Commvault Cloud Reviews

The solution is used as a backup for Office 365 workloads.

Pricing and functionality can be improved. The way to configure is not as simple as the configuration itself, nor is adding users within the backup scope.

I have been using Metallic for more than three years. I am an end user. I am using the solution's latest version of the solution in my organization.

The solution's stability is excellent.

The solution is scalable. 

Also, it is used by 380 users.

I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten.

The customer support is not good. There should be fast responsiveness and more proficiency when solving the issues or when helping solve any issues. I rate customer support a six out of ten.

Some configurations could have been simpler, and the recommendations could have been more precise in allowing only certain users to be included in the backup scope. We could use group membership. Based on the user's group membership, they would be included in the backup scope. It's pretty simple, so if a user belongs to Group A, they will be included in the backup scope, and if not, then they won't be.

The deployment took two days, and one engineer was required for it. If you refer to maintenance as the procedures to test the restore and the options or directions, there's something else.

The solution is expensive. The subscription is based on a monthly basis. There are additional costs that vary depending on the size of the backup.

What we had before was that each user needs to be licensed. We purchase the required number of licenses and are priced accordingly per license. This pricing is independent of the backup data. Now, Metallic has changed, and the pricing is either per user or per license, in addition to the amount of backed-up data.

It supports SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and other services.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is as a backup and recovery solution. We have two data centers and we have a Commvault server for replication in both. We back up all our infrastructure with this solution, from Active Directory to SQL, web servers, file servers, databases, et cetera.

Commvault helps to ensure broad coverage with the discovery of unprotected workloads. The Discovery feature lists all the resources that we have, all the virtual servers and all the physical servers. You can also automatically deploy agents or set up schedules. At first, we did some manual tuning to customize it before deployment. Now, the virtual infrastructure administrator just has to add the VM tag on the virtual machine and that machine will automatically be backed up in the next schedule. It's a good automation feature.

It also helps by minimizing the time our admins spend on backup tasks so that they can spend time on other projects. Before Commvault, we had two backup administrators who were using a backup and restore application to restore every test that we had to do. It was a full-time job just monitoring the backups and doing the restores. With our new solution from Commvault, we have successfully implemented web-based backup and restore management for our different teams, including our file server, database, and Exchange teams. We split operations among those teams and each one has access to the backup Web Console. This console from Commvault is very useful for segmenting the restore options. That way, the database backup administrator only has access to the database servers and can only do backups and restores of databases and does not have access to Active Directory or file servers. The web-based backup and restore is a really great option.

Whereas before, we had one full-time engineer doing backups and restores, now that engineer is only working on it for two to four hours per week. Across our four teams, it's saving us about 10 to 12 hours a week.

The solution has helped to reduce storage costs as well. Commvault has an option to move data from primary storage. When you do a backup, it scans all the files from the file server and you can set a policy to remove all files that are more than, say, three years old from the primary storage. And on the primary storage, there is only a link that connects to the backup source. When a user needs a file on secondary storage, there is no problem because it only reads the file. When the user opens that old file, it's automatically restored and the user can access it. For our IT team, it has saved us between 5 and 10 percent of storage. It depends on how widely you implement the solution and the policies you set. You could save 50 percent if you have a broader policy.

We have also saved on infrastructure costs because Commvault takes less time to do the backup jobs, due to the deduplication. Also, the background tasks that are used to copy the backup jobs to tape are deduplicated. The full backup of our infrastructure can now be done in a couple of hours during the night. Before, some backup tasks would take more than a day, on the weekend. There has been a reduction of 80 or 90 percent in the backup window.

Commvault's most valuable features are its 

• deduplication
• encryption
• support for many OSs
• support for different infrastructures. 

We have VMware, Hyper-V, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL. We have a lot of different systems, and all of them are supported under one licensing agreement. That's one of the benefits.

