The valuable features are the ability to:
We write TBs and TBs of data to backend HPE D2Ds. It then dedupes all the information so we get a 10:1 ratio of deduplication. This means we can store a heck of a lot more data on less storage. It saves us time and money.
The benefit is that we've got data retention and we can store data for people. We are a financial services organization, so we are audited on the level of security of our data. This solution allows us to prove that we are storing it correctly.
I'd like the ability to search backups a lot easier. I'd like the ability to search for a particular server within a backup because people come to you and ask for the backup of a server. They talk about it in those terms. You end up trying to find out where that server is located for a particular job that you might have set up months ago. It would be good to have a search feature where you could ask, "Server X, what backup job is that?" That would be helpful.
It would be good if it worked properly and it actually gave you usable error codes.
A large percentage of the time, you get very vague messages, or it just turns off, and it never tells you why. It's very difficult to decipher what happened and what has gone wrong.
The problem with HPE Data Protector is when it goes wrong, it's very hard to fathom why it went wrong.
It's pretty scalable. Now we're on HPE Data Protector version 9.0, so you only have a single Cell Manager. We roll out globally so there's no issues with that side of it.
We have to raise support tickets and that's an extremely painful thing. It can take five to seven weeks. That's the bad side of it. It is difficult to get decent support and to get to the people who know what they're talking about.
Initially, the technical support is terrible. You raise a call and then you are asked for log after log. What you want is someone who knows what they're doing who can help you right away. When you finally get through to those people a month later, they can normally resolve your issues within an hour. However, getting to them is very difficult.
We were already using it when I came to the company. I was more involved in the decision to upgrade.
I was involved with the setup and it was reasonably straightforward. You install Cell Manager, then you create distribution servers, and then you roll out to a virtual machine. It's a pretty straightforward process.
We're probably going to have to start thinking about alternatives. Our data footprint is growing so rapidly that we're going to need to look at new solutions anyway. We have backup jobs that are over ten TBs for a single server. We need ways in which we can restore that data quickly.
We use 3PAR, so we're going to start looking at deduplication on it. We need snapshotting, and that sort of stuff. We've got to start looking at how we do things and how we can do them differently and faster. It may or not be with HPE.
When it works, it works well. When it doesn't work, it can be very frustrating.
I would look across the whole marketplace and see what's out there.
SAP R/3 Integration is what I like best because our main production systems are SAP based with Oracle database, the “save-delete archive” feature is of ultimate use. It actually saves the Oracle archive file to the disk and after the save is verified it is deleted form the disk. That way you actually keep an eye on archive space on the physical disk and at the same time you are safe that no archives have been delete from the disk without been checked.
We started using this product back in 2000. At that point we mainly used the SAP R/3 Integration along with some filesystems backups. From that point on, the software started getting integrated with Exchange Server, and lately SAP HANA. The Data Protector software is getting along with the growing needs of our company.
I haven’t found any issues that need to get improved. The main purpose of this software suite (safely backup and restore main systems) is fully achieved. It was already implemented as the company’s first backup and restore solution. As the company evolved and the technology implemented evolved along, it seemed that the software adequately supported our systems.
I've been using them since 2000.
Generally no, but there were some issues that appeared when we first tried to deploy the software to a HANA database environment. However, they happened mainly because of the HANA database Linux environment.
Mainly, I can’t say that I have encountered major stability issues. At some point in time, patches fixed some minor issues.
No issues encountered.
Customer service is excellent with a ticket per call.
Technical Support:Through the fifteen years of support from HP, you realize that many things have changed. But, above all, I have to say that technical support has remained at a constantly high level. Depending on the issue, each time, the support may be local or international. Nevertheless you will get your job done.
This was the first backup and recovery solution.
The initial set-up is very straightforward. Nothing special to be done, as it's got very friendly user interface.
Back in 2000 the software was implemented by HP. I wasn’t present for the implementation, but after that, some upgrades and migrations has happened. Both HP Greece and an in-house software engineer have performed the projects. I have to say that the level of their expertise is more than adequate.
As we have most of our systems integrated to HP Data Protector, and because we have many daily and even hourly backups, I must say that we have a high ROI in our case.
Pricing and licensing clearly depends on the systems that you plan to backup. How many systems do you have to backup (licensing), what kind of support do you prefer for your systems (24/7, 8/5) (pricing).
You have to check the needs of your systems before you decide on your backup solution. Do you have many different platforms? Do you want to integrate the backup solution with a SAN environment? Do you want to use integrations (SAP R/3, Exchange Server, SQL, etc.)
Almost all the errors Data Protector throws out come with an error code within the session messages.
"[Major] From: BSM@server.com "Production Archive by Month 2" Time: 1/4/2018 1:30:14 AM
[61:4006] Could not connect to inet in order to start BMA@server.com "VLS-032"."
The numbers inside the brackets is your error code. Usually a quick search of the internet or on the Data Protector forum will get an answer for you (you can also click on that number and it will give you more details along with suggested troubleshooting). I agree with errors outside the realm of the backup, copy, restore jobs can be a pain to track down, however the "Omni" utilities in \bin are available and will usually lead you to what is wrong and where. Sometimes the solution is non-trivial though. In other cases, like any other software, something critical goes wrong and it leads to a very long engagement with support. I had 1 with the barcode reader on automated tape libraries in which things would just fail out without any explanation and it took a lot of debug logs for them to figure it out. Those errors are pretty rare though.
As far as quicker backups on 3PAR, Data Protector does integrate with 3PAR and can use snapshot functionality, as well as there being Zero Downtime style backups. The problem with these is that it is another add-on license which can get expensive. Since you have a 3PAR, it may be worth looking into Recovery Manager Central or other integrated HPE solutions.