OpenText Data Protector Reviews

We use Micro Focus Data Protector for taking backups throughout our entire data center, which includes backups for our SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL databases, as well as for the Windows virtual instances which also require file-level, user data, and database backups.

Data Protector's granular recovery features make it easy for us to create and restore backups in an understandable and user-friendly manner. With granular recovery, any database or even just a database table can be restored at will.

The new dashboard that has been introduced is also very good because it allows us to easily visualize how many backups have been performed, showing the total number of TB used as well as useful information on our backup schedules.

Also, in terms of basic backup features, it has everything that most other backup solutions provide and the pricing is very competitive for what it offers.

Micro Focus are improving Data Protector with every new version and since we began undergoing training with the latest version we have not faced any real challenges yet. However, their support does need to be improved, in my opinion. In certain critical cases that we've had, they did not provide a satisfactory level of support.

I have been using Micro Focus Data Protector for the past ten years.

It is both stable and easy to maintain.

In terms of scalability, we're already using it throughout our entire data center. There are no limitations when it comes either host or data backups; you simply need to buy the appropriate licenses and scale up as required.

For any issues that we encounter, we escalate to Micro Focus' tech support. Unfortunately, their support does need some improvement because, in critical cases we've had in the past, I don't believe that they have provided adequate support.

Neutral

For me, setting up Micro Focus is straightforward when it comes to the Windows platform, but somewhat more complicated on Linux because I am not very accustomed to Linux. 

It will generally take one month for the planning phase, then another month for testing, after which we can implement it and move it into production.

Everything in terms of implementation is done in-house.

We are indeed getting return on investment from this solution.

Data Protector's pricing is very competitive and we have no issues in this regard. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing.

There are two main types of license, one being a perpetual license with a one-time charge and the other is a subscription license where you pay every year. With either type, scaling up is not a problem; you can just buy the appropriate license that is in compliance with your needs, and there is no limitation here.

We are currently evaluating similar backup solutions in the market such as those from Veeam and Veritas (NetBackup). 

At the end of the day, Data Protector is a user-friendly backup solution that is easy to integrate with any OS or database. Its main strengths include granular backup functionality and a well-implemented dashboard that tells you all the essential info such as how many backups you've run, how many have succeeded or failed, and how much space the backups are taking up.

I would rate Micro Focus Data Protector a nine out of ten.

We don't use Micro Focus widely. It's used as a backup-to-tape system. Overall, we have about five users because a couple of our clients use it as well.  

I like that Micro Focus keeps a separate catalog of our data. 

Many of our users complain about the GUI. You still need to rely on the command line interface. Because it originated as a Unix system, Data Protector is still a command line-driven solution, which makes it seem rather dated compared to systems that are built around a GUI from day one. It doesn't affect the functionality, but some people don't find it user-friendly.

I have been using Micro Focus for almost 20 years. 

Data Protector is stable.

Data Protector is highly scalable.

We don't use Micro Focus support often, but it has been pretty good when we needed it.

We also use Acronis Backup, but it's hard for me to compare because I don't have as much experience with Acronis relative to Data Protector. It's also one of those difficult situations because we haven't really pushed Data Protector to its limits. It has a lot of functionality that we don't use. We tend to use more of Acronis' functionality, so it would be unfair to compare them.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward because it was historically a Unix system. It takes about half a day to install. 

Data Protector has an annual license, and it's reasonably priced. 

I rate Micro Focus Data Protector eight out of 10. It's a highly stable solution that does the job. To use this product, you must comfortable with a command line interface, and many people today can't deal with anything that's not GUI. You need to be in control of the command line to use it properly. 

For various customers, Micro Focus Data Protector was used for backup and restore.

As a technology consultant, I used to deliver projects, and we used to have some concerns about the previous version versus the latest version. Based on that, we had our release going through on these products, which we overcame, and we even succeeded in getting upgraded from the older versions to the latest versions.

