Dell Avamar Reviews

It is our main backup system while we're in the middle of switching over to Cohesity.

Scheduling is valuable. It does a good job of backing up, and it does a good job of restoring. Nobody has got a problem with that. The agents are well supported. 

In terms of functionality, it is rock solid. It does its job.

The UI is a complete mess. It is graphic, but it might as well be a CLI considering how difficult it is to work with. It takes an entire person and a significant amount of time to manage backups within the company. It really shouldn't be that hard.

When you get down to doing certain things, such as somebody wants a particular file restored, the process by which you do that is stupid. You kind of have to know exactly where to look for in order to find it. Even on older backup products that I've used, I didn't have that kind of problem. If we were looking for a file with a particular kind of a name, the solution would find that file anywhere irrespective of where it resides within the backup system. So, we didn't have to know the name of the specific server, the specific timeframe, almost all the characters of the file name, and all kinds of data in order to find a file. In Avamar, we got to know these details. We've gone around and around with them on that, and their attitude seems to be that it is working just fine. There is nothing for them to improve. The organizational system of other products that I'm working with, such as Zerto and Cohesity, seems to be centered around the tasks that you would most commonly do and want to do, as opposed to we've laid it out in a really neat technical hierarchy. 

There should be some kind of greater granularity in the way it is storing backups. The reason why we're using things like Zerto and going to Cohesity, at least in the DR environment, and this will work in terms of backups as well, is that we need to be able to have a recovery point objective with some kind of granularity, such as every 15 minutes, every half hour, or every hour in case of a disaster recovery scenario, ransomware scenario, etc. We're pretty much allowed to do our once-in-a-day backup every 24 hours or however we schedule them. In most cases, we don't do anything different for basic backups, but it seems very difficult within Avamar to do anything if we want to have an image of a system every so often or at least an incremental point of reference or an RPO point. 

The other thing is that the way that it locks files seems to make those systems unavailable while it is operating the backup. So, we have to very carefully schedule our backups after hours or over periods of time when there is low bandwidth of the transactions happening. With the other products we have, we don't have this problem. I certainly don't have that problem with Zerto. I've got a recovery point of every few seconds, and it doesn't seem to take a lot of storage room to do that. Storage is a big thing for us. It is very expensive, and that's always an issue for us. So, things like deduplication would be really nice to have.

I have been using this solution for at least six years.

It is rock solid. We don't ever have any problems with backups being lost or anything like that.

All of the data in the company is used by one person or another, so there are a couple of thousand users.

Their technical support is excellent. We've never had any problem dealing with Avamar in terms of technical support. We've had some nasty instances too where they've not been able to drill down on things and support their own product.

I've only been with the company for about five years, and it was present when I came on board.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a six out of 10. It is a pretty basic backup system in terms of features. It does its job. However, its UI is just ridiculous.

Our company has more than 5,000 employees, and we use the Avamar solution for the protection of our rear environment, we are protecting 1,500+ VMs using this solution.

We have Avamar Gen4 right now, which is already end-of-life, which is to be replaced this year with a better solution from either EMC or IBM.

We are going to replace the overall data solutions for our enterprise. Already the project is in a negotiation stage with EMC, IBM, and Huawei.

Avamar's source-side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side.

EMC has discontinued their Avamar hardware version. They only advertise the Avamar virtual edition. I think it would be hard to deploy Avamar in the future with the virtual edition as we are protecting our large environment. We would not like to protect our environment in the virtual edition of the Avamar. We would like to protect our environment in a physical version of a new data protection suite that EMC offers - a server solution in the physical form.

They should bring back the physical implementation of the Avamar. In addition to that, they should also add the BMR for Linux that includes AIX and Solaris because right now the BMR for AIX and Solaris is not available.

We have been working with Dell EMC Avamar for eight years. 

I am the administrator. I am personally using the solution.

Right now, although the product is now two years past EOL it's supporting our infrastructure quite well. There were some failures of the hardware which we resolved ourselves. Overall, the product is very solid and it supports all the virtual and physical infrastructure, the databases, and all the stuff. It's quite a solid product.

Currently, our model is scalable, but the scalability of Avamar requires physical nodes to be added to the box. EMC has already said that it is the end-of-sales for this product. So they do not provide additional nodes for it. It is possible to scale the product more, but the nodes are not available.

I rarely contact Dell EMC technical support.

But when I do, they are very good, very responsive. They get back to you in 10 to 20 minutes and resolve the issue. They are very much a steady provider.

The initial setup is complex.

For example, we have approximately eight-node clusters of Avamar servers on the primary site and we have five node clusters of Avamar on the other site. Integration was a bit difficult. I am supporting the product myself, without the help of any EMC support, for two years now.

There are some issues because this is an appliance. The administration of Avamar is quite simple but there are underlining things that need to be supported and are quite difficult because this is an appliance.

It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years.

Because of the EOL issues, I would not recommend to anyone to use this product anymore. They have a newer virtual edition of Avamar. But Avamar is not available on the physical servers, as of now.

I would give Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of 10.

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.