Axcient x360Recover vs. BDRShield vs. IDERA SQL Safe Backup

I feel that Axcient x360Recover is well suited for any environment, both large and small. Weather you build your own device, BYOD or purchase one of theirs, it all works great. I even use it at home via the direct to cloud option. Well work the investment. I am unable to find a downside at this time.

It provides reliable daily backup tasks and it is important for us to have no worries of system crush. BDRSuite is full featured, I had been using BDRSuite to replicate servers from Hyper-v to ESXi, it's quite useful and easily to process than other VM migration tools between different platform. BDRSuite costs less than other backup product because I can decrease/increase/allocate license between VMs easily. The license charge two ways, server or VM. We choose VM license.

Incentivized

SQL Safe is appropriate and well-suited for any backup scenario. Having used SQL Safe, I probably wouldn't want to manage a set of servers in the future without it. If you only have a couple of SQL servers, it might not be worth the spend as there are well-maintained free options that are very functional (though they do require more technical knowledge). But I can't think of a scenario where SQL Safe wouldn't be appropriate.

Incentivized

• Setup and configuration is extremely easy.
• The business continuity component for spinning up the desired recovery point as a virtual machine on the appliance in order to keep the business operational is rock solid.
• Recovering the desired backup point back to the physical hardware or virtual environment and syncing the most recent changes to finalize the recovery is awesome.
• The system documentation is concise and easy to use.
• The support team is absolutely fantastic.

• Seed an offsite backup. A simple checkbox to seed a large backup prior to backing it up to our datacenter. Previously with another well knows backup provider this was convoluted and time-consuming.
• Backup Speed. Vembu BDR is fast and allows me to schedule multiple jobs within time constraints that prohibit some backup products from working.
• DR - Vembu BDR provides an option to mirror your backups to an offsite datacenter without taxing production servers with a secondary backup job.
• Bare Metal Recovery: the ability to create a custom bootable ISO that you can quickly recover a failed physical server or workstation.
• Ease of use: The console is consistent and very easy to use. From initial install to being fully configured takes just a few minutes.

• History visibility
• Very intuitive
• Easy to set up

Incentivized

• The only thing missing is the ability to cancel a backup as they appear to just continue to try to run even after rebooting the BDR and endpoint until a failure finally occurs.
• The only other ask would be to expand support to Linux operating systems.

Incentivized

• User interface on the servers do not have enough tools to better monitor the systems and finding information is difficult.
• User interface at portal is difficult to navigate and confusing
• Support documentation is too generic and rarely answers my questions.
• Licensing and acquisition. As a reseller and partner the licensing model is confusing and the portal interface to manage licensing should be scrapped and rebuilt. It is difficult to navigate and the available information is too vague.
• Recently, communication with new channel contact. My previous contact was articulate and answered my questions.
• Did I mention licensing? This is the most confusing and difficult process I've dealt with in 25 years. Makes Microsoft look simple.

Incentivized

• When you're adding a new SQL server, sometimes the install from the management server to the SQL server will fail. I'm guessing this happens because of some version difference in Windows components or similar. Not a huge deal because you can just copy the agent to the SQL server and install it there, but considering how easy everything else is, I would expect this to be a little more fluid.
• I ran into a situation where part of our business decided to move their servers to a third-party data center. When they took away a SQL server that I was managing with SQL Safe, anything having to do with that policy took forever. Click. Wait 10 minutes. Window reacts. I'm guessing this is because the Management Console is trying super hard to contact the server in question, but I wish it handled losing a server better than it does.

Incentivized

We've been using Axcient over the years and have worked with their development team to suggest new features, something that you would not normally be able to do with other companies. They listen to what we have to say and understand that we are a business, just like them. It's great to know that someone will always be there for you when you need them.

Incentivized

Because of the product functions and possibilities: - it's easy to use through WEB browser - installation process is not complicated - Vembu BDR solution is reliable, and works properly. It does the job. This product could get extra points for the appliance that could be imported to virtual environment (no need for windows server license or some linux knowledge).

Incentivized

It is overall very easy to install and get working. Install the application, select the drives you want to backup or leave blank and backup all drives. It starts to run immediately. You configure all the backup retention and how often to run in the portal so once you deploy the agent it is very easy to get started. After the backup completes. The portal will perform a test boot and auto verification of the image.

Incentivized

Friendly web interface very clear, nicely and professionally designed. Usability, setup and forget. It has all features you need for hybrid environments even if you don't use it. You know the features are there when you needed. Email report is so informative. You get all the details about completed backup without logging in the system

Incentivized

Support is pretty good. The issue is that they don't have any SLA so they get to you whenever. Though, if you hound them, they usually bump you up in the chain and get back to you. Their techs are fairly knowledgeable. Occasionally the first level support isn't the best, but once it bumps up to the next level, they are good.

Incentivized

It often takes a very long time to get an issue fixed. the support folks seem committed to getting it fixed but they often seem to be trying different things and hoping something works. I did not get the sense that they had a clear idea what was wrong.

Incentivized

I had the miss fortune to go back to this device. Alot has changed since the first time I had used it. Now instead a full deployable network appliance, you have to download a preconfigured virtual machine that will only run on an ESXi server. What about Hyper-V? I have many clients that are Hyper-V only. I setup a test lab to get this thing up and running and it has been a nightmare to say the least. Will be looking at other options.

Incentivized

It wasn't difficult at all, it fact, it was mostly simple, implementation doesn't require much skills and knowledge, but the configuration part does require some skills to create the jobs and configure certain settings, overall, its an easy implementation, especially for experienced IT People

Incentivized

Security and encryption of Axcient is a top priority . Axcient have all the tools to provide solutions to different kind of businesses Best part is it has an MSP friendly console to manage multiples devices and clients at the same Dashboard. Deployment process is very easy in Windows an VMWare Devices.

I tested Vembu against Veeam and for the price, Vembu was the better option. I also had a great support experience as I had to contact Vembu twice after mistakes I made. While using Veeam the software was not as intuitive and support responses were not as swift and accurate.

Incentivized

IDERA SQL Safe Backup winning thanks to the pricing, nothing more.

Incentivized

• The few customers I have I feel confident and comfortable that a disaster will make recovery easy and fast for my clients.
• I can set it up and forget about it with reports and alerts
• I recommend it to any client that requires a good solid backup solution;

• For organizations that use different tools for Backup and recovery, this could be the single tool for Storage and Backup Administrators to automate and work effectively.
• Software cost is lesser thus the money can be invested for other tools/software procurement
• I don't think there is any negative impact as of now

Incentivized

• SQL Safe allows me to spend less time managing my DR plan and still maintain confidence that my backups and restores are solid. Saving my time means saving money.
• SQL Safe does an amazing job at backup compression over and above SQL's native compression. SQL backups are probably our single largest consumer of network drive space. Any product that helps reduce my network footprint, saves money.

Incentivized