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Azure Backup vs NetApp SnapCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp SnapCenter
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.4%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Terry Tull - PeerSpot reviewer
Straightforward to set up and manage and allows us to monitor all backups in one place
I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. Setting up Azure Backup was pretty straightforward, especially if you follow the steps in the right order. It might seem a bit complex at first, but with experience, subsequent setups become easier. Planning is key to optimizing its effectiveness. Deploying Azure Backup typically takes around half an hour to an hour to set up one VM, involving creating a recovery services vault, defining a backup policy, and configuring storage options. For a more comprehensive setup including proper recovery planning, it might take a few hours. The key steps involve creating a resource group, and a recovery services vault, selecting a storage type, and defining backup policies. I deployed the solution myself.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command
It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like that it's a stable solution and their support is good. I think Microsoft's commercial force is superior."
"Our client’s infrastructure is protected by the tool."
"Azure Backup is very simple to use and user-friendly."
"You can select the tiering for your backup and manage your cost."
"The storage backup is very efficient."
"The compression features save us money and speed up the backup and restore process."
"First of all, you can schedule a backup for the client. You can schedule it as you like. You can also control the bandwidth, so the backup will not utilize. The internet will depend on the bandwidth."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is the native backup capabilities."
"It's very helpful because SnapCenter is already integrated with VMware Snapshot, so it's very easy to use."
"The simplicity of backup and restore directly with VMware is an advantage and the time to backup and restore is reduced."
"It's integrated with VMware vCenter. You can also see the backups there and you can do a restore completely out of vCenter."
"The backup process finishes very quickly."
"The reporting feature has been particularly beneficial to upper management... When you do manual backups, you do not get the benefit of seeing successes and failures and how often you have to do restores. With SnapCenter, you get all of that."
"We have been very satisfied with the technical support's help. Their knowledge level is great. For a noncritical question, they will get back to us within a day."
"Being able to add everything in as resource groups is a valuable feature... Having all the SQL servers put into specific buckets, based on their year of release - 2008, 2012, 2014 - allows us to get almost immediate backups that are easily seen and reported on."
"Restoring and cloning are easy to do."
 

Cons

"The solution should involve more redundancy types in the backup storage and support open-source OS."
"I believe more options could be available to understand better what's happening in the system. Additionally, automating the client updates and connector updates would be beneficial. Updating the connector from time to time can be challenging, and it could be made more transparent and straightforward for users. Moreover, another drawback lies in the time it takes to test full data backup recovery. Deploying a full recovery takes longer. We need to allocate a longer period for complete data recovery to establish the environment again."
"Azure Backup needs improvements in allowing more specific backup options rather than just full VM snapshots."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
"It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure."
"I can’t use the solution to restore another native cloud solution. Azure must add this new feature."
"The compression ratio of the backup data should be improved."
"Azure Backup could improve by offering better integration for Oracle databases and enhancing features like granular restore and backup compliance capabilities."
"The replication feature needs improvement in future releases."
"My major issue is when I upgrade. I have to touch every last client that I have in SnapCenter, and right now I have 60... They said that in another release that will get better, but right now it's not better and I've had to do this three times."
"The documentation could be a little bit better so that we could handle more of the troubleshooting ourselves, rather than having to go through support."
"I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up... The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed."
"Reporting of the jobs could be better."
"I feel a little bit that during the whole process of putting this software into production we were like a beta program. It was full of bugs... For example, we had a problem with truncating our Exchange log files... It has improved over time."
"SnapCenter could improve its integration with other backup solutions, such as Veeam."
"We have experience some difficulties with our current support. We are engaging in engineering level support because some of our problems are more technical."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, it's similar to AWS."
"The price should be cheaper, but it's affordable if you use the yearly subscription."
"The product is not expensive."
"Azure Backup is a product that is priced at a cheap rate, and it is a great tool."
"Overall, its cost is better because the VMs are already there, and whatever you back up, there is only the additional cost of that storage, whereas if I have to use Avamar in Azure, a separate cost is there for the Avamar server, and in addition, whatever I take as a backup, there is a separate license with Avamar for that. So, there is a double cost if we have to use Avamar in the cloud."
"Azure Backup can be expensive if you are not vigilant about your storage steering."
"The pricing of the solution does not depend on the service itself but rather on the minimum data volume encountered. This pricing approach seems reasonable and is on par with other competitors in the market. It is a good solution for on-premise needs because it is more cost-effective. When evaluating the overall financial expenditure, including operational costs and the impact on the IT team, Azure Backup is a favorable choice."
"We have enterprise-level pricing. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."
"The product is inexpensive."
"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."
"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."
"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."
"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."
"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."
"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it. I do not have specific details about the licensing cost as it falls under another department.
What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?
Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?
If you have a license, you don't need to buy anything extra. If you have multiple storage systems and want to manage them with a central tool, you are covered.
What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?
There is always a chance for improvement. One thing that might be improved is the ease of management. It might be made a little less complicated.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SnapCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
All for One Steeb AG, Accenture
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.