BDRSuite Backup & Replication Reviews

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. 

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.

Vembu has been a great solution for my smaller clients who don’t need a lot of storage. The entry price is excellent for small businesses who want to use cloud backups.

I have 8 clients currently using Vembu Cloud BDR.

Moving to cloud backups eliminated the need for clients to change USB drives or worry about drives being stored offsite.

I can restore through the Vembu client or pull the file from anywhere via the browser. So far, it has been adequate in meeting my clients' needs.

There are a lot of cloud backup solutions that can handle documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, and pictures, but they are more limited for those who need cloud backups for applications like SQL. 

I have had issues with new client registrations. There are frequent connectivity issues to the cloud servers. Multiple times, I have had to prove to support that it wasn’t a problem on my end. It always works out in the end, but it is troubling to have the same issues repeated across different clients. Issues eventually get escalated to the cloud team and are mysteriously resolved with no changes on my end. I don’t know if it is an AWS issue, capacity issue, or something else. However, it is concerning for clients when they get several failure notices for their backups, though through retrying the job was eventually successful.

It can still mature in some ways. The agent interface can be improved and the portal could be more informative.

I have been using Vembu Cloud BDR with clients since 2019.

I have had no issues doing restores. Throughput on restored data is an issue for some other cloud backup solutions. However, I have never had an issue with Vembu Cloud BDR.

We have always gotten to a solution eventually. Sometimes, it takes some time though. 

I had an issue that had to be escalated to the cloud team that was only available 9 to 5 local India time. Having to stay up for a support call at 2 AM (my time) was frustrating. I had to pursue it to prove a new client registration issue was not a problem on my end. Not being believed by support and having to go to that extreme should not have been necessary. I was correct in the end, as they eventually found an issue on the Vembu client provisioning side. I think the whole situation could have been handled better.

Most of my issues were resolved, but there is rarely anything on my end that needs to be fixed. Most resolutions say something like, “We detected a problem on our servers and took steps to resolve the issue.” Then, things start working again. While we get a resolution, I don’t have much visibility into what was done. Since we generally get there eventually, I will rate the technical support as seven out of 10.

Neutral

Mozy used to be the major player in this market space. Mozy’s demise, with its purchase by Carbonite, left a void for a solution that could handle SQL cloud backups and meet small business needs. Vembu Cloud BDR has been filling this void for my small clients for a few years now.

I have clients that have used many solutions. For those who switched to Vembu Cloud BDR, most are coming from Carbonite (originally Mozy) or Backup Exec with local storage.

It is straightforward when it works. I have had issues a couple times with new client registrations.

Deployment takes less than an hour.

My implementation strategy is to register the cloud account, install the client agent, configure the jobs, and then run.

I deploy and maintain the solution.

Backups are like an insurance policy. You pay for the protection and hope you don’t need it. You don’t really expect a return, just security if needed.

The pricing is good. The tough part is estimating storage needs.

We used to be able to license regular PCs at no cost. We just paid for storage. The recent addition of the workstation license has changed that. For clients who use Vembu Cloud BDR for backup of remote user laptops, they now have licenses that they need to buy in addition to their server license.

The solution has excellent affordability for businesses with tight budgets.

I checked up on just about every cloud backup solution that I could find. This solution provides SQL application backups with a good entry point for small businesses.

It is a good value. While there have been some issues, that happens with any solution. Vembu Cloud BDR is a good entry product for small clients and can also scale to larger environments. I have not seen anything that diminishes its value.

Restore speed has been fine. Luckily, I have not had to do a complete restore, only occasional files or an SQL database.

Most clients were using local USB drives for backup storage prior to moving to Vembu Cloud BDR. Speed of restores was not an issue coming from a local source. The only clients who have seen an increase were those that previously were using another cloud backup provider that has notoriously slow restore throughput.

I will increase usage as client needs dictate.

I would rate it as eight out of 10. 

We have, in-house, around 70 end-users and around 30 branches. Currently, We are using Vembu to do the daily backup of our in-house end points. 

As data is increasing day by day, taking and managing backup is a hard job. As IT personnel, we were looking for a solution where we could do auto backups for all our machines and restore them at any point in time as required. 

Vembu came to us and solved our problems in the backup space. In the next phase, we are looking to deploy it for our remote branch users. It's a great solution.

It made it easy for us to handle the daily backup of endpoints. Earlier, we had to manually do everything, and that was also not in real-time and involved engagement of one IT person's time. 

Vembu saved us time and manpower. It helped our organization to secure valuable data within the organization. 

Concern related to the data of individuals has been resolved as personal data is removed from the backup. Only data related to the company is taken. This also has reduced the storage space required.

The auto-scheduling of incremental backups and multiple retention points features has helped us to get the backups of endpoints without any intervention. Multiple retention points help us to restore data from multiple points and states. 

The reporting is great for noting the success and failure. If it fails it gives the reason why it failed and we can take action accordingly and resolve the issues. 

Mail notification helps us in monitoring the backups daily. All failures are sent through to us so that we can check and take action as required.

The backup and restoration should be faster in newer releases. 

The dashboard should more interactive. 

