Arcserve backup appliances are presented by the vendor as combining enterprise-ready software and industrial-grade hardware united, to create turnkey backup appliances for disaster recovery (DR) and application availability – now with Sophos Intercept X Advanced for defense against malware, exploits, and ransomware.
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PowerProtect DD Series
Score 8.6 out of 10
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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…
Very good for quick onsite file and email restores. The built-in granular email restore tool is honestly amazing. The file restore options are similarly useful allowing the restoration of a single file or email from any restore point, making those little restore jobs super quick. It might not be the best for a bare metal restore however, as while it does have this functionality, it requires some additional setup of a server before a backup to allow this to work.
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.
Scalability. Main issue is each appliance has a finite space for backups, and can't be increased on the box itself without replacing it with another appliance completely.
Onboard interface. Doesn't have an interface that's accessible via the web natively. While that's great for security, it is a little awkward if you need to access it from offsite.
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.
It's very easy to use. Plug it in, run through the wizard and you're pretty much set. Hardly ever have to go back in and check on it. Everything can be scheduled fairly granularly. The console is simple and laid out well. While doing a restore takes a number of steps, it is not hard to follow what you're doing. A few things couple be displayed better, but the built in help options do explain things well enough.
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
[I] have only used it a couple of times, but they've always been responsive and solved the issues I've had. Time to get to a person was fairly low, under 10 minutes each time.
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.
Barracuda had the best console of the three we evaluated. Cloud hosted it was the easiest to access. However, it took forever to do the initial seeding backup, and then the nightly backups ran over into the next day. It was just so slow to do the backups - we never even tried a restore. The resulting backups also seemed to take up a significant amount of the appliances space, it was almost 3/4 full from the get go. Unitrends did not have natively a granular email restore option, it had a third-party option, but that was not something we were interested in. It also took a long time to run the backups. Arcserve was the fastest by far, [as] it did not fill up as much (way better deduplication) and it had a built-in granular email restore. While I wish it had a cloud console, overall it had the most important features we were looking for.
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.
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.