Customers wanted to upgrade from the previous version to the latest version, either on a Windows platform or on a Linux platform as well. They used to have multi-vendor storage boxes as well, and they wanted to know if it was compatible with this new version. 

They occasionally had an older version or older storage boxes that were incompatible. Based on that, we simply had the most recent support methods and shared them.

They were attempting to access the new storage, and we tried to find where they were stuck to support those issues.

The most valuable features of this solution were the features we worked most with which were telemetry, and the scheduler. We just had to onboard where we only had a few basic terms.

Most features we worked on were on a web console, but they still lack almost all of the features.

The other route was where they just wanted to learn more about cloud storage and where they wanted to go to applications, auto applications from local storage to cloud, but we couldn't give them the solutions because we didn't have certain enough features, facilities, in our lab environment where we could just work out our good R&D, and so on. But we failed in that situation because we were not given these solutions. That is something we could have done.

We have so many specific technological cracks in Micro Focus, but we are not getting the features, facilities, or coordination between the global delivery centers and the R&D team that we need to express our ideas. 

If they can overtake these, either they can go through R&Ds or they can allow us to go through R&Ds it would be helpful. Because we couldn't find certain lab environments where we could just try to succeed in those environments because we can't always go test in the customer environment.

When a technology consultant provides an idea, it is because they have just gone through the customer environment, they have gone through the lock and et cetera, they are well versed with those, and all they need now are some solutions. However, if I need to work with R&Ds, we don't have those solution architects who can help us manage, test, and implement those environments. 

That is where we fall short. We couldn't find an environment where we could simply try to go through testing and then implement it in the customer locations.

DP is a very user-friendly product, and we are transitioning to a web-based environment. It works because we don't have to go through a platform that is dependent on each cell manager individually. Rather, we can try to create a platform-independent solution, such as a portal that can be accessed from anywhere.

That is one option where I can work out in more central environments where I can just try to manage. We have a number of features where if we find a web portal and a good tool managing the number of devices and even just trying to configure along with a centralized medium and database, CMDB, we have a number of features. We have a very good feature going through centralizing media management, centralizing cell managers, and then working on a centralized media where we can just try to manage them to a cloud, which works very well because it is a centralized environment where we can pitch into it.

I was only working with Micro Focus Data Protector. I recently resigned and was transferred out of Micro Focus just two days ago.

It has not been longer than a year. We only recently started using 10.91 before upgrading from the previous version. And we recently worked on version 11 as well, which we successfully upgraded.

I had been working with Micro Focus Data Protector for 15 years, and I'm currently using DP 10.52.

I used to even deliver the training and travel across EMEA, I used to travel across Apigee, and we used to deliver the training and even collect their solutions. So we used to provide solutions, training, and even take over projects, as well as deliver and clear up their projects.

I was employed by Micro Focus until last week.

Micro Focus Data Protector is a stable solution.

This product is extremely good. When compared to other storage or backup tools on the market, it is extremely competitive. Most of them are preferable because they are user-friendly, have multi-vendor support, and also support cloud platforms. And we're going through the cloud as well as local storage. We have many specific visibilities, but we couldn't get the chance to explore everything in detail.

Micro Focus Data Protector is scalable.

No one has bothered to take care of the product because we have only been working on it for the last 15 years and most of the customers were satisfied and were using it.

They had been using third-party products, but they recently migrated to this product because it was user-friendly, easy to manage, and agent-based. We used to even convince them that we worked on cross platforms and so on because it is the only platform that supports cross-platform, backups, disaster recoveries via sites, auto applications, synchronization, and consolidation.

We have a number of different features and facilities in the product, but we haven't been able to find any such compatible people, those who can simply guide us or even just go through that. But, yeah, we just stayed in these places.

I can apologize to technical support because we were better than they were.

We would take a large amount of time. But now we see that most of them are extremely valuable. They understand the product, but they are not aware of the product.