We use two user interfaces on a regular basis. One is the Web Console, which is simple and has all the necessary functionality. You can add servers, back up servers, and restore. We also have a replication solution implemented and we use the Web Console for that as well. But for the initial configuration and for some deeper configurations, we also use the Commvault application. It's big and has all the fine-tuning options.

The solution's Command Center is very straightforward. It has an intuitive user interface with graphs, tables, alerts, as well as many options for alerting and messaging. Of course, you have to get used to the environment, but it's easy to use.

It is also important that Commvault provides a single platform to move, manage, and recover data across on-premises locations. That's because we have different storage and virtualization platforms. We have no problem if the file resides, say, on NetApp storage and we have to restore data to a workstation or some kind of Windows Server. Also, when we did some migrations from our old Hyper-V cluster to the new VMware cluster, those integrations between different infrastructures were successfully accomplished with the Commvault solution. We have no issues with different types of resources we need to back up.

In addition, the recovery options are pretty straightforward. For example, if you choose a virtual machine, you can restore the full virtual machine, you can restore the virtual machine on a different platform, you can restore just a virtual disk, or you can restore just a file within the virtual machine. You have all the options. In the web-based user interface, you can also restore using download options. You can browse through the files or virtual machines and download the file from the backup. They have a great range of restore options.

We had some small issues with the reporting, but that was just a matter of fine-tuning the kinds of messages we receive by email. It was a little overwhelming in the initial configuration. So we reviewed our configuration with our partner and customized the reports so that we only get the important reports. I haven't seen any big issues or things that the solution is missing.

We implemented Commvault at the start of 2021, so we have been using it for almost a year now.

We had one issue. The Commvault server is an Active-Passive cluster and the Active node had some hiccups. It wasn't something serious, but the Commvault server was unable to connect to one of the agents. I believe our partner discovered it because they also receive messages from our Commvault solution. They just informed us that the Commvault server had to be restarted. We did so during working hours because backups are done at night, and there were no issues. It was a standard procedure and we have had no other big issues.

At the start of the Commvault project, we put together a list of all the resources that we have. They counted our resources and gave us the exact number of clients we needed to buy to cover all of our infrastructure and we had no issue there. Of course, we also have some plans for the growth of our infrastructure. If we have any big upgrades, we will also upgrade the Commvault infrastructure.

We have a lot of Commvault's features implemented. We're also in the process of testing the backup of endpoints, such as laptops and devices from end-users. There are just a few features from Commvault that we don't use.

We use technical support through our partner because our partner has a lot of inside knowledge. For the majority of issues our partner gives us the solution, but they have had to report some small issues to Commvault support. They spoke directly with Commvault support and the solution was available in a few days. It was a very good troubleshooting experience.

Positive

We used NetWorker and Veeam. The NetWorker solution was the older solution and, in some very old clusters, we also used TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) from IBM. The TSM solution was no longer supported and the Dell EMC NetWorker solution, which we used for our physical servers, was difficult to maintain. Veeam was a good solution for our VMware infrastructure, but we needed a solution with support for a wider variety of infrastructure types. One of our major goals was to eliminate our multiple backup solutions by going with Commvault.

If we had to do the initial setup ourselves, it would be complex, of course, because we have a big infrastructure with different types of targets. But our partners helped and they managed to cover all the tests that we implemented at the start of the project. So, overall, the setup went really well. It took just a few days, maybe a week, to add our agents. After the initial configuration, it was really easy to roll out the solution to our entire infrastructure.

Our partners, called Our Space Appliances, are system integrators in backup and storage solutions. They know our infrastructure.

We had a process for choosing a vendor. We called a number of vendors and had proposals from the Veeam, NetWorker, Cohesity, and Commvault.

The big pro for Commvault was that it was a single solution for our entire infrastructure. The licensing model was also an advantage and the experience of the partner was also a big plus. Some of the other solutions we evaluated did not make it to the second round because they did not support all the infrastructure we have in our environment. In the last round, the battle came down to pricing, as well as some small features, and Commvault was the best in all the criteria.