Responsiveness to any command has to improve. Currently, it takes some time to respond the commands like abort or suspend.

They need to centralize the configuration and management features for File folder backups from endpoints. This should be in the next releases.

The reporting feature is good, however, it can still be improved upon.

We are eagerly awaiting these features in the next releases. We hope we will get them soon. 

I've used the solution for the last two years.

The stability of the solution is good.

The scalability is great.

Technical support is great.

Positive

No, we were not using any backup solution earlier.

The initial setup is very simple.

We had help from the vendor team for the installation process.

Our ROI has been very good.

Vembu is a good value for money solution.

Yes, we evaluated Retrospect.

They need to keep improving the solution so that we can reduce the time taken for backups and restorations.

We use it to backup VMware virtual machines, so I'm backing up my VMware environment. My product is for Windows Server Backup.

We are a small business. We don't use the enterprise version of the solution.

It has improved our business continuity.

We have used this solution to recover from a few incidences. 

The firewall backup is the most valuable feature. We need it sometimes when we recover a single file.

The compression is the most useful feature for me.

The product's stability needs some improvements. 

The support is a bit slow in resolving an issue. It takes a long time to recover.

One year.

The solution is 90 percent stable. It is running well. The availability is good.

Two or three employees are needed for deployment and maintenance of the solution.

I only have two servers. I don't test other servers.

We don't count our users for this solution as it is a backup service.

I would rate the technical support as eight or nine (out of 10). I would like them to improve their response rate.

This was our first product.

The initial setup was neither simple nor complex; it was intermediate. It took four hours to set up/deploy. We implemented it into a very simple environment (Windows Server Backup).

We deployed it ourselves.

We have seen ROI with Vembu. The solution is worth it based on the few times that we used it for recovery.

We tested three products. One of the other products that we evaluated was Altaro.

We chose Vembu because the compatibility was better.

I would definitely recommend Vembu. We have been mostly satisfied with the solution. We plan to keep using it.

Overall, I would rate the product as a nine (out of 10).

We use it purely for Hyper-V backup. It's used to protect our entire server estate.

Our previous backup solution was cloud-based rather than being on-premise, and quite often our backups could lag three or four days behind. We are now looking at having a restore point as low as 30 minutes, where the backup has never been more than an hour behind the live solution.

We use it to back up Hyper-V, and the key benefit of that is purely one of data security and dependability.

The most important features are the backup and the availability of the Universal Explorer.

The in-transit compression is great.

The deduplication could be better. It doesn't give the level of deduplication that I would get with a product that's stored in a more standard file format. I would prefer to be able to use a non-deduplicated store on a third-party deduplicated medium. But as far as the compression and the general structure go, I have no problems with them at all.

Having some flexibility for the backup to be stored in a non-deduplicated fashion so that we could store it on more high-efficiency storage would be helpful; either that or improvement to the data deduplication. The amount of storage it requires for the backup store is excessive, compared to other solutions.

It is absolutely stable. We've had no issues. It's never missed a backup and we've had no issues with data stores, even when we had an issue with the hardware which one of the data stores was on. That was very quickly recoverable and we didn't miss a backup. We've not missed a backup since installing it a year-and-a-half ago.

We're a very small business. We've only got two Hyper-V hosts that it's covering. I imagine the scalability is probably quite good, but I have no other comment on it.

Technical support is fantastic. Responses are normally received within about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. Where something has required escalation, it's been completed within a few hours. We've had very little contact with support, but where we've needed it the response has pretty much been a fix the first time.

We used Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, backing up to Azure cloud and we switched for two reasons: 

1. Vembu is less expensive.
2. It gave us more control as to where we keep that data.

The initial setup was absolutely straightforward. We had an issue, but that was caused by a problem in our Hyper-V environment, rather than Vembu itself. That was dealt with within a couple of days by Vembu support.

The deployment took about three days. It was really fast.

In terms of our implementation strategy, we were moving from Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager to Vembu. We are quite a small business so we only have two Hyper-V hosts to configure. The strategy was to install, test, and then remove the Microsoft product. It was a very straightforward plan, a very straightforward strategy. And the aim in doing so was to enable a more rapid recovery time.

We did most of the work ourselves. We didn't use a reseller at all, it was so easy to deploy.

It's only saving us about £2,000 to £3,000 a year. But in our IT, that is a help. Our IT budget is only about £250,000 a year so it's saving us one to two percent of our IT budget.

Regarding return on investment, the value of a backup system comes up when you actually need to restore it, so up until the point of restoration a backup system is purely a cost on your P&L, rather than being of any asset value. We've not had the requirement to restore, so the only cost-benefit we've had is in the cost savings over our previous solution.

The pricing and licensing structure are spot on. I don't think there's anything out there in the market that does either the licensing structure or the pricing structure better.

We evaluated Veeam but we selected Vembu because the feature set was what we needed. We didn't need to use Veeam's full recovery, full replication suite. Because of that, our costs are about a quarter of what they would have been with Veeam.

Go ahead and give it a try. It's worth the evaluation and certainly, with the restore options and the Universal Explorer option, it's competitive with things like Trilead and Veeam in terms of backup. Personally, I don't think it's as good as Veeam if you are looking at replication and high-availability but, other than that, for straight backup, I don't think there's anything in the market that's better.