Before we had very good people who would work out and give us the results. But now I see, I asked one of the results if I should just consider ITOL, and one of my customers recently stated that they would like to have a language for Portuguese, but I don't believe that language has become available. They have expressed regret that we are not providing adequate support.

Support is poor, I would rate it a two out of five.

I was experimenting with various monitoring tools. Working with SDM, Structure Data Manager, and Data Protector with automation and integrations.

Here, we have only worked with business clients. We had worked with customers who had complications, and we had customers who were in the early stages of either a fresh setup or a very complex configurations going through the very old versions of an agent and also the different vendor-specific storage boxes.

Most of them are no longer supported. They have only worked on older versions, such as six, version six, or 5.5. 

Now they want to import the data into the new service, and we provided them with a solution to import the data. We were successful in one of the customer locations. We used to do fictitious R&Ds because we didn't have the platform to work out and be comfortable and confident in those concepts.

Pricing depends on the licensing. Again, because now we are just going through different licensing, going through premium licensing, where we used to just call it a traditional base, we used to even have a capacity-based and et cetera here, but now we have some licensing confusions here. Because the customer now says, "We used to work on previous versions and still have active licenses available, so why don't we migrate or use those active licenses when we decide to upgrade?"

We have a lot of questions where we get confused because we just say it's possible. The theory suggests that it is not possible because we just tried it when we went to the customer and asked them to upgrade from version nine to version eleven. According to theory, if we want to upgrade from version 9 to version 11, we must first go from 9 to 10.4 and then to 11. But we did R&D, and we were able to export and import IDBs, and we were successful by migrating IDB and upgrading directly from nine to eleven. We succeeded.

We were concerned because we were unable to obtain the necessary support. DP is an extremely useful tool.

We have many competitors who are pricing better, and we believe that our pricing is higher. They used to customize those based on the product when they just wanted our pricing because I only see most of the licensing team. Because when I was working from HPE to Micro Focus, HPE had hardware as well as licensing, and they used to manage to go through the imagines between hardware and licensing, which was manageable.

Micro Focus is purely software, and we don't have that margin where we can reduce the licensing terms or the licensing cost. We lagged because most of them just wanted to go through traditional licensing, they just wanted to go with express licensing because most of the processes were going through virtualization, and so on. 

We definitely need to improve the price for licensing, in my opinion.

I would rate the pricing a three out of five.

My advice to new implementers is to please first try to understand the current environment and try to find out the prerequisites before proceeding with the solutions. Because most of them don't go with the existing environment, they just start implementing the new environment without understanding their setups. 

In my opinion, we should first try to understand the setup with their environment team, understand what all of their requirements are, and then proceed based on that. 

It depends on whether they're going through an enterprise hardware level, virtualization, or even a cloud. My concerns from what I have observed are once we have implemented, they later ask if we have certain features or capabilities available when they should have considered including these features as well before the implementation.

The issue is that the customer is not convinced by the sales team that the features are available and that they can go with these features, to test their environment. 

My suggestion is for the sales team to go into their environment, understand their requirements, and then talk about what features we have in our product to give them a clear idea that this is what the environment, this is what the features you may be expecting in your environment. We failed because our sales teams were unable to persuade them in the proper manner.

I would rate Micro Focus Data Protector a ten out of ten. 

This is the only product where the majority of them are unsure, either because of the features, which we only have here or because of the manner in which they have been convinced. But when I just work practically and try to convince customers, they are happy with the features that we have in the product. When we approach new customers, they say that it does not include certain features.

But when I try to convince them that we do have these features, and please let us know what features we need to have in order to compete with third-party products. I hope we have many features in DP, rather than going through because we are now going through a block-based system. If we go through file system backups, a number of integrations, and even big data, we are getting close. I think this is the most wonderful type of feature for what we currently have in Data Protector, where we can explore these things.

It works excellently only with Oracle.

It has a lot of undeveloped functions like window searching and patent searching, and within the main backup processes like VMware and Microsoft Exchange.

It's completely not user-friendly, and it has no built-in antivirus software. In my opinion, Micro Focus Data Protector is not an enterprise level solution.

