Datto SIRIS vs. VMware Site Recovery (DRaaS)

Datto is a fantastic option for smaller businesses who don't have as large of a budget. It might work well for larger businesses as well, but the features are not exactly on par with more prevalent backup solutions. So, that should be kept in mind while determining a good fit for a company. But if selling a backup solution is met with push back, this can be a great option to give a good working backup solution. It offers the main features solutions should have, so it's definitely not a compromise. Just keep in mind the features it does not offer.

Incentivized

VMware Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery tools are well suited for customers who are heavily integrated with vSphere and VMs for their on-premises data centers today. VMware Cloud on AWS is great for customers who do not have DR sites and want to leverage the public cloud to build a DR site on demand quickly.

Incentivized

• Simple agent setup for new machines to be protected. A new machine can be setup on the server in under a minute whether it be a Linux or Windows based machine.
• Local virtualization on the Datto is quick to start up. After a physical problem with a server I had the machine locally virtualized on the Datto before users had a chance to report service issues to me.
• Nothing to do on my end to get backups shifted to offsite data center. Schedules are setup for each machine or group of machines and I sleep well knowing all our backups are safely stored offsite.

Incentivized

• Integration with VMware environments
• Simple to use for current VMware admins

Incentivized

• Initial backup sync: The downside to the cloud backup is that, if you have a lot of data, you need an external hard drive to seed to the cloud. And you usually have to request this after you've already got everything else working.
• Unsyncing: We have pretty decent bandwidth, but with 8TB of data, we'd get syncing issues with the cloud servers every 3 months or so. The only way to address it was to request another external drive and resync it, but that also meant losing the older data.
• Availability and support: Datto only operates through MSPs and VARs, and will not help you directly without putting in a ticket with your provider. This causes delays, and extra epenses, and if you grow beyond the need for an MSP, you have to keep them around for at least that piece.

Incentivized

• vSphere replication not as feature rich as storage replication
• Third party software necessary if looking into public cloud

Incentivized

I trust the product and service and am satisfied with the direction of the company

Incentivized

Usability is great. The web interface is simple and easy to use. While various options are available for client backups, it is very easy to re-use settings of the existing client, so adding new clients is a very fast process. Configuration of the agent on the client-side cannot be easier as well. Datto dashboard provides an overview of the client status, and email notifications can be configured for various events.

Incentivized

My specific example or reason for this rating goes back to a need for support after a client on this platform has a fire. In a nutshell, Datto had no idea how to BMR the image back to the server correctly, and as a result, the RAID on the server was lost, due to the Datto BDR environment not being able to see the RAID card, and the support technician knowing how to inject drivers.

Incentivized

VMware support is typically outstanding, of course, they have multiple departments, and you need to work with the specific teams to get advanced support for things specific to VMware Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery. In contrast, other companies that deal directly with that technology may be more responsive to those specifics. Typically VMware is excellent and helpful in critical outages. For smaller to medium issues, it can take some time to get addressed appropriately.

Incentivized

Datto seemed to be better than other vendors I trialed, and I inherited an Alto device, so it was easy to stay with them. I also assumed the backups had been working with the previous contractor, but it turns out they had been failing for months and no one knew it.

VMware is software and typically hardware agnostic, this does require extra design and consideration versus putting in backup appliances. Some other solutions are a software as well and can be layered on top of vSphere to enhance existing environments. We need to weigh the benefits of licensing versus software costs and the management cost of having multiple tools.

Incentivized

• In most cases, Datto will provide the appliance free of charge with a 3-5 year contract which results in a modest monthly fee instead of a large initial outlay and monthly fees.
• The contract's warranty is top-notch. Failed drives or issues with the appliances are replaced/corrected with free replacements and shipping.

Incentivized

• Requires running vSphere at target DR sites
• Potential licensing cost for cold/standby locations

Incentivized