BDRSuite Backup & Replication Reviews

We use it for replication to our disaster recovery sites for the storage we have on-prem. We needed our critical infrastructure and our critical applications backed up. We needed to have something we can restore from when we have an issue.

Our environment is hybrid. We have some of our servers on-prem, some on Azure, and some on AWS.

With Hyper-V it helps to ensure high availability. Before I started using Vembu, if I wanted to back up my Hyper-V what I would normally do is go to the folder where I have the VM and copy the hard disk, the VM image. With that I would be able to restore easily. With Vembu, with just the click of a button, it does my backup. I've done a series of restores to test what I'm backing up because that's the essence of a backup — to see how it comes back — and it comes out fine. In VMware you don't just copy your image, but for VMware Vembu also does a perfect job.

Vembu has also ensured that the disaster recovery aspect of our business is well taken care of. It is very critical to the business to have a tested backup. Vembu has helped us a lot in that way. We have restored from Vembu backups several times.

It has saved us a lot of money, but it's not quantifiable. If you have an issue that would cost a whole lot of money but you have a proper backup solution so you don't have to spend that money, you just restore. It might have saved us millions, in Nigerian money.

It saves us time because I just schedule the backups the way I want them and that's it. I don't have to worry about my backups. I'm certain that my data has been backed up. It saves a whole lot of man-hours.

The backup is very reliable for both VMware and Hyper-V.

In terms of the compression, Vembu's product is quite good compared to what I've seen from other products. 

The encryption is okay. That security feature is fine. You have the option of either encrypting the backup or not. I don't use it in all cases, but I will use it if I'm backing up something and it will be taken outside of our environment. For example, if I'm backing up a VM to an external tape drive or hard drive, I will use that option, to give it another level of security.

They keep on improving and I can't see anything that they need to add for now.

We have been using Vembu for the past four years.

This year was the first time I had an issue with it. I don't know how the issue started. I called their support team and they told me what to do. I tried it but I then decided to simply do a fresh installation.

Vembu is very scalable because it gives you everything you could want. Our environment is medium-sized.

We definitely have plans to expand our usage of it. When you get value from a product you love to do more with it.

I love Vembu's customer care. If you have any issues or questions, they respond and their response time is quick. Their technical support is good. I would rate it at eight out of 10. I had a conversation with them last night. I sent them an email and they immediately responded.

Prior to using Vembu I tried Acronis. That is what we were using before we dropped it for Vembu. The main difference I see between Vembu and the other solutions we've tried is that with Vembu, you don't need anybody to tell you what to do. Once you have done the installation you just look at the user interface — it's very friendly — and you can do things yourself without resorting to help from anybody.

If I want to back up a VM or all the servers I have in vSphere, I just drop the password of vSphere and it will do everything automatically for you. You just tell it what you want to back up. Acronis doesn't work that way. The guys on my team found Acronis difficult to use. In terms of user-friendliness, Vembu does a better job. With the click of a button, you know what you need to do.

Acronis would time out most of the time. If you have a slight network-connectivity issue, it causes a problem.

I found Vembu by searching online for free backup solutions. I saw a lot of solutions but that is how I started with Vembu, with their free version. I saw that it solved my problems.

To install Vembu, the only thing that takes time is the download. But once you have downloaded it, within 30 minutes you are up and running. You schedule your backups and you go to sleep.

I was the only one involved in the setup.

There are two guys on my team who maintain it. They have administrative rights on Vembu, like me. They also have many other responsibilities besides Vembu. It doesn't take a lot of effort to maintain it. Once you're up and running you just check your backups and the status to make sure that everything is running. And if there is an issue, you check the log to see why you are having that issue.

I did not need a third-party to deploy Vembu. But when I used Acronis, I had to call their support. Acronis has a partner here in Nigeria that I worked with. The fact that I had to work with a partner with Acronis, and I didn't have to with Vembu, is a major difference.

The overall return on investment is quite good. It's good for the business. The margin is on the positive side.

The pricing of Vembu could be better. They have a good product, and I know good products cost money, but they need to find a balance.

I also looked at Veeam. I used Veeam for a while before Acronis. Veeam is a fantastic product. I think it is one of the best. It is in the same class with Vembu. I went with Vembu because it is very easy to use. It is easy to install. With the click of a button you can manage everything: add a VM and do your backup.

It gives me peace of mind. If your infrastructure backup is up and running and trusted, it gives you peace of mind.

I have recommended it to a number of people.

It's important to note that most backup solutions will tell you that you can download and use their solution for free. But the truth is that that is not the case for almost all of them. After some time, you will have to pay for a license to backup critical sources.

It is a backup and disaster recovery solution for small businesses. I use it primarily for Vista machines.

The backup is constant so it makes things simpler for me. To put it simply, it just works.

• Snapshots
• Constant backup for SQL, application services, and Active Directory
• External disaster recovery
• Small memory footprint when running

It's also easy to use because of the graphical user interface. It's simple enough for a child to use. With Vembu Cloud I can view the status of all my clients' backups. I can configure backups from the interface. I am able to do 99 percent of what I need to do from the GUI.

I suggest that the dump of the database have the option to either be backed up to Vembu Cloud or be backed up to all backup sites and not only to default storage.

If the backup server crashes I create another backup server and use the backups and the database dumps. I have to use the default path of the backups. It would be a great option if I could just import the backup files.

In the past, I had some stability issues but I no longer have them. It was corrected in the last version. It is working without problems now.

Scalability is not a problem.

The support from Vembu is very, very good. These guys have saved my life two or three times.

I have used many solutions up until now. I switched to Vembu because of the price.

The initial setup is simple. It is not complicated. The only thing that makes it more complicated is when there are a lot of databases.

I would rate it at 9 out of 10. It's a great option for a small business looking for a cheap solution requiring two or three different backup sites. Vembu provides strong support. I am not giving it a higher score because it is complicated to recover a crashed backup server.

We use it for our file server and database backups.

It hasn't improved the way our company functions that much because we were using a backup which is about the same as Vembu.

The restore feature is the most valuable. It's easy to restore.

We've been using Vembu for less than a year.

It's not that stable yet. Every two weeks, my backup will stop and I have to check it. Sometimes it can be fixed by a restart and sometimes I need support to make it work.

It's scalable. It is being used extensively in our environment, but there are no plans to increase usage. During the season, we're around 200 employees and we back up about 4 TBs.

Support is very important. But sometimes they respond to me four hours after I contact them, maybe more. I would like them to improve their response time. Also, their time zone is different from US/Canada.

Overall, support is very good, but their reaction takes a while.

We were using Zenith ARCA. We switched to Vembu because of the licensing cost. Vembu is cheaper.

The initial setup was straightforward. It's just "click" and "okay."

The deployment took an hour or two. The installation plan was to store things locally. We have an online license for the offsite service, but we don't have the proper device installed yet. It requires a more sophisticated machine.

Initially, I worked on it myself. But, due to some errors, I asked support to reinstall it, to fix it. They were good.

We have seen a return on investment from going with Vembu.

The pricing is pretty normal. It's not too hard to license a server. It's pretty straightforward. If you need four servers, you just acquire four.

We evaluated Ipirius. We went with Vembu because of its features. It's similar to what we were using previously.

If you're looking for a not-too-expensive solution, use the Vembu BDR Suite.

There are three people on our team who can access the server, who can actually operate it: an IT associate, supervisor, and system admin. In terms of maintenance, I ask their support to do it.

Overall, I would rate Vembu at seven out of 10. It's not perfect yet. It doesn't give me confidence that it will run 24/7.

We use it for backup copies of key virtual servers in our company.

Fortunately, we have not had to recover lost data. However, it is reassuring to know that we can recover lost data, if needed.

The most valuable features are ease of setup and configuration.

I have not been impressed by the data compression of the backup images. They seem to take up nearly as much space on the backup drive as they do on the server.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not faced any challenges with its ability to  scale.

Their technical support is very good to work with, as they are able to propose alternate solutions to problems that work well for us.

We did not previously use a different solution. Vembu was selected after reviewing, then trying several different products.

The initial setup was straightforward and well-documented.

We were able to take advantage of a promotional pricing campaign. 

I do not know how often Vembu offers the promotional pricing campaign, but it can be cost advantageous.

In addition to Vembu, we evaluated Veeam, Unitrends, and Virten as alternative solutions.

Verify that you can restore a virtual machine (VM) from its backup and ensure the notification of backup results (success or fail) is readily available.

Our backups are done on a nightly basis. We don’t run out of space on the backup drives; no tapes/hard drives have to be stored or swapped out.

The online backup feature allows me to store my backups off-site without having to physically drive them somewhere.

There have been times when the backup hangs and does not complete possibly due to a connection issue. Stopping and starting the service usually works to restart it. It would be good if there was a way for it to automatically restart.

There have been times when stopping and starting the service did not work and I had to call support. This has not happened recently, though.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

The technical support is good. They are always willing to help and will see the problem through, right up to its resolution.

Initially, we did onsite backups to tapes and then to hard drives. We switched because we wanted an off-site solution.

The initial setup wasn’t too bad. Once we got everything working, it has been running okay.

It is easy to add products. The pricing is reasonable.

You should definitely consider using this tool, as an off-site backup option.

On the client side of it, the ease of installing the software and getting it up and running: Each version they bring up, it gets better and better.

• The support side of it
• The usability, the ease of it: It is user friendly. We've tried other software before and it wasn't that great on the user front, but this software seems pretty straightforward.

While it's hard to say, the support side of it is sometimes a bit hit or miss; the tech support. Generally, I would say about 70% of the time, they're pretty good. They're pretty accurate on what we want, and the odd times, I think it’s lost in translation.
We've had a few bugs with the software and, for some reason, we've always had to get their support to dial in to fix it. It's not something that we can fix ourselves, really.

Generally, we have not encountered any stability issues.

So far, scalability seems OK. We've only grown, not masses, with this software, so it's hard to say, really.

Technical support is 7/10, on average. They could make it better by improving the speed of responses. Sometimes, they'll dial us back in a few minutes; sometimes, it takes them half a day before they have a look at it.

We previously used a different solution. The ease of user feel is really the reason we switched over to it.

The initial setup is going back quite a while back. I think it was in the middle: it wasn't too straightforward; it wasn't that tricky. It was average.

It's pretty straightforward to use once the software gets going.

It gave us an easy to use and stable backup service to offer our customers for a low price.

Central management and easy control of allowed space per client makes end user and client management easy.

The service is built on MCALs, so implement a policy in which someone keeps refilling these. But overall, MCAL is a nice way to be dealing with licenses.

We ran into some problems in which the server hosting the backup service needed to be restarted once a week. We contacted support and they resolved the issue within a week!

We didn’t have any scalability issues.

Technical support is excellent.

We did have a previous solution, but it was almost 10 years ago. We were not happy. The provider and the software didn’t work as we hoped. We called it “one-time-backup” internally.

The setup was straightforward and support was always available if needed.

The cost is low and has always been. We haven’t found any cheaper solution for our demands. By using the MCAL, we feel safe and secure. It is kind of “straightforward” to add new licenses for the backups.

We did evaluate other solutions.

Use the support. They are knowledgeable and will resolve any issues you may have. They will contact you directly so that you have a person to talk to. You can tell that Vembu focuses on customer support.

Another plus is the ease of use for the users. In our environment, we sell it as a service and our customers install the backup-client themselves.

When migrating systems or doing a reinstall, Vembu has a really easy-to-use system to re-implement the backup jobs and rules. Short spoken: The end user experience is great and easy to use!

We use it for backing up VMs.

We are using it with VMware and the benefit is that we have reliable backups.

It's pretty basic backup stuff. I set it up and it just runs.

The compression, encryption, and deduplication features all work fine.

The system died twice and it was apparently the result of corrupted disk sectors. I tried to work with tech support to fix it, but they essentially gave up. So twice, I had to rebuild our server. I don't know why that happened and tech support didn't seem particularly concerned about figuring it out. That's my only complaint.

We've been using Vembu BDR Suite for about a year.

It did completely die twice and couldn't be revived. If that happens again, we're probably going to look at another product. My only concern is the stability.

We're not likely to be adding too many more VMs anytime soon. So I don't have any way of judging the scalability. We might deploy it on another site. We'll see about that.

Technical support is good but the problem I have is that I often can't understand the technicians because they have extremely heavy accents, and that makes communication kind of difficult.

We were using VDP, which is a free application from ESX. But it's not very good, in fact it's awful, and it's no longer supported. We replaced it with Vembu and we're quite happy.

The initial setup is simple. It didn't take more than a day or so, including testing. I got a trial version and decided it did what we want it to do and then I just set it up.

The solution provides us with enterprise-level data protection.

The pricing is quite reasonable.

If you can't afford Veeam, which is very expensive, I would recommend Vembu.

Vembu is used by me and another system administrator. That's it. We manage it, but it only requires one person for deployment and maintenance. 

Our end-users don't know it's there.