Veritas NetBackup Reviews

The use cases for customers are across the board, but they're all for data backup. Veritas is a legacy system. To be perfectly honest, a lot of people are moving away from the legacy systems and moving more towards the cloud-oriented backup solutions. A lot of my customers look at Veritas NetBackup as an antiquated solution.

The most valuable features of the solution are basic backup and recovery. It's a very solid product. Standard backup recovery, that's pretty much it. Other than that, they do some good database stuff, but otherwise, it's somewhat antiquated.

One area for improvement with the product would be better messaging and better solutions around cloud, both on-prem and off. And along with that, which is actually mission critical to every company today, would be ransomware prevention. 

The biggest additional features needed are more cloud capabilities and security from ransomware.

I've worked with the solution for the last fifteen years. I'm a solutions architect. I work with customers to help them design their solutions or improve their current situation.

Veritas NetBackup is very stable.

The solution actually scales out very well.

I'd give the technical support team a B to a B+. They've always been good.

Most companies that have moved to NetBackup were probably on a even older architecture, something that might have been from IBM, NetView. NetView was even an older architecture, it was very difficult to use, and a lot of people moved away from IBM NetView over to Veritas.

Veritas is a pretty straightforward initial setup. It's not difficult to install.

The deployment times vary depending upon how widely it's going to be used, how many backup instances are going to be, how many policies you have to create for recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives. It's all relative to how many policies the customers have, for retention cycles, for backup recovery, as well as archive and disaster recovery. Some can be deployed in a day, others take weeks.

Most people have felt this solution was somewhat expensive. It's licensed for 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, all the way up to 72 months. As long as you're current on maintenance, everything is included and there are no additional costs.

Sometimes we would look at other options before going with Veritas NetBackup. For example, Backup Exec, which is like a sister product of NBU, and they were really for smaller size companies. Commvault was another one that we were looking at.

My advice to others looking at this solution would be make sure it meets all of your requirements. Do you have an on-prem, off-prem, cloud requirement? Do your homework to make sure that whatever product you're looking at meets all the requirements that you need.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. It's a very rock solid product, but I wouldn't give it a 10, because it doesn't have some of the newer features of the newer products. But it is a solid product.

We use Veritas NetBackup for backup.

I am the head of the institution and my team is using this solution. It is used by my team. It is evaluated and secured by me, but my storage team uses it 100 percent. I manage this product.

I am comfortable with using this product.

I don't believe that it is flexible enough for business operations and other things.

Unlike Veeam, Veritas does not provide a Community Edition.

The restoration method and the compression ratio need improvement.

I had been using Veritas NetBackup for ten years.

I am now working with the Veeam Backup solution. I have been working with Veeam Backup for two and half years. I am using the Community Edition.

I am very satisfied with this product. It's stable and scales well.

We never approached Veeam for technical help as a community addition because community addition does not include technical support.

I would rate Veeam Backup a nine out of ten.

The restoration method and the compression ratio, appear to be slightly better than Veritas.

Both are different, it is difficult to compare. I am comfortable in both they are neck in neck in terms of competition.

It is reasonably priced.

It is dependent on the institution as well as the company's requirements. Veeam provides a free corporate license for their platform, whereas Veritas does not. Perhaps there will be a trial version period, after which we will need to purchase it.

Veeam, for example, has a Community Edition, which is free for usage, without any support. This does not exist in Veritas. You can try it for 30, 40 days, or a month trial, then you need to pay for it and start the obligation. For example, I use Veeam without any subscription or license. There is a big difference.

I would rate Veritas NetBackup an eight out of ten.

In terms of most valuable features, I like the fact that if you have a bunch of backups, NetBackup gives you the ability to have one master and multiple media servers. What that means is you can have a bunch of sites that all have libraries and you have one master server that controls all the functionality of all the jobs. You don't have to deploy a standup NetBackup solution at each site. You can just deploy the media version for their tape library and have one master server that controls all the jobs.

What I also like about NetBackup, as opposed to most solutions like Rubrik and Cohesity, which don't really support backing up to tape environments, is that NetBackup does. If you are running on a legacy tape environment NetBackup is best. Most of the guys I've seen that use NetBackup have a tape environment.

The flip side about NetBackup is that it is not policy-based. NetBackup doesn't give you that feature. For example, Rubrik is a policy-based type of app, so when you create a backup job with it, say you have 30 servers in that backup, you can make one policy and apply it to them all. NetBackup doesn't do that. With NetBackup, you need to create a backup job for each server you want to back up and for each server you have. That is the only thing I don't really like about NetBackup. I can use Rubrik or Cohesity where you can create one policy, and apply it to many servers at one time where with NetBackup, you can't do that. You create a backup for each server. That takes more time.

If they can improve on policy-based backups, that would be great.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup for about 10 or 11 years.

I think that the last version I used was version six. They're probably up to eight or 10 now. But really nothing has changed. Maybe additional features from the last time I saw it, but not really much has changed. I think they made a version 10.

The last time I went online I didn't really see much difference from a feature perspective since I began using it. I think the GUI interface looks a little different, a little cleaner, but functionality-wise, I didn't really see much change.

In terms of stability, no problem. Like I said, if you have multiple tape libraries, you can have one master that has a bunch of multiple media services. So you can have tape libraries all scattered at different sites. The one master server you set up controls all the job functions. When you log into it, it just kicks off the jobs and you can pause jobs. For different sites, you can keep the job turned off. It controls all the functions and all the backup jobs for all the multiple sites. That's all the master server does. It doesn't actually do any backup. It's responsible for making the kicked off jobs to get backed up.

Their customer support is not bad. I don't have any issues with technical support. Technical support is okay.

The initial setup is very easy. Commvault has a lot more convoluted setup. NetBackup is really easy to set up. I've never used Commvault, but from other colleagues I know who use it, you need professional services because it's so convoluted to set up. NetBackup is not that convoluted. Commvault is nice. It's a very nice application, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to put it down or anything like that. Once it's running, it's a good product. But from being exposed to Commvault a little, I like NetBackup better. I just think the downside to NetBackup is that it's not policy driven. That's the only thing I don't like about it.

Pricing depends on the number of licenses and on the number of servers you have. It varies based on the number of servers that you're trying to back up.

My advice to anyone considering Veritas NetBackup is to validate. If you have multiple sites, it's better to have the setup. If you have multiple sites that are running a tape library and media servers, you can set up one master server. But if you only have one site, you can set up a backup as a media server and a master server. If you have multiple sites, you want to look at how many sites you are backing up. If it's multiple sites, then you want to set them up with one master server.

If you only have one site, then you have the media server and the master, and it does both. That would be my suggestion - to validate if there is more than one site you're going to be backing up. If you are going to be backing up more than one site, you want to properly set up the first time. If you only have one site you're backing up, set it up as a master media. If you have multiple sites to set up, you want to set them up as media servers and then set up one master server that controls all the functions for the remaining sites. That is really the biggest thing, to be honest with you.

You might want to confirm if it supports backing up to Azure or AWS. Some people want to do long-term archiving. You want to confirm whether or not NetBackup supports backup to Azure or Google Cloud or AWS from a long-term archiving perspective.

Some people backup to tape. Some people are going to say that you can't back up the disk with NetBackup. I just don't know if it supports backing up to cloud providers.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd say NetBackup is an eight. It's pretty strong. I don't have other problems. I would say it's definitely a strong eight. It's a pretty good product.

We use Veritas NetBackup for our backups.

Most of our requirements have been met. It was especially useful with the appliances we use on a daily basis.

They are discontinuing the support for IBM AIX operating system in the latest version. I would like to see them continue with this service.

I would like to have support enabled for cloud backups. 

There are several services that are not available that would make it more compatible with cloud technologies.

The majority of the features you require are deduplication, compression, and there is a dependency on the geo-clusters from a DRN standpoint. They should concentrate more on removing the dependency because preparing your DRN architecture for backup is very complex.

I have been working with Veritas NetBackup for the last 13 years.

We are using version 9.

It can be deployed both on-premises and on our cloud.

So far Veritas NetBackup has been stable.

Scalability is a challenge because it is only available in a fixed capacity of, at least 48 terabytes, which makes it difficult to manage.

Previously, we used IBM Tivoli.

While I was not a part of the initial setup, I understand that it is fairly simple. 

I was involved in the product version upgrade. We were able to finish it and begin using the built-in appliance.

We completed the implementation in three weeks and have been using the appliances on a daily basis since then.

It is currently managed by a team of three people.

