in this shop for seven years.

It is very stable.

It is unlimited. Basically, it is great.

Being a backup solution, there are no users. We have the backup administrators to operate it, and if a user or a system administrator makes a request for our system, we restore that for them, but there are no users on it, per se. For our three locations, we have one backup administrator. Oklahoma City has two physical locations, and we have one location in LA.

It is currently being used extensively. We're going to the system as a software model where basically everything is deployed like the Kubernetes model. You basically have a few systems, and then everything is layered on top of it. It is sort of like a hypervisor but without the hypervisor layer. If we truly go that way, we'll probably have to go for a different backup solution that manages that better. We're testing that right now, and we're not sure how it's going to work for our shop, but that's what we're looking at.

I have interacted with them several times. We've had problems where we've got to have their help. They're average. It takes a while to get to the guy who knows what he's doing, but they've got support 24/7. You can call anytime day or night. So, they're average or a little better.

We used to use HP Data Protector. It was a nice product. It was an old-school kind of roll the tape, and we don't do tapes. We used Data Protector directly to tape. That was a nice product for physical boxes if you had a few. At that point, we had 200 or 300 physical boxes, and we backed them up. It took about a 10-hour cycle from about the time we quit work to about the next morning. We would run through this whole cycle and get that done.

It was complex. You have to have proxies. You can't just have one piece of hardware to back up all the systems in two facilities. You have to deploy proxy servers to every single VMware cluster. We've backup on a private backup network that had to be configured because we fundamentally do web service and financial targets out front, and we didn't want it to cramp that network. So, it is not simple; it is complex.

To do the primary site, it took very long. At that point, we were doing physical and virtual machines. We had some HPX physical, and we also had a mini mainframe seven years ago. It probably took a solid week to get it installed and get it completely operational. There were a few more details to it, but basically, we were up and running within about a week, but it is not going to happen in a day.

The first time we deployed it, they came out and set it up like a demo or a proof of concept. We took the model that they provided in that proof of concept, and we installed it ourselves, but we did have a proof of concept before we ever bought it. It was in-house for 90 days, and it included one Avamar, one Data Domain, and a couple of proxies in one of our clusters.

I had to mash a vendor. EMC is out to make money, and then they want to capitalize their ability to make money. That's not necessarily a negative thing in the business world, but I don't care for a lot of that. Once a product is in-house, I want to talk technical, and they technically knew what was going on. They were good and very professional. They knew their products.

Its licensing is weird. It is not just the licenses; we also purchase hardware. With most software products, such as Veeam, Commvault, and Data Protector, there is no hardware purchase at the same time. Because Avamar and Data Domain are tied together, they have an integrated pipe. You can separate them, but basically, they're designed to work as a couple. Because the Data Domain backend is designed to do dedupe and compression, we get 60:1. When you count it, you count it as a straight compression, but of course, that's with dedupe and some other stuff. You have to buy the hardware, the licensing, and the software at the same time. So, it's not just software.

It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years.

Be sure it is what you need. We bought it simply because we're a VMware shop, and we knew we were going to grow that particular core from our business and discontinue using physical hardware altogether. If that's a model that you're doing, it's a nice product. If it's not, you don't need it. 

I would also upfront negotiate the licensing model with them so that you know what to expect before you get into it. What we did not do is buy the cloud extension or an archive solution, and that is now becoming a fairly predominant piece of the pie that we don't have any licensing for. So, make sure it fits your environment, and you get the pieces that we didn't—the more modern archive and cloud control—so that you can have part of your environment out in the cloud. Many people are doing that. We're doing that. We just don't back it up that way.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar an eight out of 10 simply because it is stable. It does a very good job of tying into the VMware API. EMC owns VMware, so they are more or less the same company. So, they're not going to make a change in VMware that adversely affects their software products. I've got to give it an eight just for that. 

In our company, we handle five different types of data from VME, Windows, SQL and other sources. The complete backup of forty lead machines is implemented daily using Dell Avamar in our organization. 

A huge storage space needs to be bought with Dell Avamar, even when it's unnecessary for an organization. The upgrades of the solution are highly time-consuming; it takes 10 to 12 hours to upgrade Dell Avamar or Dell IDPA. The aforementioned upgrade arrives once a year, but it takes an entire day in our company.

I have been using Dell Avamar for ten years. 

The product offers satisfying stability. The disc failures with the solution are usually replaced within the next way with Archwap discs, and it doesn't affect the stored data. 

The solution can be easily scaled. When your solution is running out of space, you need to apply for a new license and it can be obtained in multiples of 12 TB options. Only one professional in our company uses the solution to manage the IDPA backups. 

Our company has availed tech support, they are quite helpful and efficient. The maximum turnaround time I have witnessed, depending on the issue, is two days; otherwise, the support team sorts my issues in minimal time. I would rate the tech support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The solution isn't easy to deploy. Dell IDPA comes with numerous tools demanding several configuration requirements. Storage and index manager are inputted in separate VMs. There are multiple components during the initial deployment of Dell Avamar, but client migration and workflow onboarding can be implemented in a straightforward process. Agents need to be stored and new connections have to be found as part of Dell Avamar's deployment. 

The initial setup of Dell Avamar took about three months in our organization. The aforementioned long duration was due to the need to deploy the solution separately for backups and DR purposes and also for arranging network logistics. I deployed the solution with assistance from a Dell partner. 

It's an expensive tool. 

In my experience, Dell solutions are more user-friendly than Commvault. The deployment and management of Dell products are a lot easier than Commvault. There are a lot of complexities in Commvault, but the solution has multiple great features, including troubleshooting. 

The solution's ease of use simplifies the disaster recovery processes in our company. Once implemented, Dell Avamar performs as a complete solution. The advanced DR backup from varying locations is easy to recall using Dell Avamar.  

The backups are performed by the solution with superior stability. The product is easy to manage as frequent troubleshooting is not required and reliable backups are procured. 

The interface of the tool was quite bland previously; it was a Java console, but recently, it got upgraded to a WIP console. The WIP console is easy to comprehend and navigate in Dell Avamar. The product is more expensive when purchased as a stand-alone solution, but with Dell IDPA, the cost is reduced significantly as a suite of tools. With the IDPA bundle, a user pays for only the features used. Dell Avamar requires pre-purchase of the entire storage.

For example, with Dell Avamar, you might need to purchase 36 TB storage when you only require 16 TB. Dell IDPA offers a huge storage device, and payment needs to be made as per the license procured. I have a 96 TB storage solution with Dell IDPA, but I am licensed to use only as much as required; if I am using 12 TB, the cost for only 12 TB needs to be paid. I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Potential customers should be aware that the solution is initially provided with 96 TB storage and can possibly be scaled further. I haven't faced any downsides or setbacks with the solution; it's quite easy to use.  

Our primary use case for Dell Avamar is backup and verification.

Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups. We can tell machines to do backups in the application.

The most valuable feature for me is direct activity.

This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository.

I have been using this solution for about two years.

I would rate the stability of this solution a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution a five, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

My impression is that their technical support is quite good.

I would rate the initial setup process a five, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

My impression – and that of some other people – is that this solution is expensive.

I would recommend this solution to other people. 

I would rate this solution as a whole an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

Dell EMC Avamar is a backup solution. It has integration with the hardware that Dell has and you can backup many things, such as snapshots.

I have using Dell EMC Avamar for a few years.

The stability of Dell EMC Avamar is very good.

Dell EMC Avamar is scalable.

We have 80% of our clients are using this solution. Most of our clients have Dell hardware and this is why they are using Dell EMC Avamar.

I have found the support from Dell EMC Avamar to be not as good as Veeam. The time it takes to receive support could be improved. However, once we have the support the agents are knowledgeable and helpful.

I have used Veeam previously.

Dell EMC Avamar is a little bit more complicated to set up than the Veeam.

There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually.

I would not recommend this solution to others.

I rate Dell EMC Avamar a five out of ten.

We use Dell EMC Avamar for backing up the data on the endpoint devices of the users.

The performance of Dell EMC Avamar is good.

I have been using Dell EMC Avamar for approximately 

The stability could improve, a lot of scheduled backups failed at one time.

We have approximately 5,000 users using the solution in my organization.

The support from Dell EMC Avamar was decent.

The initial setup is complex.

We used a consultant to do the implementation of the solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of ten.

Dell EMC Avamar is a very complex product. It took a lot of time for the IT admins to get trained on how to use it. It is not very user-friendly, and we won't be using Avamar anymore.

It needs a lot of improvement in terms of how the backups have been configured, and the reporting is too complex. There are a lot of improvements that should be done in the reporting feature and how the endpoints are getting added to the console. These processes need to be a little more simplified. It is not that easy to get an immediate report based on our requirements. It is too complex. We have to write some scripts and things like that. There are predefined scripts, but they aren't very user-friendly for the customer.

We have been using this product for more than six years.

The stability is okay.

If you want to scale up again, you have to buy a complete appliance. There is no option for just scaling up for the mid-phase entities. Only the larger entities would be able to afford that kind of complete appliance scalability. In terms of scalability, I'm not a fan of Avamar.

We haven't used Veeam before, but we are currently replacing Avamar with Veeam now. We are still in the process of switching.

The cost is high.

I would rate this product 5 out of 10.

We primarily use the solution as a backup. Avamar is used to back up our production workloads. Production workloads include Oracle, EBS, SharePoint, file and print service, other application services.

The stability is good. We have found that the performance is excellent.

The product is easy to use.

The installation process is pretty straightforward. 

The solution could be a bit easier to use in the sense that they need to make it simpler to backup products and restore items.

I've been using the solution for more than three years. 

The solution is very stable and the performance is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Whether or not we will scale the solution depends on the business. If we have a requirement to do so, then definitely we'll expand it. If there will be year-over-year growth and if it will be 10%, we're likely to expand and will need to scale.

If you need to add more capacity, you will need to pay for it.

The installation process is straightforward. That said, it would require an engineer from Dell to do it. We ourselves cannot do it. We don't have the knowledge necessary.

We needed two engineers to handle deployment. 

Installation was quite fast. It took about four to five hours. After that, the configuration and other policies, that took about two days.

We had Dell assist us with the implementation process. 

This is a capacity-based license, it's a one-time payment.

In order to increase capacity, you need to pay more. You also can expect more maintenance.

The pricing of the product seems to be less expensive than other options, however, I can't speak to the exact cost of the product.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're quite happy with its capabilities.

This product is for production users. We do not backup user backups; it's only for the production workload.

The primary use case is for remote office or branch office type protection.

We don't have a current instance. It is pretty old. We have tried desperately to decommission Avamar.

Quick incremental backups and product replication are the two highlights of the product. Once you capture a full backup, incrementals are pretty quick. It is fairly efficient from that perspective.

It is expensive. It is more about cost than it is about anything else. 

If you need to pull data out of it to offload to tapes, that's messy. You have a mechanism for it, but it is painful.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

Once you're in the product, and the product is running, it does a really good job.

It is node-based, so you can add nodes as you need. It is pretty scalable.

The people who supported it did a very good job. If it gets messed up, it is not easy to fix, but on a day-to-day basis, it just runs like a tank of gas.

They were all set up when I got here.

It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing.

My advice would be to compare costs to other solutions and also look at the virtual appliance version of it.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a six out of 10.