Commvault Cloud Reviews

My company is the official distributor of Commvault in Indonesia. Our job is to implement it for our customers and I have installed it for a number of customers. They have various environments: Some are on-premises and some have a cloud environment, and some are using both as a hybrid solution, where they back up from on-premises to the cloud.

We have a Commvault instance within our company as well, and we use it for demos and to back up our environment, such as our VMware database, to the local data center. And we also back up to the cloud.

Commvault is very helpful to our customers and to our company because ransomware is a nightmare for any business. In some cases, our customers have been running their businesses online and they have experienced a ransomware attack. With Commvault they have been able to resolve the problem by restoring the data from Commvault.

Also, Commvault has an internal snapshot feature that we can use. That reduces the time involved by 10 times, compared to not using this feature.

The most valuable feature is Commvault's coverage. It has wide coverage to back up every data center environment. The product can back up OpenStack, OpenShift, and competitive solutions don't have this feature. Commvault can handle backing up any virtual workload or enterprise application.

The solution provides us with a single platform to move, manage, and recover data across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud locations. This is pretty important because our customers have unique architectures. Some only have an on-prem data center, and some only have things on the cloud, while in some cases our customers have both. In the latter case they have data on-premises, but they will also use the cloud for DR. Commvault makes it very simple, with its single management for backup of all environments. This is one of the things that makes it a very useful backup solution. We don't need to go with a different cloud backup solution. We can leverage one solution to back up all the environments.

Another strong feature of Commvault is that we can recover something to another platform. If we backup VMware, we can restore it to, say, Nutanix, or to AWS. This feature helps our customers to move a data center or from on-prem to the cloud. It is a very useful feature.

In addition, Commvault isn't locked in to one storage brand, like Hitachi or Pure Storage. This makes it a very good choice, allowing us to leverage any brand to be used as the backup storage.

The user interface is complicated for users, but for an engineer or backup operator, it is useful. Still, sometimes users feel that the management dashboard is complicated because they see all the features in the one dashboard. Sometimes users need a simple dashboard to manage the whole environment.

Commvault has two management dashboards. The first is the CommCell Console, which is Java-based, and the second is Command Center. We don't always find all the features we need in the Command Center and we need to go through the Java console, and sometimes features are only on the Java console. Sometimes we don't see what we need on both consoles. For example, we have to use Command Center to back up Oracle EBS, because it's not on the Java console. It would be useful if we had all the configuration features for setting things up in the Command Center, rather than having to go to the CommCell Console.

Also, sometimes, when restoring across platforms, we need more documentation from Commvault.

I have been using the Commvault solution for between three and four years.

The product is stable for backing up any kind of environment. But sometimes there's a problem with the deduplication. Sometimes the deduplication database is offline.

The scalability is different between software and an appliance. If we use an appliance it is simple to scale because we just add more nodes to expand the storage, the compute, or the backup performance. If we use software, we may need to do some manual setup. Adding more media agents can be complex, involving more configuration. Also, you don't have high availability with a software environment. You only get that with an appliance.

Technical support is very helpful. We just open the customer portal to open a case and the support is pretty good from Commvault.

It is very easy for us to follow the documentation to integrate Commvault and the storage network. Setting it up is very easy because the product runs on Windows. We just follow the documentation, making it pretty easy. We don't have to use the command line to set it up. It usually takes one and a half to two hours to deploy this product.

Some of our customers say that Commvault is a very expensive solution, but Commvault has many features that the competitors don't have. It is not a good choice for a small or medium business, but it is a good choice for enterprise businesses.

We have a backup storage sizer, so we know the amount of storage needed. If the backup storage is too large, we can resize the policy and size the backup volumes and adjust the licensing scheme.

I have used other products like Veritas and Rubrik. Commvault is better than the others because it has fast research and development. There are features available with Commvault that the competitors don't have. But Rubrik is very simple when it comes to management, compared to Commvault.

Overall, Commvault has a strong solution with strong features. The problem with it is the management consoles. We need both of them to operate the product. Also, sometimes the pricing is an issue as it can be very expensive compared to other solutions.

Our customers use Commvault as a backup solution.

I work as a system integrator. We implement and support Commvault in our customers' environments.

We usually deploy the latest major release.

We can monitor, with normal detection, from the regular backup. We can determine whether it is suspicious if the client suddenly has major changes in their data.

The most valuable features are the integration with the storage center and support for most applications, databases, and security system platforms that exist on the market. 

The user interface for Commvault is quite user-friendly. It is easy to manage the Commvault environment using the user interface.

Commvault Command Center is fully supported and has many features for us to manage the environment.

Commvault is able to do the recovery process from their console, so we don't have to actually log into it. Also, Commvault can direct information to another server. The recovery option is a very good feature.

I can collect the target data, then we connect it to Commvault. There is not another system that can connect to our target database or target storage. This is very important for us, because there is the threat of malware right now. This can protect not only the product, but also the backup data from outside threats.

Commvault supports remote office backup. It backs up the local data, then keeps monitoring and managing it.

