Dell Avamar Reviews

We position Avamar as a backup for the VMware environment.

The ease of backing up virtual environments is great. It is very easy when you want to restore back to the original state.

The only concern is the cost. The price is a little bit higher than we would like. Many people prefer to use something like Veeam as it is cheaper compared to Avamar.

I have used the solution for more than ten years.

Data protection is very stable, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Avamar is very easy to scale. I would rate it eight out of ten.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Positive

It is very easy to set up an Avamar solution. I would rate the setup a seven out of ten.

The pricing is not competitive enough.

Many people prefer to use something like Veeam because it is cheaper.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

It is a backup solution. So, we do daily backups of around 3,000 VMware guests. That is normally just an image backup where it goes to the VMware API, backs up the image file, and then puts it on the backend to Avamar into Data Domain. It has a specialized storage system that does dedupe and compression, so we can get more on a single disk array. We have more than one site. We have a primary site and a secondary site.

At the Data Domain level, we replicate site to site every backup every day so that we have the availability in our secondary site for every VM. The replication is done with the architecture of the Data Domain itself. 

We have the rapid recovery solution that allows you to stand up any box at either location and have it come up online within just a minute or two. That's done via NFS. It becomes a data store into VMware, and then you vMotion it out. So, it has got rapid recovery at both locations as well.

We are using its newest version. We keep it up to date.

There are occasions where we have a problem with the system, and we can either try to fix it or recover it. With rapid recovery, we can get the system operational where people can get access to it in less than 10 minutes. So, we can have a problem with a system, and instead of messing around with it, we can bring up the copy. If it is a system that doesn't allow you to have a lot of daily change rate in the data, we can bring up yesterday's copy or last night's copy and have it up and running online in less than 10 minutes.

Every product is good and bad, but its claim to fame is that it is scalable. We're doing more than 3,000 VMs. Every single night a complete image backup to disks and replication are easily done in under four hours.

It is stable, and it ties very well with VMware API. If you've got VMware in-house, it is a very solid product.

It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first.

It can maybe have customized automatic routing. We have a Cisco ACI network. It is like a point-to-point network for everything, even multiple locations. It is flat, and that confuses Avamar Data Domain because it changes underneath Data Domain. It has some problems. They could do a little bit more on having an adaptable network or what's called a dynamic route network where it can be given a route and not care about it, as opposed to having to predefine it.

It has been in this shop for seven years.

It is very stable.

It is unlimited. Basically, it is great.

Being a backup solution, there are no users. We have the backup administrators to operate it, and if a user or a system administrator makes a request for our system, we restore that for them, but there are no users on it, per se. For our three locations, we have one backup administrator. Oklahoma City has two physical locations, and we have one location in LA.

It is currently being used extensively. We're going to the system as a software model where basically everything is deployed like the Kubernetes model. You basically have a few systems, and then everything is layered on top of it. It is sort of like a hypervisor but without the hypervisor layer. If we truly go that way, we'll probably have to go for a different backup solution that manages that better. We're testing that right now, and we're not sure how it's going to work for our shop, but that's what we're looking at.

I have interacted with them several times. We've had problems where we've got to have their help. They're average. It takes a while to get to the guy who knows what he's doing, but they've got support 24/7. You can call anytime day or night. So, they're average or a little better.

We used to use HP Data Protector. It was a nice product. It was an old-school kind of roll the tape, and we don't do tapes. We used Data Protector directly to tape. That was a nice product for physical boxes if you had a few. At that point, we had 200 or 300 physical boxes, and we backed them up. It took about a 10-hour cycle from about the time we quit work to about the next morning. We would run through this whole cycle and get that done.

It was complex. You have to have proxies. You can't just have one piece of hardware to back up all the systems in two facilities. You have to deploy proxy servers to every single VMware cluster. We've backup on a private backup network that had to be configured because we fundamentally do web service and financial targets out front, and we didn't want it to cramp that network. So, it is not simple; it is complex.

To do the primary site, it took very long. At that point, we were doing physical and virtual machines. We had some HPX physical, and we also had a mini mainframe seven years ago. It probably took a solid week to get it installed and get it completely operational. There were a few more details to it, but basically, we were up and running within about a week, but it is not going to happen in a day.

