DD Boost Reviews

We primarily use this product for cost savings and saving server capacity.

Because of how it functions we do not have to make additional investment in hardware and services.

Data Domain Boost has a unique protocol. I don't think other vendors have a similar protocol and controls from the products I have had experience with. There are alternative solutions, but Data Domain Boost is really efficient. Compared to these other products, I found the efficiency of Data Domain Boost to be superior.

Like any product, it would be good to improve performance and the ease of dealing with operating the system. It needs a more familiar interface to make it easier to use for everyone. Other than that, I don't think so that there are more features that will be necessary and important for every user. To me, all the features are suitable and convenient. If I was looking for something for Dell to add to the product, it would be notifications.

As far as improvement, the stability of the connection could be improved. The tool itself is okay, but not the gateway between the on-prem Data Domain and the cloud. We have to find a workaround or use third party products. So in the next release, I'd like to see a better connection gateway between cloud and on-prem.

Improvement of the pricing would be a welcome change.

I strongly recommend companies or any organization to go with this product if they expect full features and stability.

For now, I am very happy with the scalability. We have around 500 people using the solution and scaling has not been a problem. I once work system admin, now I'm a solution architect. Mainly system admins and architects directly use the platform.

The technical support is very special, really. I like it and overall I am very satisfied with the services.

We are actually using both Veritas and Data Domain simultaneously. Between these two, Data Domain is more efficient for me and very scalable. There is a limitation to the scalability at some point, but there is a different architecture so it does not really become a problem.

I think the initial setup was straightforward. I cannot say it was very complex but that may depend on your experience and complexity of your network.

I'm doing all parts of the implementation. We are a gold partner with Dell EMC now. Prior to that, we were a reseller.

I think it is important that Dell reconsider the pricing. I don't know what we pay off-hand, but I do know that the pricing is high compared with other competing products.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Dell EMC Data Domain Boost as a ten. I strongly recommend this product for all its capabilities.

I do self-study and read articles about this product to learn about capabilities and solutions even though I am familiar with it. It is good for users to do self-study to get the most out of the product.

DD Boost needs to improve its interface. It should be easier to use. 

I have been working with the product for two years. 

I rate the product's stability a ten out of ten. 

I rate DD Boost's scalability a ten out of ten. 

The tool's deployment was easy. 

DD Boost's price is good for its features. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution primarily for backup. We use it to duplicate backup images when we have governance requirements with multiple copies in different locations. We will also be deploying a gate fault solution where data domain duplication is the only way of ingesting data into CyberArk.

We like the product because it is simple and works for most environments. It cuts down network traffic, and only the relevant parts move around because it is deduced and encrypted. So the less traffic that needs to flow, the better.

The solution could be faster. However, they already have acceptable speeds. The DD Boost is only a transport layer of the product. For example, we went on RFP, and the two main candidates were Veritas NetBackup and Dell DPS. We chose Dell DPS because of DD Boost. Veritas NetBackup also uses DD Boost, but Dell DPS is defaulted and integrated into the client. There are things other than DD Boost that can be improved. In the future, we will see more things that the product exhibits. I feel DD Boost will only improve in relation to Dell because it is integrated into the client and the software.

In the next release, it will be good to have a real-time view of the volume and for it to be shown as a metic. In addition, we are backing up many terabytes and sending gigabytes of unique data, so it will be good to have physical and logical data in DD Boost. Not having this makes it difficult to quantify the savings.

We have been using this solution for 15 years. We usually use one version behind the latest release to ensure there are no issues. DD Boost is currently deployed on-premises, and we do not use it in the cloud space. We try to enable users to do everything in the cloud setup so they can choose the right tools rather than deploying a consolidation solution. There are hundreds of users, and we don't want to limit them. We are monitoring them to ensure there are no gaps rather than prescribing or suggesting specific tools.

I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

It is scalable because as the number of clients grows, our target storage will also have to grow to store all the data. We have to have more front-end ports to spread parallelly, have file groups, and load balancing all configured as part of the DD Boost. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

We have about 6000 clients backed up, so about 600 servers that talk via DD Boost to the data domains.

I've never had a specific issue with DD Boost, but we've worked with them in other areas. All our storage is Dell storage, so we have a significant estate. Due to our size they may treat us well because of our size. There is a difference between Dell support and any other vendor we have worked with, and we are pleased with their support. I rate the technical support a nine.

