N-able Cove Data Protection vs VMware Live Recovery comparison

"The most valuable feature is that it's hands-off. I log in every morning and there are pre-canned filters that I've created to make my life easier. I have something called server status color bars, and that gives me all the servers and, in a nutshell, I can see: if any errors are being reported; when the last backup was; if one is not working, should there be one, and it literally jumps off the page."

"The ease of use and the console are great."

"The most valuables feature is the alerts and monitoring that catches the failed backups."

"It's their cloud, it's their storage. I don't have to buy a space on Amazon or Google's cloud and then use their software to push it. That works well for me. This way, I don't have to worry about another option or the opportunity that there might be a credential leak."

"It provides a single dashboard for all types of data protection, we monitor everything through a single dashboard. It simplifies everything overall. It allows us to see everything, whether passing or failing any issues, any problems through a single pane of glass that we don't have to click through or adjust as we go forward."

"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."

"The solution has reduced backup times by an immeasurable amount. Its backups are incremental, so you are only backing up data changes based on the last 24 hours or so. If you are also maintaining the stored images, the restores are also only incremental, happening in minutes. Whereas, with a lot of the other solutions that we have looked at, each time it goes to refresh the restore, then it has to build a completely new image. That takes forever. This solution also improves recovery time."

"One of the bigger features and advantages of the solution is that it is easy to integrate with my RMM which is also N-able."

"VMware SRM's most valuable features are its convenience and its use of stretched clusters."

"The solution is scalable."

"The most valuable feature is disaster recovery testing."

"This SRM solution can improve your footprint within a data center."

"The solution is simple to use and has effective automation."

"It eliminates the need for complex compliance requirements, making it a highly effective solution."

"Its capability to schedule, write and configure the recovery and scheduled steps, such that you don't have to come in and start manually trying to recover the entire machine. You just push a button to recover the VMware and everything is done."

"The solution is very flexible."

"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."

"For the MSP side, they could have more of a "security user" that can go in and only see certain clients. If you give somebody access as a technician, they can see all the clients."

"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."

"There aren’t any challenges. Regarding the additional features, Cove is limited to disaster recovery with Azure. It would be great to make disaster recovery compatible with AWS."

"N-able Cove Data Protection for Microsoft 365 is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."

"For small amounts of data, recovery is easy, but when it's large amounts of data, it takes forever. So, if they can have a service where they put our data on a hard drive and ship it to us as fast as possible, it would be great. Even if there's a fee associated with it, it's fine."

"We would like to have better reporting."

"There could be a possibility to create a local NAS backup for infrastructure."

"It has a lot of dependencies on VMware infrastructure, and testing can be complex. Testing often requires extensive approval at the organizational level."

"The pricing structure is pretty expensive, especially after the recent changes, and it's important for the cost to be justified based on the features used in production."

"One thing which is lacking from the SRM is reporting."

"Technical support needs improvement, they are not very responsive."

"The two vCenters have to be synchronized, which sometimes gives us problems because Keberos does not tolerate more than five minutes in time difference."

"The automation should be simplified or improved."

"We've had configuration issues on occasion. We start to fail over, and then we have to call it off because the configuration is not right, or the data stores aren't configured correctly in the secondary data center. Oftentimes, it is just the experience level of the team, and we have to bring in the vendor to help and validate our configuration."

"VMware SRM needs to improve its pricing."

"The pricing, for now, is good. The package that they gave us recently is pretty good. It depends on how many clients you have, and you pay for certain terabytes per license. These terabytes, if not used, are pooled together."

"There is no per node cost, at least not the way I am doing it. I am on bulk. New customers can be set up on a trial, where they can get things all squared away, then they can switch over to being a billed customer."

"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."

"The only option I would like to see is an adjustable scale. Right now we have 250 seats and we're not using all of them. It would be nice to be able to save that little bit of money by being able to buy just what we need."

"When you have a device/appliance on the site quite a lot of the other enterprise class backup people insist that you have their appliance, which is frankly offensively expensive. Because when you pry the top off, it's just a standard 19-inch tin box with a standard Intel I5 in it, some RAM, and a hard drive. Then, you go, "Why have they just charged me 5,500 quid for a box, which I could have probably build for under 500." Whereas, with the SolarWinds product, they don't have that. The backup appliances that we have onsite are just plain cooking PCs. We can build our own machines, which is reflected in the price that we can offer a customer."

"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."

"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."

"The pricing is affordable. N-able Cove Data Protection has a direct-to-cloud architecture, but it also allows saving backups locally without extra storage costs."

"It is about $3,000 a year for the 25 pack. The package gives you the ability to protect up to 25 virtual machines."

"VMware SRM is a little bit pricey."

"The licensing costs are increasing."

"VMware SRM is an expensive solution, and users need to pay extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The level of licensing required for this solution is dependent on the server instances in use."

"VMware SRM is expensive when compared to Veeam and makes Veeam look cheaper. For support, some additional payments need to be made over the licensing costs of the solution."

"Mature products like VMware SRM often have higher costs."

"I rate the solution's pricing a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."