I would like Commvault to have a feature for cybersecurity threats, e.g. securing the target backup repository. Commvault just started testing and releasing this feature, but it needs to be stabilized. 

We have been implementing Commvault for our customers for around three years.

Commvault is very stable.

Commvault is very scalable in terms of the data that Commvault can maintain.

Commvault support is very good and helpful. We receive a lot of help for our problems.

Positive

The deployment of Commvault is pretty straightforward. Commvault can do remote installation for the client. The deployment time depends on the customer's or user's permissions.

One of my customers has seen savings when using Commvault compared to other storage solutions. They compared the price of Commvault with performing maintenance on their backup system, and Commvault's price is competitive versus other backup software.

Commvault helps our customers' admins to minimize the time they spend on backup tasks and other projects. Commvault is very good in terms of performance backup. I think support time has been reduced by around 25% to 30%.

Commvault is quite high in terms of pricing and licensing.

I have also worked with IBM Spectrum Protect and Veeam. Overall, Commvault has better support than other backups. Their support is very fast when resolving our problems.

My customers use dedupe applications, so we don't use Commvault's feature to reduce storage costs.

Commvault is very feature-rich. Its licensing is quite easy to configure, though we must pick the right size for the backup environment so the customer can have the best price.

I would rate Commvault as eight out of 10.

We are a solution provider and we have contracts with some of our customers to support their data centers and infrastructures. Our support is based on their needs and we choose solutions for their environment. One of the products that we use in this capacity is Commvault.

Commvault is an enterprise-level data platform that is used for backup and replication. It offers four product lines including complete backup and recovery, the HyperScale integrated appliance, disaster recovery, and Activate Analytics. We use the backup and recovery solution.

Commvault provides us with a single platform to move, manage, and recover data. Most enterprise solutions in this area provide similar functionality but the Commvault GUI provides better reports and access to your assets. All of the features have been integrated within one interface. On the other hand, Veritas has third-party solutions that generate better reports and offer better control over your environment, such as OpsCenter.

In terms of recovery options for data and workloads, Commvault has several features available. An important feature is that you can recover data based on your policy. It also provides the capability to back up and recover specific types of data, such as an SPS server.

The next step, after having a good backup solution, is disaster recovery. This has to take into account the software that you are using in your environment and Commvault can help with this in some aspects. For example, it can replicate your SQL servers on your disaster site. In a regular recovery scenario, I think that most backup solutions are the same.

This solution allows us to easily isolate storage targets from public networks. When we implement our backup solutions, the first step is to separate the network. We create a private network and we use separate storage for the backup in order to isolate all production services from backup services. It is very important to separate the working area because of ransomware and other threats.

Commvault also has other features to protect backup data but I prefer to have a separate backup environment with its own equipment. All of it should be physically separated from the production area. One service is for production data and the other is for backup data.

Separating the production and backup data not only helps with attacks but also helps to manage performance. In IT, we are always faced with two important metrics, which are security and performance. Using physical isolation, data protection is improved, and I prefer to use physical isolation rather than logical isolation that is available using the software.

Using this type of configuration, we were able to successfully recover data for one of our customers. They were faced with a ransomware attack and had lost more than 40% of their data. We were able to completely recover their data in less than three days.

Like other enterprise backup solutions, Commvault is very well suited for enterprise-level customers.

Commvault integrates well with all types of operating systems and supports heterogeneous environments. It integrates well with storage solutions such as NetApp, and we haven't had any trouble integrating with hardware such as tape drives or otherwise.

I like using the command-line interface versus the GUI. I find the CLI is easy to use for customizing and generating reports, as well as for managing the software. That said, I think that the GUI is enough for many administrators in a simple environment.

The support documentation is good. Based on the help and documentation, I have been able to generate scripts that I run on a daily basis to get the reports and features that I need.

The deployment process should be simplified because it is not something that just anybody can do. 

One of my colleagues in Australia is using Commvault and has told me that the solution does not yet have complete support for integrating with cloud providers. Specifically, it is not integrated with Amazon services. In the future, I would like to see better integration with cloud environments.

Commvault is only installed in our Windows environment, on Windows server, and I prefer to use Linux because I find the environment simpler to use. In a Windows environment, it is not easy to use command-line-based products.

There are two people on my team that manage Commvault for my customers. It is supposed to be one of the least time-consuming solutions but in reality, it consumes 60% of their time. Compared to other backup solutions, it takes more time to manage and operate.

Commvault doesn't support container-based systems and does not offer agentless backup.

I've been using Commvault for one of our customers for less than three years.

Stability-wise, Commvault is one of the best backup solutions on the market.

This product is scalable enough, although it will be complicated to do, depending on your environment. Veeam, for example, is not as complicated to scale. The same is true with Veritas NetBackup.

I think the reason for this is that Commvault is installed only in Windows environments. Veritas NetBackup, for example, can be installed on Unix or Linux, and those operating systems are easier when it comes to scaling. Most software depends on the features that are available in the host operating system.