Before we used DD Boost, we used NetBackup and TSM. We migrated from the tech libraries to desk-based storage in TSM. We used fibre transport for a while for NetBackup, but we weren't happy because we needed a separate license. So we currently use TCP IP client connectivity, and there are no other mechanisms for it. So we're not copying on the NetBackup side, but we are allowing the array at the bottom to replicate.

If you install the backup client, the DPS client on the host is already installed; you give it the connection credentials, and it is installed. It is straightforward.

Regarding maintenance, we have one residency contract with Dell that has about five people. We have more than 14 gigabytes of unique storage, and they look after all the Dell products. They are all Dell-certified and Dell-employed staff, so they are our outsourced storage management.

I do not know details about the financials, but they give us very good deals and are open to negotiation regarding their products and our company size. They can work our ELAs for our environment and bundles, which gives us a better overall deal than if we bought only one or two products. I rate the pricing a four out of ten, with one being not expensive and ten being very expensive.

In our experience, we are working on the duplex ratio of five to one in the data domain. The data domain capacity is the cheapest compared to Veritas appliances or IBM specs. I rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use it as a solution for saving costs and capacity.

Data Domain Boost has a unique protocol. I don't think with other vendors you get the same efficiency. I work with some the other products but this solution has amazing efficiency in comparison.

The solution needs better performance and a more user-friendly operating system.

The solution needs a better gateway between the on-premises and cloud deployment models. We have to work around it or find a third party to assist. 

The pricing is high, compared to the competition.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable for us right now. There is a limitation number on it, but for different architecture.

We have about 500 users.

Technical support is very, very good. I'm satisfied with the level of service we receive form them.

I'm currently using two solutions: Veritas and Data Domain. Data Domain is more efficient for me and it's really scalable.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was very easy.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I strongly recommend any organization to use it. I'm doing self study once a week or on a monthly basis to learn more about the product, so I'm quite familiar with it.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten.

We are an integrator and this is one of the solutions that we supply to our customers. I do some of the training on this solution for our customers, as well, so I use it personally in that regard.

This is primarily used as a backup solution.

This solution should cover more platforms, and there should be more product coverage.

I think that the GUI should be improved because sometimes, not everything is properly displayed.

I would like to see better Fibre Channel support.

DDBoost is one of the most important features of the Data Domain appliance. The acronym stands for Data Domain Bandwidth Optimized OST, which gives the ability to distribute backup job tasks between DD and the host which writes to DD. This is called DSP - Distributed Segment Processing which is used during the backup process.

Another part of DDBoost, Clone Controlled Replication aka File Managed Replication, which is used on backup system site to easily replicate DDBoost created backup pieces of such. Lack of this functionality is, in my opinion, big limitation. When you consult interoperability matrices you will find (as an example of not full coverage)

1. No DDBoost support for Spectrum Space (former Tivoli Storage Manager) which claims market share higher than 15%

2. No support for Managed File Replication for Veeam Backup & Replication DD Boost over FC - which is one of the backup software leaders

The above are the most obvious examples on which I based my RFE to broaden the coverage.

FC improvements – I’d like to run DD replication over FC; if it would be possible then using DDBoost over FC and Replication over FC will remove the necessity for any data movement over IP. This solution would give us a clear separation between transport protocols used for management purposes (TCP) and those used for backup data transfer (FC).

In my opinion, the stability is very good.

Scalability depends on the model that you have. For each model, you have a limited number of terabytes per hours. It provides the option to scale as you need it. Overall, scalability is great.

I have never needed to contact technical support personally.

I have not personally performed a setup for a system that was going into production. For the environment that I was using, the initial setup was very simple.

For the environment that I tried, I performed the implementation myself.

My suggestion for anybody who is implementing this solution is to use the Fibre Channel, if possible. If not, then try to use it over IP. If you cannot use either then there are other options, but the Fibre Channel is preferred. It gives you not only an increased speed but also some additional features.

The biggest lesson that I have learned when working with this solution is that you can always do something better. I have been in the backup industry for more than twenty years, and there have been times when I was bored with the products. What I have found is that you can always expect to see something new, and something better.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

As a cloud-based solution, customers buy cloud applications like Veeam or Backup X6, and they need storage to put data on the cloud. We recommend Data Domain to them and we implement a solution using Data Domain Boost with their backup solution.

I implement and troubleshoot for the customers.

In the last six months, the deployment model we were using is on-premises. I have only deployed on the cloud once, and it's easy for our customers. It's a pleasure to do.

All of my experience is on-premises.

An example of how this solution can improve an organization would be with one of our customers who has a data exchange server. Every backup takes two or three and a half-hundred gigabytes of storage. 

When the customer was using another backup solution, QNAP, it was taking seven hours to perform a full backup. When we used Data Domain on his environment, we found that the time was reduced to two hours and thirty minutes.

Also, with Data Domain we found that the data was compressed by thirty times. For example, with the other backup solution, the data was three thousand gigabytes, whereas in Data Domain it would be one thousand gigabytes.

The most valuable feature is the support for plug-ins. For example, when backing up a server through data domain, it can take a long time. However, when you are using Boost, you just install a plug-in on the target server and the backup job is scheduled.

There are some limitations where you cannot use it as a shared server or as a file server, it is limited for the only backup.

We have customers asking for a file server that can be used to share data with their employees, with an organization, or to use it on VMware as a storage unit, but this solution is not suitable.

When we receive requests like this from the customers we recommend building EMC Unity, it's a full package, you can backup, you can share and you can use it as a LAN in your virtualization environment.

This solution is stable.

This solution is scalable, but it's expensive.

The initial setup was easy. If you work with the manual and follow it step-by-step, it is easy and straightforward.

It takes about forty minutes to install the application and install the Data Domain on-premises in the data center.

The cost is monthly.

There are good and bad points to having this solution only for backup.

It's good to protect your data from attacks such as ransomware. You only use the storage for backups, so you don't have to share folders.

The main difference between EMC Data Domain and EMC Data Domain Boost is that the Boost is an add-on you install that allows you to transfer the backup job quickly.

After performing a full backup, you would schedule it to run every week, and instead of it doing a full backup of all of the data, Data Domain Boost will back up only the data that has been added or that is different from the original data.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

DD Boost's best features are deduplication and compression.

An area for improvement is DD Boost's technical support.

I've been using DD Boost for more than five years.

DD Boost's technical support could be better.

I would rate DD Boost ten out of ten.

We use this solution to compress our data storage and as a data backup environment. We only store our data for two weeks, so in a two-week period, for the volume of data as well as our mixed types of data, we get the best cost per terabyte stored on Data Domain. 

The features I find most valuable is the ease of installation and the ease of maintenance, more than the functionality. I like the toolset, it's easy to work on and the support is brilliant.

My experience is that the fact that they give you certain toolsets based on certain modules only makes it difficult for us to save costs due to upgrading. So it would be nice if they could have the same toolset right from the smallest to the biggest modules, but being specific frame-dependent. The toolset itself does whatever I currently want.

The solution is very stable and I haven't had any issues with that so far.

I can't say that we had any issues in terms of either performance or capacity. This solution transports data between the client and the Data Domain. I would obviously like to have a better way to federate the Data Domains together as one, but that's not really possible. 

We have about ten people working on data protection. With Boost I've never had issues where we couldn't pump or dump data though in time, or that there were reliability issues, so I think the solution is scalable.

The technical support is one of the biggest reasons for choosing EMC products, or staying with them. There was a slight wobble when Dell got into the picture, but I think they've sorted that out now, so now we are happy again.

The initial setup was straightforward. Our installation was done by a company that manages our servers for us.

I will definitely recommend this solution, but I obviously don't know other people's environment. I would say that you should write down what your criteria is, what you want, and then do a proper test with all the vendors. Most often people promise you things, and once you start digging into it, it is not there. Like Huawei - many of the functions we needed, they just don't have, so they rely on tools from other vendors to give you that functionality. So I would obviously recommend it as a solution, because I know it works. 

In the future I would like to be able to pump data straight into Amazon S3 Bucket. EMC has tools to pump it into the ECS array, and then it's free of charge. But if I pump it into Amazon S3, I have to pay. So, I would like to be able to do it into Amazon, into a different vendor's S3 Bucket, without having the vendor lock-in.

On a scale from one to ten, I rate this solution a 8.5.