Veritas Backup Exec Reviews

Our company uses the solution to provide virtual and physical backups for our clients. Most of our clients are small businesses and our team of five engineers capably manages their projects. 

The solution is good for physical backups. 

Recovery via Active Directory is painless and much easier than the complicated setup procedures of other products. 

The tape library management tool needs improvement. 

The solution is not good for virtual backups because antiviruses write on the disc in blocks and the high number of changes or flags increases backup times. Agents should not be installed on top of VM because they cause discs to get overloaded and that is costly. 

Managing collapsed discs should not have any effect on the size of backups. The solution should be able continue increments and manage restorations without errors similarly to how Veeam handles the process. Active Directory restorations should not require an agent or additional things.

The solution is too heavy and complex with 1,000 menus and options that make it messy rather than lightweight. 

I have been using the solution for fifteen years. 

We worry about stability because the solution requires many components or agents to be installed such as Active Directory and Oracle which can cause issues. System-level restorations are always a headache and corruption causes everything to collapse. 

For comparison, Veeam has a a one-click, granular restoration option that completes the process in two minutes. There are no agents involved in the process so there is greater confidence. 

The solution is scalable and good when compared to other products that cause worry when performing backups. 

I used technical support years ago and it was good. The 2012 edition was bad but technical support really tried to work with it. 

There was an issue with a backup that took 24 hours to resolve, but by that time the backup had expired because support forgot to reset it.

I rate technical support a six out of ten. 

Neutral

The setup is easy but ongoing management depends on whether the infrastructure is physical or virtual. 

Backups take 40 minutes but can be complex depending on the environment. 

I rate the setup process a four out of ten.

The solution is implemented in-house. Ongoing maintenance is easy and we provide this to customers. 

Our backup support is handled by four engineers who build customer confidence in managing the process. 

The solution costs $700 per agent and is expensive compared to other products that offer better stability. 

I rate pricing a four out of ten. 

The solution has similar features to other products but nothing in particular stands out. 

The solution used to be a leader in the SME market. In 2010, it rolled out a new design with enhanced features but the 2012 update completely collapsed. The solution often changes names but there have been no improvements since 2012. It is also a headache to restore and fully trust corrupted Active Directories. The solution is failing due to lost market share that was captured by other products. 

The virtualization movement happened drastically and VMware captured it because the solution was still an agent-based operation that required both client and virtualization licenses. 

RecoverPoint has good replication because it manages split writing. 

The only product that wows users is Veeam which operates in an agentless system. Acronis is doing well with its imaging solutions but they do not compete with or eliminate Veeam's dominance. At one point Veeam had issues restoring smaller files but the new release does extraordinary restoration. 

If you require an agent or a physical infrastructure, the solution is a good fit. If not, I ask clients to go with VMware or Veeam instead. 

I rate the solution a five out of ten. 

We use the backup solution.

The most important feature is the variety of backup applications it supports, including ERP systems and most other programs, such as Microsoft. It allows for simultaneous backups of multiple applications. The second advantage is the strong support provided. You can open tickets and receive prompt responses and assistance if any issues arise.

The solution could improve and adapt to new applications in the market so we can integrate Veritas Backup Exec with them to facilitate backup processes within these applications.

I have been using Veritas Backup Exec for 3 years.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability a 9 out of 10.

Veritas is suitable for medium-sized companies across various market sectors such as retail, oil and gas, etc. We can receive additional licenses. There is no issue with storage.

I rate the solution’s scalability a 7 or 8 out of 10.

Technical support is good. They provide a good response after opening a ticket.

Positive

The initial setup is easy, depending on the market.

Firstly, we need to continue operating with the customer to understand their requirements. For example, they need the retention policy set for their email backups. Most customers prefer a weekly backup schedule and two to three months of retention. This clarification is crucial. However, during installation, it typically takes just one day for setup and configuration

In comparison with other vendors, Veritas is competitively priced.

We have options for disaster recovery. Some customers lack another branch or a secondary site. In such cases, we can install additional backup software at our site, enabling application recovery. This setup facilitates extensive testing at headquarters. You can restore from the secondary site or utilize cloud services. The backup jobs can be directed to cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Computers.

We have a partnership with Dell EMC. Dell EMC offers a backup appliance, and we can integrate Backup Exec into the backup software. However, we still need a Veritas backup appliance. The duplication ratio is 4x, but in terms of data demand, it's up to 36. Most backup software already has certification, but it's limited to 4-6x identification issues. However, in the case of a backup appliance, it's running up to 36 applications. If the customer doesn't have backup storage or backup protection for three servers, we can use duplication from Backup Exec.

SAP HANA Is limited in its capabilities. I recommend going with NetApp. NetApp is designed for enterprise applications like SAP HANA. It does backup and is well positioned for small and medium companies like Microsoft, including SharePoint and file servers. Customers have certifications like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce on the cloud.

