Dell Networker vs. Nasuni

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.

Incentivized

Well suited if you have a lot of data that doesn't need to be stored and read right away. I think even if you don't have much data, you can still use it for it's intended purpose to great effect, but think of it as the more data you have, the even better it will work. I don't think it would be particularly useful if you already have a slick file restore system in place and you don't need to store your data elsewhere with redundancy.

Incentivized

• Seamlessly integrates with DataDomain
• Seamlessly integrates with vmWare for extremely fast VM backups
• Provides agent-based integration for a very wide array of applications-aware backups, including but not limited to: Microsoft SQL/Exchange/Sharepoint, Meditech, Oracle, DB2, Informix, SAP
• Integrates with a wide family of NAS solutions for NDMP backups

• The management console is extremely simple and easy to navigate, making common tasks easy to do.
• Our storage appliance is configured to snapshot data several times an hour, making the risk of data loss very low.
• Data restores are very intuitive, and take seconds to initiate regardless of whether it is one file or 300GB of data. We have successfully restored many Gigs of data in minutes.

Incentivized

• The GUI is horrible. Giant windows that don't size properly, confusing terminology, multiple clicks to get things done, it's just a disorganized mess. I can't put this in front of my junior techs because it requires some background in DR software to fully comprehend, and even then it's not easy. It feels very much like this was tacked on to a command-line based product as an afterthought.
• Better management features. It's difficult to integrate with Active Directory, for one. You'll need a Dell EMC tech to help you. Items can't be renamed and have to be recreated. Options are buried in multiple GUI tabs and often are just command line strings in a free-text field. Diagnosing failed jobs and workflows is cumbersome and the errors are often cryptic without some experience. Design it well and pray for uptime, because you need this to work when disaster requires it to.
• Poor reporting features for an enterprise class product. You can't schedule any type of simple summary (an audit requirement for us) in the base product. To do this requires the additional cost of Data Protection Advisor, which is also horribly designed and impossible to get working quickly.
• Post-sales contact is non-existent. We've been through a few reps and the project team dropped us at one point with a half-finished implementation when the original sales guy moved on. We only got the the promised product implementation by telling Dell that we weren't paying the bill until they delivered what they promised and were contractually obligated to.

Incentivized

• Better analytics when issues arise.
• Better onboarding documentation.
• Real-time monitoring.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

As I mentioned, the user interface is amazing and straight forward. It's very easy to learn how to configure and restore files. I would like a bit more reporting, especially in terms of live reporting and monitoring. The support is great when you have a question on how to do something, which helps with usability.

Incentivized

Again, it may have a little to do with the size and speed of your own environment, but we've been nothing but pleased with the speed of access of the files - even pulling old files from the cloud storage. Recovery of huge and many data files is a bit slow if you don't have the specs of the filer up to snuff.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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 support is available 24/7.

Incentivized

The technical support and escalation path for Nasuni is much more reliable and efficient. No getting transferred to various teams. Often times, the person who answers your call is able to resolve your issue. If they cannot, they get the case assigned to the appropriate engineer right away. Time to close has always been very good.

Incentivized

• When you get into the deep dive of features there is quite a learning curve for those options so it's a lot to learn.
• Restores and restore verification is very fast so you save some time there.
• Costs are fairly high so an ROI may take some time vs a standard backup software.

Incentivized

• Dramatically reduced time spent managing our storage platform. Quotas and reporting tools take all the guesswork out of data growth. Updates are easy to deploy. Time freed up can be used for more user-facing activities that we consider more valuable to the organization.
• The overall stability of the platform has been very good. We have been running on the same hardware for the past four years without any performance issues.

Incentivized