The price is reasonable.

We purchased a perpetual license and perform SMS renewals.

Before you decide, I would advise going for the right model because there are different types of licensing available. It is available on a Platform-based which is a capacity-based model, by the number of clients who are using it, and a Tradition model. 

Managing the server becomes very complex, and you should do the software compliance. 

Also, once the backup for the databases is configured, enable data compression at the source to reduce the amount of data that travels across the network.

I would rate Veritas NetBackup a nine out of ten.

I'm using it in our company. We're a government-owned entity.

In terms of version, it would be N minus two. We are probably two versions off the latest one.

The feature that is most useful for us is that it backs up every application that we own.

Within their product lineup, they need to consolidate down to one product. Veritas doesn't have one product that does everything. So, Veritas can do everything, but you basically need to run two products. I would like them to combine all the capabilities into one release.

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

The stability of the product has been excellent over the years. In the last three years, the product has been very stable.

Its scalability is fine. It is an enterprise solution. It is for large data centers or large deployments. So, it scales quite well.

We have six people in the infrastructure team who work with this product.

Their technical support is very good.

I have worked with Commvault and Arcserve, and when compared to these products, Veritas is better.

Its initial setup was straightforward.

It is slightly more expensive than Commvault, but it is pretty much the same. It is an enterprise solution, so it scales quite well. It has a lot of features. So, you pay for what you get. It is not cheap, but it is fit for the purpose.

If you are a pure cloud place or if you are running a pure cloud enterprise where you have no on-premise solutions, I would advise other products. If you are running hybrid, like many of the data centers are still running hybrid, and you have a lot of on-premise workloads or very large Oracle workloads like we do, you can run Veritas. You will have no issue. If you're a new green site or you're a startup or a green site, I would run Veeam or Rubrik because it is all-new.

I would rate Veritas NetBackup an eight out of 10.

The primary use case of Veritas is generally for protecting data and storing it at a secondary site. Use of the solution is sometimes dependent on compliance requirements. Depending on the client, the solution can be deployed on-prem, on cloud, and sometimes using a hybrid option. I'm a solutions architect and a reseller of Veritas.

I like the NetBackup Appliance form factor, where your data is 99.9% safe because unauthorized people cannot log in and execute commands. It requires an admin password and includes IDS and IPS features. I also like the integration with third parties and third party applications, like instant recovery and instant access of the VMs and SQL data.

I'd like to see some simplification in the solution. They currently have the Java concept and it should be less intensive and take less load. The integration should be simple, not a script-based backup with minimum input and maximum output. The solution also needs more integration, even the infrastructure has become more complex. They currently have integrated containers and Kubernetes for backup but they could include backup of SQL or Oracle, or performance in the visualization process. All those things could be improved. 

I've been using this solution for six years. 

There are no issues with the stability. I haven't had any problems with it. 

As a cloud structure, the solution is scalable. The only issue is that data size is more than 20 PBR and requires multiple media servers and an increase in LAN or CPU, to absorb the load on the master media servers.

The technical support has improved and is much better than it used to be. 

I've also used CloudPoint which is integrated with NetBackup in the 9.1 version. With NetBackup, I can take a VM level backup and file level backups; in CloudPoint you can take  volume level backups. Currently there is no file level backups in the cloud whereas with NetBackup you can do that. In comparing NetBackup with a backup platform service controller, the PSC is great because it's simple to use, simple to install and the integration is very easy. NetBackup is for enterprise clients and therefore takes longer to learn. 

The initial setup is very easy and there's no similar service. 

NetBackup is a little costlier compared to other products and backup PSC.

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for backup purposes.

The backup and restore functions are very valuable aspects of the product. We use those features the most.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is very good.

I'm not fully satisfied with the product. 

It's a little bit complex to manage. 

The user interface is not user-friendly. It's a bit complex, and it's dated in appearance. It needs a much simpler, cleaner update.

The reporting is too complex. There needs to be a way to customize it in a simple and straightforward manner.

The solution has extra features, however, you need to pay for them.

Occasionally, technical support cannot find the root cause of issues.

We've been using the solution for about four years at this point. It's been a while.

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

The scalability of the product is very good. A company can scale it with relative ease if it needs to.