We don't have access to support due to sanctions, so the support and management are done by our local engineers. It is difficult for our customers to use this type of software without support.

I have worked with other similar solutions including Veritas and Veeam. Veeam is easier to implement than Commvault, although Commvault is quicker to deploy than Veritas.

Veeam is suitable for a small business but when it comes to enterprises, Commvault is one of the solutions that we implement. Generally speaking, Commvault Backup and Commvault Complete Data Protection are good solutions for enterprise-level companies.

Veeam is easy to use and is easier to implement but we do not only deal with small businesses. Most of our customers are enterprises and we have to select the best solutions for them. Other disadvantages to Commvault are that it doesn't support container-based systems and agentless backup is not supported in this software. However, it is more powerful when it comes to integrating heterogeneous environments.

Commvault is not a product with an easy deployment process. It is not something that just anybody can do on their own and it is best suited for enterprise users. Documentation is available online but other similar products, such as Veeam, are easier to implement. There is not enough documentation for Commvault available online.

One of my customers implemented Commvault in less than one month, which is not bad compared to other enterprise solutions like Veritas. An enterprise often includes complexities such as a heterogeneous environment, so a deployment that takes less than one month is quite reasonable.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Commvault is to make sure that they have a support contract. Support is very important, as this is a time-consuming product when it comes to management and regular maintenance.

In summary, this is an enterprise solution that you can trust in your environment for backup and recovery. In fact, it is one of the top 10 backup solutions on the market.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I use it for backing up the database of our Microsoft People server system.

Commvault has saved us time in managing our backup and restore processes, as well as backup management. It has definitely made our backup administration more efficient.

The most valuable feature is the ability it gives me to automate backups well and consistently, and to follow up on them as well. It also provides consistent recovery processes. Whenever we have needed to do a restore, it has worked quickly and efficiently.

The completeness of Commvault's coverage for databases is also pretty good. It covers all the bases with the major databases that we utilize within an enterprise.

I also like it because it's pretty easy to use and that it is pretty reliable. The user interface for managing it is good.

In addition, it auto-discovers the databases and that means lower maintenance on my side for individual database configuration.

There are two ways to use it and I prefer the web-based one over the app. I wish they were a little bit more matched in what they offer because the features aren't as available in the web-based interface as they are in the app.

I have been using the Commvault solution for about two years.

It's pretty stable.

It seems to be scalable. I'm not really involved in that side, being a user and not an administrator of it, but I know that they've had to add on and do upgrades to it. It seems to be working well. I haven't seen any disruption from that.

I use my internal company support team and they reach out to Commvault as necessary.

We were using Dell EMC NetWorker. We switched due to bad support and because we were having lots of issues. They were also slow in keeping up with the technology.

In general, I would give Commvault a thumbs-up. Make sure your people are involved in the procurement process so that they understand what it offers, and be sure to do PoC testing. But that's generic to any implementation.

Because my work with Commvault isn't necessarily technical in nature, it's more process-oriented, people in a similar situation should work closely with their administrators to make sure the admins understand what they need to do. The problems that we have with it are mostly to do with internal workflow.

The Command Center for getting a view of your data is okay. We have some internal issues with the way that the people who manage the system display things to us and give us access to certain things. But otherwise, it's okay.

We are a managed service provider, so we offer backup as a service to our customers.

We do a combination of on-prem, cloud, and hybrid Commvault, so we have a little bit of everything. We do a lot with on-prem, but we have a lot of customers that have been moving to the cloud. We also have a number of customers who are exclusively in the cloud and customers who are talking about exclusively going to the cloud. There has been a definite shift to the cloud and using Commvault in the cloud.

We deploy private clouds. We have also done AWS hybrid cloud and Microsoft Azure.

Commvault gives us the ability to manage multiple customers with the same interface. It also gives us the ability to offer enterprise class backup and recovery capabilities as well as DR capabilities to customers who might not otherwise have that accessible to them because maybe they are a small customer or don't have the expertise. What Commvault has allowed us to do is reach a broader audience with the breadth of their product offering.

Commvault absolutely provides a single platform for data management and protection, data security, data compliance, data transformation, and data insights. Customers are moving to the cloud. One feature in particular that we use: When you are using Commvault to backup a virtual environment, then we will use the VMware environment. For example, Commvault allows us to actually migrate on-premise data (backed up using Commvault) and restore a virtual machine into an Amazon or Microsoft Azure environment without doing any kind of conversion ourselves. That is all taken care of behind the scenes by Commvault. That is really a unique feature that allows customers to do their data transformation, their migration from on-premise to the cloud, or a combination of both. That ability is something that Commvault offers that we use quite a bit for this purpose.

One of the things that has become abundantly clear in the cybersecurity threat posture that we have now - you need to really do a good job of backing up your log files. That is something else that Commvault has brought into the world. Additionally, being able to do everything through the Metallic capability has helped us win a few customers. That is a pretty cool feature set that Commvault's brought to bear.

