Hornetsecurity VM Backup (formerly Altaro) is a backup and replication solution for Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. VM Backup can manage large infrastructures, with the revamped backup repository providing long-term storage and more efficient use of disk space.
$59.80
per VM/per year
PowerProtect DD Series
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
PowerProtect DD (a next-generation appliance replacing Dell EMC Data Domain) is a suite of hardware appliances used for
data protection, backup, storage and deduplication. PowerProtect appliance offerings are
cloud-enabled and vary by organization size, capable of supporting small
business and enterprises.
PowerProtect appliances are separated into two categories: entry-level
to midrange, and enterprise.
Entry-Level to Midrange Backup Appliances
PowerProtect…
Do you have VMWare? Yes I can back it up. Do you have Hyper-V? Yes I can back it up. That in itself should speak for itself. Altaro has really given a great deal into their software, not only making it easy to use, BUT also a really good and reliable product where you can support your workloads hassle-free, and super lightweight
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.
Fast and simple setup. I didn't need to read through ANY documentation to set up and have a backup running.
Easy and cost-effective licensing. I didn't need to count CPU's or VM's or other random facts to work out my licensing. Just how many hosts, and then one of 3 feature levels of which two have unlimited VM licensing. Hosts x Feature Set = Cost.
Easy Restores. Backing up is one thing, but restoring and having confidence in the restore is another. It just works, simple and effective.
Help is easy to find if you need it. From within the app, it gives you options of email, phone, and live chat, which is usually available even with odd time zones in play.
More cloud-based storage options. Currently, only Azure is supported, which is excellent, but it would be good to have AWS and Google storage options too.
It would be AWESOME if they could do a restore from Azure cloud direct to an Azure VM instance. Currently, you need to set up an Azure VM machine with nested Hyper-V, install Altaro on that, and then restore into a nested VM, this gets crazy expensive.
Better notification of errors, or more around having a threshold, so if it misses one backup of a constant backup that happens every 5 minutes but recovers at the 10 minutes back, it is ok. Just think it needs to identify significant or long-running issues better than the occasional little issues.
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.
A lot of people in the technical industry deliver what I would call snack crackle pop topics, where the software gets over complicated, and they drown people in all the "fancy" features. Altaro, from my point of view" has designed the software to be super usable, easy to implement, as well as support. It is really one of the best designs
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
One of the most important benefits of the Altaro HyperV backup solution is the support. From the free edition, you're able to chat with the support that can assist you in a remote session an find a quick solution that solves the issue. It is always available. The email support is also.
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.
The only other competitor I am personally familiar with is Carbonite. I use that for file-level backups throughout my network and it works well but while it does offer backups for virtual machines, I have never found it to be a reliable option. Jobs failed for me regularly for no apparent reason. In the handful of times I have needed support, they were helpful and straight-forward.
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.
Restoring our primary ERP VM has already saved many hours of rebuilding from data backups, so that in itself already gave us an excellent ROI for having Altaro running.
The quick and easy setup also makes sense for a fast ROI as we didn't need to spend much time or effort in its set up.
Lastly, any other restores we have done for retrieving files or testing backups were so simple and easy to do that the process didn't take long and saved us time and cost.
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.
