Dell NetWorker is an enterprise-level data protection software product that unifies and automates backup to tape, disk-based, and flash-based storage media across physical and virtual environments for granular and disaster recovery.
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Microsoft System Center
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Microsoft System Center is an enterprise-grade IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite designed for the centralized administration of data center infrastructure, virtualized environments, and hybrid cloud workloads. The platform provides unified management across heterogeneous environments, including support for Windows Server, Linux, and Azure Stack HCI.
System Center is Microsoft's ITOM stack for organizations that maintain a significant on-premise footprint, vs the company's Azure-based…
$1,323
Pricing
Dell Networker
Microsoft System Center
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard Edition
$1323
Datacenter Edition
$3607
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell Networker
Microsoft System Center
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell Networker
Microsoft System Center
Considered Both Products
Dell Networker
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Dell Networker
EMC and Unitrends are equal at the file level and SQL backups. What makes Unitrends the better product is the ability to backup VMs as a whole. They both have the ability to email reports about failures and hardware issues. Unitrends has superior support and knowledge base and …
Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Data Protection SME
Chose Dell Networker
Our trust in DataDomain as a premier deduplication technology naturally leads to [Dell EMC] Networker being the appropriate backup application to integrate with. Networker provides the most favorable dedup with DataDomain when compared to other backup technologies, and provides …
We've been actively looking at other products such as Rubrik or Cohesity in order to get a better experience as well as lower our overall time invested in running backups. Dell EMC Networker fails to stand up to these products in most ways. In our evaluations it was both …
I've used many DR platforms over the years: HP Data Protector, Veritas (formerly Symantec) Backup Exec, Acronis Backup Advanced, AppAssure (another Dell product), CommVault, and a few others. We selected Networker based on its integration with the Data Domain hardware we wanted …
Networker appears to be decent against NetBackup and Backup Exec as far as policy-based backup solutions are concerned and for stability. But it isn't as close to the virtualization layer as Veeam is and is not as feature rich as Commvault is, especially as it relates to …
Previously I have used MS DPM and Symantec Backup Exec. I think they all have similar strengths and drawbacks actually. In general, BE/DPN have slightly better interfaces and terminology but slightly worse backup and recovery reliability. I would recommend Networker over them …
NetWorker and CommVault are both rated in the top quadrant of Gartner's assessment of backup/recovery applications. We have used both for a number of years, and CommVault was the winner without any significant opposition technically from NetWorker. We moved from CommVault to …
SCCM is often considered superior to Intune because it is more predictable and transparent in day-to-day operations. Errors in SCCM are clearer and easier to troubleshoot, whereas Intune issues can feel vague and harder to diagnose. SCCM also offers rich, built-in features such …
Microsoft System Center really integrated with our windows system better than any other 3rd party product which obviously you would expect to a certain extent. Our main reason to procuring System Center (apart form the options)was licensing costs. We already had a Microsoft …
None. We are a Microsoft business, and this is THE tool for imaging, packaging, remote support, and antivirus management. Microsoft's tool is the best for managing its software, systems, and antivirus clients. I will say that Microsoft Intune, the cloud platform, can be used …
The capability of SCOM as far as monitoring Windows systems is concerned is far greater than any monitoring product out there as both are a Microsoft product so integration and discoveries work well and fast.
The versatility of the suite of application provided by the Microsoft experience center was way above the other competitors , it helped gained leverage over the other products in the market . That why we made the decision of choosing Microsoft system center as a infrastructure …
We use Azure, we have lisences, so we have no needs any other cost. And also, we want to save backup data in Azure. Veritas ask additional cost reagurally and have to rebuild bakcup environment.
Because Datadog was too small, we decided quickly to use Microsoft System Center. We use a lot of other Microsoft products so that discussion was quickly set internally.
We have used Ghost from Symantec (licensed), FOG and Clonezilla which are freeware products. All three products had their pros and cons. The two freeware products were functional but did lack some polish, and Ghost was a good product for imaging of desktop computers. All did …
We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows …
We are using Microsoft products for a long time, so the overall confidence played a part in the decision, the feature set and licensing cost was also very high when compared with above products, so we decided to use System Center for our environment, so far it has solved many …
We selected it simply because it is less expensive than the competition, but yet just as good. We saw no reason to go outside the walls of Microsoft for this task. We are satisfied with the product.
This was used to monitor uor non-Windows systems and was cumbersome. Their licensing was per device with how many agents you needed; however, with System Center Operations Manager, their billing was a lot easier for their product.
All comparative features are way expensive and complex to configure in all other competitors. Value to money and ease of deployment for Microsoft based environment
Microsoft System Center has more options. Microsoft System Center has the ability to image PCs as well as remotely connect to PCs, and software installation and patching where Symantec Ghost Solution Suite didn't handle all of these options as well. We haven't looked at many …
Much better UI for system center. Also, Tivoli was discontinued, so it was an easy decision. Altiris was acquired by Symantec but was unreliable and painful. It's UI was unresponsive and generally outdated. It wouldn't clean up old packages and would hog GB of disk space, …
SCOM is better than OMi for Windows-based servers monitoring. You need to know how to use Visual Studio to customize the management pack. Dynatrace is way better for all Application Performance Manager.
It has its similarities between the two from a ticketing standpoint but as a primarily Microsoft shop it is nice to have a product that was created to play along with other tools that we are using such as SCCM. We like Jira for the project management tools and Cherwell for …
It is an excellent product for monitoring features like Exchange, Active Directory, DNS. Monitors are custom designed and can be adjusted to any system. Great monitors can be created even when monitoring open-source systems.
