Veritas NetBackup Appliance Reviews

The intelligent policies feature is used in order to protect the VMware infrastructure. One of the things that makes a big difference for our company is the usage of these intelligent policies. The system automatically provides extra protection for any VMware server application or service. From a backup administrator's point of view, this is what we call peace of mind. It reduces the workload and therefore reduces resources needed from the company.

The backup administrator always tends to be combined with all other administrators and tries to find if there is any new application, service, or server. With intelligent policies, this has been resolved. I create one policy for VMware because it has a very good integration when we pair it up with the API. With this intelligent policy, anything that is changed into the VMware is automatically led back to NetBackup protection and NetBackup covers it.

The other great thing for the company is that this kind of application is fully encrypted so it gives us full compliance for issues. That's the greatest benefit.

One of the best features is the VMware integration with NetBackup.

The cloud-based backup is also an excellent feature. 

The ability to establish many plans for long term retention, especially using some of their appliances is very helpful. We're not using paid backups for long term retention. It's our business procedure. Instead, we use new apps for storage. There is a type of storage they offer in which they give us member shared space and we can establish a parent point of the primary appliances in order to comply with the long term retention.

One of the other features of NetBackup is that it gives you Granular Recovery Technology for three major applications, or services: SQL, SharePoint, and Exchange. That means that you don't have to deploy an agent on Exchange servers or a DAG server. It also supports Office 365, and Cloud-based services. You don't have to deploy agents in a SharePoint environment, a SharePoint file, and you don't have to deploy an agent in SQL because when you create the VMware policy and you activate Granular Recovery Technology, the VMware technology that is used gives you the ability to restore with GRT, without the obligations which have an agent on the server. That is a great feature.

The only drawback for NetBackup, and of course for Veritas, is that they have stuck to the same environment and to the same user interface. This needs to be improved in future releases. It needs to be more dynamic.

I would like to see more prepared, pre-configured reports and higher integration with other leading-edge products. I'm not talking about backup solutions. I'm talking about other services like ticketing systems such as ServiceNow. 

They need to offer more integrations because of the convergence of the demands on the system these days.

The solution is very stable when there is no major change that actually requires corresponding changes to the policies of the NetBackup protection environment. If there are no more major changes from protected areas, like the VMware infrastructure, like the application of services, the solution is stable.

It's even stable with the patches that Microsoft releases from time to time, that can cause so many problems.

Some jobs may fail, but it reports back to the Backup administrator. An extensive loss gives the opportunity to find out what was changed and what is going on and proceed and make all the necessary adjustments to get back on track.

It's very stable also as an environment. After one and a half years we've never had a failure in a hard disk startup and we've never had a failure of NetBackup services. We never had any kind of corruption or any kind of failure, generally speaking.

There are some small issues, as with any product. However, the backup administrator continues reporting daily and checking to see if everything is working fine.

The solution is very scalable.

There are different types of technical support. They offer Gold and 24/7 monitoring, for example. The also offer support where they take the responsibility of monitoring the appliances. Even in cases where the backup administrator is not aware of an imminent hard disk failure, they know about it and send the replacement.

We decided to go with the Essential Support because my knowledge is very good on this product, so we try to eliminate the costs of more premium offerings. Even with Essential Support, their response time is very, very satisfactory. There was no situation where I had to call them or open on the technical support portal and chase them to get answers. Usually, they respond within 4 hours. That's really good especially because it's merely Essential Support, not Platinum or Gold. 

There was one case where we had a problem that needed escalation. The escalation happens after the second or the third action from their side. Usually, they request some logs to provide immediate feedback. They didn't spend too much time investigating the logs, and they responded immediately. They can escalate it as well if they need to.

We used to use Symantec, but it was a very smooth transition because Symantec and Veritas were part of the same company.

We looked at Veeam, which was very competitive in the process but was only software.  

Veritas won out because it offered a solution that also had native hardware and we didn't want to use space from our core storage.

The initial setup was quite straightforward. We use a Linux based backup, and we chose the solution because we are using Veritas appliances as well; it was recommended by Veritas.

It's quite easy for someone who is experienced with backup administration. It might not be as easy for someone implementing for the first time, but for someone who is already experienced, it's very easy.

There is only one server you have to prepare. The configuration is very easy and the integration with VMware was a piece of cake. It's not a complex ATI that you need to strip down, connect, stream, send, etc. It's very, very easy.