Commvault is a pretty comprehensive but, maybe, complex solution when you first start with it. But that's why it is a perfect match for complex infrastructure, as it supports all types of infrastructure. Commvault is not appropriate for small businesses with just one type of virtual environment. There are different vendors that may be better for that use case. But when looking at enterprise backup and recovery options, Commvault is the easiest to use, and it has the widest range of features.

We are currently moving to Exchange Online. We have between 1,500 and 2,000 users. We have already deployed Teams on the cloud, and now we are migrating user mailboxes to cloud. Our next step, in the following month, will be a backup of Microsoft cloud solutions through Commvault.

In terms of the coverage of Commvault, we have a big Oracle Database and the Oracle administrators are a separate team. They do their own backups using RMAN. They then move the backup to the separate Sun ZFS  storage. We also tried that backup with Commvault, using the Commvault agent to run RMAN. The test went well, the backup was good, but the database team was used to their old solution. So we agreed to implement a backup of the ZFS file server.

Ours is an all-on-prem solution so we don't have any other networks being backed up. We do have a DMZ with different VLANs and so there were some problems. We had to install an agent on the DMZ zone, an agent that has access to resources in the demilitarized network. But it's a no-brainer. We just have to open a specific port so that the backup agent can communicate with the CommCell server, and the resources are backed up successfully.

In addition, to protect against ransomware we use Commvault's alert options because Commvault can predict big changes in the network with its AI solution. This is the first line of defense. The second line of defense is that we are now in the process of implementing secondary, offline storage to ensure an air gap between the primary backup, the replicated backup, and the offline backup storage. In case of a ransomware attack we will have off-site backup storage.

It is a good solution in the enterprise market and serves as an enterprise solution. It is a leading solution. So, you have different kinds of workloads. My customers have a type of workload that the solution supports. Either you can have the solution on the cloud or on the on-premises version. Also, there are different kinds of workloads, like Oracle, SQL, MySQL, or MongoDB. Normally, you will not find all kinds of workloads in one product.

Auxiliary (aux) copy and DASH copy are the most valuable features of the solution.

In GUI, some of the features have been divided. So one is the browser-based command center, and then the old interface with CommCell browser. They have to add more features and functions that are the same as whatever is there in the command center. We prefer that because, otherwise, we have to do two different interfaces for different kinds of jobs. We cannot do some jobs in the old interface with CommCell browser since we have to go into the command center.

Whatever Commvault Complete Data Protection has, they need to improve. Sometimes, we have a performance issue with the backup speed. So, that has to be rectified and improved.

I have experience with Commvault Complete Data Protection for more than fifteen years. Also, I have used the solution within the last twelve months. Regularly, our company has been supporting our customers with the setup process. Lately, we have been involved in the implementation of HyperScale from Commvault. So we support our customers regularly. I think maybe a month or a month and a half ago, we implemented Commvault's HyperScale solution. We are using Commvault Version 11.28.

The solution is good sometimes in some environments. But sometimes, in some environments, it has to be improved. On the network backup, it has to be improved. If, almost across the networks, one has different VLAN backups, the performance backup is sometimes degraded due to the network configuration and because of the load on the network. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Currently, one of my customers has an almost one-petabyte backup solution. So, it was increased from gigabytes to petabytes. It can be increased if you have a big setup in place. With HyperScale Appliance, it is easy to expand the server. It will just expand your capability and the storage capacity, and a few other capacities in the solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten. I have around fifteen big customers. There are a lot of customers of the solution who use it, with other vendors supporting it. The solution has quite a big market for the solution.

If the support we receive is from India, then sometimes we have a problem since it takes time owing to the fact that initially, a few people handle the issue before forwarding it to the next level. Maybe some years back, the support was from Australia, the UK, Canada, or the USA, and sometimes from Germany or some European nation, which was very good since there were very qualified people in their team who could resolve our issues within an hour. After they shifted some backup support to India, they included people who operate at a basic or initial level. So, they start troubleshooting, but we think that it's just killing time so that they can get some other people to intervene. I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We provide solutions depending on a customer's requirements and setup. We also provide solutions like Rubrik and Veeam. I did not work with Veeam, but Veeam is mainly for on-premises virtualization. Its workload is very limited. Also, the expandability and scalability have limitations. However, if you have VMware Hypervisor on your premises, then the solution is okay.

