OpenText Data Protector Reviews

• Backup to Disk with StoreOnce software catalyst
• Disaster Recovery
• Zero downtime backup

Data Protector helps us to maintain data consistency and recover data with minimum downtime. We can recover the user-specific data when there is data loss, such as a mailbox or file server.

Having dual-cell manager in the environment at primary and secondary sites, data restoration and services can be made up in case the primary site goes down completely.

• Technical Support
• Troubleshooting
• Restore using multi-path
• Restore for Microsoft Exchange
• GRE

I've used it for more than seven years.

I've had no issues with deploying it.

There isn't much instability as the product has been stable with the exception of a few bugs during upgrades.

There have been no issue with scalability until now for mid-level datacenters.

4/10

Technical support is very poor and I would rate it as 1/10. The response from L1 is very slow and there is no handover when the engineer finishes the shift. There's no direct interaction with the L2 or L3, which makes the case take more time. L1 basically behaves as a mediator for transferring the information from the customer to L2 or L3, and they don't perform any troubleshooting.

I haven't migrated a customer with different solution to Data Protector, but I have seen a customer move from Data Protector to Avamar, Veeam, and Commvault, who had better product offerings.

The initial setup is straightforward if you understand the architecture correctly.

We implemented it with out in-house team.

Licensing is categorized for each sub component rather than on the basis of services which is what we would like. For example, there is one license for all GREs, and similarly one license for all zero downtime backup products.

No other options were looked at.

It's easy to learn for new users, not complicated, and has a simple backup and restore procedure. Last but not the least, it's easy to recover in case of disaster. The drawback is that there is some inconsistency and bugs with the level of technical support.

I would recommend the product to others keeping in mind the ease of implementation, maintenance of software, and easy backup and restore steps.

There are several valuable features, such as the integrations with SQL, Oracle, Exchange, VMware, as well as the copy-jobs/replication features.

Data Protector has provided us with somewhat reliable backups for our environment, but it otherwise has not really improved our organization's functions.

The Virtual Environment backups still need major improvements. They are working much more smoothly now, but we still get error messages without explanations. More often than not, the jobs fail when other products on the market actually excel at these types of backups.

Granular Recovery and Smart Cache are huge improvements but don’t always work perfectly, and Granular Recovery is really difficult to install and configure. The documentation makes it sound easy, but it never works on the first attempt.

I’ve been working with Data Protector since version 3.5, about 12 years.

There are always issues with deployments and it's never the same issue twice. Most are easy to resolve, but some issues are very frustrating. Again, most revolve around virtual environments.

Since we implemented the new PostgreSQL database, Data Protector's stability has greatly improved.

We've had no issues with scalability since implementing the PostgreSQL database.

The customer service is fine, we are an HP reseller, so we get good service. If anything takes too long to resolve, we usually have internal connections that help us.

Tech support is not very fast at resolving issues and it takes a long time for them to get anywhere. Usually calls opened about Data Protector tae at least 2-3 weeks before they get resolved. I’ve also had calls open for 2 months with no resolution. This needs to improve and at some level, the support persons need more background knowledge on this product. Also, always having to deal with level one support can be frustrating especially when you know the product very well and are certified in it. Sometimes the questions we are asked make it sound like we are children.

I’m a consultant and have used many different backup solutions. Since we are an HP reseller, we tend to favor Data Protector. However, I must say, other solutions in the industry do a much better job in certain areas.

The initial installation is straight forward. The complexity begins when the backup clients are added and backup jobs start to get configured. That’s when all the error messages start appearing.

We are an HP reseller and are certified in this product. We generally do the deployments for our customers.

Pricing is fairly competitive. Licensing can start to become expensive depending on the features required. If many features are required, then usually competitors have a better price.

We usually evaluate other vendor products in backups environment. The top ones are Veeam and Commvault.

Be ready for an exercise in frustration, but once all the problems are resolved, then you’re OK.

We can back up Oracle databases, SQL databases, Windows machines, Linux, and virtual machines like VMware with this product.

In terms of configuration, it's very flexible. 

If you have an idea of what you are doing, it's very flexible and very stable. We've been using it since 2010 without an issue.

The downside of the flexibility on offer is if you over-configure it, it may fail to function as some configurations may not match. That said, it's a very flexible tool to use it. It helps to start with minimal configuration to avoid misalignment of parameters.

The scheduling could be better. We thought they had made some improvements, however, the scheduling of backups needs to be more flexible and we need to be able to apply different policies at different times.

I've been using the solution since 2010. I've been using it since version six onwards. It's been more than ten years at this point.

The stability is great. For the most part, there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. However, when it comes to new versions, there are certain issues that crop up. They may be due to new developments.

It's scalable. You can have multiple Cell Managers. For example, let's say your environment is very large. You can have the backup server dedicated to a certain group of targets, and then you can have multiple backup servers. You can have another backup server that manages the other backup servers, which means now you can have a global view of all the backup servers. 

At the same time, when it comes to storage, you can integrate it into several storage areas. Instead of just using tape, you can use the backup directly to disk. That means even the disk capacity can scale up to many terabytes depending on the storage you are using.