How SCEP stacks up against some of the other AV solutions/products is that it does a pretty good job overall (not the best in the industry) at detecting/removing malware, which is the main focus for a product like this. It is also easy to use on the end-user side, which can't …
For users with a basic backup system that does not provide advanced data protection this is a life saver in the age we live in where hackers are looking to encrypt and ruin your important backups. I would recommend [Dell EMC Networker] based on its features, price, and ease of use. If you have a similar product already it does not offer many unique features however.
We used a product before that was designed to prevent users making changes and saving files to the desktop computer. This required a renewal of the license. By using SCCM in our environment we were able to discontinue using that product because SCCM allows us to completely restore a machine back to the original configuration. We have taught our users to save their individual work on either a network drive or a cloud drive. By doing this, if we do a re-image of their machine they have lost no data, and it makes for a faster resolution. In some instances having a computer in our SCCM environment it can become cumbersome when creating new users for very specific purposes. It can be done by creating new organizational units and applying new policies but when in a pinch it can be frustrating. For the most part we have tried to make "new" purpose images and groups to at least accommodate a quick install.
Networker terminology is awful. My favorite example is that many required-to-function configuration changes need to occur with the advanced configuration enabled. To make this worse, the 'advanced configuration' I am speaking of is actually called 'Debug Mode'. That's right, you must use debug mode in order to have a functional administrator interface.
Errors are common and to resolve you often must go to support. You really need to be an expert to fix many errors, the steps usually involve being really knowledgeable in the CLI tools, which I am getting good at, but the public documentation is seriously lacking for troubleshooting these issues. That said, support (through emc) is really good at handling the common issues, friendly, generally knowledgeable, and quick to respond.
It runs on Java, and sometimes I need to clear java cache to fix interface bugs. Generally this isn't an issue, but it is additional software you must worry about.
One of the biggest drawbacks to SCOM is the sheer scope and complexity of the system. This can be a pro and a con. The system is very customizable, what you put into it is what you'll get out of it. That said, the learning curve is fairly steep. An organization needs to be committed to putting time and resources into SCOM to get the most out of it. I've heard stories from colleagues of several different companies that invested in SCOM and then abandoned it due to the excessive time and care required.
SCOM is expensive. Not only is the enterprise licensing costly, SCOM requires it's own servers, operational and warehouse databases to be maintained.
The OOB SCOM reports are a bit clunky and feel outdated.
There are three reasons for not renewing our use of NetWorker: 1) the rising and extremely high cost of support and proprietary hardware needed for deduplication, 2) the complete unreliability of the product (we couldn't recover from a true disaster if we wanted to), and 3) the horrible support from EMC for the product
NetWorker has the clunkiest interface and unfriendliest CLI with which I have ever had to work. I spent three years hating this application because it took ALL of my time just to keep it running. Even then, I had no confidence in our ability to recover from a disaster because of its unreliability.
It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
The support team has always been good, and there is never an issue that can't be resolved. The techs are competent and know the product. The slightly less than perfect rating I'm giving is because Support shouldn't carry the burden themselves. We hear from Dell sales people all the time, but they never call and ask about this product, nor do they offer to upsell it or make it better. That lack of sales support and coherence hurts the overall rating a bit. When I spend my company's money on your product, I expect you to at least ACT like you care, if not actually care for real. It influences my opinion and future purchasing habits.
There is a fair amount of documentation out there to help you when you have questions or run into issues with this product as well as tutorials on some of the more common tasks. Between the documentation and the overall ease of use we haven't had to deal with direct Microsoft support for this product.
How can anyone build a house without a blueprint? NetWorker was ramrodded into place here without a design or implementation plan. The result was a setup that was doomed from the start and never worked reliable over the full three years of our contract obligation.
Our trust in DataDomain as a premier deduplication technology naturally leads to [Dell EMC] Networker being the appropriate backup application to integrate with. Networker provides the most favorable dedup with DataDomain when compared to other backup technologies, and provides the highest combination of protection flexibility and performance that most other applications cannot provide. For example, Veeam provides excellent VM backup capability, but is unable to protect Meditech. If you go down the list of backup applications, you'll find that Networker is unique in what it is able to protect and in its backup performance.
None. We are a Microsoft business, and this is THE tool for imaging, packaging, remote support, and antivirus management. Microsoft's tool is the best for managing its software, systems, and antivirus clients. I will say that Microsoft Intune, the cloud platform, can be used for those with heavy 365 usage, but for us, that does not meet our current company needs.
Now that it's been implemented and the many kinks worked out, we have far less exposure to downtime, but that's only because we didn't have an adequate backup solution in the target environment initially. We used native tools to protect SQL data and a few other tricks, but really didn't have anything proper. In other words, the bar was low.
We have reduced the load on some of our application servers through the use of Networker's agent for Microsoft. However, compare that with Veeam, which just has a checkbox and no agent required to properly back up a SQL box.
Agent-based backups require monitoring and periodic updates. This adds complexity and additional staff time to manage.
The positive impact it has had on ROI is that it has been a solid AV product in our environment, meaning it has worked well when running on client computers. It doesn't use a lot of system resources on the client-side, so that helps end-users productivity of not being slowed down.
It has been good for the end-user, since they really don't need to take additional training or consult user manuals, in how to use the product.