While technical support is responsive, we have found that sometimes they just seem can't find the actual root cause of the issues we present. Sometimes they can't fix our issues. That's why we aren't 100% satisfied with the level of support they provide. They need to be more knowledgeable and dig deeper to resolve issues.

I can't speak too much about the installation process. 

My understanding is that the installation is simple as it has an appliance that's installed. The usage is a bit complex and there needs to be extra licensing to customize the reporting - however, that's a different issue.  

It is not an all-in-one solution. Some features come at an extra cost and need extra hardware or software.

I can't speak to the actual pricing of the product, however.

We are casually looking into alternative solutions. We are looking at Commvault, Rubrik, Cohesity, and Dell. Mostly, we are interested in enterprise-level products.

We are not using the latest version of the product. The NetBackup version we are using is 8.0. We use a NetBackup Appliance. The NetBackup version is a bit older as it's integrated with the backup appliance. That's why we cannot upgrade to the latest version. The latest version is 9.0.

I would warn other potential users that, in my experience, it's a bit complex and may be difficult to achieve some requirements compared to other products. Rubrik or Cohesity may be a bit easier, for example. It's a little bit traditional in terms of architecture. However, the features compared to others are really quite amazing.

In general, I would rate the product at a seven out of ten.

We are currently phasing it out, and we've gone to Rubrik. At one point, we were backing up everything with it, which included physical and virtual NAS. We moved the virtual first and then we started packing the physicals to move them.

I used to have a lot of respect for Veritas NetBackup, but over the years, they've lost their focus, and they're just not doing much to improve the product.

It has been around for so long, and it is very in-depth. It has a solution for everything that you can cover.

It was very complicated, and it required a lot of work in terms of management. We have moved to Rubrik. One of the reasons for getting rid of Veritas NetBackup was the fact that at one point, we had the support staff with 12 to 15 people to manage Veritas NetBackup, whereas, with Rubrik, I'm the only one managing Rubrik. There is one more person who works with me mostly due to the fact that in case I'm not around, someone else knows what to do, but I'm the only one who is a full-time manager of Rubrik. The complexity of Veritas required a large staff to manage it.

We had daily issues that had to be looked into and resolved. A lot of these issues revolved around Veritas' handling of VMware, which is why first we moved VMware off Veritas. After we did that, we were also able to reduce our staff count.

Their licensing is a disaster. It is extremely complicated. In most cases, Veritas themselves can't understand their own licensing.

I have personally used Veritas NetBackup for 15 to 20 years. In my current organization, it has been ingrained for quite some time. They have been using it for quite some time, but I have been here for only three years.

Dependability was lacking quite often because we were not getting the support for the support cases. 

It has scalability.

We were not getting proper support for the support cases that we were opening. Some of that came down to the fact that they knew we were leaving. It was more like, "Yeah, you're already on your way out the door. So, we'll look at that when we look at it." It wasn't like, "You're a happy customer, and you're going to be staying around. We need to make sure we keep you happy." Typically, you need to escalate before you get to anyone helpful.

It had been installed long before I joined.

At some point, it did provide ROI, but over the years, Veritas has not continued to put enough effort into research and development. As a company, they're focusing on other products and really not managing the backup software very well.

It was on a yearly basis. During the annual review, when we asked them about our licensing, they couldn't explain it. For example, we had reduced by a factor of 40%, but our license only dropped by 5%. We would then ask Veritas people if we've reduced this much and shut down these servers, why has our license changed so less? They were never able to give us a straight answer. They weren't able to say, "Well, you're using this, and this is more expensive." In many cases, as we reduced our capacity and what we were using with Veritas NetBackup, our licensing actually went up, and they were often unable to explain why. 

We also looked at Cohesity and decided to go with Rubrik. Rubrik was just simpler and easier to manage. As a result, we went from 12 to 15 members staff to 1 member.

I honestly don't feel that Veritas NetBackup is forward-thinking. There are a lot better options to implement at this point. I would not suggest Veritas NetBackup to anyone at this point. It is not being managed properly.

Veritas needs to come out with a completely new product and break away from the old. They've basically been continuing to update the same product since the eighties. It is time for them to more or less move to a more forward-thinking. They need to be more in-line with how the environments work today. It has outlived its usefulness in all honesty. They would honestly be better off by re-inventing Veritas NetBackup than trying to fix what's broken.

I would rate Veritas NetBackup a three out of ten.