Manager, Information Technology at a hospitality company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 20
2024-01-19T13:14:17Z
Jan 19, 2024
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't straightforward; it took some time and had a few hiccups. Simplifying the scripting process and improving UI clarity would be beneficial. In the next release of Unitrends, I would like to see the ability to set retention based on the destination repository. Currently, I can set retention based on the data being backed up, but having the flexibility to specify retention periods for different repositories would be beneficial. This would allow me to tailor retention settings based on the importance and nature of the data stored in each repository.
Director Of Information Technology at Creation Technologies
Real User
Top 5
2023-07-26T14:38:03Z
Jul 26, 2023
The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved. If you purchase a Unitrends appliance, they'll give it for free but charge you heavily for the support. We got the Unitrends appliance worth $ 67,000 for free but paid $ 90,000 for three years of support. We've had a couple of renewals since then, and we've negotiated and got better renewals per year, paying around $ 16,000 to $ 18000 per year instead of $ 30,000. Unitrends' support is super expensive, and sometimes they are unresponsive.
The solution’s UI can be improved. I am saying this because I have seen solutions with better UIs. I am uncertain whether the solution already includes these features, but I suggest synchronization and support for VXLAN capabilities as the additional features to be incorporated in the future release of the solution.
System Engineer at a recreational facilities/services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
2023-02-13T18:18:11Z
Feb 13, 2023
It's a little complicated for us to speak about areas for improvement in Unitrends because the previous director didn't renew its maintenance, so we're running an old version. We haven't been talking with the Unitrends team about updating to the most recent version, but one of the problems we have is that the device will be EOL in two years. We could switch to their software, but we're not sure we want to go through that. Unitrends can be challenging to scale.
They are trying to follow Quorum for instant recovery and all those things, however, they have that feature only for Windows environments and not for Linux. The console is pretty complex. Comparing the features and the working pattern, definitely they have to come down on pricing if they want to compete in the market. It's complex. It's not so easy to use. It's not an easy configuration or a single pane configuration. There are a lot of steps involved to configure something. They need instant recovery.
Systems Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
2021-03-25T15:06:50Z
Mar 25, 2021
Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing. When my sort needs to be renewed, I'm never notified. So, six months later, I will have an issue and try to get support for it, and then it will be a big hassle because I was never built for the support to begin with and then they wouldn't give me the support.
For smaller K12 schools, I wish they offered a beefier free version with more storage and options. This would enable poorer schools to stay safe and secure from all the threats out in the world, especially ransomware and the horrible consequences of that problem. I would like to see more storage options for the free version.
Systems Engineer specializing in Data Protection at a government with 201-500 employees
Real User
2020-10-22T14:34:00Z
Oct 22, 2020
It seems like Unitrends moved away from enterprise customer engagement and moved more towards the managed service provider market. I'm familiar with that market because I do that type of work on the side. That's great, but that's a whole different market and avenue from the enterprise backup market; how they interact is totally different as well. I don't know what happened, but their customer engagement went completely downhill on their sales side. You just can't do that. I don't know what happened, but I looked at their cloud product and it just looks like an IaaS implementation of their on-premise product. Cloud products really need to be engineered to be cloud-aware. I haven't looked at it for several months now, but at that time, I wanted it to work out, it just did not seem like it was cloud-aware in terms of being able to have tiered storage and different capabilities that I wanted.
Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
2019-06-23T09:40:00Z
Jun 23, 2019
If the interface could be less complex, it is would be great. It's not the easiest to get around and to work with. Someone with a technical background won't have a problem with it, but new people might struggle with the interface complexity. I would like to see more support for the different major cloud vendors and more focus on the desktop so that I can give a client a single solution for all of their backup requirements. I don't like selling two or three different backup products to cover various needs. I want to be able to provide my client with a single solution from a single vendor.
Senior Infrastructure Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
2018-10-04T17:27:00Z
Oct 4, 2018
There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data. We had an issue about a year ago, but it actually ended up wiping our entire backup history, because one of the databases got corrupted, and we couldn't recover the backup data. Six to seven years of backup data just disappeared. So, obviously we weren't too happy. It's one of the primary reasons we're looking at the market and have gone down a different route for backups, essentially. I also think there should be a lesser focus on the physical appliance, which was virtualized. I'm willing to look at it from the ground up and go actually a bit more resiliency, we don't want to lose the entire database because it took a snapshot of the appliance. This is a pretty common thing. We unravel all this data that's backed up if we need to collaborate.
Manager at a healthcare company with 201-500 employees
User
2017-12-19T15:55:00Z
Dec 19, 2017
The amount of updates which are being released. We were running 9.2 for the longest time when 10 came out. We were advised to upgrade, then two weeks later, we were told to wait. Since version 10 came out, there have been multiple versions released for Unitrends. Updates should be limited to two or three a year, focusing more on quality instead of a rushed bug release.
Organizations rely on Unitrends to back up and protect both physical and virtual servers with compatibility for legacy systems and an appliance model.
Unitrends supports Microsoft Hyper-V clusters, VMware ESXi clusters, SQL databases, and Exchange DAGs. Valuable for K-12 schools for continuous monitoring via a graphical interface, it also offers real-time synchronization, file restoration, report generation, email status updates, redundancy, and ransomware protection. Features include...
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't straightforward; it took some time and had a few hiccups. Simplifying the scripting process and improving UI clarity would be beneficial. In the next release of Unitrends, I would like to see the ability to set retention based on the destination repository. Currently, I can set retention based on the data being backed up, but having the flexibility to specify retention periods for different repositories would be beneficial. This would allow me to tailor retention settings based on the importance and nature of the data stored in each repository.
The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved. If you purchase a Unitrends appliance, they'll give it for free but charge you heavily for the support. We got the Unitrends appliance worth $ 67,000 for free but paid $ 90,000 for three years of support. We've had a couple of renewals since then, and we've negotiated and got better renewals per year, paying around $ 16,000 to $ 18000 per year instead of $ 30,000. Unitrends' support is super expensive, and sometimes they are unresponsive.
The solution's base operating system needs to be improved.
The solution’s UI can be improved. I am saying this because I have seen solutions with better UIs. I am uncertain whether the solution already includes these features, but I suggest synchronization and support for VXLAN capabilities as the additional features to be incorporated in the future release of the solution.
It's a little complicated for us to speak about areas for improvement in Unitrends because the previous director didn't renew its maintenance, so we're running an old version. We haven't been talking with the Unitrends team about updating to the most recent version, but one of the problems we have is that the device will be EOL in two years. We could switch to their software, but we're not sure we want to go through that. Unitrends can be challenging to scale.
They are trying to follow Quorum for instant recovery and all those things, however, they have that feature only for Windows environments and not for Linux. The console is pretty complex. Comparing the features and the working pattern, definitely they have to come down on pricing if they want to compete in the market. It's complex. It's not so easy to use. It's not an easy configuration or a single pane configuration. There are a lot of steps involved to configure something. They need instant recovery.
Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing. When my sort needs to be renewed, I'm never notified. So, six months later, I will have an issue and try to get support for it, and then it will be a big hassle because I was never built for the support to begin with and then they wouldn't give me the support.
becoming software defined rather than appliance based oriented, establishing alllainces with major oem vendors as that opens flexibility on HW
For smaller K12 schools, I wish they offered a beefier free version with more storage and options. This would enable poorer schools to stay safe and secure from all the threats out in the world, especially ransomware and the horrible consequences of that problem. I would like to see more storage options for the free version.
It seems like Unitrends moved away from enterprise customer engagement and moved more towards the managed service provider market. I'm familiar with that market because I do that type of work on the side. That's great, but that's a whole different market and avenue from the enterprise backup market; how they interact is totally different as well. I don't know what happened, but their customer engagement went completely downhill on their sales side. You just can't do that. I don't know what happened, but I looked at their cloud product and it just looks like an IaaS implementation of their on-premise product. Cloud products really need to be engineered to be cloud-aware. I haven't looked at it for several months now, but at that time, I wanted it to work out, it just did not seem like it was cloud-aware in terms of being able to have tiered storage and different capabilities that I wanted.
I would like to see the improve High availability features like switchover and switchback process. also unitrends boomerang compatibilities.
If the interface could be less complex, it is would be great. It's not the easiest to get around and to work with. Someone with a technical background won't have a problem with it, but new people might struggle with the interface complexity. I would like to see more support for the different major cloud vendors and more focus on the desktop so that I can give a client a single solution for all of their backup requirements. I don't like selling two or three different backup products to cover various needs. I want to be able to provide my client with a single solution from a single vendor.
The only area that I would say needs some improvements is the initial setup. A little more assistance and help during implementation would be great.
There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data. We had an issue about a year ago, but it actually ended up wiping our entire backup history, because one of the databases got corrupted, and we couldn't recover the backup data. Six to seven years of backup data just disappeared. So, obviously we weren't too happy. It's one of the primary reasons we're looking at the market and have gone down a different route for backups, essentially. I also think there should be a lesser focus on the physical appliance, which was virtualized. I'm willing to look at it from the ground up and go actually a bit more resiliency, we don't want to lose the entire database because it took a snapshot of the appliance. This is a pretty common thing. We unravel all this data that's backed up if we need to collaborate.
The amount of updates which are being released. We were running 9.2 for the longest time when 10 came out. We were advised to upgrade, then two weeks later, we were told to wait. Since version 10 came out, there have been multiple versions released for Unitrends. Updates should be limited to two or three a year, focusing more on quality instead of a rushed bug release.