If one has some kind of initial knowledge of any kind of backup solution like Veritas NetBackup, then it will be a little bit easy to implement the solution and then understand the architecture. But if you don't have the knowledge of any other solutions, then it would prove to be a learning curve of tasks related to implementation and administration or designing.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the initial setup a five.

Depending upon the solution, sometimes the deployment can be done within one day or within half a day, especially if you have a small setup. But if you have a big and complicated setup, it will take days to implement. It also depends on how complicated the infrastructure the customers have in their environments.

We have to definitely follow steps before we implement the solution. Before we implement any other agents or media agents, we have to implement ComCell, the main backup server, then the media agent, and then the client. This sequence has to be thorough. For updating any page or anything like that, we have to follow the same sequence, which includes the backup server, the media agent, and the client.

Pricing is quite expensive, though I don't exactly know the prices. It is expensive compared to other products because it's for an enterprise setup and not for a small setup. On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest price, I rate the pricing an eight.

This software features a single interface that covers all essential functions, including core data management, backup, restore, copy, and DR. It eliminates the need to access the client side and simplifies the configuration process. The centralized configuration makes installation easy. Additionally, the software supports a wide range of platforms, including Linux, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft versions, unlike some older products, such as Veritas NetBackup, which doesn't have the latest version support in their solution. Sometimes, even Microsoft products don't have the latest version support.

I like the product because of its simplicity and the fact that it provides one single interface for managing everything, including storage, data, and policies. Additionally, there is no need for any configuration on the client's end. Even with 500 clients, you don't have to individually configure the solution for each one. Instead, you just need to install a push agent, which is a small agent, and all tasks can be performed from a single interface. Moreover, the product offers comprehensive support for different software versions. Whether it's upgrading from Exchange Server 2016 or Exchange Server 2013 to Exchange Server 2019 or Exchange Server 2020, or using Oracle version, or other releases, they have immediate backup solutions available, ensuring compatibility during upgrades.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I use Metallic to back up a customer's environment. It's the solution offered by our partner, a South African company called Data Protection Management. I'm just the intermediary, providing data loss prevention to my client. I've never seen the interface or used the platform. My client uses Metallic to backup data from Microsoft solutions like SharePoint and OneDrive. 

The reporting could be improved because the reports we get from our partner aren't sufficient. It isn't very detailed. I'm not sure if it's an issue with our partner or Metallic. They do a full backup on Monday and incremental backups throughout the week. However, we don't get detailed reports about the size of the incremental backups. The report just tells us whether a backup was successful. 

In addition to the core backup features, I would also like to see Metallic add patch management. It's a crucial way to minimize threats against data sources. 

I have used Metallic for six months.

I rate Metallic eight out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Metallic 10 out of 10 for scalability. 

I rate Metallic support 10 out of 10. They did the setup for us. Metallic support was exceptional, and they knew what they were doing. 

Positive

I rate Metallic nine out of 10 for ease of setup. Metallic set up the solution for me, but they walked me through the process. It seemed easy and took a few hours. 

I rate Metallic 10 out of 10 for affordability. It's highly cost-effective compared to other products I've used. I pay a monthly fee of 57 rands per user as a reseller and sell it at a markup to my client. 

I rate Metallic 10 out of 10. Metallic is user-friendly, cost-effective, and the technical support is impressive. 

We primarily use the solution as a backup for databases, VMs, or servers. 

Not everyone has agents for everything and Commvault has agents for most products. It's the most complete.

It's easy to install. 

It is stable and reliable.

The solution can scale. 

I don't have any notes for improvements. 

The price could always be lower. 

