BDRSuite Backup & Replication Reviews

It sits on a hypervisor and backs up two virtual machines. 

The main benefit is that it's inexpensive. We get a lot for a little bit of money. I'm very happy with the savings and with the features. It allows me to do everything I need.

I don't spend much time on it. I interact with it occasionally and check that everything's still going fine. It's very good in that aspect.

It provides multiple restore options for recovering data in a granular manner, which is pretty important because different issues require you to use different approaches. It's good to have as many options as possible.

Our backup strategy is pretty simple. We have just two virtual machines, but it's very good to know that all the other options are there to back up physical and cloud workloads, as well as endpoints, applications, and databases. I'm not planning to use any of them, but I'm very happy that it's there. If there is something that I need to do that doesn't fall under what I'm currently doing, I can always expand quite easily.

It provides incremental backup processing, which saves a lot of space.

The fact that it has a web portal is valuable. One feature that I haven't yet fully implemented, but we're looking forward to, is the heartbeat monitoring which checks the health status of virtual machines to back up.

The interface could be better because I have to fumble around to find things. I can't just sit down at the terminal and know exactly what to do. It could be just me, but I have used a number of different backup products, and I found them simpler. However, its features are very good, so I don't mind sacrificing a bit of extra time to do what I need.

The reason why I haven't implemented heartbeat monitoring is that I can't change the encryption. In order to do heartbeat monitoring, it needs its own default password for encryption, whereas I've got them encrypted with a custom password. I just wish that there was a way to add password history into a job so that it was possible to change it later on without having to delete or re-add. I might manually get around that.

It has been over a year.

Its stability has been alright. I haven't had any issues. The only thing that I ran into was that before we paid for the license, there were things that weren't available in the free version.

We have a small office. I'm the sole IT team in the office. We have two servers that are replicas of each other. Vembu sits on the main server which has got a little bit more power. It takes backups of two server virtual machines that we've got. It backs up to a local NAS as well as a disk. I was really impressed with it because there's a specific backup destination for this type of thing, which I hadn't seen in any other software. Basically, we're backing up to a disk that we swap out after the backup is done and take it off-site. I was just impressed that it exists in the software. We're doing this because of the bandwidth. It allows us to not have to spend an entire week uploading another copy.

In terms of the number of users, I'm the only one who actively interacts with it, but our company has about 25 people. It benefits 25 people.

It's absolutely scalable. If we ever open a new office, it would be easy. For our needs, it's as scalable as we could hope for.

I've interacted with them on one or two occasions. They were fast, and they got quite a few people involved right off the bat. I was impressed. I'd rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We never had multiple backup solutions. We have only used one software at a time. 

We previously used tools from other companies. We used to use Symantec. We also used Altaro. We also used a Chinese one. That one by far was the simplest one. Its interface was super simple. However, anytime it has to apply logic to things, you could almost expect it to break. It wasn't good for just setting up and forgetting about it.

We didn't go with Altaro because it was a lot more expensive. There is a free version for up to two VMs which cuts out about half the features. That's fine for a start, but when you want to upgrade, there is a big jump. If the first paid level gives you, for example, 100 virtual machines, which costs a thousand pounds a year, it's a big jump from paying zero to paying a thousand pounds. I don't have the exact number, but the reason we didn't go with it was the big jump between the free version and the first tier of the paid version, so I started looking for other products and came across Vembu. It did pretty much everything that I wanted on the free one, but it had good features in the premium version that would just make your job easier, and because the premium version was not expensive, it just made sense.

It's deployed on-premises. It's deployed on a hypervisor. When I first set it up, it was on a free account, and I didn't know the first thing about it. It didn't follow the tutorial or anything. I managed to get through it without too much difficulty. It wasn't the easiest thing. I didn't find the interfaces as intuitive as the other ones I've tried before. However, there are lots and lots of features there and lots of things you can do on the scheduler. I'm very happy with that.

I installed it myself. In terms of just installing it, it was pretty simple. There wasn't any way to incorporate the backup history that we've already got, but our backup strategy is to have a month of backup. So, there was a month when we had two different solutions in play. After that month, it was just a clean cut to them. It was easy to integrate.

In terms of duration, it's not a fair representation, but it took me about a week. That's purely because I was going through the manual trying to figure out what it can do, and I had the luxury of already having a solution running, so I could have some time with it. I'm sure I could have deployed it in a day or two.

It was just me who installed it. 

In terms of maintenance, I was wondering about that. I tried to go in and see if it needed to be updated because I realized that I have never done it, but I couldn't figure out how to update it. So far, it hasn't needed any maintenance.

It isn't tangible because we haven't had any outages yet, but I have noticed that I spend a lot less time worrying about the backup.

We're ISO 270001 and ISO 22231 certified, so backups are a big part of our overall management system. I used to spend a lot of time on backups and making sure that we could recover in case of a crash. My time investment in that has dropped by 50% percent.

The price point of this software is good, and I can do everything I need.

In terms of the affordability of the solution for businesses with a tight budget, we're on a small business enterprise package, which is half the price of the regular enterprise package. It's super affordable. The features you get for it are enterprise-level. I'm very happy with the pricing.

It's very cost-effective. If I had to manually do what the software does automatically, it would cost a little more. It's like a net positive cost.

In terms of cost-benefit, you get a lot for very little, and it's much cheaper than other products. I've used other products, and it's just as good as others or better than others in some aspects, so it's the one to go for if you aren't scared by it. It takes some time to learn the interface and get familiar with it, but you get a lot for what you pay.

Coming from a small business mindset, it's very cheap to get and try it. You can experience all of the automation features and figure out how much time you're saving by having it in place. It will be worth it. You can buy the pro version and try it because it isn't all that expensive, and it can't go wrong. Just deploy it for a couple of machines, and if it doesn't work, you haven't really lost anything.

I haven't tried to instantly recover data, but I believe that it enables you to instantly recover data.