In terms of users, I can't say we have so many users as we are an enterprise, and within an enterprise, there'll be people dedicated to managing the backup. 

As we have a couple of hundreds of systems that we are backing up, I would say that we use it quite extensively.

We've used technical support in the past. For example, recently, we were changing our licenses from the traditional licensing to capacity We had to ask them to help us apply the license. That was the first time we were applying that license. For the traditional licenses, we've been doing it ourselves without a problem. They helped to show us how to apply the license, which means next time we can do it ourselves.

The initial setup is straightforward if you know what you are doing. However, due to the flexibility, you may find that you need someone who can guide you in terms of doing the minimum that is required, instead of just over-configuring it. 

In 2010, when I started using it, the backups were actually failing every day, only to find that there were too many mismatching configurations due to the flexibility. 

The deployment process can take a couple of days. For us, we are a large environment. While the installation itself doesn't take long, the configuration will take time in terms of configuring the backup devices and making sure that everything is working. We need to test and then add new clients. Most of the time required is just to configure the backup devices, like the disks to the virtual tapes, and add that line. However, the installation itself doesn't take long. That part you can do in half a day.

There are just a few people managing the backup environment, however, there are a couple of hundred systems that are being backed up. In terms of the people, we have about five users who look after the environment. However, it's stable. They are not busy with the environment every day. It's just to manage backups.

In general, the size of the team needed to watch the system depends on the size of your environment. The platform itself doesn't need a lot of people. One person is enough. That said, just looking after backups is what makes you look for more people. Looking after the platform, we've been using one person for a long time. 

In terms of licensing, you just pay for the licenses you use. That said, it depends on what you want to do - depending on the functionality you need. With capacity-based licensing, you just pay for the size of the backups, and you have all the functionality that comes with the platform.

We've tried Veeam for VMware, for virtual machines. At the time, it had limitations. We have since stuck with Data Protector. We have evaluated other solutions, however, for some reason, we decided not to go further.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

We are almost using the latest version of the solution. We are actually using 10. We haven't yet upgraded, however, we are just a step away from the latest.

I would recommend the solution to others. They are 100% perfect. Just like any company, they have their own issues. That said, I would still recommend it as a comprehensive backup and recovery solution. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

This is the most difficult difficult question to answer because in order to get certain things done, we need to go to v9 or to a product like Unitrends or Arcserve.

As time goes on, it actually becomes a handicap. It requires too much storage and there are holes where backups should be.

Reporting is definitely an area for improvement, as well as scheduling and the way that pools are created and grouped. Some of these are fixed in v9.

We've used it for approximately eight years. We came from version 6.1 and upgraded to 7.xx.

There were no issues with the deployment.

The integration with MaxDB and MS SQL gave us problems as it is never working the way we expect. As they are certified, we expected it to work flawlessly, but it didn't.

There have been no issues with scaling it.

Once a solution is provided, it works and is OK, but it takes ages to get to that point, mainly due to the fact that we need to supply a lot of data from within a small pipeline, which doesn't always work. I have to admit that now that the new website is up and running, it is better than it was.

No, but we are actively looking for a solution that will put us in the next century. Personally, I believe that v9 combined with dedupe and 3PAR would be a good solution, but it still can't compete with the appliance from Unitrends with backup, storage and deduplication all-in-one.

Reading the manual and following instructions will result in a working version.

Test everything at least twice. Don't listen to others but do the actual tests, even the absurd ones like "suppose I lost my entire backup solution in a fire, let's start from scratch and try to get everything back from tapes and or disks and or remote replica."

I realize that v7 is almost out of support and we are looking to either upgrade or go for a different solution. In my experience with the sales and technical sales from HP, they have no fitting answer for our current solution unless we pay a lot of money for an assessment which will not guarantee anything. So if HP wants to improve their products, then being clearer about their product as a whole it would help. It took me weeks to find out what I could do with HP 3PAR and backups. From my point of view, they need fewer products and more integrated ones, especially backup and storage which are one and the same.

We purchased it as part of a package with StoreOnce. Its integration with StoreOnce was probably the key selling point for us and made us choose Data Protector and not one of the other products on the market that don't natively support StoreOnce. There's quite a wide range of application integrations, for example, with SQL Server, Exchange, and Hyper-V.

It's allowed us to reliably perform backups without a whole lot of constant attention required. Again, the integrations with SQL Server, Exchange, and Hyper-V are reliable and effective. The integration with SQL Server 2012 is particularly well-executed.

Data Protector is a fairly complicated product and some of the terminology is quite complex. There is a bit of a learning curve for new administrators who are working on it. Some of that could be eased by having a better GUI, which is not very good. There isn't much good reporting built-in to the GUI. For example, to see the status of yesterday's Exchange backup you have to click on and view all of the possible numbered backup sessions from yesterday until you find the one that relates to Exchange.

I've used it for 18 months.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We have become frequent customers of the Data Protector technical support team because Data Protector does fairly regularly break. And it does so, generally, without any involvement on our part. The software is not as stable and reliable as it should be.