We have a number of co-branded marketing activities going on right now. Recently, we did an executive forum round table. We had our CTO, Ryan Lake, as a part of that. This was in conjunction with Trezza Media. It was about an hour-long conversation, including different CIOs and CTOs from government-level positions. That was really insightful and a good program.

Commvault’s partner program provides deal registration which provides us with support and protection throughout the selling cycle. This is vitally important. The sales cycle on backup and disaster recovery solutions is sometimes a fairly long one, particularly if you are displacing a competitive solution. So, it is critical to know that the registration within Commvault will remain because the sales cycle does take some time to get through.

The backup and restore capabilities are key. The most useful things to us about Commvault, in general, is the breadth of the applications that it can protect as well as the features inside of it, like deduplication and encryption. When people get their data encrypted, Commvault has a way to tell if somebody is being attacked through a cybersecurity threat because their data changes. So, Commvault has what they call honeypot files out there to look to see if anybody is changing these files. Only Commvault knows which files those are, so nobody should be messing with those files. If it changes, then it will alert you to say, "Oh, I potentially have somebody messing with my files." It will alert you to something going on in your environment that probably shouldn't be happening. We deploy that with all our customers so they have this capability as well.

A key aspect of Commvault is having all of these different Cloud Connectors, where you can connect to all these different clouds and applications, managing everything through one pane of glass. We have a number of customers whom we manage through one pane of glass, but then we also have on-prem customers whom we manage that have their installation. We manage that independently because a lot of customers don't yet want all their data 100% through the cloud or managed by a cloud provider. That is why we do a lot of on-prem stuff. Even there, you get a single pane of glass for the entire environment.

Command Center is a great tool because it allows for viewing all of your data in one place. Plus, with the plans, it allows for simple deployments and customers to pick which feature set and capabilities they want. When you have your plans in the Command Center, it really opens up lots of options for customers while keeping everything simplified for us.

One of the biggest things that Commvault does is have the ability to easily restore data. In a disaster recovery scenario, the first thing you have to do is bring up the command and control center of whatever product that you are going to recover with. The initial recovery of Commvault command and control, which they call the CommCell, i.e., CommServe server, is by far the best in the industry. That is where it starts. So if you lose everything, you can start with CommCell. That is the way that they have designed the split indexes of MediaAgent and those types of things. This really sets them apart from any other product out there. 

The most common feedback I get in terms of Commvault is that it can be complex. I always refer my customers back to their own environment. Almost everything that goes into Commvault is a request by a customer. While it can be complex, it can also be very simple. You just need to understand your environment in order to make sure that you really need to turn on that extra feature or thing inside of Commvault. Maybe you don't need those things. It really depends on how simple or complex your environment is, whether you need all of Commvault's features. Though, you have them if you do need them.

We've been supporting and using Commvault for about 10 years.

Commvault is extremely stable. There are really not too many things that knock it down.

We have customers with multiple petabytes of data. There is no issue with the scalability at all.

Commvault is the thought-leader in numerous trade organization reviews. They get top awards all the time based on the completeness of the solution and the ability to execute. For our customers, having that weight behind them and knowing that this isn't a company who was just thought up overnight or solving a single issue. They are looking at large enterprise-level issues with the ability to scale to the largest of enterprises as well as the smallest company. We have customers with one or two computers that they need to protect, and we're protecting them with Commvault. We're bringing that entire Commvault platform with the entire weight of Commvault behind it. Being able to offer that to a customer with one or two computers allows us to really use the entire suite of Commvault to help protect all our customers. That is one of the biggest benefits for us, having the entire weight of Commvault behind us as a service offering.

We have a great relationship with support. In addition to interacting with Commvault support, we also have purchased the enterprise support that Commvault offers. That gives us a greater level of insight into what is going on, not only in our environment, but within Commvault's itself. We have a dedicated Technical Account Manager as well as a dedicated Support Account Manager. Those two folks have been instrumental in helping us achieve greater efficiencies within our Commvault environments.

Commvault is fantastic. We have a bi-weekly call with our partner manager where we discuss what is coming up and where Commvault can help, e.g., how can we execute our marketing strategy? It has all kinds of different things that we just don't get from other vendors. The partnership has been great.

With a very large enterprise (hundreds of terabytes of data), you will need to take a little bit more time and make sure that you have the configuration correct, then go from there. 

For small organizations, the initial setup is very simple. Out-of-the-box, you can set it up in 30 minutes or less.

We start with the requirements for the customer, but then we really hone things down for the deployment. We put things in the right places. We will work with customers to understand what their requirements are, then put together a strategy for deployment that we believe is both the simplest and most effective.

We have seen ROI with Commvault.

Our customers' cost of operations is greatly reduced. The more you simplify, the less manpower things take. The less manpower things take obviously translates immediately to the bottom line. In addition, it gives you a much greater chance of success when you go to do your disaster recovery testing or disaster recovery function in the event something bad does happen.

The solution’s broad coverage of workloads certainly affects IT productivity. When you have a simplified infrastructure, there are a lot less moving parts. Things tend to stay operational longer, reducing downtime types of things. Those are all part of the simplification process.

