Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
Jan 7, 2026
Regarding data recovery improvements in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, there are challenges with data sets larger than one terabyte that are not related to VM. While VM recovery functions adequately, the system does not display data progress properly. Additionally, from a policy perspective, the interface does not allow visibility of clients at the policy level. Users must search and navigate through multiple screens to find this information. In comparison, solutions like Veritas display policy and client configurations directly in the console menu. I would like to see improvements that include bare metal restore capabilities and enhanced data restore features in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
Nov 25, 2025
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager should add support for Hyper-V and Nutanix VMs, as well as Kubernetes. Additionally, they should support tape library backup capabilities.
Business Development Manager at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Apr 7, 2025
The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers.
The main issue that needs improvement is the support system. When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response. Scheduling for support calls can be problematic when it does not align well with the customer's availability. Expediting the scheduling of calls and feedback would be beneficial to my interaction with clients.
PowerProtect Data Manager lacks the tape-out functionality, which is important for organizations relying on it for offsite backup. While PowerProtect Data Manager offers a workaround, it's not always accepted, notably by sectors like banking. Additionally, I would like PowerProtect Data Manager to provide microservices and container backup for modern applications.
The tool's scalability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required. The market and technology-driven factors will let the market know of any requirements of the users, based on which the product can add new features.
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
The solution should enhance its user interface and make it more flexible. It can be enhanced to be more flexible and usable for customers. The solution should be integrated with other appliances from multiple vendors. It would be better if customers could use other appliances from other vendors along with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems. However, given the rapid growth and introduction of various technologies in the marketplace, PPDM needs to expand its compatibility and integration with a broader range of technologies. While it can handle backups with technologies like Elasticsearch, there may be a need for better integration with standard DevOps tools for smoother backup processes.
Cloud Infrastructure Delivery Lead at Johnson Controls, Inc.
Real User
Feb 7, 2024
A lot of improvement is required in Dell's first level of support. In the future, the product should be able to fit into a hybrid infrastructure. It should be more of a single solution to meet all your hybrid infrastructure needs rather than having different solutions.
They should include a feature similar to S3 bucket. Presently, PPDM offers integration with data domain and power protection appliances. At times, customers demand a simple bucket instead of multiple integrations. In that case, we have to suggest other vendors like ECS to them.
The interface can be improved in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. The interface is too complex. In the next release, I would like to see a better tutorial on how to use the software.
Sr Test Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 21, 2022
Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly. The solution is not as intuitive as other products so it requires a certain expertise to keep things up and running.
You need to use additional software to back up entire environments. It will be good if they could support entire tape libraries. If the duplication feature is added to Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it will be very useful for virtual environments.
G. Manager- Technical Services with 51-200 employees
Real User
Nov 25, 2021
The Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager reports could improve. There should be different kinds of reports on failures, such as dashboards that we can submit to top management or auditors.
CEO/co-founder at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Feb 18, 2020
The parts of the solution that can be improved most seem to me to be the integration with the tape libraries. I know that is not common use because nowadays most companies want to give up on using tapes for what they think are other, better solutions. To them, tapes are not modern or fashionable or something. The integration with tape libraries is included in this new PowerProtect product, but you need an extra virtual machine — probably some extra server — next to this solution to manage the tape library. EMC had some idea before when they were distributing Avamar Software and Appliances that tapes were passee and they said to the market that no one should use tape anymore. With that, they eliminated the option from the product. Now we can see that in the market tape is still used. There are not any drawbacks to using tape because tape, even now, is the most versatile medium on which to store data. An enhancement I would like to see is in the configuration of the product. They have resources in this product that can be used in different ways to make the user experience better. It seems to me that if Dell EMC could combine this into one good product, then they should do it because then there is not any reason to develop more than one backup software product. It does not make sense to invest in the development of two or three. Because there are different purposes, they have chosen to create different backup software packages especially for endpoints and a separate one built for the data centers. Instead, it would be more powerful and efficient if they could combine the two solutions into one solution. For example, Commvault does something like this. If they combined the products, then you could have one pane-of-glass on a screen and you can manage the whole entire organization. In this PowerProtect, there is something like that, but you know and can tell that you have two distinct products. It is one graphical user interface, but below this, you are interacting with it as if there are two different products (Networker and Avamar) and they are quite different if you compared them one-to-one. I would recommend Dell EMC take the extra step to combine it into one product. It would be better for them and the users. Additional features might be something to add support for Docker/Linux Container systems. This would be something like having virtualization by container. Currently, the solution is not able to back up from Docker containers. I am not sure, but maybe it is possible to put some type of agent into the Docker container to make it possible to back up the whole machine from outside. This is a problem and they could improve it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do have one customer who uses PowerProtect and they had a problem with this type of situation. It was an Oracle database and the databases were containerized. This is one thing that I know about right now that seems to me could be improved in the design and made smarter.