We haven't created backup repositories in cloud-based object storage because of the size of the backups and our outgoing bandwidth. We might try that at some point next year once the bandwidth situation changes, but for now, we haven't stored the data anywhere other than within our office.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

We use it for providing backups and recovery. We have a file server with a little over seven terabytes of data. The content changes quite a bit and we needed an easy tool to work with that would give us the ability to restore in a variety of ways: at the individual file level, folder level, and whole volume level, if necessary. This tool does that for us.

We're in telecom and wireless. We do installations and maintenance of towers and equipment for microwave and cellular. We do that mostly in the United States, occasionally in other places in the world. We'll have 400 people out in the field providing data to us that we have to put in a repository, that's the file server, that shows work prior to us initiating our work assignment from our customer, during the process, and at completion. That way, the customer doesn't have to go to remote places to verify. Sometimes, we can address an intermittent problem and say it's fixed and, of course, it comes back the next day because it really wasn't fixed. So, it's hard for our customer to know when something is done.

So we take a lot of images of our work, associated with projects, and those are uploaded by the field people every day. We provide the backup necessary to our customer. We'll receive ten or 20 gigabytes of images daily, which go into the repository. They have to be tracked and recorded, put into the reports associated with the projects and the status of those projects, and then provided to our customers.

That's what we do on a daily basis. We're a 24/7 shop, so what we do has to minimize downtime, so that the tools are available to the people, especially if they're in the field. They'll VPN in and provide reports and images necessary to show the work has been performed.

The nice thing about Vembu is that when it's running - as it does incrementals daily - we don't see a negative hit on the performance of the server it runs on. I can also pause it, should that happen, but I've never had to do that. 

It generates daily reports. I look at them seven days a week, even though I only work five days a week, because I want to make sure that everything's working fine. From a productivity standpoint, it has not hindered anyone and it keeps me very well informed that our backups are being completed. It gives me the data that I need to know, that makes me feel comfortable: Yes, that makes sense for that day, that much data being added to our repository, etc.

It has made my job, making sure we have a backup and being able to count on using it, a lot easier. As far as impacting the user community that uses the file server that's being addressed for backup purposes, it has not impacted them in any negative way whatsoever.

Finally, it helps us deliver an enterprise-level data protection solution and reduce budgets at a price that - and we don't want to encourage them to change their pricing - is a great value.

The dashboard is very easy to use, setting up the backup is very intuitive. Since that's our primary purpose in using it, it made it easy, when I was doing evaluations a year ago, to choose the product.

If I want to back up to this past Friday, and reinstall the file server to that state, I can choose a point in time and issue the command to back up and I don't need to go in and restore the last full backup and then apply iteratively, sequentially, all the incrementals, as I've had to do in some other software in the past. It's nice that I can pick a point in time and tell it I want to go to that state and it's transparent to me. It happens in the background for me.

It's very easy to use, very quick and efficient. From a backup standpoint, it has provided us the tools we need on a daily basis to know that it's working properly and with almost no manual maintenance work from us to verify it. It just comes to us. It's been very positive, helping us address that need efficiently.

In the beginning, when we had some hiccups, I would chalk that up more to a learning curve for the product. Once we understood how it operated - where we thought it was doing something a certain way and it was not - it was easy to understand, once it was pointed out.

The times when we've had problems, they've not been repeated problems, they've been addressed, and it was more learning curve issues. With any software there is a learning curve. Not all backup software operates exactly the same way, so some things were a little bit different. But once we understood why and how they worked, it made sense. It was sometimes a different approach, but not a problem for us.

There is no problem with the product's stability. We get our nightly reports on schedule. We've never had the application fail, and better, the application doesn't interfere with anyone else's application. It's been everything and more than what we had hoped for.

I can only speak for our environment where we've used it - and I know it has so much more capabilities, because when we go in through the dashboard and the wizard to create backups, we see where we could use it and how we could use it. But in our environment, whether we had seven-and-a-half terabytes or 15, I wouldn't have to change anything.

The other thing that I like is that it has software to provide a distributed copy to another site. It's a very economical add-on to the suite. But because it's terabytes, and with it going across the Internet to do the initial cloning of that, it has a feature where you bring in your other servers, set it up, establish your initial clone there, and you put the server out and then you only have to keep track of the changes, which is much easier to do. We have a 100-megabit connection to the internet, but even there, if you're going to have to keep terabytes worth of data synced, it would be really hard. In this case, we only have to keep track of the delta once the initial distributed backup has been made.

It has a lot of capabilities. We just started getting into the distributed backup and, from a scalability perspective, I've not seen any issues in our use of it. And especially in the beginning, we monitored the resource usage to make sure that we didn't see a degradation on the server to the user. That was not a problem.

I could easily see us doubling what we're backing up without any issues and problems and with no additional tuning necessary.

The other thing that stands out, while it isn't a feature per se, is support. Any time we have a question, whether we call or email them, we get an amazing response. We're not a Fortune 500 company, we're smaller, we don't have a large number of licenses yet. But we get quick response and follow-up to make sure that the issue has been properly addressed, as though we were a Fortune 500 company. I'm amazed by the level of support they provide.

Last time I contacted them was because the volume that we put our backups on became full, and I wasn't sure what the best way was to address the problem. They gave me directions on how to address the problem, but more importantly, on how to avoid the problem in the future.

Around October of 2018, I did escalate an issue regarding backups but that was the only time that I can remember having to do so. Like everything else, it went extremely well. The follow-up and the level of detail, hands-on, were great. I've been in IT for 40 years and it's not something I'm used to seeing. It has been a nice surprise.

The oldest previous solution we had was Windows Server Backup.

Once we put Vembu on the production server, we ran a full backup that evening. That's probably one of the nicest things about the backup. Not that companies don't have seven-plus terabytes of data to backup - that's large, but there are certainly many that have much more than that - but backing up that much data in Windows Backup is an impossible task. So the ability to address the data in the way that Vembu does, versus the way Windows Backup does, we had to use a Vembu-type product. There was no choice. Seven-and-a-half terabytes in Windows Backup, on a server level, would've taken weeks, which is not acceptable.

