Azure Backup Reviews

We use it to backup on-premise data to Azure. We can backup the whole virtual machine to Azure if we need offsite backup. If you don't have any backup solution on-premise data center, you can rely on Azure Backup to do a backup to Azure, to the cloud. That means from on-premise to cloud backup, for data and virtual machines. 

It has many features. First of all, you can schedule a backup for the client as you like. You can also control the bandwidth so the backup will not utilize. The internet will depend on the bandwidth. You can also configure the retention period as you like and monitor everything from the cloud. You can monitor it from anywhere and you can log on and see. Doing a restore is also easy. It's easy to use.

The second thing is that if you have multiple computers and you need to utilize the bandwidth, you can install a dedicated server on the data center and let this backup server communicate with Azure and the local servers will only communicate with the local computers and the server only will communicate with Azure.

You can do a backup from the whole virtual machine as an image. You can do a backup only from files and folders. It has every option. All options are available for the backup, for the restore, for the bandwidth utilization to do backups even virtual machines or a physical machine. If you need to do a backup from the whole image from the virtual machine, all these options are there.

It doesn't have the option to have a backup from the database. It has a backup for the files, folders, and backup only the whole virtual machine. But if I need to do a backup from the Oracle database, from an Exchange server or from SharePoint, this ability isn't there. There is no application backup. 

We have been using Azure Backup for around three years. 

Stability depends on the bandwidth. It's very stable. If you have a good bandwidth, it's fine. If you don't have a good bandwidth, you can have a problem. If you have limited bandwidth, you will pay the cost. 

With cloud there is no limit. The limit is the sky and so for Microsoft infrastructure, there are two options. If you have a small data center, small servers or small computers and you need to do a backup, this is fine. You only need to install the agent. 

But if you have big servers or it's a number of servers, Microsoft also offers the ability to do a local Azure Backup and this Azure Backup will communicate with the local server and these servers can be communicated to the cloud and you can often install multiple servers. It will distribute different loads. 

I haven't needed to contact the support or get a ticket with the support team because the document and the tutorials were available and even when we try to do a main backup, Microsoft guides you in steps and will not go to the next step until you finish the first one. For each and every step there is a guideline, and even if you didn't read the tutorial, just you go to the steps and follow the steps.

I didn't raise any requests or get any support from Microsoft but I got other support from Microsoft and raised other support tickets but not for this particular project.

In addition to Azure Backup we used Azure Backup as an off-site backup because we have on-site backup. We also use EMC NetWorker which backups up to a disk. It's backup to disk software which we then do a backup from our local data and local servers to the local backup device. We use Azure because it is off-site backup so it helps us a lot in case of a disaster, in case of any problems so we can still have data be off-site so we can restore it from anywhere.

The initial setup was easy. I did it myself. It is not very complicated at all. This is another one of its valuable features, that it is easy to set up. Microsoft has guidelines, documentation, instructions, procedures, and tutorials available.

Because it's a Microsoft product, admin guidelines and instructions are available. It's not that complicated. You can have any infrastructure on the cloud or on-premise. If you want to install a server you will need to install maybe a virtual machine. But if you don't need to install it, you can install only an agent on the computers. That's it.

The deployment took around two days. I have experience with other backup solutions so I understand the concept. It's like a car. You have a car, you know how to drive a car. But this is Rolls Royce or a Porsche or whatever, but it is the same concept. You can still own the car and you can go. It is the same. So for us, it doesn't take that much time to understand the concept of backup and then implement it. 

The deployment required two people, myself and a colleague. 

It requires three people for maintenance.

From a cost perspective, it is a very good solution because it doesn't need a lot of costs because it's only a matter of storage on the cloud. You don't need any license at all, and on the cloud, you only need bandwidth. Bandwidth utilization will have various calculations of bandwidth utilization or bandwidth utilization and storage.

You don't need a license. There's only a subscription with Azure, that's it. Azure will calculate the bandwidth which you are utilizing and the storage. The worst thing at Azure is software allocations. That is not required, even in Azure, to implement a server or install backup software. From Azure itself, it's a matter of configuration. No need to have infrastructure. You don't need to have a server and install the software in the cloud. It's only a matter of some steps you need to follow. It's only a platform and a service. 