Thre are initially only four or five policies that NetBackup uses with Microsoft Windows, SQL, Oracle, VMware and Check Point. That means that you don't have to deploy agents everywhere.

The correlation between the amount that the company spends to start with the infrastructure and the gain that it has seen in terms of work components has been good. For example, the deduplication ratio that NetBackup performs is highly competitive. It's a very, very good thing because we don't have to buy extra storage that creates an extra cost for the company. 

We use the on-premises deployment model.

We've been very happy with this solution. The correlation of NetBackup with a Veritas solution, which gave us the opportunity to dynamically capture the protected data in the two different styles, was helpful. Another Veritas webpage solution works perfectly with NetBackup and gives us a dynamic picture of protected data.

One other improvement we've seen since implementation, from a business' point of view, is that the usage of the new popular technology of Veritas, like the access storage, where the initial configuration is 700 terabytes, gives us long term retention. The company avoids paying for quite expensive robotic libraries. The access storage is outside the company but the backup and the reach hold times are working in tandem. The speed on daily operation, in terms of cataloging, restoring operations, and related things are very good.

The DR (Disaster Recovery) in RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective) has also improved. Everybody is looking for the best solution that actually gives a balance RPO or RTO. And these two terms are highly related to the DR, the disaster recovery plans. From that point of view, they are a great improvement in contrast with the previous solution that we had. The previous solution was a backup exit. Again, it was the very best, before it was Symantec. We had it for more than five years but when we moved to NetBackup we discovered a whole new world of possibilities and capabilities.

I would advise anyone to use NetBackup. I know the solution well, and I know that they offer very good implication ratio. Of course, I have this opinion because we are also using their appliances, which are pre-configured specifically for this operation.

I don't know if these ratios will be sustained if a customer buys just the software, and uses a third-party storage option to keep the backup. In our case, I would suggest sharing the POC with NetBackup, and even if the POC is without an appliance, I think they can expect to see a big difference. It's very fast.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten. If you would ask me about the software alone I would give it 9, but with the appliance, it deserves a 10.

The most valuable feature of the Veritas NetBackup Appliance is the virtual machine backups.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance can improve by having a more direct connection to the cloud. It should have the technology to be able to directly communicate with the cloud.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for approximately 12 years.

Most of our customers are enterprise-sized companies.

The support has been good, I have not had any problems with the support.

The steps to deploy Veritas NetBackup Appliance need to be made simpler.

The price of Veritas NetBackup Appliance is competitive. There are different models of Veritas NetBackup Appliance, such as perpetual licenses and subscriptions. Having the choice is good.

I rate Veritas NetBackup Appliance a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for backup and visualization. We are customers of Veritas.

I like the fiber channel transport, and that the solution can make it a media server. It saves us a lot of resources, unlike other products which consume a lot of resources.

The price for Veritas is very high and I'd like to see that reduced. 

I've been using this solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable. 

This is a scalable solution. 

Technical support could be improved, the knowledge base is quite low and it's complicated to deal with them. 

The initial setup is very easy, it took around two hours. We used a Veritas consultant. We deal with the maintenance ourselves.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

We use the solution for backup and disaster recovery.

The tool is easy to use, stable, and performs well, but it depends on the environment where it is deployed. It is leaning more toward huge enterprises where it is positioned. It needs to be as easy as others but addresses more complex requirements.

More licensing options could be introduced to the software. It is currently based on capacity only. Compared to competitors, it is difficult to position it economically everywhere. From the usability point of view, they are making many improvements on new interfaces, the SaaS offering, etc.

I have been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance since its launch date and tested it for over 20 years.

The product is stable. We recommend it to large enterprises because of its stability.

The solution’s scalability is good. We have around ten customers using this tool.

The customer service is good because we deal with business-critical support.

The product is expensive and comes with a yearly license.

Technically, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

We use Veritas NetBackup Appliance to backup virtual machines from VMware and Oracle Databases. 

The policy-based backup feature is very helpful. We don't really use many other features, but we're looking to use more.

The reporting feature can be improved. At the moment, we can't acquire the exact information we need from NetBackup. We're looking to improve it on the new system. If I were to look at it performance-wise or storage-wise, it's really complicated to see what's going on. I heard that there's an additional software for that problem, but I didn't really examine it.

We've been using Veritas NetBackup Appliance for about four years.