We needed a solution that was doable. Some of the solutions that we were using took an unreasonable amount of time to back up the data. Even when they were running on the same server and the pool was on the same server that they were backing up to, it was not acceptable. We needed something that was more efficient in the way it addressed reading the file structure. Vembu provided that. Then we had the additional functionalities that we wanted to be able to restore the way I mentioned, plus the support. I can't say enough about the support Vembu. I just don't have any other positive experiences that are as nice as what they provide.

Nothing was complex regarding the initial setup. We could do backups on day one with the software. It wasn't a question of just doing the backups but of trying to do them so it provided us the greatest amount of flexibility and that we were using our pool space as efficiently as we could. That took a little bit of investigating and communication with support. But once we understood it, it was not a problem.

On the initial install, there were some things that I thought were going to happen a little differently. We thought we wouldn't eat up the size of our pool, our repository, for backups as quickly because of compression. But when you think about it, that's not a Vembu issue. That's just a practical result of the fact that jpegs already come compressed, so you're not going to get much compression. We underestimated the amount of space we needed.

Installing it takes just a couple of hours. It's easy to do. There was no negative impact on anything else running on it. It was simple. We did a backup the same day we installed it, in a test environment, so we could do whatever we wanted. We could do restores, do incrementals, combine incrementals to weeklies, etc. And we didn't have any problem doing any of those things. We'd have a question, periodically, but we would get a response the same day, which was always nice.

In terms of staff for deployment, I'll divide that into two pieces. One was a more thorough test of our environment, versus not the high-level tests that we did during the evaluations. We did that over a two-week period of time with a quarter to a half of a person.

Regarding the implementation strategy we developed, there was an assessment of what our needs were, tailored to our specific situation. Once we did that, we evaluated what products we might be able to use. We then considered support and maintenance issues and would the products be able to function within our requirements, timeframes, and give us the backup capabilities at the levels that we wanted: file, folder, and volume. This process allowed us to come up with a shortlist of three products and do a little bit deeper testing with them and decide on which one we thought was the best. 

We haven't done an analysis of how much money we have saved by switching to Vembu. We did a post-implementation assessment that made sure all of our requirements were met. Part of that is financial, but I can divulge the savings that it provided.

I've worked for extremely large companies as well as startup companies. In our environment - out of this office we have 400 field people - we're a relatively small business. If I was backing up multiple file servers, much more data than we are, it wouldn't take much more time with Vembu. There's an inherent amount of time to install and get to know a product, and then to use it. If it's pretty intuitive with good support, it can be really easy. Vembu has turned out to be really easy. The amount of budget associated with supporting is way under what we expected. That's a good thing and that's because of the support that they provide, instead of us having to do things like we have to do with some of our other applications.

For example, we've used our accounting system for a long time here, and people are used to it; creatures of habit, like most. But the amount of support that it takes, despite it being here for decades, means that any time we make a change it's way more involved. There's an element of risk that we don't care for. It's not what we like. There's an unpredictability about it. We have not seen that with the Vembu product.

It's an amazing value. Their licensing structure is easy to understand and it's very fair. We don't have any problem with it.

We looked at different tools and tested them ourselves. We had our own requirements list of what we needed to do, and it was all tailored to our environment. The evaluation occurred over a month of elapsed time and probably involved a person to person-and-a-half in that period of time.

Quite honestly, we could have gone with other products, but the support level from Vembu was unparalleled. Today, a lot of companies want to refer you to a forum, a community, and they don't want to talk. They don't want to provide people who know the product and know your situation. It's hard to find an example in a forum that is exactly like what you're trying to address. Vembu, consistently over the month, as well as the second-level evaluation, was always there to provide support and answer questions. It was a deciding factor, absolutely. They had the functionality, but they provided the real people for support, which just made a world of difference for us.

Some of the companies that we were using and evaluating, when we told them what we ended up choosing, just out of courtesy, in some cases they either didn't know who they were or acted like they didn't know who they were. 

It was an easy decision, when it came to the end, to choose Vembu.

It has to meet your needs. But for most people, for backups of large amounts of data, I would strongly encourage you to use it, and not be hesitant to contact the support desk if you have a question. Don't just install it with the intent that your first use is going to be your final setup because there are ways to tune it to make it more efficient on space usage for the pool where you put your backups. The help is there. That's the good thing. With most other products, you're not going to get the same response. Use the help and you're probably going to be quite happy with it.

I would encourage you to count on support, run your tests, play with it, and you'll be pleasantly surprised and happy with the results.

Of the software that I license, I feel I get more value from this than any others. I just can't think of anything that I'm looking for that Vembu BDR isn't already addressing. I've got no wish list for them.

Everything I need is being addressed by the product and then some. I wish them great success and I want them to be around a long time. I don't want to have to go and replace this. This is a good product. It does what we need and I'm not seeing anything that I wish it had.

I like the compression, encryption, and deduplication features, although in our case, we don't get much compression because a lot of our material is already compressed. There just isn't an opportunity to see a big reduction. But the tools allow us to have every feature we want, including being able to restore from the backups. Of course, we don't have to do full backups very often, because of the way it has been set up.

Encryption today is, obviously, given privacy issues and confidentiality, very important. In our particular case, it's an added plus but it wasn't a real high criterion because the data that we have is not considered highly confidential. In fact, if it was put out in the public domain, it would not cause our customer or ourselves a problem. It's nice to have, but it wasn't something that was as critical to us as it might be to a lot of others.

We don't use it to back up our virtual environments. We keep things very discreet here. We don't run a VM type of environment. Servers are by function. Hardware has become so incredibly cheap. I understand the savings, the value with VM and having a virtual environment for different things. But to us, hardware is just incredibly inexpensive. If we have something in our accounting system that needs to be addressed, an upgrade or the like, we like having it on its own server and discreet from everything else. It also inherently provides easier access control for those systems that are more critical, in terms of the type of information on them.