Overall, I rate the solution a 9 out of 10.

The solution is primarily used for the usual database backups, virtual machine backups, and file backups.

I can't say there’s any significant difference with other solutions. It's just a backup solution for me.

It’s pretty standard. There is no significant difference for me.

We needed something that offered backups at a lower price, which this delivers.

The implementation is straightforward.

Other solutions have Kubernetes-specific solutions within them. This doesn’t. In the future, we may need the product to have that, however, in my environment, I don't have Kubernetes, so for my use, it is not necessary.

It may be useful if it was easier to access.

The reports could be made in an easier way.

I’ve been using the solution for the last three years.

It is stable. That is no issue in our environment. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It’s reliable, and the performance is good.

It has agents. I didn't need any strategy in terms of scaling. When I need to add an extra device, I just install the new agents. I didn't force the limits, like Backup Exec. I didn't force the limit, so I can’t speak to the maximum expansion capabilities.

We have four people using the solution. They are system admins.

We do not plan to increase usage anytime soon.

We don’t have much recent experience in technical support. We haven’t used them in the last 12 months or the past three years. When we did deal with them, they were okay. They were helpful.

Neutral

I've used, in my old company, a VM solution.

It’s effortless to set up the solution. It’s not difficult at all. I’d rate it a four out of five in terms of the ease of setup.

The deployment is swift and doesn’t take too much time. We didn’t really have a specific strategy going into the implementation.

We only need one person to handle deployment and maintenance tasks.

I handled the initial setup in-house.

I wouldn’t be able to calculate an ROI. I’d rate the product a three out of five in terms of the likelihood of getting an ROI.

The pricing is reasonable. It was the main selling factor for us. We pay a yearly licensing fee. I have a gold edition, and it includes all the features that I need - so it's enough for me.

I’d rate it a three out of five in terms of the affordability of the usage.

We looked at other solutions. They’re all basically the same, however, this product offers a lower price. I was not a part of the evaluation process the last time around.

I’m a customer and end-user.

It is a useful solution and it can be used in any enterprise environment.

I’d rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We have never had any problem with storage and backups. It works very well and is a user-friendly solution.

The scalability could be improved even though the solution is targeted to small customers.

I've used this solution for almost eight years.

In terms of stability, the volume to backup is not very big, and we have never had any problems.

With regard to scalability, Veritas Backup Exec is a good solution for very small enterprise clients. If you have big systems, you must move to NetBackup if you stay with Veritas.

We have 10 to 12 people who use this solution.

The technical support is very good. Veritas is one of the best at providing technical support.

There were no problems with implementation.

I think it's sold at the right price. It's not expensive. The license is usually for a year.

We deploy Veritas Backup Exec for customers where they have a production site with between 10 terabytes and up to 50 terabytes of data where they then backup the data to their local storage and then replicate it to their site or to the cloud.

I work with partners and end customers, Backup exec is improving yearly and they are introducing new features which enhance things like quick recovery with forever backup, global dedupe, etc.

The one thing for the last 12 months which has been very good for Veritas was the instance-based license. This means that you're able to license per instance, not only per physical server. And also, the incremental backup which they introduced for virtual servers, where it makes it much quicker to restore, it just automatically is able to mount it back to the original backup. This makes it much quicker when you're doing the restore.

The one thing which could be improved, which we have informed Veritas about, is the ability to plug in to the cloud. Meaning, instead of using local storage if we're backing up a small user or end user, we want to be able to make it so they can direct the backups directly to the cloud. It can't be done at the moment. We can only back up to the storage then replicate to the cloud, but we cannot use the cloud as a source of storage.

In terms of features, myself and my team are quite happy with most of the features. The only feature which we need is the plugin to the cloud. That's it. They've been doing a lot of improvements. The other part which they need to look at is the replication feature. In this case, we're talking about replicating between server to server. We do have a lot of competition from Veeam because of that. A lot of people want to have one server in the production side and one server at the other side, and replicate the servers across.

In my current position, I have been using Veritas Backup Exec three years, but I used the product previously when it was still under Symantec for four years.

100%. It's got great stability. In South Africa, it is widely used and it's got very good stability. Just that, as I said, only one improvement they need. Otherwise, the product itself is great.

It is scalable.

For one site you only need one person, max two. The administration or console is very easy to accommodate. One person is able to do that. That's no problem.

I work with technical support a lot whenever there are technical issues. They have been very good. Although they sometimes do battle with something, they eventually get it right. So I will rate them nine out of 10.

The initial setup is very easy.

Normally we take about two hours. It's just that sometime if the environment is old then you have to fix the environment first. But if everything work 100%, two hours, max four hours and then you're done.

For customers, the main point is to make sure that the skill of the solution is readily available in the county. That's the reason why it is an easy product to adopt or to onboard in your environment, especially here in South Africa.

