Dell Avamar vs. Cove Data Protection

This software is well suited for companies that want to be very in control of their backups but need a simple tool. It could be convenient for them to just buy their own node, locate it in a different location, and set up the jobs for their machines to backup to the cloud with the specific plugins. However, it would not be convenient for companies looking to have a tool that needs to be secure and compliant, and that need to have different other options for business continuity.

Incentivized

Solarwinds Backup is ideal for individuals looking to keep a consistent backup of devices in their environment. We used it primarily for networking equipment. It is easy to set up, as it is one of the steps available when adding a new device to solarwinds. It is probably not an ideal product to use for long-term (1 month+) backups.

Incentivized

• Avamar performs data deduplication on the remote host. This greatly reduces the amount of traffic that each backup requires. This even applies to the virtual environment through change block tracking. Backup times are reduced from hours to minutes.
• The management interface makes it easy to configure and maintain data retention periods. Many times certain data must be kept for an extended period of time. There is a specific menu for managing retention periods.
• The system is able to recover itself from a hard failure with virtually no loss of backups. There is a checkpoint taken each day that provides a recovery point in the event of a catastrophic failure. Since this is a node based system, the loss of more than one node could require a recovery be performed.
• While another grid must be purchased, the replication utility allows all backups to be replicated to another grid at a remote location. This ensures the resilience of the backups in the event there is the loss of the primary data center.
• Also works on HCI devices performing image-level backups as in our primary data center environment
• There is also now an All-in-One appliance for smaller locations

Incentivized

• Backup Reporting: Email alerts, and a great, easy to read Dashboard with detailed error logs and an easy to search Solarwinds FAQ for a lot of them.
• Restores: So far I have restored files, full VMs, and VMs to other hardware, and so far it has not only been flawless, but so flexible that I can't imagine going back to any other software.

Incentivized

• The client interface has constant JAVA issues and can be slow and chunky. We have often had issues with current versions of JAVA breaking it so it will not even run.
• The backup clients are split out for function. Although this makes them light, it also makes it cumbersome to upgrade clients. The naming scheme can also be confusing for the clients.

Incentivized

• Restore complete settings: IP settings, the setting of CPU/Memory for VMs, etc. would decrease management during a restore.
• Individual file backup: more granular settings for backup.
• Change of device name after setup: at times, computer names change after restore so it would be great to rename the device name.
• Option to recovery security key.

Incentivized

I have been using the product for over five years. This has performed so well that with the current system reaching its End-of-Life with EMC next year, I have proposed replacing it with the latest version of the product. Now that it integrates with Data Domain, the cost has been greatly reduced. Instead of the need to purchase many nodes, one Data Domain can replace them creating a significant cost savings.

Incentivized

The system overall is easy to monitor and see your backup/restore status. The user interface could use updating as it relies on Java and any updates to Java cause the interface to stop working need to be reinstalled

Incentivized

Cove Data Protection is very usable as it's easy to tell that it is made to not only do backup very well, but it's also easy to deploy. The agent-based deployment allows for flexible deployment options while ensuring a minimal amount of manual work is needed on the dashboard end. Recovery is also very easy, especially as it relates to one-off file recovery

Support is very convincing, always eager to solve issues from the root rather than workaround, don't hesitate to take webex, describe the issues to the core and recommend configuration to avoid further issues. We can ask few questions other than the main issue. They don't hesitate to answer.

Incentivized

We have an Italian support partner, they are been very good b7y the first moment.

All the partners are followed with a lot of attention, even the little ones.

there is a site where you can learn everything, the single parts of the product are described perfectly.

Every it specialist should evaluate it.

Incentivized

Avamar has simplied the back up approach in their VE edition and is much easier to use than Data Protector. Backing up multiple VMs takes minutes instead of hours now. Creating policies, retentions, and schedules, is vastly improved and much easier.

Incentivized

Cove is able to cover all aspects of backup in a single package. From the same dashboard I can check servers, workstations, and even Office 365. Cove is a much better solution in terms of overall management for a company such as ours. It also provides integration options with N-Able's RMM and Take Control solutions. This allows us to offer our customers with a full service suite in a single package.

Incentivized

• Absolute Zero ROI
• This appliance does not work in its current state and to update we need to wait 2-3 months
• Can't wait to get rid of it and replace it with something else. (not even sure if we will be able to get it running before that)
• [I think] this is one of the worst mistakes we made

Incentivized

• There has been NO negative impact to out ROI, but it definitely helps our bottom line. Affordable pricing and solid support make Solarwinds Backup almost a no brainer. That interprets to a growing ROI.
• The best thing to happen to our ROI is the growth brought in by very happy clients.

Incentivized