Regarding staff for maintenance of the solution, we're talking fractions. We just look at our reports daily just to make sure that they are giving us the information we need, indicating that backups were successful and that the expected amount of data that was backed up. We know how much data comes in every day approximately. We can confirm that it's been done properly. It's just minutes a day. I don't think it needs a full day per month of attention. The maintenance is extremely low.

We have other environments that we need to address in a different way than we are today. The company is old enough that, like most entities, it is a creature of habit. So changing the way we do things is a little slow sometimes. But I can see us using this in several other environments, other than what we initially targeted. I can't tell you when that will happen but I believe that it will happen because of the experience we've had.

The end-users don't use it, per se, because they have no touch with it. It's IT that uses it. Nobody has a problem with it. We have a small group of six IT people in this main building. We try to get different people exposed to it. They vary from application support, mostly in the accounting area, and then, because we do a lot of VPN, we have network people who handle network security. We have failover network with multiple ISPs so networking becomes a big issue, plus the security side. Percentage-wise, there are more people involved in network and security than in many companies. Yet those people are still required to be able to support the applications we have, including Vembu. Nobody's had a problem doing that.

I'd love to try it in a virtual environment. We just don't do that here. We're a Windows Server shop, so I've not tried it in other operating systems, like Unix and Linux.

For my needs, I'd give Vembu a nine out of ten, and that's only because I'm hesitant to say anything is perfect.

Everything could be improved. For example, if you were to have a custom backup solution created, it might be a ten if they achieved everything you listed regarding what you need. But it's not practical to do that for an individual or a small company. I've been responsible for a lot of development people and developing applications. It's somewhat subjective on where you place buttons and how efficient they are.

Once you get used to a product, if it wasn't made for you, and it's working and meeting all your needs, without having negative side effects, you got to give it a high score. It's the only fair thing to do. The only way for me to get to a ten is to say that it's perfect, that it laid out all its buttons and features just as I would. If I had written it, maybe that would be the case, but by the time I had written it and gotten it done, I'd be retired. 

It's a great product. Amazing support. It's a very good value for our environment, no question. We will not change. This is a good product that does everything we want and more.

I use BDRSuite for my customers. I do backups for them. One of the reasons we chose BDRSuite is because it's a hybrid solution. We perform backups using a local server at the customer site, and we also have an off-site server. This way, we have a backup copy stored outside the customer's site. In case the customer site burns down or faces any disaster, we can still restore the data. That's one of the primary reasons we chose Vembu BDRSuite.

Additionally, it's quite economically viable, and not that expensive. It provides the flexibility to use our own cloud instead of relying solely on the Vembu Cloud. Vembu Cloud is, of course, an option, so we don't have to store anything ourselves. But I prefer having my backup center where I store copies of my customer's backups. So, those are the two main reasons - it's economical and it offers the right backup solution.

It's a valuable asset for me as a business asset. I have a monthly income by selling it as a service to my customers. I'm very pleased with it.

It's important that you can do the full monthly backup for whatever you throw in it. It's fantastic that it actually works on every kind of system. I have the flexibility to offer this service to all my customers, no matter what they may have running, I can still offer them a backup. You can even do back over on Macintosh machines. That's quite valuable because, otherwise, I would sometimes have to say that I can't do it for a customer, but maybe somebody else could. I wouldn't want to give a customer to somebody else. So it's very nice that I can actually handle it all with one product.

Vembu has absolutely helped save money compared to the other solutions. It's a much cheaper solution than using other ones which are quite expensive compared to a Nimble.

I'm a small company, and it would be difficult to regularly change my customers' backup systems. It would be quite difficult. That alone would be quite expensive for me. The last time I checked, it would be a lot of license fees to use Veeam Backup for the same thing. I could do the same things that we use with BDRSuite but it would be horribly expensive if I want the same level of security.

The most valuable feature is the hybrid solution, where you have a local backup at the customer site, and you have Vembu BDRSuite storing a copy of the backup. 

This division or approach has proven to be fantastic because it's always difficult if you have to restore a backup completely from scratch. It's very cumbersome to set up a copy of the backup on a hard drive or similar media and transport it to the site to establish something new. 

Moreover, if you only have a local backup, it's vulnerable to complete destruction in case of a catastrophic event. So, this hybrid solution combines the best of both worlds.

Vembu provides us with a way to instantly recover data. It offers instant data recovery through a local backup server deployed at the customer's site. We can quickly recover data either by copying it back to the main server or if the backup server is powerful enough, we can also directly start a virtual machine from the backup. 

However, I haven't had the opportunity to do the latter as none of my customers have required such immediate recovery. Thus, I have been using inexpensive hardware for backups at the customer's site to keep expenses low.

It is very important to us that Vembu provides multiple restore points for data recovery. Having multiple restore points is crucial because you may discover that some malicious employee tampered with or encrypted your data a month ago. In such cases, it's vital to be able to roll back the data to a point before the incident occurred. 

Often, these incidents come to light after some time has passed, making the availability of earlier restore points like a time machine to protect against data loss.

Another important factor to us is that Vembu provides incremental backup processing. Without incremental backup, the process would be extremely time-consuming. One of my customers, who is an engineering company involved in construction projects, has around sixteen terabytes of data. Since they work on these cases for extended periods, even the older cases get revisited for updates or renewals. With so much active data, performing a full backup every time would be impractical. 

Vembu's incremental backup is incredibly valuable and efficient. Compared to other backup systems I've used in the past, it is notably faster and more reliable.

Scheduling backups is quite important to us as well, and Vembu BDRSuite offers sophisticated options. I haven't come across any missing features. 