The first time we deployed it, they came out and set it up like a demo or a proof of concept. We took the model that they provided in that proof of concept, and we installed it ourselves, but we did have a proof of concept before we ever bought it. It was in-house for 90 days, and it included one Avamar, one Data Domain, and a couple of proxies in one of our clusters.

I had to mash a vendor. EMC is out to make money, and then they want to capitalize their ability to make money. That's not necessarily a negative thing in the business world, but I don't care for a lot of that. Once a product is in-house, I want to talk technical, and they technically knew what was going on. They were good and very professional. They knew their products.

Its licensing is weird. It is not just the licenses; we also purchase hardware. With most software products, such as Veeam, Commvault, and Data Protector, there is no hardware purchase at the same time. Because Avamar and Data Domain are tied together, they have an integrated pipe. You can separate them, but basically, they're designed to work as a couple. Because the Data Domain backend is designed to do dedupe and compression, we get 60:1. When you count it, you count it as a straight compression, but of course, that's with dedupe and some other stuff. You have to buy the hardware, the licensing, and the software at the same time. So, it's not just software.

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.

Be sure it is what you need. We bought it simply because we're a VMware shop, and we knew we were going to grow that particular core from our business and discontinue using physical hardware altogether. If that's a model that you're doing, it's a nice product. If it's not, you don't need it. 

I would also upfront negotiate the licensing model with them so that you know what to expect before you get into it. What we did not do is buy the cloud extension or an archive solution, and that is now becoming a fairly predominant piece of the pie that we don't have any licensing for. So, make sure it fits your environment, and you get the pieces that we didn't—the more modern archive and cloud control—so that you can have part of your environment out in the cloud. Many people are doing that. We're doing that. We just don't back it up that way.

I would rate Dell EMC Avamar an eight out of 10 simply because it is stable. It does a very good job of tying into the VMware API. EMC owns VMware, so they are more or less the same company. So, they're not going to make a change in VMware that adversely affects their software products. I've got to give it an eight just for that. 

We are using Avamar as support for the VMware Virtual Machine Backup. The chain blocking is very good. With Dell Avamar, we have integrated with Dell EMC Data Domain. It has a 97% completion ratio. That's the reason we are using Dell EMC Avamar.

The most valuable feature is the disaster recovery. 

Instant recovery is there and it is quite useful. If anything goes wrong, we can initiate troubleshooting within our end, our area, and use it instantly. 

The SQL and Oracle database backup is very user-friendly with the Dell Avamar backup.

It has lots of features, and it's very easy to use.

The setup is very easy.

All of the features we need are there. I don't have a point of contention with the solution. 

That said, the log analysis facilities are very, very bad in Avamar. The backup log analyzer gives us issues. If any backup fails, we can't analyze through logs. The log reading is very difficult with Dell Avamar. Only Dell, their support guys, can access and read the logs. We really need them to add a log analyzer. 

The support is very bad.

We've used the solution for four or five years.

The solution is extremely stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten in terms of scalability and reliability.

Right now, we have 250 customers on the solution, and they have been using it for the last ten to 12 years. 

We have two techs here, however, in a year, if you calculate 365 days in a year, we've hardly had one or two times where we needed support. The product is very stable.

The support is not good at all. It really needs to be better. When you actually need help, they are very poor at assisting. 

Negative

Currently, we are using Commvault and looking at Avamar for clients.

We have experience in Commvault, Veritas, Avamar, Net Protector, and Networker, among others.

The initial setup is very easy. I have had a lot of experience in Avamar, so it is very, very easy to set up for me. If you are a beginner, you may need to take some training first. Once you understand it, then you can install it easily.

The deployment is quick and easy. It's a one-click installation and it only takes two hours. 

Maintenance is easy since no physical presence is required. This setup can be built remotely also.

The solution is expensive. However, there is not any real competitor with the Dell Avamar Data Domain storage type of a feature. It's very unique. Competitors cannot make the same claims about their products.

While it is costly, it's good value and worth the price. 