Veritas NetBackup Appliance is fairly stable. There were one or two errors in one backup, and we don't know what caused it. Overall, it's been a good experience.

Scalability is very good. 

I think they're helping us as much as possible, but they're just saying the problem is with our setup or maybe the internet, or something else. Those problems aren't with them. They say that it's with us, but we can't figure out the problem.

I would tell potential users that it's only worth it if they can use all the features.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Veritas NetBackup Appliance an eight.

With the NetBackup solution, we have a Flex Appliance in the central data center, which we use to backup remote sites. We will first do a local copy to a virtual appliance, and then to do a copy of the one network to the central appliances.

The most valuable technical feature for us is the deduplication ratio. This is a very important aspect in order to have a remote site backup. The advantage of the solution is that they provide agents for all types of databases and applications that are included in the solution.

The initial setup wasn't overly complex.

Technical support has been helpful over the years.

The initial setup gets easier the more you do it.

If you compare the solution to, for example, Dell Data Domain, it looks that the deduplication ratio is even higher than what we have on NetBackup. If they want to improve, then they should look at the deduplication ratio in future versions.

The configuration can sometimes be tricky during implementation.

If the features could be complete in that they can work on all systems, all operating systems, that would be ideal. We have a lot of diversity and integrations to the cloud. This means, for example, if your Flex Appliances are not sufficient, you, for example, can offload to Azure Cloud. I know in some devices it's already possible. However, it's not universally the case. 

Today, if we have to implement it as software, if we are talking about virtual appliances, we need to implement it as software. However, it could also be developed as a package, so that you just have to mount it and to have the service. That would also be an advantage.

We are a big company, and we have been using this solution already for multiple years. It's my understanding that we've used it for maybe five to six years.

The appliances that we are using with NetBackup are on our virtual private cloud. For a lot of other customers, they are using it as well for the remote site backup. Of course, we have plans to sell it more to customers and to also increase our usage amount - including the number of devices, the amount of software, and so on, that is needed. 

The technical support is not bad. We have a partner contact channel, where we can log cases and communicate with them. We're quite satisfied with the level of support we get and the amount of access we have.

We've also used HPE.

The initial setup wasn't complex. It was pretty straightforward. 

First of all, we have done it already a couple of times. That helps. You get used to it. Also, in one of our latest projects, we received assistance as well, from Veritas NetBackup. They were on hand to configure it correctly.

We have had Veritas help us with implementations. They assist in the configuration aspect of the process.

However, for the most part, we are a consultancy and service company ourselves, and therefore we have the needed resources in-house to handle most implementations ourselves.

We have a contract, a global contract, and we are providing services using that contract to different customers. However, I cannot say how much that costs us on a monthly or yearly basis.

We are an integrator and consultant.

While we tend to start by using the latest version of the solution, we may use various versions. I'm not sure which versions we are using right now.

We have a combination of different deployment types. 

My advice to others is that you should have a solution that can cover a lot of things. Especially if you look for the deduplication functionality. It's very important that you check that it's valid for complete virtual environments or VMware environments or Hyper-V environments. You can use it as a complete solution, meaning that you can have the full chain where you want to have deduplicated data streams and data storage locations. Users need to make sure that it is fitting on everything. Whatever a company chooses, they need to make sure before they start they aren't missing anything that they absolutely need.

With Veritas, you have the deduplication software and you have the Flex Appliances, and so on. I have learned also that there is some interesting functionality in the physical appliance as well, and that's not always known by teams of people. It could be useful as a DR solution, for example.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It does fill the requirements. The basic things are there. However, I have learned that other solutions have a higher deduplication ratio. If Veritas NetBackup would also come with a better deduplication ratio in the future I would rank it higher. 

NetBackup helps system administrators and solution architects to easily replicate and back up data from one site to another site. It is very flexible and suitable for mix environments. it has many advanced features which are needed for my customer's data centers. Most of our clients are looking for stable and sustainable solutions for protecting their data.

Most of our customers are using this software. We help to implement this solution for our customers. Most often, I use this solution in private-cloud and on-premises environments.

We can create a unified solution for our customers, in many data centers.

For example, one of my customers has some important data that needs backing up, and we had to use several solutions at the same time. These included Veeam and some backup scripts for their Linux environment. This solution has allowed them to unify their backup solution. The others were removed, leaving them with a single solution that was well suited to their requirements.

Another one of my customers had experienced a virus a few years ago, and most of their services were affected. Most of their data had been encrypted by the virus, and they were unable to decrypt it. This solution helped that company to restore their data in less than one week, and they were thereafter able to continue providing their services. It was an amazing event at the time.

This solution is flexible, powerful, and fast. It is very capable of scaling and very good for heterogeneous environments.

The day-to-day operations including imaging, backup, and restore, are very easy to do.

This solution includes many good features such as:

NetBackup Accelerator
NetBackup Replication Director
Synthetic Backups
Multi-streamed Backup
OpenStorage (OST) support
Bare-metal restore, supports P2V as an option
Automatic robotic/tape drive configuration
Broad tape device support

And also replication, compression, and integration with VMware. Many of the features it has are not available in other solutions.

This solution is very expensive, which is a problem for many companies. Some of them rule out this product because of the price.

I would like to see support for databases such as MySQL and MongoDB. This solution would benefit from integration with new operating systems. 

I have been working with this solution for more than twelve years.

This solution is really stable. It worked very well in the case of my customer who was attacked by the virus, and it is not dependent on other solutions.

This solution is designed in 3 layers Master Server, Media Server, Clients. This flexible architecture helps customers protecting their data across multiple data centers with maximum flexibility replication data across two sites also integration with the other storage such as EMC Data Domain and NetApp is very helpful for replication management, deduplication, and staging backup data.

Due to sanctions, my customers are often unable to use support from the original companies.

I have not had any experience with their technical support, although two of my colleagues have worked in Australia and have experience with their team. The level of support varies depending on the contract.

From what I understand, customers were satisfied with the support.

When it comes to the initial setup, this solution is not as easy as others when you are implementing it for the first time. You need to have experience with solutions such as Oracle, Linux, Exchange Server and the Malware Agent, otherwise, you will not be able to implement this solution at all.

This solution is easier to implement and configure than the software versions of NetBackup. You need to connect the channels, and then install the agents on your operating systems.

My customers generally implement this solution using in-house consultants.

I have implemented this solution, and it took me less than five days.

This solution is more expensive than HPE Data Protector and EMC NetWorker.

It costs more to license support for this solution, compared to others.

We routinely evaluate solutions in this area. One of them is EMC NetWorker, which is a good solution. IBM TSM and Veeam are also good solutions. However, none of these compare to Veritas in large projects.

This is a very good solution for Enterprise-level companies. One of my larger customers has been using this solution for more than five years. Because they didn't have experience with NetBackup, they preferred this appliance version. They have it deployed in their private data center.

While this is one of the best solutions in this space, the price is expensive compared to other solutions.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

I am a consultant that provides DR backup solutions for cloud-based and hybrid environments. I assist my clients with choosing solutions, and this is one of the solutions that I recommend.

My experience with this solution is in both on-premises and public-cloud environments.

The interface is ok, but not the best. Newer solutions have more flexible interfaces. This interface provides more detail but is not as friendly for the non-technical user. I would like to see a product that requires less expertise to manage it. Companies are struggling with getting people who are experts, so a product with less knowledge-intensive requirements would be better.

Having more templates that help to accomplish things based on best practices for vertical solutions are needed. For example, more support for virtual environments.

I would like to see support for different cloud providers with specific features for each one. If I'm working with Amazon, I would expect it to support the specific features of Amazon. If I was to migrate my solution, my systems, or applications from cloud-to-cloud, I want to be able to do it easily and transparently. Similarly, if I want to migrate from on-premise to cloud, it should be easy. The same should be true for hybrid-cloud environments because there are intensive knowledge requirements.

I don't think that there is a problem with the scalability of this solution, but you need to deal with cloud intensiveness when you deal with Big Data. I don't think that Veritas is doing this with Big Data.

I don't deal with technical support myself, but from what I have heard from my current customers, they haven't had any trouble. This is a plus for a big company like Veritas.

I find that the mature products in this space are supporting the cloud only partially. The main products that really support the cloud are coming from startups, rather than from mature companies.

Choosing a solution depends on the usage and the environment. There are different solutions for different scenarios. You can do backups by copying disks, or you can do logical backups, such as of a database.

I like Veritas. They are a large company with good best practices, and they give good support. They can invest in knowledge-intensive features to make their solution more user-friendly. They need to work more on their R&D, be more innovative, and take more risks in providing solutions for the hybrid cloud and for migrations.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.