It is easy to configure a solution at any time, from anywhere. I can also restore the data, easily, without any complication. You can implement it in a very short time. The lesson learned in the beginning is that you can implement a solution in a very short time. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten. It has some good features. You can sort the data in many ways and at anytime. But it is not user-friendly. To be frank, it is not a software and a service. Software and service is easier and not complicated but infrastructure is more complicated. A platform lies somewhere in between. It's a platform and service.  

We have implemented a secondary contingency plan for most clients, where the primary infrastructure is on-premise, and the containers are hosted in the cloud. Some clients are currently migrating their primary solutions to the cloud. In these cases, the servers run on Azure, and Azure Backup provides backup server services. Additionally, we have implemented Azure SQL and Azure Intune for these clients.

The daily backups have become easier since we no longer need to handle large backups. The use of Azure Backup as a service has proven reliable and simplified our daily operations. Previously, we relied on LTO backups for data retention, but after migrating to the cloud and adopting Azure Backup, the delivery process has become smoother.

The simplicity of the whole operation is the most valuable feature of the solution.

I believe more options could be available to understand better what's happening in the system. Additionally, automating the client updates and connector updates would be beneficial. Updating the connector from time to time can be challenging, and it could be made more transparent and straightforward for users. Moreover, another drawback lies in the time it takes to test full data backup recovery. Deploying a full recovery takes longer. We need to allocate a longer period for complete data recovery to establish the environment again.

I have been using the solution for the past four years.

I rate the stability of the solution as a nine out of ten.

In a fully cloud-based solution, scalability is good, and I rate it a ten out of ten. On the other hand, for an on-premise setup, there may be challenges related to recovery and the potential impact on the Internet link's bandwidth. Therefore, I rate it an eight out of ten.

I believe Microsoft could improve its backup support.

Neutral

The initial setup was easy.

The pricing of the solution does not depend on the service itself but rather on the minimum data volume encountered. This pricing approach seems reasonable and is on par with other competitors in the market. It is a good solution for on-premise needs because it is more cost-effective. When evaluating the overall financial expenditure, including operational costs and the impact on the IT team, Azure Backup is a favorable choice.

I recommend it; however, I want to emphasize the importance of thoroughly checking if the cloud backup solution aligns with the required time frame for recovery. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use Azure Backup to backup VMs.

The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its ease of use and good integration with other Azure services.

The Azure Backup support for on-premises service is limited.

The file-level restore procedure should be more straightforward.

I have been using Azure Backup for approximately three years.

Azure Backup is stable.

Azure Backup can scale and it is easy to do.

The initial setup of Azure Backup is straightforward. It took 15 minutes to do the deployment.

I rate the initial setup of Azure Backup a four out of five.

I did the implementation of the solution.

I rate Azure Backup a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case of Azure Backup is for data on our application servers. We host our ERP systems with SQL for backend software. 

We've been in partnership with Microsoft for more than 15 years. I'm the CEO and the CIO. 

Before we started using Azure we spent a lot of money at our various sites, setting one up as the main physical site and a second for disaster recovery. We had to invest a lot of money to buy hardware that needed replacing every two or three years. Switching to Azure has saved us thousands. The hardware is always updated and we're now able to invest more in our staff which is highly beneficial because it translates to satisfied clients.  

As a security setting, Azure is very detailed. We can add features on retentions and retain the backup for several days. The retention policies are very good. I like the notifications and multiple layers of security that the solution offers. It enables us and our clients to feel secure and you can install and connect your systems wherever you are. 

We're hoping the price of the solution won't increase in the coming months when Azure is due to review all its products. I think that what the product lacks now is an AI system; if we had that, we'd be able to more easily upgrade the hardware system.  

We've been using this solution for about seven years. 

We haven't had any stability issues. If the initial setup is done properly there won't be any issues with stability. 

The scalability is good. We have around 12 users in the department. Some of them provide techno support and others do testing on the system to check its abilities because sometimes it has too much load. 

Customer support is very good. 

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment time depends on the size of the data.

We pay over $8 million per year in licensing fees for 365 and Azure usage. There is no additional cost for hardware but we train our employees and that is an added cost for us. 

We had a look at Amazon before going with Azure but we decided to go the whole way with Microsoft. These days, I'm not sure there's much difference between the two.   

It's important to know what you'll be getting from whoever provides you with the solution because it's important that support is included. This product has really helped me in scaling up my company. We love this solution and think everyone should have it. 

As a provider and a user, I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

Our primary use case is for backups.