Invariably, the response from technical support to that is to install the latest set of patches for Data Protector. It's very frequently patched. Upgrading to the next patch release is quite a big task because you also have to upgrade all of the components running on all of the backup targets at the same time.

We've had no issues with scalability.

While they're fairly knowledgable, they're not very responsive. The turnaround time on critical tickets can be many days. First-level support is not very knowledgable, so virtually everything ends up going up to second-level support, who are, quite obviously, overworked.

Generally, once you're talking to someone, it's a reasonably good experience. But the response times aren't as good as they should be.

Technical support for Data Protector isn't as good as with 3PAR, the Blade platform, and the ProLiant servers. Support for those, 3PAR in particular, is noticeably better.

We previously used Tivoli Storage Manager, which was similar in complexity to Data Protector but less reliable. Tivoli required daily care and attention to keep it running. Data Protector, while imperfect, is significantly more reliable than Tivoli was for us.

I'd say for a typical organization of our size, where you're not able to send someone on multiple training courses and make them the full-time "backup guy", it's probably going to be a project that requires external consultancy. There are very many moving parts. It's a complicated architecture with confusing and not-always-consistent terminology.

Data Protector is a little bit more complicated than it should be. I think most people would probably agree that there's no such thing as good backup software, but Data Protector is certainly not the worst that we've used. It could be more reliable. It could be a little easier to understand. It could have a better user-interface, with better reporting. But in terms of actually, reliably, backing things up, it's superior to the other products that we've used in-house.

Micro Focus Data Protector is used for data backups.

The dashboards in Micro Focus Data Protector are very good. They are similar to the dashboards in Veeam Backup & Replication. 

I have been using Micro Focus Data Protector for approximately 16 years.

Micro Focus Data Protector is highly stable.

I have found Micro Focus Data Protector to be scalable.

The Micro Focus Data Protector support is not as good as Veeam Backup & Replication's support.

I have used Veritas and Veeam Backup & Replication.

The solution is easy to implement.

They have two types of licensing, one is for storage capacity and the other is client licensing. The capacity licensing here is a bit expensive.

If Micro Focus Data Protector has a universal license for every aspect of the operation, there would be no limit to us. For example, they have a different license for Exchange, Oracle, and SQL. You have to have an online license, it can be an expensive adventure.

I rate Micro Focus Data Protector an eight out of ten.

We bought it when it was a very simple product with a clear license structure, and it just did what we needed it to do.

The license structure for advanced features, such as backing up to disk or compression, can make the license pretty costly. That’s the main thing because we use it in a very simple way with just a client on servers, and then do backups. That license structure was really simple and cheap; but if you want to do a little bit more, then the structure gets pretty expensive.

We have been using Data Protector for 15 years.

It has really improved over time. In the beginning, it was not a real enterprise solution but it has evolved into an enterprise solution.

It is scalable. It has a nice relationship to the hardware that HPE has.

It depends. It takes some time to get to the real person who knows how to solve the problem. So that's difficult with HPE. You need to pass the first level, a second level, and so on.

We get phone or WebEx sort of support.

We have always used Data Protector in our organization.

Upgrading the solution is straightforward. We do it ourselves without any help.

Every other year, we look at what's new in the market. We take a quick look, and scan to see what’s around to see if we should switch. We look mainly for vendor reliability. The support level should be good. For the past 15 years, we haven’t done much switching because there was no reason for it.

Still, there are other products that fill gaps in the backup market, like Veeam and other ones.

The most valuable feature for me is its flexibility. Data Protector has a solution for almost every situation in which we want to backup something.

The best and biggest improvement for us is that we can rely on the backups it provides. It saves us a lot of time which we can use for other things.

The biggest area of improvement for Data Protector would be the proper functioning and ease of configuration of clients behind firewalls and other security mechanisms.

I also think that the license model should be more open and flexible.

I've used it for almost 10 years now.

Overall, deployment was fine except for one major issue that was very annoying -- the proper functioning and ease of configuration of clients behind firewalls and other security mechanisms.

No, we haven't had any stability issues over the years.

We haven't had any issues with scalability. Higher scalability is reached by purchasing more licenses.

We haven't had to deal with customer much. We buy licenses, etc. through an HP partner.

Technical service is quite good. When we had a problem, it was solved in an appropriate time either by HP support or an HP partner.

Most of the backups were executed by scripts. We switched because it was hard to oversee all the different backups on each machine which also made reporting difficult to handle.

The initial setup was rather complex because we had many different systems to include. But in the end, everything went fine.

Our implementation was done by a vendor team or HP partner. They were very skilled and I learned the basics.

I would say that some licenses are quite expensive and it is not a cheap product, but it is worth it. The features, flexibility, and robustness of Data Protector speaks for itself.

We tried other products but we do not share more information about them.

My advice is, make yourself comfortable with the white papers and best practices. If it is a basic installation, try the installation for yourself. If it is more complex, use a HP Partner. And don’t forget the care pack.