Dell PowerProtect Data Domain Reviews

Deduplication and VTLs.

As the cost of tapes start to mount, using the DD box for daily and weekly backups, and just keeping monthly backups on tapes, has greatly reduced the cost of backups.

It is an extremely useful tool to use for example in my case, in a redundant environment, as I manage duplications through Netbackup with Storage Lifecycle Policies. I keep my daily and weekly backups on the DD boxes replicated on both sites, and download the monthly backups for archive purposes.

That way I get the instant recovery that the DD unit provides, and in case I need to go live on the secondary environment, I can restore any vmware server in a matter of hours.

1 - Adding tapes to the VTL is a complex task.

2 - If DB backups could be somewhat compressed it would just be the dream product.

5 years on different versions of DD.

None on basic deployment for CIF usage, the VTL and virtual tapes is more complex to setup.

None at all, I have hardly had to reboot the boxes aside from a firmware update.

None, I am adding a second disk box and it is pretty much plug and play.

Customer Service:

Excellent, when there is a new firmware update, EMC will call me to do the upgrade without even having to ask.

I have had a couple of hard drive fail, and they sent a replacement right away.

Technical Support:

Very good, I had only had to deal with first level support for firmware updates, had some minor discrepancies with the steps to follow, after reading the instructions on how to do the firmware upgrade, the tech wanted to jump a couple steps.

No, we had regular backups to tape and a staging area, but no deduplication.

Initial setup is pretty straightforward, VTL configuration is a bit more complex.

Implementation was done through a vendor, their level of experience was very good. At the time of implementation I have had experience with the technology, but had not participated in the initial setup of the product.

With the increasing amount of data handled every year, the money we save on tapes, plus the speed that the DD allows backups to be done and having instant restores, makes this product the best investment a backup environment can add.

At the time of purchase, there was no other solution that was able to perform the same tasks.

Deduplication

Features of Archiving 

*) Thanks to deduplication, backups take less capacity in Data Domain than traditional storage devices. 

*) Backups to VTL take less time to finish than traditional tape backups (the time traditionally allowed to mounting/seaching tapes is avoided).

*) Using DDBoost improves DataDomain system throghput up to the double and Network usage during backup will be reduced.

DDBoost function is not compatible with IBM TSM. Since DDBoost is one of Data Domain key options  (it enhance its performance up to the double), it wil be great if in the next future Tivoli Storage Manager can support it!

< 1 year

The deployment is very easy. No problem encountred.

No

10/10

Initial setup is easy: After hardware installation (which is well documented) you just have to power up the data domain device then run a script which configure your device.

Then you can configure backups devices using webgui and this is really easy.

The EMC Data Domain product is a real success and customers which have never bought EMC products are now buying Data Domain...

Fast backup for complex and huge size data.

My Organisation provides Backup as services. DD useful for shared platform for customers.

From a technical point of view, all EMC products have to improve the troubleshoot feature like, log should be in human readable format.

Past 5 to 6 years.

Easy to deploy.

Wrong integration is always the

Not yet.

Customer Service:

3.5/5

Technical Support:

3.5/5

I used Sympana commvault and CA Arcserve. Both the products are good for small organisations but not up to the mark for enterprise level.

Through vendor team; try to just know how to fix the hardware and plug the networker cable. Rest of the things we had to do remotely.

For enterprise level backup solution – No .

I recommend EMC products due to their stability.

Data Domain deduplication is excellent.

Not yet had a significant measurable improvement.

I used this solution for 6 months.

The implementation was not done with me. This product was already in place when I arrived at the company.

No.

No.

Customer Service:

No.

Technical Support:

Bad. The service left much to be desired, even with the proper support.

The implementation was not done with me.

Was not present in this decision.

DD Boost.

It makes working with backup solutions very easy.

None that I see yet.

3 years.

No.

No.

No.

Customer Service:

5 out of 5

Technical Support:

5 out of 5

A vendor team, they were excellent.

The company chose this product not me, so no.

VTL, Dedupe and replication.

Replication of backed-up data between sites for disaster solutions.

Haven’t thought about it because its deliver all the time.

5 years for customers.

No.

No.

No.

Customer Service:

10 of 10.

Technical Support:

10 of 10.

No, it was the first VTL we used for customers and because of its function and uptime we can’t see a reason to change to another vendor.

A walk in the park = straightforward.

Both vendor and in-house. The vendor had a high level of expertise.

No.

Read the config and admin guides for products and as well implementation guides for backup vendors, for my customers, IBM TSM.

Stability, replication,

Could fully automate backup process with 1500 backup clients (machines).

Smarter & better deduplication, CLI shell should have more options for managing this product.

4 years.

Yes, but it related to hard disk manufacturer, not product itself.

No.

Haven't scaled it yet.

Customer Service:

4/5

Technical Support:

4/5

Before we used EMC VTL, an awful and nasty product from EMC with lots of manual work.

Initial straightforward.

Via vendor with excellent support.

100%.

We have special discount from EMC.

Would recommend.

Efficient De-duplication, highly efficient replication, Data Domain BOOST for enabling a level of 'Source-Side’ De-duplication.

For many clients it has provided a Backup & Archive tier of storage separate from primary storage systems, replicated so as to eliminating the need for tape and has enabled organisations to achieve backups within backup windows and provide an appropriate place to tier and archive inactive data too whilst ensuring it is protected, secure and recoverable.

Tighter integration with certain storage arrays or software for even more seamless data tiering perhaps, however the system is quite hard to fault as it ‘just works’.

I have used Data Domain for over 4 Years, designing, implementing and integrating it as part of a solution for many clients with diverse needs of all scales.

Watch out for getting the sysadmin default password wrong more than 5 times, it will lock you out and requires a hard reset which has to be done via serial connection and is time consuming. My best advice is to create at least another admin account immediately at deployment time with a simple password as a ‘backdoor’ and then remove this account once configuration is complete.

No, the product (both hardware and software) is very stable and robust.

In some of the entry level models (DD2200, 2500) you have to be aware of the scalability limitations and ensure you purchase a large enough controller if you foresee growth and scaling beyond its recommended operating parameters as typically the controllers cannot be upgraded in place or without data migration. It is important to get a qualified EMC storage professional to size and design the solution for your purposes up front. However, the DD2500 can scale to 3 x Expansion Shelves (130TB Raw) and the larger models can scale well beyond this up to multi-petabyte scale so typically there are no real scalability issues. You have a LOT of backup and archive data if you fill one of the large systems, however proper planning and design should prevent this ever occurring in the first place.

EMC Support provides a high quality service, however I have encountered very few technical issues with this particular product. When a customer did have an issue due to their backup product filling the Data Domain system (backup application mis-configuration issue) EMC Support worked tirelessly to resolve the issue with a high quality and faultless approach.

I have seen other software based and hardware based De-duplication storage products, so far none has lived up to the efficiency, scalability and integrity of Data Domain.

Very simple, just follow the prompts for the ‘config system’ command from the CLI. The only issue is with the new generation systems initial configuration is via Serial connection, there is no VGA port or pre-configured IP address, however after initial configuration all is very straightforward.

I have implemented this solution for clients working for a Partner/Integrator many many times, I have also designed solutions with Data Domain for EMC… therefore I cannot answer this question without being biased. However the Data Domain system is relatively concise and not monolithic to configure in a short space of time, typically the more time will be spent tweaking and tuning backup applications to write to it in the most efficient manner.

Fantastic product that really is the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of backup/archive/bulk storage products, so usable and can save significant $ and can save many headaches with data management, the more you store on it the better De-duplication and greater ROI you get. If you archive inactive data to this product you can reduce primary storage (SAN/NAS) use by an average of 70%.

Very easy to setup and Data Replication for off-site storage of data.

Data restores and recoveries are so much faster and easier that before, we never have to wait to recall a tape from off-site storage; More Disaster Recovery options allows us to have a better DR process; We were able to remove all TAPEs from our environment.

Based on how we use the product, it does everything we need it to do.

We have been using the Data Domain product since 2008.

We encountered no issues during deployment. Their technical support is great and the product is very simple to manage.

Stability of the Data Domain has never been an issue. They have been rock solid since we have used them. One time we had one of our Data Domains down for 4 days because of a hardware issue. Once the Data Domain was repaired and came back on-line the system picked up right where it left off. It automatically started to replicate all of the data between its replication partner and re-synced the data without any actions on my part.

When we had to add more storage to the Data Domain, adding another shelf of storage was very easy and non-disruptive. When you reach the capacity limit of the model you are using, then you will need to upgrade to another model with more capacity. But moving the backups to point to the new Data Domain is very easy.

Customer Service: Data Domains customer support is very good. We have always received prompt responses to anything we have needed.Technical Support: Their technical support is top notch. They are very responsive and the support personnel are very knowledgeable. The Call Home support for their product usually has already opened a support case for us before I know there is a problem.

The setup is very easy. We had it up and running the same day it was installed.

We had the vendor work with us to install and setup the systems. Their level of expertise was very good. If the person I was working with did not know something he was able to get with his team and resolve anything quickly.

With any duplication product, the initial cost is not cheap. But, once the Data Domain was setup, it just runs. I have very little to no day-to-day maintenance tasks other that monitoring for alerts, which it sends an email to notify me if anything has alerted.

For our Technology Refresh we looked at three different vendors, Data Domain, ExaGrid, and Quantum.

Make sure you setup the Data Domains to use Active Directory authentication. When you are replicating your data to a replication pair, this will make using the replicated data easier to access from the off-site location. If you do not use AD and setup the same account on all of your Data Domains, then you will be using a local account on each Data Domain. The permissions on each side of the replication are for a different user SID even if the users are the same name. So when you try to access the replicated data with the same named local account, since the SID is different, you do not have access to the data without making the local account an “Administrator” on the Data Domain which is not a good idea.