Arctera Backup Exec is a backup and disaster recovery solution. It works in virtual, physical, and multi-cloud environments and integrates with several third-party software releases and applications.
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OpenText Data Protector
Score 4.9 out of 10
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OpenText Data Protector standardizes and consolidates backups across multiple platforms. It provides secure, comprehensive backup protection for business-critical data and applications whether virtual, physical, or online in the cloud.
When selecting a backup solution for our virtual environment we chose HP Data Protector for its cost savings in licensing, our familiarity with the software and the ability to backup to disk, tape or both with the standard installation.
Backup Exec works well generally in most environments or situations. The licensing can potentially be a nightmare, but manageable if you have a decent reseller. Backing up and restoring from physical tapes which is not all that common is not as reliable as when backing up and restoring from datastores that reside on hard drives or digital media. It does a good job with large or small backup jobs. Backing up and managing SQL backups requires additional licenses and be a bit clunky. If you are very careful (which you should be anyway) and document as you build these backups you will get better at managing them. Regarding a virtual environment, I have limited experience in that arena, but have done it. Backup Exec can backup VMware environments, but honestly we moved to Unitrends to backup our VM's and are much happier with the backup process. However, restoring a VM in Unitrends can be tedious compared to Backup Exec.
Well suited: scenarios with very specific backups schedules; backups saved in tape libraries. Less appropriate: environments with older Operational Systems and older hardware, such as tape libraries.
Manage agent based backups - It is easy to schedule and monitor backups. Verifying backups is done for all jobs. Backup performance is excellent.
Provide a wide ranging contingent of backup options - Despite providing a dizzying array of backup options, it is easy to schedule individual or recurring jobs.
Integrates well with our Active Directory - Restoring even individual Active Directory objects is possible.
Could provide better license management from an inventory perspective. How many licenses do I have?.. etc.
When Backup Exec backs up itself it should not select iSCSI backup targets by default. The result is recursive data backup ending in the loss of storage capacity.
This software is a mess in my brutally honest opinion. I've spent more time babysitting this software while backing up 20 servers than I did with Veeam backing up 600+. I've had multiple jobs run fine for weeks at a time that just randomly fail out of the blue for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There's no intuitive way to chain jobs, so automation becomes somewhat more problematic if certain jobs depend on other jobs. The forever incremental feature feels tacked on since the merge operation merges all your incremental jobs into the most recent backup and doesn't have the option set a limit on how long to keep your point in time restores.
It was just not a good fit for our organization. We have an EMC SAN, Data Domain backup storage, and VMWare. Without any other HP software or hardware in our environment I do not see the need to continue using a product that is not well integrated with our other brands
It can do a lot of things on paper and sounds terrific, but in practice it doesn't do any of them well. It can easily be sold to non-technical minds and C-levels, but of all the backup solutions I've used in the last 15 years of my career, Backup Exec is easily the least fault tolerant. Unless this software is a sunk cost and you're on a shoestring budget, I recommend almost anything else. Jobs fail often with obscure error codes and the KB articles in the Veritas support portal are a mess. Within 30 days of a fresh deployment I've logged more tickets with their support than I did in 3 years with Veeam.
Very easy to use. What needs to improve is to make it easier to configure some integrations and features, such as office 365 integration, acropolis integration, block change-based backup, etc. Despite we have documentation, even following all the steps, the integration is hard to implement or doesn't work in the end.
In the few instances of having to contact support, our overall outcome was always good. They would have received a better score if the wait time was less, but I attribute this to the timing of support calls - it was during the previous owner's time. We have not had to open a support ticket since Veritas Backup Exec took the product back over.
It is the weak point of this software, although it is improving little by a little. The first level of support does not solve almost anything until you move on to a higher level that is more involved.
If your company is looking at changing solutions or currently does not have any, Veritas Backup Exec is the way to go. Do yourself a favor and try the 60 day trial, you won't be disappointed! Very simple to use and has a great GUI, much better than what the competition has to offer.
When selecting a backup solution for our virtual environment we chose HP Data Protector for its cost savings in licensing, our familiarity with the software and the ability to backup to disk, tape or both with the standard installation.
Backups by their very nature are difficult to quantify when it comes to ROI. Any monies spent should be seen more as insurance . If you never have to claim on it then that is the best outcome. Backup Exec gives you comfort that you can meet any downtime recovery targets set by your business and this is how to benchmark your solution.
Conduct regular DR tests and your this will be your ROI.