We are proposing Avamar to our customers and looking for other solutions to compare it to build the case for it. Currently, customers are using Commvault, and we are pushing to Avamar.

We are users and have recommended the solution to clients. We're also a partner and in sales. 

We use both on-premises and public cloud deployments. Depending on the customer's requirements, we can deploy either option. We can use various clouds, including Google, AWS, and Azure. We can use the Dell EMC cloud as well. However, it is more costly.

We wouldn't recommend the solution to everyone since it is pricey. A small or beginner-level customer likely wouldn't be able to afford this type of solution. It's not an entry-level solution. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I would rate them higher if the log analyzer and customer service were better.

Our use case for this solution is robust and involves backing up various systems.

The solution is very user-friendly.

The product could be improved by simplifying the components available. Currently, there are many endpoints and GUIs to run.

We have been using this solution for approximately three years.

The solution is scalable. Currently, only three employees utilize the solution in our organization, and thousands of clients use it.

The initial setup was complex. It took about a week to complete the deployment, and we required an engineer to assist.

The solution costs approximately 20,000 annually.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

We have three sites. We deployed Avamar on one site three years ago then added the same setup for the other sites. Following best practices, we're using Avamar with Dell Data Domain for data compression and deduplication.

Avamar is mainly for backing up the machines.

Avamar's user interface could use some work. When we open a ticket, they are working with Linux commands. It's not easy to manage everything through the web interface. I would like to do everything through the interface that you can do with Linux commands.

I've been working with Avamar for two years. 

Avamar is stable. We don't face any daily issues, and it sends clear notifications directly to your account if anything happens.

So far, Avamar covers everything we want. We are replicating to other sites for disaster recovery, so it's working well for us.

We have an annual subscription for support, so we contact them for upgrades and stuff like that. There is some inconsistency. Some of the support engineers are experienced, but others are new. It sometimes takes time at the first level of support, but all our issues get solved in the end.

Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that. I would rate the overall deployment experience eight out of 10. We have two system engineers for deployment and maintenance as needed. They're not managing the solution full time, but they handle new bundles, fixes, etc.

We had a partner, but they weren't so experienced. It seemed like we were the first customer that had implemented Avamar. 

It was a package, so I don't know Avamar's exact price. However, it was nearly $200,000 for the VxRail nodes, Data Domain, and Avamar. That includes everything for three years. Then we have to pay annually for support. 

We were looking for Veeam at the same time. It's good and has the same features, but we were buying all our solutions from Dell, like VxRail servers, Data Domain, etc. I think it's more complicated but otherwise fine. 

I rate Dell EMC Avamar nine out of 10. If you don't have Avamar experience, you need to work with a partner. It's not straightforward, but it's effective. However, Avamar only takes what has been written in a day. It takes a backup of a short time and doesn't do any duplications.

We use Avamar for all of our backup and data management solutions in our co-location facility. I have two co-location facilities with one in Carrollton, Texas, and one in Austin. 

I have data domains, Avamar platforms, and Avamar software that we use across our enterprise. 

I manage a global technology team and a global infrastructure team. We use those platforms across all of our data centers, as well as on our sites where we have on-premises storage for either our Burrtec solutions or Isilon solutions that we have in territories, where we have to have data remain in the country due to the compliance requirements. We use it globally.

The most valuable features are scalability and integration.

The problems are, that it has issues with support. Dell has issues in that area.

I think the other problem is, that when we've had to do upgrades, it's a bit problematic. Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them. 

EMC was very thorough and if you got a piece of software that you had to upgrade, you knew that it had been thoroughly tested and it was going to work well. 

We have had issues with the consistency and the reliability of the code that is coming out for upgrades and enhancements.

I have been working with Dell EMC Avamar since 2017.

We are working with the most recent version. We recently updated it.

The stability has been okay. It hasn't been on par with what we would have expected, based on the fact that this would have been considered an EMC solution. 

With Dell purchasing EMC, there has been some degrading in their capabilities in that area.

The scalability of this solution is one of the best features.

I manage the global infrastructure team. My team is responsible for all the storage and backup infrastructure globally. It's my team that uses it, all around the world.

The technical support needs improvement.

I last used Commvault in 2017.

Dell EMC solution is much more scalable. It is built for an enterprise environment where you have high-end requirements for the movement of data. 

Commvault is not as advanced. It doesn't have all of the features and functionality.

When you talk about data management, storage management, comparably you're talking about companies like Rubrik, Cohesity, and Dell EMC, who are the major players out there.

The Avamar solution has a lot of the same features and functionality that Cohesity and Rubrik have, and is a very high-end enterprise solution for data management, data recovery, and  Commvault isn't quite at that level.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is a true enterprise solution. It has a lot of configurable options that you may or may not use based on your environment.

I have engineers that are all over the world, and I have those that are global to manage this solution, and a storage and backup team.

We have 10 people globally. There is a director who manages that group as well as a principal storage lead or principal storage engineer who does a lot of design and architectural work.

It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity.

You have to be really concerned about the Dell support model, the quality of their upgrades, and their support team's knowledge because they have issues in that area.

When you consider rating this solution, there are two parts to consider. There is the physical platform, the data domain, and the Avamar software. There is support for both of those. 

The physical platform is pretty reliable. I would rate it an eight, and for the support and the software, I would give it a six because of the issues that we've experienced with it.

Overall, I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of ten.

Our company is Dell EMCs largest partner in Egypt and the Middle East. We have a titanium partnership with them and I'm the senior infrastructure solutions specialist.

Avamar is a very effective product when it comes to protecting the virtualization system and end points. Data Protection Suite has three recovery and backup protection solutions and Avamar is one of them. It's a very effective product and can be used for replication and high-end enterprise applications. The solution doesn't require a specific backup admin in the environment, every application admin will perform their own backup and data protection process. It's very easy to use. 

I believe they need to improve the interfaces. Without official training it's harder to deliver the marketing and the reviews over shared media.

This is a very stable and easy to use program. 

Dell offers us good technical support. 

Data Protection Suite has Avamar as one of its components and comes with a license that covers a limited number of virtual machines, capacity, and end points. It's not sold as a separate product. I believe $1000 may cover a single socket and covers the whole data center including the endpoint, the replication, the CD and data protection. It's very cost effective and affordable when compared to other solutions. 

I need to rate the Data Protection Suite as a whole, given that Avamar is no longer sold as a separate product. 

I rate the whole solution a nine out of 10. 

The most valuable feature of Avamar would have to be the way it works over needing very little bandwidth to move data across a WAN or LAN.

The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now.

The product needs to have compatibility with more advanced systems such as Oracle ASM files.

The automation and orchestration features need work. Other products like Vain, for example, lend themselves to better automation and orchestration. 

If you want to set up integration with a cloud environment, for example, it's very difficult to do that. Avamar doesn't work very well in the cloud environment.

The solution requires better ease of use and compatibility. It would be ideal if it could work with Oracle on an ISM environment.

There needs to be better iintegration into the public cloud environments. 

It would be better if the cost of the product was less.

I've been using the solution for about ten years now. It's been at least a decade at this point. I've worked with it in various companies as well.

Technical support, from my experience with the vendor, has been good. We're satisfied with the level of service Dell offers. They seem to be knowledgeable and responsive.

I personally have a lot of experience in the space. For example, I've worked with Looker, NetWorker, Commvault, and other competitive technologies, including Dell's own NetWorker.

The initial setup is okay. It's a little complex, however, overall, it's not too bad to implement.

The price of the product could be lower. It's actually probably one of the more expensive products, at least in the enterprise-class. Other technologies are cheaper, and other vendors are adding more features. Therefore, it's falling behind a bit in what other vendors are doing. They need to catch up.

I'm just a customer and don't have a professional relationship with Dell.

Whether or not, I'd advise a new user to implement this product depends on their environment. It's very good. It's a very well distributed environment and it's probably the best product on the market. However, most companies today are engaging in leveraging the cloud, and in that case, my advice to them is to look at other technologies.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it a seven. If it offered better orchestration and cloud capabilities, for example, it would push it up to a nine. A cost reduction in their pricing model would push it up there as well.