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Dell Avamar vs Microsoft DPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
Microsoft DPM
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
22nd
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft DPM is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.
RifkanHasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Backup and recovery that is stable but support is no longer in existence
The DPM is pretty good, but when it comes to external devices, you can't back up to the external device. It's a huge drawback because once everything goes down, it goes down fully. We can't take a snapshot and take it outside, which is a problem. Also, when it comes to recovery, the recovery process doesn't work properly. It doesn't recover. One of our drives failed and when we wanted to recover it from the other drive, it never worked. So, we couldn't recover the data. Recovery of data if the server goes down, is not very good. The DPM is good apart from the support services. We were told that the support was no longer in existence, which is why we are looking for another provider. In the next release, I would like to see backup to external devices, so it can always restore the backup and we can take it externally and store it somewhere that it is off-site and archived. Currently, it does not allow us to do that because it is required to be in one location.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Graphically, it's very user interactive. It's got a very nice interface."
"It's a good solution."
"The product is good for backups."
"The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."
"I found the most valuable features of Dell Avamar are the user-friendly interface and ease to use. Our clients have administrated this software and there is no additional training required."
"It works quickly and is very stable."
"The data reduction feature and the ease of enabling a server in a DR location are the most valuable."
"The automated procedure is quite good for us, as it is able to capture all of the information that we require."
"Its capability to give a BMR for all the workstations that I want to connect to."
"One of the most effective features of Microsoft DPM is its integration with the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"It is almost perfect for Microsoft products. It is not a very powerful tool, but it is okay for small sites and small businesses with Microsoft products. It is easy to use for backup and restore. It is good for backing up Microsoft servers such as Exchange and SharePoint servers."
"The most important feature is that it's easy to use."
"It has an application backup, a file backup, a system backup and a hypervisor."
"The most valuable feature is the total integration of the System Center solution."
"The solution backs up Microsoft workloads as well as anything on the market."
 

Cons

"It's an expensive solution."
"The support is very bad."
"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."
"The solution is not very strong on the Cloud. They should work out how they can use this as a backup as a service."
"If there is a need to move the data from one backup solution to another, it might be difficult since there is no option for a straightforward migration."
"Its ability to back up very large objects can be improved. In terms of new features, they can include the ability to use cloud services, like S3, more natively."
"The user interface still needs to have some level of improvement. It could be more user-friendly and intuitive."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"It can back up, yet it lacks features compared to Veeam."
"Management reporting could be improved."
"You have only a few settings and if you change them for some special configurations, it's very difficult."
"There is a very poor online user community in terms of people blogging about their experiences with DPM."
"The data tagging feature needs improvement. The solution could be a bit more intuitive in certain aspects."
"It needs portability for other vendors. It is good for backing up Microsoft servers, but it doesn't support third-party solutions such as Oracle Database. It depends on Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy, especially for Hyper-V, which has a lot of problems. They should enhance the Volume Shadow Copy functionality. Its reporting should also be better. Reporting is too weak in DPM."
"We can't take a snapshot and take it outside, which is a problem."
"To evaluate the solution's abilities and its performance under demanding conditions, it is recommended to carry out a stress test."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually."
"Dell Avamar, including its virtual add-ons and cloud-based offerings, is cheaper than other solutions, but in the end, the price still depends on your use case. Price-wise, I'm rating Dell Avamar as six out of ten."
"It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years."
"The cost is high."
"When it comes to competition the price is not what is important, it's not the problem."
"Dell's pricing structure is not overly expensive."
"I rate the pricing a seven out of ten because it is expensive."
"It is very expensive. It's a trust based licensing. So that's an ethical challenge."
"Microsoft DPM can be considered as an expensive solution for smaller or medium enterprises, but we have been satisfied with the price structure as it is fixed and it offers a variety of useful features"
"I think Microsoft DPM pricing is reasonable. The additional costs are related to storage and technical support."
"Microsoft DPM is a free solution. However, we pay approximately $3,000 annually for support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What do you like most about Microsoft DPM?
This solution helps us to manage all of the operations across servers and different workstations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft DPM?
Microsoft licensing is complex, especially for enterprise or data center solutions. However, it's not more complicated compared to other competitors and the market is well balanced.
What needs improvement with Microsoft DPM?
I am not sure if I am competent enough to address areas for improvement in Microsoft DPM.
 

Also Known As

Avamar
DPM, Data Protection Manager, MS DPM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Medical Park, Centropol Energy, a.s., NCFE, D & H Distributing, Metalor, Colosseum, a.s., Sanitas S.A., Icebreaker
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Microsoft DPM and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,737 professionals have used our research since 2012.