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager provides efficient backup and recovery for hybrid and multicloud environments. It consolidates VMware, Kubernetes, database, and file system protection through a singular interface. PowerProtect Data Manager is a software-defined platform that integrates modern backup and recovery capabilities, focusing on enhancing performance metrics like RPO and RTO. It supports operations through automated discovery, policy-driven protection, and intelligent analytics while...
Regarding data recovery improvements in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, there are challenges with data sets larger than one terabyte that are not related to VM. While VM recovery functions adequately, the system does not display data progress properly. Additionally, from a policy perspective, the interface does not allow visibility of clients at the policy level. Users must search and navigate through multiple screens to find this information. In comparison, solutions like Veritas display policy and client configurations directly in the console menu. I would like to see improvements that include bare metal restore capabilities and enhanced data restore features in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager should add support for Hyper-V and Nutanix VMs, as well as Kubernetes. Additionally, they should support tape library backup capabilities.
The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers.
The main issue that needs improvement is the support system. When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response. Scheduling for support calls can be problematic when it does not align well with the customer's availability. Expediting the scheduling of calls and feedback would be beneficial to my interaction with clients.
PowerProtect Data Manager lacks the tape-out functionality, which is important for organizations relying on it for offsite backup. While PowerProtect Data Manager offers a workaround, it's not always accepted, notably by sectors like banking. Additionally, I would like PowerProtect Data Manager to provide microservices and container backup for modern applications.
The tool's scalability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required. The market and technology-driven factors will let the market know of any requirements of the users, based on which the product can add new features.
The solution should enhance its user interface and make it more flexible. It can be enhanced to be more flexible and usable for customers. The solution should be integrated with other appliances from multiple vendors. It would be better if customers could use other appliances from other vendors along with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems. However, given the rapid growth and introduction of various technologies in the marketplace, PPDM needs to expand its compatibility and integration with a broader range of technologies. While it can handle backups with technologies like Elasticsearch, there may be a need for better integration with standard DevOps tools for smoother backup processes.
A lot of improvement is required in Dell's first level of support. In the future, the product should be able to fit into a hybrid infrastructure. It should be more of a single solution to meet all your hybrid infrastructure needs rather than having different solutions.
They should include a feature similar to S3 bucket. Presently, PPDM offers integration with data domain and power protection appliances. At times, customers demand a simple bucket instead of multiple integrations. In that case, we have to suggest other vendors like ECS to them.
The interface can be improved in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. The interface is too complex. In the next release, I would like to see a better tutorial on how to use the software.
Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly. The solution is not as intuitive as other products so it requires a certain expertise to keep things up and running.
You need to use additional software to back up entire environments. It will be good if they could support entire tape libraries. If the duplication feature is added to Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it will be very useful for virtual environments.
The Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager reports could improve. There should be different kinds of reports on failures, such as dashboards that we can submit to top management or auditors.
There is always room for improvement. The compression ratio should be improved as well as the efficiency.
The parts of the solution that can be improved most seem to me to be the integration with the tape libraries. I know that is not common use because nowadays most companies want to give up on using tapes for what they think are other, better solutions. To them, tapes are not modern or fashionable or something. The integration with tape libraries is included in this new PowerProtect product, but you need an extra virtual machine — probably some extra server — next to this solution to manage the tape library. EMC had some idea before when they were distributing Avamar Software and Appliances that tapes were passee and they said to the market that no one should use tape anymore. With that, they eliminated the option from the product. Now we can see that in the market tape is still used. There are not any drawbacks to using tape because tape, even now, is the most versatile medium on which to store data. An enhancement I would like to see is in the configuration of the product. They have resources in this product that can be used in different ways to make the user experience better. It seems to me that if Dell EMC could combine this into one good product, then they should do it because then there is not any reason to develop more than one backup software product. It does not make sense to invest in the development of two or three. Because there are different purposes, they have chosen to create different backup software packages especially for endpoints and a separate one built for the data centers. Instead, it would be more powerful and efficient if they could combine the two solutions into one solution. For example, Commvault does something like this. If they combined the products, then you could have one pane-of-glass on a screen and you can manage the whole entire organization. In this PowerProtect, there is something like that, but you know and can tell that you have two distinct products. It is one graphical user interface, but below this, you are interacting with it as if there are two different products (Networker and Avamar) and they are quite different if you compared them one-to-one. I would recommend Dell EMC take the extra step to combine it into one product. It would be better for them and the users. Additional features might be something to add support for Docker/Linux Container systems. This would be something like having virtualization by container. Currently, the solution is not able to back up from Docker containers. I am not sure, but maybe it is possible to put some type of agent into the Docker container to make it possible to back up the whole machine from outside. This is a problem and they could improve it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do have one customer who uses PowerProtect and they had a problem with this type of situation. It was an Oracle database and the databases were containerized. This is one thing that I know about right now that seems to me could be improved in the design and made smarter.