On a scale of one to ten, I'll give Veritas Backup Exec a nine out of 10. It's just one point I'm taking off because of those two small issues. We feel that the competition is using it against Veritas.

We use Veritas Backup Exec mainly to backup virtual machines (about 120), and also Exchange mailboxes (about 1500).

I have found the overall features of the solution very good.

There is the option to backup to the cloud (we don't use it for now).

I have experienced some errors. From time to time the backup of one VM fails.

I have been using Veritas Backup Exec for approximately 15 years.

Overall the stability of the solution is good.

The scalability of the solution is very good.

I am the only one really using the solution in my organization. But I have 2 other colleagues able to do most of the tasks required when I'm away. 

The technical support is good.  It does not take too long to receive an answer. 

Positive

I have previously used another solution, Arcserve.

The installation is very easy.

In house.

The price of Veritas Backup Exec is fair and we pay annually for the license. Compared to other solutions, such as Veeam, it is less expensive.

For a time we were, long ago, we were using both Acserve and Backup Exec (it was physical
servers at the time, some servers were backed up with Arcserve and others
with Backup Exec). We decided to simplify this and kept the best of the two.

I recently was asked to evaluated Veeam. My conclusion was that for our needs Veeam did not bring anything that backup exec was perfectly able to do, and Veeam was significantly more expensive.

Veritas Backup Exec is a good solution. It can take a little time to get used to the GUI, but once you've understood how it works, it's really great to use. You can quickly do what you want to do, or get the information you want. 

I rate Veritas Backup Exec an eight out of ten.

I use it in many uses, for example for Microsoft Exchange and for databases, for active directory and file servers. I use Backup Exec because it has agents for different software and is based on your infrastructure.

I remember in the 2010 version you needed to have two jobs per data source; one job for full backup and another job for a differential. But now you can merge both of them into a single record and have different schedules for them. The results and the interface are better now, and there is no extra knowledge needed for using this. It is very simple.

I prefer to use a tape library and Veritas Backup Exec is fully compatible with different tape libraries. So I prefer this software.

Of course, all of the solutions are agent-based, but granular recovery, GTR, works well in Backup Exec. It was Symantec in the past. I can easily recover a user or a file. It mainly works directly to the original location, which is why I prefer to use it.

In the past, it was not user-friendly. But nowadays it's very user friendly. But it could be better if it had a web-based interface. 

A web console would be great because nowadays a lot of products are web-based and you can access the console from various environments. So I would recommend bringing this feature in the next solution.

I want to have a user-friendly interface for virtualization. Now virtualization doesn't have an extra interface. A great interface would be good. And maybe it would be better if they launched a virtual appliance.

I have been using Veritas Backup Exec for at least six or seven years.

I am still working with it on daily projects.

It is stable. It's like other Windows based services. You turn down the tape library and want to restart services. I think it would be better to be more intelligent about these changes. For example, when I want to turn off the tape library and turn it back on, it would be better if there was no need to restart the services. Sometimes I need to restart services or even sometimes I need to restart the server in order to bring up the tape library or ABS.

I don't know how compatible it is with a cloud environment, but for scalability for SMB companies it's good because you could have one central management and deploy different servers in different areas and manage it in a single, central point. I think it is good for SMB's.

Generally, I use this solution for servers and not for clients.

It is good for small and medium clients. Although I think that it would not be popular with enterprise companies. I don't have experience in a closed environment. But I think if you don't have this environment, it would be good and suitable for them too.

Generally, Web Backup is more complex, but Backup Exec is easy to use. 

The initial setup is not very complex. I've deployed in different projects, but installation was the easiest part for me. Having a good plan for the backup solution is more complex than installation, I think. You have to consider the concurrent back-up jobs and the speed and data growth. 

It is good that you don't need to install an extra database.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Veritas Backup Exec an eight.

I would advise that it's not important which product you use because I think most of the products are good quality and nowadays have at least a standard because of technological enhancements, but it's more important to understand the concept of back-up and recovery. For example, how many jobs are needed, what is your infrastructure, what storage do you need, things like that. Having knowledge of data and back-up recovery is more important than the actual solution.

It's not important which tools you use, because nowadays all the solutions, for example, Veeam, are good. It's better to know what you want and to have good knowledge of back-up and recovery concepts, for example, storage, data, data growth, SQL, etc.

It is a good overall suite of products.

I would like to improve their ability to back up the cloud environment. Additionally, it would be nice to have a simpler UI.

The product is stable.

The product is scalable.

I think that customer support is okay.

I did not participate in the installation, but it's a bit cumbersome to use compared to other products.

For the price I've seen, it could be lower compared to other products.

Cohesity and Rubrik are both more modern and have a simpler user interface to use in case recovery is necessary.