They have profitability guarantees on registered opportunities. They are not necessarily as high as some of the other partner programs out there, but we stick with Commvault because we believe that they are the best product out there on the market.

The pricing has improved. It is simplified compared to the way that it was a few years ago. It is fairly straightforward and pretty easy to articulate to customers, which is handy. 

Commvault’s key differentiators for its partners is the ability to offer the breadth and depth of its tools. There are other vendors out there who have solutions, and a lot of them do good with certain little aspects of one particular problem in the backup and disaster recovery world. Commvault just doesn't have any weaknesses in their product lineup. So, it is the ability to do everything that really sets Commvault apart.

The amount of labor that it takes to operate a Commvault environment is dramatically lower than their competitors.

You need to understand your entire environment and make sure that you are looking at the entire thing so you can understand the value that Commvault brings. Understand where some of the other products might fall down, in terms of being able to manage your entire environment, and the capabilities that you require.

Take the time to document your requirements and make sure that you get all that information upfront so you know what your goal is in the end. That is where you can go a little haywire with any product, e.g., if you don't really understand what it is that you are trying to accomplish first, then you can get into trouble real quick.

Complexity is one of the things that everybody has in their environment and every production environment has some level of complexity. One of the things that I like to talk about when I talk to our customers about Commvault is that your backup and disaster recovery solution is basically a mirror image of your operating environment. So, if you want to reduce the complexity of your disaster recovery environment, then what you really need to do is think about how to reduce the complexity in your production environment. When you utilize a product like Commvault, you can make Commvault do all kinds of things that will help you backup your existing environment. However, when you translate that into a disaster recovery scenario, you need to basically reverse engineer and put everything back the way that it was. Therefore, complexity is a mirror of your production environment. We try to simplify all of our customer's environments as much as we possibly can, including their production environment, in order to make them more sustainable in a disaster recovery scenario.

Commvault is a thought-leader in intelligent data management. For example: 

1. The breadth of the Commvault suite, where it is backing up and restoring containers. 
2. A lot of people are moving to containerization as a way of doing DevOps, and having a faster time to market for their products. Commvault is able to back VMs up and transition those VMs. 
3. This is along with Cloud Connectors adopting the capability of doing backup and disaster recovery in the cloud. Commvault was at the forefront of that entire movement. 

Those are all unique capabilities that Commvault really spearheaded. I don't think there is any slowing that down. They can really crank out some really cool solutions in a pretty quick timeframe.

I have taken a number of management courses with Commvault University, including the Foundations course and some of the advanced courses. It is very good training. The instructors are very helpful. When we were going through training, one of the things that they suggested was, "Work with the product a little bit before you go to the training course so you know which questions to ask." This is really important because then you can ask the instructor specific questions that directly impact your environment, which are the most useful questions that you can ask.

I would rate Commvault as 10 out of 10.

We are doing backups for a customer's 365 tenant details. This is for 365 backup and recovery. The applications that it protects with backups include: all the details on 365, SharePoint, Team, and mailboxes.

Our client does the needed backup within our required window. We have a daily backup at 11:00 every day. We have not felt any pressure or performance issues with our 365 tenant.

The restore has been great. It has been faster than doing restores with the on-premises solution.

Quick backups and restores of data are the most valuable features. It is important that it is an easy solution to integrate with the SAML authentication of the tenant, so we can have the users log into the systems and do their own restores, if needed.

Metallic's backup & granular recovery of data for Office 365 works great. We have tested it many times for production reasons. We have done some tests and have always managed to do the recovery as we wanted and without any issues.

For simpler environments, they have some templates for startups. Possibly for a smaller environment, they need to do more automatic configuration and selections of users who want to do backups. This is mainly for smaller environments. I would like them to have the same system fit for all environments: small and big environments. Currently, we have to do a lot of configuration of the layout, which takes time. This solution is appropriate for enterprise-level enterprise, but I would like it to be easier to use for SMB environments.

Less than half a year.

Up until now, it has been a hundred percent working great. So, it looks stable.

Our customer's environment is not that big, but it looks like it can easily handle a big environment.

We back up a little less than a thousand users, whom we are licensed for, and a lot of them are company employees. 

There are two sysadmins managing the solution. One of them mainly does the monitoring and getting the work on the system.

The technical support was good enough when we needed their help. They were available for assistance and gave us good support. They fixed the issues that we had in the system. 

When we looked specifically for a solution that would hold the backup on their cloud environment, Metallic Cloud was what we wanted. We didn't want to bring the solution into our environment, but we wanted the whole solution. Metallic was exactly what we were looking for. From my point of view, Metallic Cloud was the best solution that we could find.

Previously, the client didn't have backups for the 365 report. People who deleted their emails or files on SharePoint just lost them. So, this solution was quite important, because trying to do backups from an on-premise environment wasn't successful. It took a lot of time because of the low bandwidth over the Internet.

This solution mainly gives us backup functionality that the client wasn't able to do before. It is saving them a lot of bandwidth over the Internet and giving them functionality that they previously didn't have, such as, backups to their 365 tenant. They save 150 to 200 Mbps for nightly backup runs.

Most of the important things were straightforward. It was quite easy. It is a SaaS-based, web-based configuration. It is very simple and easy. You learn by some kind of runbook, step-by-step. That's it.

In a couple of hours, we finished 80% of it. Over the next couple of days, we did a couple of tunings.

We did a PoC at the beginning. We weren't sure that we were going to purchase it because we didn't have experience with this product before. So, it was a testing environment first. When the test environment went well, we just went into production. We went from PoC status into production status. 

After we decided to move to production, we decided what would be our guiding rules for system backups, e.g., what would be the policy that we would have to decide internally. We had a small discussion about what we wanted to back up, what was the policy, who should do the management, and who should get the report. It was some type of late policy implementation after the product was already working in backups because we just moved from PoC to production immediately, which was easy enough.

The first backup is always long and takes a lot of time. After that, the daily incremental backup speed is quite fast.

We had some small issues, but we received good assistance from their support to fix those issues. The issues were mainly report type issues and changing it from HTML to PDF. These were very limited, small issues. I think they were related to small bugs in the versions. The support was helpful. So, we just got support for the issues that we had encountered during our implementation. Otherwise, we did the implementation ourselves.

One and a half people were required for the deployment, one of the system engineers and myself (as CISO of the company). I did most of the configuration, then one of the system guys helped with the SAML configuration of the Azure tenant.

Metallic has reduced the amount of manual work required to manage our client's backup operations. It is reliable. We trust it and don't need to monitor it as much as another backup. This is quite labor-intensive, manual work, so it saves our technician time. It is saving us an hour or two a day.

It is not the cheapest solution. I think the pricing is fair for mid-side customers. It is between all the other options.

Costs are fairly predictable because you pay per user. It is quite easy to do the calculation.

If you have different use cases in the 365 tenant, I am not sure that the product gets the full agility of those licenses. If I want to do backups for just some of the users, I still need to do a backup for the full SharePoint and have a full license for all of the users who use SharePoint. If there could be a higher variety of license type for this that reduces the cost, that would be a nice functionality.

We were looking for a backup solution to do backups for all 365 data as well as SharePoint, Teams data, OneDrive, and mailboxes. We wanted all the data located on our 365 to be robust from one side, but easy enough to manage from the other side, not complicated, and reliable. After we did the PoC with Metallic and found it a suitable solution, we decided to keep working with it.

We mainly decided to use Metallic because Commvault has a good solution on-premises. We know Commvault as a company. They have a good product and we have a good relationship with them. Commvault is in Israel, so we decided to try the cloud product in the environment, and it was good.

We did PoCs with all the options that we evaluated. We mainly checked the supported functionalities and eliminated those that did not support our required functionality. In the end, we had two options and decided to go with Metallic.

I would give Metallic's overall ease of use as an eight out of 10. It is not too complicated. It is quite easy to use for people who are familiar with Commvault. They can understand the language pretty quickly. If you have Commvault on-premises, which we have for the same customer, you can understand the language of the solution pretty quickly.

Know what policies you need and what you want to back up beforehand. If you are planning to do backups of a few users, and not all your users, research the type of applications you need to do backups, e.g., if you need SharePoint, mailboxes, or OneDrive. Each of these applications behaves differently regarding license activities.

I would rate the solution as a nine out of ten. Nothing is perfect, but it is a really good product. There were only small issues/bugs that I found in the beginning, e.g., small report issues and it was a little bit complicated the first time configuring for SMB users, which is a bit more complicated with limited options. However, since we have experience with other products, it was fast. I don't know another SaaS product doing 365 backups better than Metallic. This solution is the best one that I'm aware of.

I used it during a POC, and now, it is in production. We opted to go for the N minus one release and not the latest one.

We use it for the backup of servers. It is also used when users need to take a backup of their laptops or mail archiving.

It is easy to use and stable. It delivers what has been promised. When it says it can do something, it can actually do it, as opposed to some of its competitors.

Its dashboard could be improved to provide a summarized version of all the jobs instead of having to go through each one of them. We should easily be able to glance at all issues. If I had not gone with the on-premise version, I would have had regular reports with the cloud version. 

It would be an advantage if they increase the compression rate of the backup. I am keeping it on-prem, so I'll need more disks depending on the policies that I have in the retention period. 

Its price could also be lower. If a good solution can be cheaper, it is always an advantage.

I used this solution for six months.

It is stable. I haven't experienced any issues.

It is scalable. We have approximately 30 users, but we are also backing up the servers that everyone uses.

I have had one call with their technical support, and they were of great assistance. They were really approachable, and they were able to answer the questions.

We have been using NetBackup and Veeam. As compared to NetBackup, Commvault is an improvement. NetBackup licenses are expensive as compared to Commvault. 

It was pretty straightforward. It took one day to do the installation and put all policies. It was really quick. I did the installation, deployed the agents, and started using it for testing. After successful tests, we decided to go with the solution.