The solution helped us use R2 RBO to back up frequently and avoid losing data if we had system issues.

The most valuable features are the integrations because we are using Azure Cloud, which backs it up with all the Azure components.

Azure Backup is constantly improving its features. However, it can be further improved by continuously meeting its compliance requirements.

We have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We are a Microsoft partner and we implement solutions for our customers. We also provide managed services. We work with most of the services on Azure, and this is one of the solutions that we have provided.

Azure Backup is a public cloud service, and you can use it to backup on-premises or cloud services. The primary use case is backing up cloud services. However, if you are using it on-premises then the cloud part is much more convenient.

The storage backup is very efficient.

The solution needs to be fully supported by VMware. It works, but when you go to VMware they say that Azure Backup is not recommended, or is not a very good solution.

I would like to have an application-level backup, rather than interface-level only. Examples would be Exchange backup,  SharePoint backup, and SQL backup.

The support for Office365 backup is atrocious and is something that has to be improved. 

I have not faced any problems with the stability of this solution.

Scalability has not been an issue.

Technical support for this solution depends on the type of support that you have.

Their response time is within the SLA, which is good, but sometimes I have trouble communicating with the support staff. It is normally a case of the technical support person having an accent which is difficult for me to understand, which makes it inconvenient. I have trouble trying to explain the problem.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. 

The pricing of this solution is good, and it is one of the easiest things that you can sell Azure with. 

This is a solution that I might recommend, depending on the customer's requirements. If they need application-level backup then I will not even consider it. However, if they need infrastructure backup for Azure, then, of course, it is a good option. Generally speaking, I recommend this solution.

Overall, the service is good for certain use cases, but it is short of functionality when you consider the competitors.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

I use Azure Backup VM backups.

The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is the native backup capabilities.

Azure Backup could improve the backup data copies because they are not immutable.

I have been using Azure Backup for approximately two years.

I rate the stability of Azure Backup a seven out of ten.

We have two engineers that are using the solution in my organization.

Azure Backup has a medium scalability level.

I rate the scalability of Azure Backup a seven out of ten.

I have not needed to use the support from the vendor.

We previously used Dell Avamar prior to Azure Backup. We switched to Azure Backup because we were having to pull data back down to an on-premise hardware infrastructure and Azure Backup meant we didn't have to pull the data down through our express route.

The initial setup of Azure Backup took a couple of hours to complete. It was quick and straightforward.

We completed the implementation of the solution in-house.

There is a cost per terabyte for using this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Azure Backup a seven out of ten.

My rating was because the absence of immutability, a critical feature in our current backup system, is a limitation of its monitoring and reporting capabilities.

I have created a virtual machine that I use as a testbed to validate the Azure backup and restore functionality.

It is mainly used for backups, which are a key part of any organization's structure. Azure Backup has definitely helped us to reduce the downtime. Whenever something goes wrong, we can fix and restart it within no time. Azure Backup has increased the productivity of our connection, and on top of that, it has helped to reduce the operating cost of our organization.

The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it is easy to create a backup by using Azure Backup. 

It also has a good user interface and nice features for sending notifications when any backup fails or there is a change in the status of virtual machines. 

I once tried restoring a Linux environment, and the size of the Linux VM or the data disk was really huge. It took a really long time to restore the environment and send the data from the storage to the disk. It took around 25 to 30 minutes, which was much longer than I anticipated. They can improve the duration of such restore operations.

In the next release, it would also be good if they could reduce the duration for transferring the data from their storage to the actual storage while creating a virtual machine. They can reduce the duration or increase the data transfer rate. 

I have been using Azure Backup for the last ten months. 

It is really stable. There were no problems with its stability.

Its scalability is very good.

I have interacted with their technical support. I have no complaints. They are neither so good nor so bad. 

I previously used an Oracle solution and worked extensively with Oracle Database. The way to take a backup and do everything else was different from Azure Backup.

The initial setup was easy. To install it, you just choose an agent, and that agent is automatically deployed.

It is a bit costly initially, but it is well worth it in the long run, especially for fighting against a number of threats, such as ransomware, which the IT industry is facing.

It is really a valuable product. Most of the organizations nowadays, especially in North America, prefer Microsoft products over the Linux environment. There are, however, some people who use the Linux environment as well. 

Overall, I would rate Azure Backup an eight out of ten. It meets the day-to-day requirements of most of the IT people, and it can be automated.