Actifio Enterprise vs. PowerProtect DD Series

Actifio is a good fit for anyone looking for draas or backup as a service with Bluechip.co.uk being able to tailor a solution to fit your need if you are a medium size business looking to protect over 20TB of source data on a mix of virtual and physical servers in your datacentre our hosted within our state of the art datacentres.

Incentivized

We have huge data coming in from different sources and also from multiple organizations in our Data centres. This data had multiple copies of the same data and was huge in size therefore, we wanted to have a solution in place which can help us with a good amount of deduplication at the deepest possible level to make sure that our ecosystem does not have multiple copies of the same data and is also efficient at the same time. Having said this, we wanted this solution to be secure and reliable since it had to be exposed to a huge critical set of data in the market. To add, backup and restoration was something that we were also keen on evaluating so that once we have efficient data within our system, the time it takes to backup and restoration also reduces. And all this was justified by this solution when we signed up with them. From the pricing perspective and the implementation side, the solution needs improvement to make it more efficient and user-friendly.

Incentivized

• Reliable and easy to deploy backup solution with low administration overhead.
• Fast backup solution with low impact on production systems as it backs them up.
• Dedup and replication of backed up data between sites and with streamsnap very quick recovery on dr site.
• Great customer support with quick response to changing demands.

Incentivized

• The deduplication is fantastic. We are currently seeing total compression factors in the mid to upper 50s.
• The platform is very reliable and stable.
• It backs up a wide variety of enterprise apps (e.g. legacy applications, UNIX, iSeries, open systems etc) or your primary storage.

Incentivized

• Single file restore has always been an issue but hopefully will be added soon.
• Physical server backup restoring has always been tricky but achievable.

Incentivized

• It is very slow to restore from. Backup times are great, restores can be terribly slow.
• It doesn't offload to cloud storage natively. You need to purchase an expensive license to enable this feature.
• The management interface is very basic, but it works fine.
• The new air gap solution seems to be just replication an on/off switch. I'd prefer to see them leverage AI on the existing device instead of requiring
• A second device is purchased and securing by toggling the connectivity off.

Incentivized

DD has performed flawlessly for almost 10 years as our backup/recovery storage with offsite replication. Given its track record and great support from EMC, we're unlikely to look elsewhere any time soon.

Incentivized

I have found PowerProtect DD to be very easy to use. The instructions are clear and the user interface is straightforward. I haven't needed to do any serious data recovery yet, however I found the process of backing up my data through PowerProtect DD to be relatively easy

Incentivized

Customer support has had some ups and downs here. We've had several issues with EMC support before and during the acquisition by Dell, but in the last 18 months support has been top notch. Quick and knowledgeable help is but a chat away, or they will call you back so you don't have to wait on hold. The team supporting us is responsive and is quick to assist with any request or issue.

Incentivized

As far as I know, everything with the implementation went very smoothly

Incentivized

Actifio is quicker to deploy easier to manage and capacity plan with less components to keep patched.

Incentivized

I have used NetBackup, CommVault, Tivoli, and Actifio in my previous environments. With Data Domain I am not constantly babysitting my backup to make sure it is not choking and dying and we are not bound by the same channel lane path constraints most backup software and hardware works on. By far the initial cost has been more than made up for with the time not being dedicated to backup.

Incentivized

• We have managed to scale up the size of our environment without the need for extra admin overhead.
• Over 99% backups complete.
• Solution is robust and quick to scale to meet demands.

Incentivized

• Data Domain says 20+ hours per week when compared to using a tape library. Once the unit is configured it basically takes care of itself.
• With MTree replication we no longer need to send tapes to an offsite storage facility.
• Having a second data domain at our DR site allows us to perform recoveries from any of our replicated backups. We do not have to order and wait for tapes to arrive.

Incentivized