I was accompanied by our business partner, but its implementation was pretty straightforward.

Its maintenance is really easy to do because you have everything in the console. It can be managed by one technical person. It doesn't require much. Because it is stable, there is not much to be done. You just need to enter the jobs that have been run and completed successfully. Every now and then, you might also do a restore.

It is cheaper than NetBackup, but its price can be lower. If a good solution can be cheaper, it is always an advantage. Its licensing is on a yearly basis.

I would definitely recommend this solution to others. We plan to keep using this solution.

I would rate Commvault a nine out of ten.

We do a lot of backups daily, and mainly we just keep the operating system images. We do take database and active directory backups as well. We handle all types of backups using this product.

The user interface is very easy to navigate. The interface itself is very simple.

Overall, it is doing the job we need it to do. 

It supports whatever line types and support types and systems we have. It supports all types of backup systems quite easily.

The stability has been very good so far. We haven't had any problems with it.

The product is easy to manage.

The local support could be improved. Right now, it's something about the solution that is lacking.

They should offer better partners that can help us implement the solution in a better way.

It would be ideal if they offered editing or activating options. 

I don't know how good it is with the virtual environment. I have not tried the product with VMware, for example.

I've been using the solution for about six years at this point. It's been a while.

We've never had any issues with stability. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's pretty reliable. 

We are still running with a single server, and it's a per server per instance-based license model. If we need to add our first storage-based model or another division, we cannot support both. It's a licensing model issue. 

The local support is lacking overall. It's something they need to really work on improving.

We have worked with Veritas and IBM in the past, however, that was a very long time ago. I wouldn't be able to compare them to this solution as too much time has passed and much has changed. We used those solutions maybe ten or so years ago now.

The initial setup is not easy or difficult. It's moderate, or somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't describe the implementation as complex, however. 

The deployment too more than expected, as the vendor involved was having some staffing issues. The engineers were changing and we had some technical requirements which we realized at a later stage.

Maintenance isn't required very often, however, we have to ensure it is up-to-date. We also have to ensure whenever anything changes, we have to properly add them to the Commvault - whether they are new servers or new clients. Whenever we change our backup library or the memory storage, we have to reconfigure things. In that regard, there is occasional maintenance, depending on our background changes.

We only need one person to manage the solution. It doesn't take a lot of staff. Typically, they are an administrator and they handle everything that needs to be done as it's required.

We are integrators and therefore we are able to implement the solution ourselves.

The pricing falls somewhere in the middle of what the market offers. It's not overly expensive. The licensing model is quite good. Everything is included under it.

We are just a customer and an end-user.

We're using the latest version of the solution. We always use the latest version.

I'd recommend the solution.

I'd rate it at a seven out of ten.

Generally, we use the product for backup capabilities as a primary function, and we also use it for disaster recovery.

Previous to this solution, we were on tape. Its restorations were very painful. We've been able to accommodate more use cases for restorations now that we have this product in play.

The backup feature and the live sync are both really good aspects of the product. Live sync is for databases. 

Commvault doesn't store in an immutable state unless it's in archive-form. That's an advantage. We have found several instances that we have backed up a server and it started encrypting data after we started the backup and it was trying to recount the Commvault. It is very sensitive, and is positive as is very sensitive to ransomware, however, you need to understand it's not a ransomware alert; you need to understand the alert in order to figure out if it's ransomware, however, it's a good heads-up.

The solution has been quite stable.

Commvault can actually come in and assist you with aspects of the implementation - and they are quite helpful.

The only problem is that some of what we snap most of is the VMs. We found about 10% of the VMs that we can't snap because they're too interactive. It actually causes the application to crash.

It would be ideal if there was usable file states. Live sync is not live sync. It's not really live, it's live to the back it up, however, it's not keeping it up to date within seconds. We have an environment that is very transaction heavy, and the lowest we can get to is about 15 minutes. However, we need second RPOs. 5 second RPOs, 10 second RPOs.

I've used the solution within the last 12 months. I've used it in total for about three years or so now.

The solution is very stable unless you have to use Symantec Enterprise Protection. That comes into major issues. We've had corruption due to Symantec.

The scalability capabilities depends on which version you get. If you go to hyper-scale, it's infinitely scalable. If you go to an IBM object storage, it's scalable only up until a certain point.

We have approximately 50 people that have access to do restores. Ten of those having the additional responsibility of initiating backups for databases. And we have one engineer and two administrators.

We're considering going to the hyperscale version and then expanding it to have it distributed through three sites.

We've dealt with technical support quite a bit. 90% of the time they're really good. However, the other 10% of the time they disappear when the problem is too hard.

Overall, I would rate them eight and a half out of ten. They are pretty decent.

We previously used Spectrum Protect.

There were ongoing configuration problems and they continued to increase as everything was a dependency. You had to have the client and the right version with the firmware updated to the hardware and the hardware to the right version. It was a very, very complicated mess. Once it ran, it ran really well. However, when you had to upgrade, you had to upgrade everything. You couldn't do some iterations.