I would like to see the quick search bar working without complexities and would like to see the building reporting. I would like to see it deny the architecture of the client and server and work directly via APIs.

I would like to see Micro Focus Data Protector be completely web based with fast HTML files. That would reduce a lot of installation time with all those script integrations and so on.

It would be good to have automation of the broken backups. For example, NetBackup had a great feature when the backup broke for some reason. It would automatically try to resume it eight or nine times and only then would give a fail error.

The stability depends on the environment because there can be some special cases where Micro Focus Data Protector is not stable at all.

The technical support from Micro Focus is terrible in terms of the quality and problem solving. For example, let's assume that something went wrong when running Data Protector in a large infrastructure environment with permanent backups going on. When we contact technical support, they will ask us to provide logs. However, if we turn the bug mode on it will affect all of the systems, and we simply will not be able to collect the requested logs for that purpose. So, it becomes impossible to provide the necessary log files because we cannot stop the critical backups.

I have some experience with NetBackup. It was more stable, user-friendly, and had the best support. However, the decision makers decided that Micro Focus Data Protector was the better way to go, and we had to switch.

As for the initial setup, it's perfect for small- and medium-sized companies.

The pricing is acceptable for enterprise level companies, but it's not acceptable for small- and medium-sized businesses. Micro Focus Data Protector is not an enterprise level solution, and it should cover small- and medium-sized businesses with acceptable prices.

I would advise you not to use Micro Focus Data Protector and would rate it at four on a scale from one to ten.

We use Data Protector for backup and recovery.

The most valuable feature of Data Protector is its integration with VMware. A lot of software these days integrates with VMware, and you can run some of these things on virtual machines. You can even have your backup manager running on a virtual machine and use physical managers to move data around. Their VMware integration isn't too bad, but Commvault has that feature, and many other backup products do.

We're not satisfied with the robustness and stability of the software since Micro Focus took it in-house. The GUI is one thing they could improve. It's still a bit archaic. Data Protector needs a more functional, user-friendly GUI.

I started at this company in 2018, so I have been using Data Protector at this company since then or maybe a little before. They were using the solution before HPE sold it off to Micro Focus. The company was initially using it with MSL Tape Libraries. When I joined, StoreOnce had just been installed.

Data Protector isn't stable.

Data Protector is sufficiently scalable for our purposes, but our site isn't that big.

I rate Micro Focus Data Protector six out of 10. We were unsatisfied with the support, and that contributed to the decision to migrate to Commvault. The quality dropped when they outsourced support. It's not the only company. HPE also took its service and support to Bangalore in India.

You should only outsource if your service level won't drop, but it always drops. When you mention that to management, they say, "Okay, we know, but everybody is doing it." Accenture does it and Cognizant, too. All the big services companies are all down there.

Neutral

The company is considering a switch to Commvault. It's a global company, so the transition will be worldwide, and we don't have a say. I still don't have any hands-on experience, but I know HPE has tightened its ties with Commvault, and they're producing technical best practices for the product. They are even promoting Commvault as their backup solution of choice when providing backup solutions to customers.

Data Protector used to be their product, so they did have the chance. Once Micro Focus acquired them, even HPE was not satisfied with the level of support and gradually started looking to Commvault. At the same time, if somebody asked me which backup solution I would suggest, I couldn't recommend Commvault because I don't have the experience yet.

I rate Micro Focus Data Protector six out of 10.

We have two different systems. We use Microsoft Azure Backup for VM machines and Micro Focus for our file server, database, and cloud backups, like Exchange Online and so forth.  

The online backups of Office 365 have room for improvement. This is now available for the Exchange Online part of Office 365, but we're still waiting for SharePoint Online, Teams, etc. We know that it's coming, but it takes time.

We have been using Data Protector for more than 20 years. We started using it when it was an HP solution, but then Micro Focus acquired it. It was always the same product.

Data Protector is highly stable.

