Arctera Backup Exec vs. Veeam Data Platform

One of the differentials is that of all the backup tools I used, Veritas Backup Exec has the best management and control interface. It is very easy to use and configure the rules. There are several options that we can optimize our work for our specific needs, from scheduling a backup, restoring data, directories, alerts system, error reports, backups, inconsistencies and other very interesting things. It has integration with SQL, vmware, hyper v. Backup and restore speeds are fast and secure.

Incentivized

It is well-suited for most environments, from Small and medium businesses to large enterprises. But its cost may be prohibitive for smaller businesses with a limited budget. While there are multiple licensing levels, there may be a use case for creating a level between the community edition and the Foundation.

Incentivized

• The license/agent deployment feature in Backup Exec facilitates effective and speedy population within your data center.
• Veritas Backup Exec's feature rich job creation is intuitive and simplifies backup strategies.
• Customizable views in the Administrator console allow you to view your backup environment to maximize visibility.

Incentivized

• The ease of use in creating jobs and adding clients enables our new and less skilled administrators to work efficiently, quickly, and accurately.
• The same ease of use is essential for junior admins as well. Backups are quickly and accurately restored, allowing our networking team to bring clients back to production within expected times.
• The ability to create a restore for testing and to remove it quickly has proven to be an excellent asset for our production and DB teams.

Incentivized

• The user interface can sometimes be sluggish and hang between options.The minimum spec is 2Gb but if running on a dedicated server I think 4Gb is recommended
• As more companies seem to be entering the backup software market, Acronis is very aggressive on pricing and even offer discounts if you are replacing other backup solutions, the Backup Exec pricing plans have become a more expensive
• Our version is an older 2014 version and has inadequate support for VM backs

Incentivized

• On occasion, the 'reason' for a failed backup can be a little hard to understand. It would be nice if it were a bit more straightforward.
• I would love to run the platform natively on Linux, but I don't think it's an option.
• Sometimes, locating the correct update file for the platform software can be a bit confusing. If they had an option to download the correct update file from within the console, that would take some of the guesswork out of it.

Incentivized

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.

The platform has consistently delivered strong performance, reliability, and innovative features that align well with our data protection needs. Its robust capabilities in backup, recovery, and cloud integration have significantly improved our operational efficiency and disaster recovery planning. The only reason for not giving a full 10 would be our ongoing evaluation of emerging technologies and solutions to ensure we are maximizing our IT investments. Overall, Veeam Data Platform has proven to be an invaluable asset to our organization.

Incentivized

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.

It is a very robust solution that has never failed. It also has perfect integration with Windows server volume shadow copies. The processing load is moved from the backup server to the backup proxy. Increased fault tolerance: you can store data on a separate machine, the backup repository. Can perform a bare metal restore.

Incentivized

The weekly error on save needs a manual reload from me. The SDR can't restore the virtual machine of hyperV during a test.

Incentivized

The Veeam Backup & Replication solution is up and running every time you need it as it was planned. In more than 3 years that we have been using the product every night, it might have failed or presented an error once or twice, so the availability percentage is almost at 100%.

Incentivized

No problem for this point it is in the average.

Incentivized

Veeam does a good job with backing up our servers in a timely manner. We are still at the beginning of our Veeam use and are pleased with the speed at which we can access the system as well as the backups and restore points. Veeam is definitely superior to our previous backup system in terms of speed and accessibility

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The support team has never asked me to jump through silly hoops or waste time on pointless exercises. They seem to truly have a handle on what may be wrong. In fact, when we were having trouble getting our license renewal setup (because of yet another license migration at Veeam) a support incident got us connected to the right people to get our renewal done in time.

Incentivized

I rated the in-person training an 8 because it was generally effective and provided a solid foundation for understanding the Veeam Data Platform. The instructors were knowledgeable and engaged, making the sessions interactive. However, I felt that some topics could have been covered in more depth, and additional hands-on exercises would have further reinforced the learning experience. Overall, it was a positive training session that adequately prepared attendees for using the product, but there's room for improvement.

Incentivized

I gave it a rating of 7 because, although the online training offered valuable content and covered the essential aspects of the Veeam Data Platform, it lacked interactivity and opportunities for direct engagement with instructors. This made it challenging to ask questions or delve deeper into specific topics. Additionally, some sections felt a bit rushed, which could hinder a comprehensive understanding of more complex features. Overall, while the training was useful, improvements in interactivity and pacing could elevate the experience significantly.

Incentivized

It was pretty straightforward.

Plan the process and then work through your plan, i know this should go without saying but its easy to get sidetracked. You tend to want to just get up and running so you can have that sigh of relief, spend the time to talk to your business stakeholder to see what goals they are trying to accomplish and how that may impact your plans first.

Incentivized

Veritas Backup Exec is very comparable to Unitrends and in some areas is easier to use. The license side of Veritas Backup Exec is much more difficult to manage compared to Unitrends. Unitrends seems to be a much smoother solutions to protect virtual environments. Restoring data with Veritas Backup Exec is logical and easier to achieve, Unitrends is a bit less logical or intuitive.

Incentivized

I believe it's not possible to compare these three products, as none of them are as feature-rich as Veeam Data Platform. The addition of Proxmox-VE in version 12 was certainly a game-changer, as we were previously dependent on the VMware environment to access all the features that Veeam Data Platform offers.

Incentivized

We only use it on the on-premise version on a single site.

Incentivized

In terms of scalability for our company, Veeam was able to cover our backup needs with ease. They have options for even more individualized backup if we were to need them; i.e. if a specific workstation needs its own independent backup. We have not used these resources yet, but I am confident they will be beneficial to our company in the near future.

Incentivized

• As the person tasked with the job of protecting the company's data, I am glad that Backup Exec performs that job well. I am able to often set-it-and-forget-it and go about the rest of my duties. I have never had a situation where Backup Exec was called upon to restore data and it was unable to do so. This reflects well on both me and my department and provides a sense of security to the rest of the company.
• I am not making full use of the product and have not licensed a number of its features, but even the base feature set is impressive. To be clear, Backup Exec is no longer the only product we reply upon for data protection, but it is still a large part of that program. If an SMB can find the budget to afford to license the set of features meet its particular demands, Backup Exec will do what you need.
• As an industry leader, Backup Exec is well positioned to stay at the head of the pack (as they have done for many years) and provide their customers with a comprehensive set of capabilities that will always remain in the forefront of technology.

Incentivized

• Positive impact: it "saved our ass" on one occasion. In that particular scenario, we were hit with ransomware.
• On another occasion, it provided a means of building a staging environment from our production and saved us a significant amount of time from having to build from scratch.

Incentivized