The initial setup was complex only due to the VAR we used. That we have since moved all away from.

The deployment ended up taking a year and we called in Commvault to actually finish the deployment. We contracted directly with Commvault and got rid of that VAR. Once they were involved, it took less than a week. They really helped speed up the process.

We only need one engineers and maybe two admins to handle maintenance.

We brought on Commvault in the middle of the implementation process. They helped us get rid of the VAR, which was giving us trouble. They were good to work with and we were glad for their help.

The team was very great. They actually provided us an engineer and he engaged remotely for probably 30 hours of that week.

It saved time. It didn't pay for itself, however, it saved time. Where it saved a lot of money was the cost of tapes and maintenance contracts with IBM.

The cost was one of the reasons we went with Commvault, however, that said, I can't give exact pricing.

We looked at Pure Storage. I don't remember what package they had for backups. However, there was one other competitor as well and I don't remember who it was.

In the end, the technology and the cost pushed us towards Commvault.

We're just customers and end-users.

We are typically one version behind the latest. We don't usually have the latest version of the solution.

We're using a private cloud on-premises as a deployment model.

My advise to other companies would be to just do your homework. Make sure it's the right solution for your company. We really didn't think about enterprise architecture. We put it in and then had a change how we operate. So make sure it's the right fit.

Our biggest lesson was the realization was that we need enterprise engineering and the enterprise architecture.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. They have some really good features. They have really good engineering. They have very good support. However, they're missing on some of the innovations that some other companies are coming up with. They either need to create their own innovation or buy it from somebody else and integrate it. 

We primarily use the solution for all infrastructure. We're using it for the five pillars and for database backups and management.

The visualization backup is the most important aspect for us. It provides snapshot protection. 

The digital application and the compression of the disc at the storage site are great. That's one of the best features of this solution.

Technical support is very helpful.

We've faced problems backing up our virtual machines. A few of them, at least. However, we opened a ticket, and then we found out how to troubleshoot this issue and how to do a snapshot backup. We were able to understand exactly what was the root cause of the issue and a solution was provided to us.

We have already submitted a feature enhancement request to Commvault. They are working on it. That's in relation to the Commvault Metallic and is related to the workflow approval. We requested they implement workflow approval, just in case you want to allow, for example, general users to access the Commvault Metallic and browse what mailboxes they need to check if it is approved by the legal department. We can run them independently, this access without even referring back again to the IT division, however, we requested the workflow has to be based on approved access.

I've been using the solution for a year and a half at this point.

The product is a reliable solution. We have experienced only one case where there was a total shutdown and a total disruption of service. This was a weird case. We were able to sort it out and submitted the case for investigation to understand what the root cause might have been. Later on, we had to upgrade a few things. However, since then, we haven't had any issues whatsoever. I'd describe the solution as quite stable. 

In terms of scalability, it is a skill level solution. You can scale up at any time by adding additional nodes.

Technical support is always good. Most of the time the call comes from the U.S. They don't have local support. They are always providing remote support in the U.S. and India. Most of the calls come from those two countries, however, we find that we get help mainly from the U.S.

The initial deployment was straightforward. We had a proper prerequisites exit sheet. We filled it out properly at the outset and the architecture was very clear. We started with the architecture. We were able to understand all of the components in this hyper-scale design, and we submitted a change request to our infrastructure. We were able to meet all of the requirements on time. We started up the implementation shortly after that.

In the end, it was a straightforward design. There was nothing too complex.

In terms of maintenance, we usually do a health check which is basically a checklist we run through in the morning. The system will still struggle from time to time if there are any recent updates that need to be done. It is a system that does the update by itself, and it shares with you all types of events that need to be taken care of. Therefore, it's pretty automated.

We bought the solution and the agreement was for three years. We simply pay in installments for three years. We'll do the payment at the beginning of every year. 

We're just a customer.

We do recommend the solution. However, a company needs to look again into why they need it. With Commvault, you can deploy on-premise or on the cloud. It is compatible with several cloud vendors. However, the deployment depends on what you need it for. For example, if you need to back up Office 365, then there are two solutions from the providers, from Commvault. Recently they have started talking about Commvault Metallic. They started trying to promote it in other regions. We've done a profound study in the Commvault Metallic for our Office 365 in the past. We compared it with two more products. We compared it to a Barracuda email protection and we compared it also with Veeam.

Any company should do the same and run comparisons. They need to know exactly for what purpose do they need to acquire the solution. If it is for Office 365 then there are two solutions for that. One of them is the Commvault Metallic, and it is a SaaS model. The SaaS model is fully manageable. The user will not even look into infrastructure. It will be fully managed by the Commvault team in the background. There is no need to worry about the storage consumption on Azure if you also choose to go with Microsoft Azure cloud. When you need infrastructural backup, then there is the Commvault hyper-scale solution. That's the only available option and is very powerful.

Overall, I would rate the solution ten out of ten. We've been very happy with it so far.