What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?

If I were a manager for this infrastructure, I would look into load balancing for cost, maintenance after sale, and improving Dell PowerProtect DD. It is important to consider features you need or don’t need.

Improvement is needed in terms of telemetry and high availability as the high availability feature is only present in the higher models of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain). The entry-level and medium-level models, such as the 6000 and 4400, lack this feature. Moreover, integration with cybersecurity measures can be enhanced, particularly with ransomware protection.

The Data Domain solution appliance is quite expensive. It is on the higher side, but technically or functionally, there is no issue.

Local support is necessary because while some aspects are well-handled, others require attention. At times, working without support can be more cost-effective.

I was looking for a virtual edition, and that is now available. Many customers struggle to find a solution for ransomware protection, but we can set up an enterprise recovery vault for that purpose. These features are now part of Dell's overall offering. The solution has matured, and while I don't criticize technology, most of our technical and business requirements are met with the Data Domain storage solution. We can meet customer requirements easily with Data Domain. Some feedback has been received from our operations team. There’s always room for improvement. For instance, there may be suggestions regarding enhancements to the reporting dashboard

There are multiple Chinese products hitting the market as a competitor tool against Dell PowerProtect DD, which doesn't have a great feature set but is available at an attractive and negotiable price. Recently, Huawei launched a backup solution that is being used in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but the vendor didn't sell it elsewhere. The aforementioned solution is providing tough competition to Dell PowerProtect DD. Dell previously had smaller models of Dell PowerProtect DD, which were called DD3300, if the vendor is able to launch a similar mid-range product for customers with an average budget, they will be able to compete better. The market is moving towards AI, and NVIDIA has been successful in growing and capturing the market. In Dell PowerProtect DD, there should also be AI features in the future. The vendor is coming up with new intelligence processors. Dell PowerProtect DD must store the data, but through AI, it should know how to retrieve and use it. AI features need to be introduced in Dell PowerProtect DD to capture the upcoming market. Customers of Dell PowerProtect DD know how to store the data but are aware of the applications or use of such data.

We are unsatisfied with the EMC network because Data Domain only works for backups. The system is connected through backup software, which operates over the Internet. This setup limits Data Domain's functionality in terms of backups. It is designed primarily for archiving and backup purposes. You can utilize it, but it depends on the EMC network. The software configured with Data Domain system may concern you. Data Domain is configured with the EMC network, but the EMC network is not easy to use and is not a very good product.

Dell PowerProtect DD does not have integration with the cloud and virtualization software.

The solution's pricing could be cheaper.

The tool's pricing could be cheaper.

The tool's DD Boost is expensive.

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is expensive. Also, it has a sort of a big physical footprint that data domains have, and that's part of the problem. If we move one of the DR locations to the new project into a data center or Cylance facility, the footprint of the data domain is quite expensive, as well as the unit being expensive. That is the reason why I am looking at options in that area. Apart from the pricing, there is also room for improvement in the speed of recovery. With the data domains, there is a limit to how much data I can recover and the visibility from a cyber perspective. The discovery at the time when your malware impact may have occurred is quite tricky to pinpoint what, where, and when it is potentially damaged. So, the recovery is harder to define because you don't want to recover more encrypted stuff. For example, there is a piece of work associated with that, which with ease, Rubrik can do quite well. In addition, there is also some room for improvement with technical support. I would also like it to be a little bit smaller. It is quite a large footprint. Also, a better interface would be good.

The downside of PowerProtect's flexibility is that you have so many options. It can be a little confusing. It's like having a car with too many buttons on the dash. You can do so much with it, but it takes some time to learn what everything does.

We would like to see the price of this solution brought down to be comparable with similar products currently on the market.

I cannot speak to the exact areas that need improvement at this time. The pricing could be lower.

Nothing comes to mind in terms of improvement. It serves its purpose. That said, if they could develop higher algorithms to make it more efficient, that would be great. Usually, with the backup, the issue is how fast it can do it. As network speeds improve, the solution improves. It has to keep up with the available network speeds, however. For example, a 100-gigabit ethernet. They need to keep up with the advancements in network speeds, and ethernet speeds. If they keep up, instead of taking five hours to back up your daily workload, you may do it in three hours. It can be complex to implement.

We'd always prefer if there was even more competitive pricing since they are very close in price to Quantum. However, the pricing isn't too bad. The initial setup is complex. The installation process should be easier so you can install the solution without having specialized techs.

We would like faster instant recovery.

Data Domain lacks compatibility with fiber channels and tapes. We can't use it with a tape library. That's an issue in Latin America sometimes because a lot of clients still use tapes for budget reasons. Maybe they have a lot of archives. In North America and Europe, they do a lot of archiving, but they use the cloud more than we do. Sometimes we have to put together a Frankenstein where we connect another server to the tape library and send all the data there. I understand why integration with tapes isn't possible because they are designing these applications for the future. In the next decade, all the information will be sent through private and public clouds. It's a great way to send data. It can be software-defined, so you have lots of paths to send information, and it's it's not too slow, so I guess that's why they don't support tapes. When we have challenges with other providers, maybe an internal ID would help. Also,Dell's backup software comes in a lot of flavors, and there's a bundle that gives you all the functionality. You use this software to do this and another to do that. There isn't a single application that can do everything, and sometimes that makes some struggles.

It could be more secure.

The price could be a little cheaper than it is now.

The only problem is that it's more expensive than any other vendors available in the market. Overall, the product has a very large portfolio, and even the support level is great, but the challenge is the cost. I would like to see a direct cloud backup solution. I should be able to directly take a backup into the cloud instead of having another product in between PowerProtect. It should be flexible enough to support the cloud.

The price is expensive, so that could be improved. The interface and dashboards could also be improved. We have some problems with backing up on the Power Platform. PowerServer is an IBM product, and it forces us to back up over LAN, which is not suitable for us. It needs some added features to back up the AIX OS or the old applications running on AIX OS.

The usage of this solution is a bit difficult to develop processes, and it takes a long time to market permits.

We do not have any specific issues. Nothing has gone wrong. The price of the product is high. We'd like for it to be less expensive. The initial setup is a little hard to understand.

The software from Dell that can be used to operate Data Domain needs to have enhancements made to the user interface. It is too complex.

Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is not a product that's easy to install by customers. There are a lot of products, e.g. entry-level storages that can be easily installed by customers themselves, but this product and other IDPA solutions need to be installed by professionals. Customers who buy Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) should not worry about its installation and deployment. It should be installed directly by Dell, or by a Dell partner for free, but the price of this product must include installation, so installation will no longer be a problem. Installation and deployment for this product need to be improved. These processes need to become easier. The user interface could also be improved, but I did see that Dell now provides a number of products with very nice interface. We used to have Dell PowerEdge VRTX, but it reached its end-of-life (EOL). It was a small blade server with a small storage that's working, but it was equipped with a friendly interface for customer installation. Dell EMC and some other vendors should also sell entry-level to mid-range products that are more user-friendly, and make them out of the box products.

I have seen documentation from other products saying that they protect against ransomware and I haven't seen this in Data Domain. I don't know if it is a good idea to have it in the appliance, but I would like to see some kind of integration with the ransomware in the next release.

One improvement to the solution would be in the integration with backup software. They still have hardware different from the software.

The size and scale of the product are limited and could be improved.

The new niche players are currently very good, but some things that they lack. As an example, NetApp Filer. There is no real partnership between different vendor platforms such as EMC or NetApp. They don't really talk that much. There needs to be better ease of use with like APIs and automation and things of that nature. Some vendors are more API friendly, some vendors are not. Being API friendly will help. EMC is just coming out with their global deduplication future with virtual addition and things like that. Which is still in the works. They need to make migration easier.

The price is on the high side. I would like to see integration with public cloud.

It can probably have integration with other OEMs. It should also have more features for ransomware protection. It could be more competitively priced.

In terms of what could be improved, when you use Data Domain, you have to have at least 15% to 20% of free space so it can work properly. I understand that space is needed to process all the data, but it would be a big improvement if we could use that space too.

The price could be improved. Technically speaking, the solution is okay. It's not perfect. We have to remember that it's a backup appliance. A storage appliance is not primary service. Let's say in a standard configuration you have only one controller, you don't have high visibility. We have installations on higher-visibility on one environment when one bank says, "We want a controller, doesn't matter how much it costs." We explain that something that is not the main storage is not production. " It's not primary storage, however, it can be used for different environments. Let's say to use it as the NFS or VMware deployment. Dell is improving the product all of the time, actually. There were a lot of improvements from version 7.3 to 7.4 for example. I've worked with the solution on and off since 2009 and I've watched it evolved from a small backup appliance to what it is now. They've done very well with it.

The processing capabilities I believe could be improved, however, we have an older unit DD670 and newer units may have already improved upon this.