Adding and removing backup jobs with Vembu BDRSuite is quite straightforward, but the time taken depends on whether you are doing backups of physical machines, physical workstations, or virtual machines and hypervisor installations. 

In my case, I only do backups of virtual machines and hypervisor installations, and in those scenarios, it's very easy. You just point out the hypervisor, and it will do the backup of the virtual machines on it. You can select which virtual machines you want to back up, so it's quite easy. It becomes a bit more difficult when you want to choose physical backups because you need to assign Vembu BDRSuite to the physical machine, which requires some housekeeping work. Nonetheless, it's still relatively easy. It's not a big deal or rocket science, as far as I can tell. If you are even slightly familiar with backup systems.

The level of difficulty to add and remove backup jobs using BDRSuite depends on whether you do a backup on a physical machine, a physical workstation, or whatever you use to back up. In my case, I only do backups on virtual machines and hypervisor installations, it's very easy. You just point out the hypervisor and it does the backup of the virtual machines on it. You can select which virtual machines you want to do a backup on, so it's quite easy. It's very difficult to schedule backups and to have backups done. It's a bit more difficult if you want to choose a physical backup because that puts strain on the physical machine and you have to do some housekeeping work. But it's still quite easy, it's not a big deal if you are a little bit equipped with the backup systems.

The only thing I would like to see covered in future updates is the possibility to store yearly or quarterly backups. Currently, you can only set a straight timeline, like 35 days backward or 37 days. It means that if you create a backup each day, you can only have a consecutive set of backups. I would prefer a new user feature to create yearly backups, for instance, and store them in the image with the current backup data. 

The API uses a common data image to store the data for the sets, but unfortunately, it's limited to consecutive sets only. That's the only limitation I have observed so far.

I've been using BDRSuite for about ten years.

The only crashes I experienced were because I was a bit frugal on the hardware. I haven't had a lot of problems. In case there are problems, the support is fantastic. They have been absolutely great. I don't have anything bad to say about it in any way. It works.

I have small customers and one large customer with tons of data. It works well with tons of data to do a backup of the virtual machines. I think it will probably run into problems if the individual drives that it needs to back up are too big. At the moment, I only do backups on a virtual drive that is about ten terabytes in size, and it's hard to restore everything that would be necessary. It takes a long time to restore a ten-terabyte drive. But it's probably not due to them, it's probably an issue of organizing things better on the server side. I wouldn't recommend having ten terabyte drives.

I have contacted support several times. They are absolutely fantastic. It's very easy to get support. They reach out and solve the problems for you. It's very easy to get support as long as you can have them working on the issue directly. Sometimes there are issues with giving access to customer service

Positive

We chose it because it has the ability to do a hybrid backup. It means that you can have a server at the customer site to make quick restores and still have the security of having a backup copy of whatever you backed up at the customer site. You're going to have that stored at another place. In case of a complete burndown or whatever at the customer's site, you would still have the data. That was the main reason for choosing Vembu.

It's very easy to integrate Vembu with existing infrastructure. You can put a server by itself, so it doesn't interfere with the existing installation in any way. I haven't had any problems with that so far.

I am able to do the integrations myself.

It does not require much maintenance. You have to check the hardware and then see that everything goes well. I've set up some reporting, so I receive messages in case anything goes wrong or in case the backup fails. But it's very stable, it works well.

It's very cheap and it's absolutely competitive.

It is a good choice for a business with a tight budget. You can have a free version of Veeam, and you can get other backup programs for free as well. This is quite cheap. And, of course, there are some things in BDRSuite that are free as well. If you just want to make a hard copy of this server, that's free as well. I'd definitely recommend it as an economic solution.

It's quite cheap. I think I pay about two or three hundred dollars a year in license fees just to keep my backup running. It's very cheap compared to what I can charge my customers for the service. It's a very good deal. It's very cheap.

I would rate BDRSuite a nine out of ten. There are a few things they could do better, but it runs well. I'm very happy with it.

My advice would be to make a test case. Find out how much you will have to pay for it. You will need some proper hardware depending on which features you want to use so that you won't have performance issues. 

It goes well once you know what you want. The difficult part is figuring out what you want and what you need for any backup solution. Once you know that, it's very easy to implement it. Most installations today are based on hypervisors. And in that area, Vembu is very strong competition. You might find something similar but you'll have to pay for it.

We are a managed service provider (MSP). We have also started to sell it recently. We have been using this solution at our company, and after testing the product for close to six months, we realized this is a good option moving forward.

We are a managed service provider. For us, this solution is even more beneficial because we can control the licenses, renewals, and other things for customers from a managed service provider's panel, and we get an option to upsell and cross-sell to clients.

Its ease of use and price are most valuable. It is simple and straightforward. Someone who has never used any backup software will easily understand it from the first installation. It is that simple. Price-wise, it is much cheaper than its counterparts. 

It also has very less overhead on IT in terms of the product, service, and outcomes. Another good feature is that you don't really have to install any agent on the server side, especially when you are taking Hyper-V backup. We are using Microsoft Hyper-V, and we are taking backup. No agent and other things need to be installed on your machines.

I have done a couple of restores on a trial basis to check the integrity, and I did not find any issue in terms of the reliability of the restores. It was smooth.

It would be a great improvement if they can give a console to control the systems. All other vendors let you simply log in to the cloud console and control everything from there, but for Vembu, whether you choose Vembu Cloud Backup or Vembu Disaster Recovery, you still need to install the Vembu software on your on-premise system and configure it from there. It would be great if I can get a cloud console to manage the systems. 

They can also give an option where if you don't want to install an agent, you can use your own server and manage it, but if you want to manage it from the cloud console, you install the agent. It should be my choice. I should have control when I am sitting at home. I should also have control over the cloud so that I can monitor everything and do whatever I like. If my organization policy does not allow me to do that, then obviously I don't do it, but Vembu should provide such an option.

I have been using this solution for close to six months.

It looks good to me. So far, I haven't found any glitches. It is always there, so it is stable. You run it through the browser, which makes it simple.