We'd like to have local support in Germany.

The POC is only 30 days, and it really should be 90 days. 

I've been using the solution for ten years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. I'd rate the reliability nine out of ten. It doesn't crash or freeze. Based on what is possible, it is okay.

The solution is very scalable. I'd rate it ten out of ten in terms of the ability to extend.

Everyone uses the solution. We have 20 to 30 people using the product. That includes consultants. 

Technical support is currently based in India. I'd like to have more local support. 

We did not previously use a different solution. 

The solution is simple to set up. It is not complex. 

It takes approximately two weeks to deploy the solution.

You simply download the .EXE file and start the installation. 

We had one person that handled the setup. We had an engineer, myself, handle it. 

We handle the initial setup ourselves. We did not need any outside assistance. 

I have not really noticed any ROI.

Inside the 30-day trial period, you do not need a license. After that, you need to pay yearly.

The prices are pretty high. It's quite expensive. 

I'm an end-user.

We are using the latest version of the solution. 

I'd recommend potential new users talk to a proper consultant and do a proper POC. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. 

The rate of duplication is great because when you do the first full backup, it duplicates 20%, but when you do more increments, depending on the mode, the duplication is 99%. It is also great at detecting ransomware. It's not an antivirus, but when you copy files, the system can send you a message such as, "Mr. Albert, have you downloaded 10,000 files in two minutes? Why are you doing this?" Again, it's not an antivirus, but it notifies you if something is wrong with your system.

The interface could be improved because it has two different consoles. The first console is Java, and it is a little complex, but you can do 100% of the operation. But now, there is an alternative console of HTML 5. It is trendy and simple, but you can only do 70% of your operation. The HTML console is perfect for a client or a partner.

You have all the information centralized with the Java console, and I believe they plan to transition to the HTML console fully.

We have been using it for three months, deploying both on-premises and cloud. The choice of on-premises or cloud depends on what the client wants.

I rate the stability an 8.5 out of ten, and there is a small room for improvement.

It is easily scalable. We have about 300 users of Commvault Complete Data Protection in our company.

We have used technical support, and you can contact them by opening a ticker and in a few minutes, they will action it. For example, we opened a ticket last week, and the issue was solved in 30 minutes.

Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik are three software comparable to Commvault Complete Data Protection. Veeam is competitive in price and demand. Their solution is not very good, but many people use it because it is not expensive. Commvault Complete Data Protection, however, is the best out of all of them.

The initial setup is simple.

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being a good price and one a high price. Depending on the client, they have different types of licensing.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. We would like to see a single console for everything in the future.

We have the solution deployed on-premise and private cloud.

There are many valuable features of Commvault HyperScale X giving many possibilities to complete jobs, particularly with the backup and restore.

HyperScale X is not user-friendly. There are many settings that have to be done on your own. It would benefit from a better interface. 

Commvault has a command center that is easy to use, but it does not have the functionality you need, so you have to switch to the Java GUI.

I have been using Commvault HyperScale X for five years.

The product is stable if it is set up correctly. HyperScale X is sophisticated software that requires you to configure it on your own. This can be difficult to handle.

This solution is scalable. In our company, we have two users of the product.

The support offered by Commvault HyperScale X depends on the country you connect with. U.S. support is better than the support offered in India. With the language barrier, different lingo, and how quickly they speak, I often cannot understand what they are saying.

Prior to using Commvault HyperScale X, we were using Commvault with Windows Server. We switched due to the complexity and software updates with Windows. HyperScale provided a good offer that would improve our space requirements.

The initial setup of Commvault HyperScale X was not complex, however, it was not easy either. It took two days to set up the appliances, which we completed with the assistance of a consultant.

HyperScale X is expensive. 

Anyone considering to implement Commvault HyperScale X should do so based on their own needs. There are many tools you can use, but it is complex even if you are running the command center. VM is an easier tool, but it has reduced functionality. 

I would rate the product a seven out of 10 overall.