Data Protector is scalable. 

I've never heard any complaints about Micro Focus support, so I think it's okay.

Data Protector is quite simple and easy to deploy. The deployment is always the same. It's on a server, and the agents are deployed to the machines in a straightforward way. We have two engineers who deploy and manage all our backup solutions. 

We switched from device licensing to volume-based licensing for Data Protector.

I rate Micro Focus Data Protector eight out of 10. We chose Data Protector years ago because it supported all the systems and databases we needed. Other software packages covered a special range of products but didn't offer broad support. This was a long time ago, so I don't know the situation in the market today.

We primarily use data protection in complex environments with large Oracle databases, Hyper-V, and VMWare hypervisors with replication of backup sets to DR site. 

It's used for data protection of large Oracle Databases, backups of small branch offices, zero-downtime backup of mission-critical databases with HPE storage (XP or 3PAR), data protection of most common NAS appliances through NDMP protocol, and the backup of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Sharepoint, and the Microsoft SQL Server. 

It provides a consolidation of backups to the tape library and to the cloud provider. 

Data Protector works in conjunction with a Catalyst-based deduplication feature and HPE StoreOnce appliances to provide us with the tools to build reliable DR solutions for backups through Catalyst stores replication using ARS between the sites. 

The wide variety of parameters that can be used to perform fine-tuning of integrations helped us to reach stability with the backups of complex environments. 

The push install feature helped us in completing large migrations from other backup software vendors in a short amount of time.

Oracle DB instances backup is one of the main script integrations in the backup specification of the NDMP three-way backups. It lets us use StoreOnce Catalyst stores as a destination through an ethernet connection, bypassing the SAN and avoiding the use of physical and virtual tape libraries. 

Catalyst stores replication using ARS between two sites - each with a distinct cell manager. 

The command-line interface is user-friendly and well documented in the reference guide. 

Push install from DP GUI interface lets us deploy/upgrade clients of most common platforms in a short amount of time.

The VMware GRE is still limited and complex to implement with differences in behavior between Windows and Linux mount proxies. 

ZDB has too many constraints (e.g. it doesn't work for Linux volumes mirrored with software different from LVM). 

Microfocus needs to build a partnership with other vendors in addition to HPE as far as cloud consolidation of backups. 

With the 11.0 release, there have been improvements in terms of security (Secure communication) however, the bar is still not high enough. 

Data Protector advanced scheduler should be replaced with a more reliable scheduler such as the Veritas One.

I've used the solution for 12 years.

The solution, especially if it's implemented in the Linux platform, is very stable.

The scalability is good, however, being a solution that relies on HW from other vendors (HPE, EMC, etc.) scalability isn't a mess for Data Protector itself.

The customer service is discreet.

Neutral

In the past, I used EMC Networker and Veritas Netbackup and I switched to HPE Data Protector for business needs.

The initial setup was straightforward. The installation manuals are well done and there are several setup wizards at our disposal.

All implementations were handled in-house.

Information is reserved and cannot be shared as per company policies.

The setup cost is not so large compared with other software, while as far as licensing goes, I suggest one per capacity (Front End TB) if the environment is heterogeneous with both physical and virtual servers.

We did not evaluate other options first.

We use the solution for backup data protection of on-premises, in-cloud, and virtual environments. Also, we use it for the features such as production tab and recall tool.

The solution is easy to use.

The solution's customer support service needs a lot of improvement. Presently, they take a long time to resolve simple issues.

I rate the solution's stability as a four. We face challenges with it, and the support team has not been able to fix them.

We have 2000 users of the solution in our organization. I rate its scalability as a six.

The solution's customer support service for setup and ongoing issues could be better. 

The solution's initial setup was easy, but it took two months to complete the process because of its poor technical support.

The solution's support team executed the deployment for us. It was a time-consuming process.

The solution's price is more reasonable than the other vendors.

If the solution's customer service improves, it will stand out as the best product compared to other vendors. I rate it as a five.