There are only six of us in our IT department who use it. Nobody else has any real comments on it. It's something that sits there and does its job, and does it well. In terms of deployment and maintenance, two of us are responsible for ensuring the backup is operational and maintained.

It's used to protect our entire server estate. It's not a very big server estate, but it is the entire estate. There are no plans to extend its usage. There's nothing to extend it to.

I would give Vembu a ten out of ten. I've evaluated other products. I don't think anybody else has any advantage, certainly in terms of backup, over what Vembu provides. If I were to mark it down to a nine, it would just be for the lack of flexibility on the backup storage option.

We use it for backup and replication. 

We use it to maintain critical data and save it. It suits our needs, is versatile, and the functionality is there.

• It is easy to use.
• It is simple to deploy and maintain.

Vembu is presented more like a multi-platform tool, where you have paper features, VMware, and Hyper-V. I would like to have a different set of products instead of having a single software which does everything. This could be beneficial. 

Nowadays, I don't know of a lot of people who are using tapes anymore. If you are using tapes, you don't do backup to the cloud, for instance. Therefore, maybe have a legacy version, then a cloud plus application version.

It is not a well-known software. People do not know about Vembu.

This is not a high-end product.

There were only two issues, which were minor, and the support was very fast. This is probably the top reason why we chose Vembu. They have a very good support team who are responsive. I like the way they handle their clients compared to big vendors on the market, like Veritas, formerly Symantec.

The two issues were fixed in a relatively short time. One was fixed within the same day, and the other one was fixed within  a couple days. These are the only two issues that we had for the whole year.

We haven't had a chance to experience scalability.

I would give tech support a score of nine out of ten, which is almost perfect for me.

We were relying on Microsoft Backups, which are just basic backups. We were trying to find something simple to use and easy to deploy, and that is why did proof of concept with three different products. The short list came down to Vembu. 

Currently, we are using mass technology, so we store from mass seamlessly. Then, we use the replication feature from VMware to remote that. So, we do double backup. Local backup and remote backup plus replication, which is very accessory resilient.

The initial setup was pretty simple. The backup solution was running within two to three hours. We were maybe missing some technical help during the installation, but there were a couple of technicians who helped me during the setup and finalizing it. 

Overall, the setup is straightforward. When you choose the VM options, it is even faster.

We consolidated our infrastructure. We went from about 40 to 15 servers.

The licencing and pricing are good; it's a no-brainer. It is affordable. It has value with respect to the features included in the software.

There is a drawback in the whole approach about how the licenses are managed. There are two consoles: cloud and on-premise. It seems that on a daily basis we have to manage both consoles, which isn't user-friendly. Ideally, it should be either a single on-premise console or only a cloud console. A single platform approach is the better solution. For now, with full licensing, you have to manage your instances on the Vembu Portal, then reassign licenses, and go back to your on-premise management console to do the real management. It is a bit awkward.

I do remember that the pricing was based on a VMware or Hyper-V license, whereas on our end, it should be regarded as a VM-based license. I don't know why they make a difference at the Vembu level. We are currently on VMware migrating to Hyper-V, and we didn't want to buy licenses for VMware, but still have to buy them for Hyper-V. This the only thing which does not seem fully adequate. 

We previously used Microsoft Backup, which is not reliable.

I have a lot of experience with Symantec Backup solutions, now Veritas. Compared to Veritas, Vembu is more corporate-oriented and the support is better on Vembu's side rather than Veritas.

We also tested Naviko, Veeam, and Unitrends.

Go ahead and use it.

We offer the solution to our customers, primarily SMBs, for backup and disaster recovery. Deployment models include both cloud and on-prem. 

The solution enables us to recover data instantly; depending on the data type and volume, we can recover within seconds or minutes.

It's pretty easy to add and remove backup jobs using BDRSuite, which, in addition to the solution's features, reduces the time we spend on backup management.

The product is very reliable and works well out of the box; many of our customers are buying it.

BDRSuite features a good dashboard, and Vembu is working on making its product more user-friendly, improving the UI, and providing better integrations.

We tested the product's Instant Boot VM feature for instant access to our VMs or physical machines after a crash, and it provided immediate access.  

The solution's UI and integrations could be better. 

We've been using the solution for five years.

The stability is excellent. 

BDRSuite is scalable. 

Integrating BDRSuite with existing infrastructure is quite easy; it doesn't take much time, and we always offer support to our customers. Deployment usually takes less than 15 minutes, and the first backup can be scheduled.  

The solution requires minimal maintenance. 

The product is affordable, and we focus on SMBs for our customer base.

Our company believes everyone should have a backup solution, so we provide affordable pricing to small and medium businesses, bringing them easy access to a backup tool compared to more expensive competitor products.  

I rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Regarding backup and replication scheduling options, we offer weekly, monthly, yearly, and multi-year options so we can customize the scheduling policy according to customer requirements.

We still use other backup solutions besides BDRSuite; we use different products for different use cases.

We use the solution to create backup repositories in cloud-based object storage, including Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud.