If you don't have to manage your client's email and their email archiver Acronis works very well. If you're looking for just a backup service for what's on a particular computer then Acronis is perfect. It is easy to use, so newcomers are not overwhelmed with features.It does not include as robust features as Barracuda and Cloudberry, but it does work well as just a backup.
It is very easy to use with NFS. Creating new volumes and mounting to servers such as ESXi or Linux is a breeze. It does also support CIFS but it is far less intuitive and requires much more effort. Replicated data is also very simple and robust in the form of SnapVaults or SnapMirrors. This data is either immediately or periodically replicated to a peer FAS in the cluster for retention.
We have renewed our subscription over the course of a few years now. We used to use Backup Exec and it was tedious and difficult to obtain our backups when needed. Acronis just fits our environment style and the way we prefer to do business and use our third party software.
I give it a rating of 9 do to its ease of usability. It's ease of understanding how to setup - form - fit - and function. I have no sorrows when having to login to the console in order to setup a new backup schedule or retrieve and recover lost data.
It does have a really nice and easy to use web interface to do pretty much anything you need with it. It was very simple to configure our volumes and luns and connect them to our VMWare environment using the interface. It has options to rename, shrink, grow, and other things with our luns and volumes. It was nice and easy to read graphs to see where you stand on your storage usage at a glance.
I only got one issue resolved for more than 20 cases open. The escalation is ineffective. Most of the time, I have the feeling that I know the solution better than the support technician. Overall, case management is time-consuming, as our resolution rate is really low
NetApp support in Brazil is managed by its partners. We know in other countries, such as the US and NO, they have support directly from Netapp. We have a very good NetApp partner working with us since the beginning, on both the implementation and daily support. Very few cases needed to be escalated to NetApp support, most of the cases are handled and satisfyingly closed by the partner.
I don't have any real key 'insights' per say except that it wasn't difficult at all, and do not be afraid to dabble in its tools and settings. It is quite intuitive with built in common sense. I cannot say enough good things about our companies experience when using this backup software.
We've looked at SolarWinds, Veritas, etc. but none of them had the right combination of features, price and ease of use when compared against Acronis and its ease of implementation, setup and recovery options. We didn't like the wait time for recovery with some of the others and being able to quickly get a machine back entirely was important to us.
NetApp stacked nicely and gave enterprise-level usability for snapshot-based backups. Our previous RPO was several hours. It was selected prior to me arriving at the company, but It was selected for the hardware refreshes due to its compatibility with several other vendors, like CommVault and VMware.
The ability to back up multiple servers from one source is a great tool to have for businesses that have equipment in different locations on the same network with a variety of software data to back up such as SQL, Exchange or a Files Server. You can decide to purchase individual server licenses as well if you would like to keep the process separate or have multiple sites where your data is housed.