We use Commvault to back up all our enterprise solutions, like MS SQL, Exchange, file servers, and MongoDB, but we don't use Commvault for multi-environment management. There is a primary site and a disaster recovery site that we control offsite with one console.

I know Commvault has another interface for the multi-site, but I've never used it before, so I don't have any experience with that. However, we have a passive primary server at the disaster recovery site, and if we have trouble at the main site, we can use the disaster recovery server. 

Commvault makes it easier to back up new additions to our environment. For example, when we added MongoDB, we found it in Commvault and could start backing it up. 

Right now, we are trying to integrate Kubernetes platforms into our environment, and I'm sure that Commvault can back up those. Commvault keeps up with new technologies, and if you upgrade to the latest stable version, you can find everything you need.

Backing up with Commvault doesn't require much effort. Commvault's reporting features are also excellent and user-friendly. It's easy to find anything we want. The workflow feature is handy, too. For example, we schedule an automated monthly backup and restoration test that we used to do manually. That has been integrated with Commvault's workflows and running automatically every month for four years. 

It runs all the tests and emails us the reports. We take daily, weekly, and monthly snapshots, and I integrate the storage snapshot scripts with the Commvault workflow. The Commvault workflow runs all the scripts and sends us the reports. It also features cloud-side reports and workflows. Commvault has many tools for backing up, restoring, and archiving, but we use another service for our archives. 

Commvault can show us unprotected workloads, servers, and SQL databases. It's a good feature, and I periodically get reports on this. However, it's a low priority because we are waiting for our inside customers to tell us whether they want something backed up or not. They must follow that, but we are using terabyte-based backups. We don't separate the agent— MS SQL or others—and we are only looking at the terabyte trends, so it's predictable for us. 

Our main pain point is that some of our hardware is old. For example, the SSD disks for our application database are slow. It's hard to avoid a slowdown in our environment because the size of our backups is growing every year. If you're growing and don't upgrade the environment, you will see slower backups and restores. You must enhance the environment if you are growing.

I've used Commvault for about 10 years, and we used it at my last company for around six years. 

Commvault's stability is good.

We have no problems scaling Commvault. I don't remember the numbers, but we have a terabyte license size. It's about 400 terabytes, but the backend is in the petabyte range. 

Troubleshooting is easy because Commvault support responds and finds the root cause quickly. When I've contacted support for other solutions, some of them ask you to recreate the scenario. They ask you to increase the debugging level and reproduce the scenario to get the error again. As a result, we waste a lot of time troubleshooting those solutions. With Commvault, we don't need to devote much time to the operational and troubleshooting aspects. 

I've used NetBackup before, and I think it's a good solution. It required more effort than Commvault, but I prefer it over EMC NetWorker. NetWorker was labor-intensive, buggy, and hard to use. We spent a lot of time dealing with EMC support. They have a large, competent support team, but we spent too much time with them. 

NetBackup is better than NetWorker, but it has fewer features than Commvault. NetBackup also has an old-fashioned interface that is harder to use than Commvault's. It's not user-friendly. Commvault is the best of the three.

Setting up Commvault was straightforward. You set up the primary server first, then the media agents, disks, and agents for clients. Each of those steps is easy. It's like a "next, next, finish" Windows installer. You can deploy it in half a day in a smaller environment, and it's maybe one or two days for a large one. 

Of course, it depends on the size of the agents and how many you need for your physical environment. If you have a rigid environment, it's effortless because you only define the vCenters or the Hyper-V management console, and that's it. You can take backups. 

On the other hand, you must install all the agents if you have too many physical environments. Still, Commvault makes it easy because you can install everything from the user interface on the primary server. In total, we have five people, including me, managing Commvault and all our other storage solutions. 

I rate Commvault 10 out of 10. If you're planning on implementing Commvault, I suggest doing a PoC first to try out all the features and to compare them to other products. We did a PoC for backup solutions to test some new features for our enterprise solutions, and some of the products didn't make the cut, so I would recommend a PoC.