It is scalable. We started with a 30-days trial, and after that, we started using its free version. Today, we upgraded from the free version to the enterprise version. We are also working on putting 10 TB backup on Vembu cloud as well as going ahead with almost eight servers for the disaster recovery offsite. 

To upgrade from the free version to the enterprise version, I simply had to synchronize the license, and everything was set. You can scale it very easily. You just need to activate the license under your account, and then you can log in to the Vembu console and just synchronize the license, and you're done. If you want to go from an on-premise backup to the cloud, you should have a cloud license. You can then synchronize and configure it. That's it. 

In terms of the size of the environment, one of the implementations is done for a government organization, and there are around 20 or 25 users with close to 5 terabytes of data and two virtual machines. We don't have plans to increase its usage in the same organization because this is a small subsidiary of a big government office. With the same client, there is nothing more we can do. They have a limited number of users, but we are working on implementing it for other clients.

I have used their support, and I had a very good experience. We were basically installing a demo for another client, and they were using 2008. We were getting a particular error while doing the installation, and for that, they needed to reboot the server, but you just cannot reboot the server in a live environment. You need to fix up a time for that. For example, if we have to reboot your servers, we need to schedule it with you, and you will schedule a time for it with your management.

Vembu's support is available 24/7. They said that whenever we are ready, we should just send them an email, and they will do a remote session with us, which is what precisely happened. When we were ready, I sent them the intimation that we will be ready in about 15 or 20 minutes, and their support guy connected with it and helped us.

Its ease of use and less price set it apart from other solutions. I have used many solutions, such as Acronis, Veeam, Symantec, Veritas, etc, and all of them are a bit complicated. I found Vembu to be the simplest one. In terms of features, it is similar to others. It has encryption and retention features and multiple backup options that every backup software provides.

Currently, we are also using Acronis, and slowly, we will be migrating from Acronis to Vembu. It is cheaper in price than Acronis. Of course, Acronis gives other benefits such as patch updates, cybersecurity, ransomware protection, and so on, but people have their firewall, endpoint protection, and antivirus. They don't really need to invest again in something that they don't need. The only thing that they particularly need is a backup solution that is encrypted, so there is no point in protecting them from all these things because they are already protected. If you go for Acronis Cyber Cloud, a client is not going to stop using the firewalls or endpoint protection. There is no point in loading double onto that. It is a good addition for those people who are very specific and know what they want. If you just don't know what to do, then you can go on a shopping spree.

With Acronis, all you have to do is to install the agent, and then you can control everything from the cloud. Wherever you are, you simply log in to the console, and you have your servers over there, and you can do whatever you feel like. With Vembu, you have to install the Vembu BDR software onto the server, and from there, you can basically dump the DR or a backup onto the cloud.

It was very straightforward. You simply install the software, plug in the storage or wherever you want to dump that, and create a profile. That's it. These were the three steps, and of course, the fourth one was to activate the free software. You can start with the full-fledged version after 30 days. You can convert the trial version into the free version, which is available online. It is easy. 

Its initial installation took less than an hour. This includes downloading and setting it up.

Price-wise, it is much cheaper than its counterparts. I like its pricing, and its price is okay. The lesser they take, the more profit we can make, but we are happy with its price.

It is very affordable. We were working with a client, and they were looking for backup software and had a very tight budget. When I told them that Vembu is only going to cost around $400 to $500, they were shocked. They didn't believe me, so I showed them the website so that they can check the price themselves. Of course, if they agree to that price, we get a 15% rebate as a managed service provider.

You choose the type of license you want. There are two types of licenses. One is a subscription license, and the other one is a perpetual license. If you go for a perpetual license, next year, if you want, you can renew the support. It is up to our clients whether they want to renew the support or not. They have an option. They also have an option to go for a subscription.

Every IT scenario differs from others. It is a good product, and just give it a shot. If it fits your organization, you will save a lot.

I have been in IT for over 25 years, and I had never heard about this software. I came across this through a consultant who was also working for a government organization. They asked us to install the free Vembu backup software, and I wondered which is this solution. I checked their website, downloaded the software, and installed it for the first time. I was amazed why there is no marketing for this. I get so many marketing emails and other things, but I never got any email related to Vembu. I also didn't come across it while doing research on the internet.

We have been using this solution for only six months. There are many features that we haven't used, but whatever has been phased out and tested was okay. We haven't yet used Vembu to back up Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or AWS, and we also haven't used Vembu's Download VM to help in migrating physical machines to a VM environment. Similarly, we haven't used its Instant Boot VM feature for instant access to VMs or physical machines after a crash. 

It provides multiple options to recover data during hardware failures or accidental deletion of files, but I haven't tested this option. Having such a feature is a good addition because if some resources are not there, you can restore your data to different ones. We will definitely be using Vembu's data integrity check feature after the enterprise installation.

I would rate Vembu BDR Suite an eight out of 10.

BDRSuite is used for workstation backup to the cloud.

BDRSuite enables us to instantly recover our data. It is essential for our organization to be able to recover data instantly.

It is important that BDRSuite provides multiple restore points for recovering data on a granular level.

While the solution's incremental backup processing is a nice feature, it is not essential for our needs. We use the solution primarily for disaster recovery. This means that if there is a breach or we need to restore our systems quickly, we can do so without losing any data. This is more important to me than being able to recover individual files. In fact, we have not had a single request to recover a single file in the past year. What is important to me is that we can recover from an organizational breach quickly. We have had some bad ransomware attacks in the past, and we need to be able to get our systems back up and running as soon as possible.

BDRSuite's backup or replication scheduling options work as intended.

Adding and removing backup jobs using BDRSuite is easy and also includes great documentation.

BDRSuite's comprehensiveness is great because it can back up and recover virtual, physical, and cloud workloads, endpoints, applications, and databases.

BDRSuite's comprehensive backup coverage allows us to now offer a single solution for all of our customers' needs. We have customers with Linux servers running CentOS, as well as customers with file-level, image-level, and cloud backups to Microsoft 365, AWS, and Google. By bringing all of these capabilities together in one platform, we can provide our customers with a more efficient and cost-effective way to protect their data.

Most backup applications are similar in terms of their features and functionality. However, BDRSuite stands out from the competition because it offers its services at a significantly lower price. This makes it an excellent value for businesses of all sizes.

The product is co-branded, not white-labeled. I am concerned that we are providing a robust solution for our customers, but by letting them see that we use Vembu, we are also letting them know that they can go get their backups themselves once their contract with us ends. This could cut into our profits, as they may then ask us to manage their backups for them. 

In order to prevent this, we have to manage everything ourselves. For example, if a customer wants a Firestore backup, we have to manage it on their behalf and give them the option to select the date and time range for the backup. Then, our help desk has to go in and restore the backup themselves. If the product were white labeled, we could simply give the customer access to the platform and let them handle the restore themselves. This is not a major problem at the moment, as we have not had any file recovery tickets. However, the fact that it is a possibility means that we have to maintain the ability to handle it. This is not a deal breaker, as we still use Vembu and are working on onboarding more of our stack and infrastructure to use it. However, I do wish that BDRSuite offered a white-labeled service.

I have been using BDRSuite for six months.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten for stability.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten for scalability.

We previously used NinjaOne but switched to BDRSuite due to its lower cost. NinjaOne charged $40 per terabyte, while others charged only $4.

The initial setup is simple. We used our RMM to push the agent to the server. Once the agent was configured on the server, it started working.

Once the service is configured, we add a user account and push the agent. This is all part of the onboarding process. It takes between five and fifteen minutes to add the account and add the users to the account, either on the server or on the console. Once the users are added, the agent is pushed automatically to the endpoints. I deploy the solution for our clients.

I implement the solution for our clients.

We used to pay $3 per agent. Now we pay about $0.50 per agent. On average, storage costs $4 per terabyte. Over time, we will see a significant return on investment for our organizations and our clients.

The cloud service is comparable to other services on the market. In fact, it is probably a little more expensive but it includes six terabytes of storage space. The on-premises version requires more work from us. We have to use an agent or set up a server to run the backups. However, I think it is a good value for the price.

We evaluated Veeam Backup & Replication and other typical solutions. We happened to come across BDRSuite through a Google search. It sounded too good to be true, so I started with a trial. BDRSuite worked so well that we decided to use it.

I give BDRSuite a ten out of ten.

We are the Managed Service Provider. We use Vembu to provide the service for us. We have multiple Remote Management tools that provide a backup option. Currently, we use the RMM for more robust customers who pay for our larger packages. We use them because it has worked out for us. For example, if they have a cloud presence, such as 365 or Google Workspace, then we will use them. If they only have workstations, then we will use our RMM. It really depends on how we sell to the customer and what they choose to have. But we manage all of this.

Organizations with a tight budget can use Vembu, an affordable backup and disaster recovery solution. However, they will need to have a technical point of contact on-site to manage the solution. This is because business people typically do not have the knowledge or skills to install, configure, or restore backups. For example, they may not know how to set up an AWS bucket. Having a technical point of contact on-site can help ensure that the solution is properly installed and configured and that backups are restored quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster.

The maintenance is minimal. I simply check to make sure everything is running as expected.

For someone thinking about switching to Vembu but concerned about the cost of implementing the solution I would say, cost is not an issue. If we are talking to an MSP, I would recommend making a change. If we are talking to a business provider, the business is not the issue. The technical point of contact will be the issue. If they have the technical expertise, in other words, I would say go ahead and make the switch to Vembu. If they do not have the technical expertise, then the issue will be finding a technical point of contact who can input and push the change for them. Once they have added that in place, then I would say make the change. An organization can always have an expert set the solution up and then leave them to maintain Vembu on their own using the documentation. They can reserve tech support for any hypothetical issues. I would say that may be a good route for a budget-conscious person.

It is important to have a technical point of contact before trying to implement the solution for the first time.

We use BDRSuite to back up our customers' VMs. We are a service provider, and each of our customers has different requirements. We host VMs based on the customer's environment. If the customer doesn't want a VM backup, we'll use the Citrix ADM. They will back up their own applications, and we'll send a new VM to them in the event of a disaster. 

We only use BDRSuite to back up two VMs in our current environment. It helps us with maintenance, monitoring, etc. We are satisfied with BDRSuite so far and plan to add a few more VMs in the future, including Citrix VMs and XenServer. 

We have many VMs in the old Citrix Foundry that have been running for a long time. The migration process is time-consuming and costly. VMware only supports VMware and Hyper-V but not Citrix. 

It's easy to add or remove backup jobs using BDRSuite. The solution has multiple options for backing up our customers' data. We require eight days of historical data, and our clients need incremental backups weekly, so we have one weekly backup and one daily. The backup will play each week, and they'll have a fresh running daily backup of seven days. 

We still haven't done a restoration in production, but we did a test restore, and it worked. The restoration took about four to six hours for one terabyte because we backed it up to a remote location. 

BDRSuite could improve support for XenApp Citrix Backup.

I have used BDRSuite for more than six months.

BDRSuite is stable. We're confident in the product. 

We haven't tried to scale BDRSuite, but it's scalable. 

I rate the support a nine out of tn. I'm satisfied with their support. They always respond within the window we agreed to in our support contract.

Positive

Before BDRSuite, we mainly used a Citrix XenServer Host for around 20 Citrix VMs. We adopted BDRSuite because there was no automated backup mechanism. We needed a third-party solution, and there was a lot of overhead for hardware. Our customer needed backups for two SAP VMs. We got the hardware, VMware, and whatever they need to design a full VMware backup solution. 

BDRSuite is easy to deploy and integrate with existing infrastructure. You can complete the deployment in less than a day. After the deployment, you need to install regular updates. Vembu puts out updates frequently. 

BDRSuite is cost-effective depending on your requirements and the other options available in your market. 

BDRSuite is a good option if you have a tight budget. It gives good value.

I rate BDRSuite an eight out of ten. 

The solution is used for:

1. Backing up important data and applications to the cloud. BDRSuite allows businesses to back up critical data and applications to the cloud, which can help protect against data loss in the event of a disaster, such as a cyberattack, hardware failure, or natural disaster.
2. Disaster recovery and business continuity. BDRSuite provides businesses with disaster recovery and business continuity services, which can help them quickly restore their data and applications in the event of a disaster.
3. Remote monitoring and management. BDRSuite allows IT administrators to remotely monitor and manage backup and disaster recovery operations, which can help streamline the backup process and reduce the risk of errors.

BDRSuite can help organizations protect their critical data and applications from loss or damage. By backing up data to the cloud and providing disaster recovery and business continuity services, BDRSuite can help organizations quickly recover their data and continue their operations in the event of a disaster.

Secondly, BDRSuite can help organizations reduce the risk of downtime and data loss. By providing remote monitoring and management capabilities, BDRSuite can help IT administrators identify and resolve issues before they become more significant problems.

Finally, BDRSuite can help organizations save time and money by automating backup and recovery processes and reducing the need for manual intervention. This can help reduce the risk of human error and improve efficiency.

The most valuable aspects include:

Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery. BDRSuite provides cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services that can help businesses protect their critical data and applications against various types of disasters. This feature can be valuable for businesses that require high levels of data protection and security.

Instant Recovery. BDRSuite offers an instant recovery feature that can help businesses quickly restore their data and applications during a disaster. This can be especially valuable for businesses that require minimal downtime and want to resume operations quickly after a disaster.

Multi-tenant support. BDRSuite provides multi-tenant support, which can be beneficial for managed service providers (MSPs) or businesses with multiple locations. This feature enables MSPs and businesses to manage multiple client or site backups from a single console, which can help improve efficiency and reduce management overhead.

The solution must improve:

1. The user interface. I have seen that the BDRSuite user interface can be less intuitive and more challenging to navigate compared to other similar products. Improving the user interface could help new users get up to speed more quickly and reduce the learning curve for the software.
2. Performance and reliability. I have experienced issues with the performance or reliability of the software, such as slow backup speeds or failed backups. Improving the performance and reliability of the software could help ensure that backups are completed efficiently and effectively.
3. Customer support. The quality of customer support provided by BDRSuite is not great. Tere are slow response times or unhelpful support staff. Improving the quality of customer support could help ensure that users are able to quickly and effectively resolve any issues they may encounter while using the software.

I've used the solution for six months.

We use Vembu to back up and replicate virtual machines. We run virtual machines using VMware ESXi, and we back up and replicate our virtual machines.

The best thing about it is that it has been adaptable to our business model. We are in industrial networking, and they were adaptable to give us offline installers and offline licenses. That has been the biggest thing. They also allow us to order the licenses on a perpetual basis.

Backup and replications are most valuable. It seems that these servers are better because we can do application-aware backups on them. 

Windows 10 does not have application-aware backups. From my point of view, that's what's existing needs improvement. 

Something that I would like to see them do is an on-premise immutable solution.

It's probably getting close to about a year mark.

There are some bugs but not major ones.

From my point of view, it can handle as many VMs as I'm going to see. We have pretty small sites. We range from 3 virtual machines to probably 20, and I feel confident that it could handle as many as we needed.

There are five or six users who are currently using this solution. They are members of the network team here at my company. They are network engineers or network admins.

We have plans to increase its usage. Currently, we have a lot of existing sites that are using a different solution, and their licenses are still good. In the future I see us expanding more. As long as Vembu keeps the same business model, I do see us using the product more.

For the most part, they're responsive. There has never been a time when we opened a ticket and didn't hear from them for days. They're usually pretty quick to respond. We provide them with what they need, and they normally give us an answer whether we like the answer or not. Overall, they're responsive, and they at least give us an answer. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We previously used Veeam, and we made the switch due to the change in their licensing. They don't do perpetual licensing anymore. They're going to a subscription-based model, which doesn't fit with our business model.

It was straightforward. The setup is pretty intuitive. We don't need to follow a whole bunch of technical documentation in order to set it up at a site and set up the jobs. The user interface is friendly, and even for offline licenses, they provided a simple document on how to do that. That's straightforward as well. 

Its setup probably took 10 to 20 minutes.

We did it on our own.

So far, we haven't had any actual disaster situations where we've had to use the restore, but overall, we have got a return on investment. It's doing so far what we want it to do.

Its price is fair, and they still allow perpetual licensing, which is extremely important for us. They also have offline licensing.

I am not aware of any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. In terms of the affordability of the solution for businesses with a tight budget, you aren't going to beat it.

I didn't have any initial expectations of the solution based on its pricing. I found Vembu by just searching for solutions, and I didn't really have an expectation, but it can be said that Vembu has been better than my initial expectation. Its price is definitely fair.

I tested at least five or six different ones. We're in industrial networking, which is very different from a corporate IT network. First and foremost, the thing that I liked about Vembu was the licensing model, and the second thing was its simplicity. All we do is backup and replications, and they have a product that focuses on that without having this big ugly interface with multiple options that we don't even use.

I haven't fully tested all the other bells and whistles on it, but for backup and replications, it's simple, and it does the job. It does exactly what we want it to.

I haven't had to test restores a whole lot, but initially, I tested it, and the restores were fine. They were what I would expect. They were not crazy fast but also not slow. It has not increased or decreased the speed of restores from our previous software. It's about the same.

I'm glad Vembu exists because, for bigger companies like Veeam, it's good that there is competition. That way they can't fully control this market. Vembu is a solution that is more friendly to actual businesses and small businesses.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.