What is our primary use case?
The solution is used to backup customers' Office 365 data. It is not really an MSP product. It's on-premise. In order for you to comply with GDPR, if you are an MSP, the only reason to really do that is if you set it up in your own environment and on virtual machines and you literally have to lock yourself out of that machine and give the customer full access to it.
The other thing is, to comply with GDPR and with Veeam for Office 365, is the backups need to be encrypted. There's no encryption. What we did was we basically encrypted the hard drives that come from Bitlocker and only then did we get compliant with GDPR. That part was quite tricky.
What is most valuable?
It works well if you are not in Europe. It's great if you are not an MSP.
The pricing is reasonable.
Technical support is great.
What needs improvement?
You cannot back up to a network share, you cannot back it up directly to the cloud location. To fix issues is quite tough with it.
I asked them before, not even long ago, "Okay, so can we back up now to a duplication?" and they still said, "No, still only to a local drive." Having it back up to more than a local drive would be ideal.
They need to enable the encryption of backups so that nobody can gain access unless they have encryption details. When you need to restore, you could then just pick the credentials from a saved credential that you do not have to manually enter.
If there's a virtual machine or a machine that's extra storage, the potential that somebody else can log into your infrastructure and could potentially be malicious and destroy your entire infrastructure is very high. There's just a whole list of it. For that reason, if you're an MSP, stay away.
The reporting needs to be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution from the time it was launched.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Sometimes the services crash and we just have to go in there. The problem is the reporting. Since it does not link to the lead service provider console, you do not know what is going on. So you have to literally monitor the thing manually. There's no real reporting of the actual machine, and since it has to be deployed on the physical machine, that's your limitation.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is not really scalable. It's only Windows-compliant. You cannot install it on anything else.
We have about 50 virtual machines. We're actually running at a loss.
How are customer service and support?
The support for it is good. They basically do what they need to do. They are very quick to help.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
Initially, the setup is straightforward. However, once compliance is in play, it gets complex.
The initial deployment was quite quick. We just basically installed it. It takes about an hour or so, and that's very quick for backup notification. The actual configuration was initially quite quick, so you can set it up very quickly.
If you do not need to comply with GDPR, you are fine. The minute you start to comply with GDPR, it becomes very complex, and there are a lot of extra tweaks and stuff that you need to do in order to do that.
To set it up, you just install it on a machine and add your Office 365 admin credentials. Then you get a list of what you want. You just pick the accounts that you want to protect and click next and select your backup application which has to be a physical volume. It starts backing up, eventually.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing of it is quite cost-effective. However, if you need to comply with GDPR, for you as an MSP, it can become quite expensive since you literally have to give the customer some of your infrastructure to do that.
Currently, everything is moved to VMware licensing, which is month to month.
What other advice do I have?
If you are not staying in Europe and you want to use it, that's awesome, go for it. If you are an MSP, don't use it.
I'd advise, if you're an MSP, don't use it. It's only going to give you headaches. That said, if you are not an MSP and you have a direct client, this will be a great tool for you to basically download or make a copy of your 365 environments. The cost is not too bad. Just make sure that the virtual machine has got enough space - probably double the amount of space that your current Office 365 environment is taking up - to make space for you to have incremental space. Otherwise, you'll have a bit of a problem.
Considering its limitations, including local backups, not really good reporting, and no encryption, I would rate the product at around a four out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner