Microsoft System Center vs. BDRSuite

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.

I've been working with nearly every backup program for more than 25 years from small shops to corporations with thousands of users. Vembu BDR [Suite] is a great product for any business, large or small. It is missing a couple of options that maybe the most popular one has but it doesn't prevent protecting your business. When budget is an issue it's by far the best option. Being able to provide it to our clients is an added bonus since that makes it so much easier to manage when everyone is using the same product. When it comes to technical support, I haven't experienced support like Vembu Support in years. They are quick to respond, happy to remotely connect if desired and seem to really understand their product well. Many others I've worked with refuse to help, and send responses that have nothing to do with my question or they simply provide a link to a document and basically tell me to read and figure it out myself. Often that document does not relate to my issue. I've always done my research before contacting support and that kind of response is one of the biggest reasons we decided to look elsewhere and after many trials and deep testing, ultimately switched to Vembu. Vembu has been rock solid, fast, and tech support has been top-notch.

The biggest place I would say that VembuBDR is less appropriate is when you have the desire to backup your physical systems to multiple internal storage devices and want a secondary backup as a safety net and don’t want to risk that the backup itself is corrupt or infected and your only other option is a mirrored copy of that data.

I know they are working hard on adding features and I’m excited to know version 5 is releasing soon.

• Provides our users the ability to deploy and manage our own datacenter based on defined software with understandable solutions for storage, compute, networking and security.
• We are able to update at once all the computers from all departments without having to install the OS on every computer.
• It allows us to have everything in one place for database management and datacenter inspection as well.

• Bare metal system images. These are incredibly flexible, enabling you to do dissimilar hardware restores, local or online backups and restore to VHD
• Full, differential and transaction log backups for SQL server, ensuring rapid backup and restore, with maximum storage efficiency.
• Incremental backups for files, meaning only the changes which have been made to a file are backed up, dramatically reducing time to backup and increasing storage efficiency.

• Needs web based storefront for requesting new software
• Needs ability to manage the packaging work flow better
• Sometimes is slow to download and there is no indication the entire catalog is being loaded, resulting in confused users not being able to find common software in the available list.

• Although its interface is simple, a web-only interface for a backup solution isn't recommended as the main interface.
• Using PostgreSQL as the configuration DB Source is OK. But, the lack of options for the Database isn't OK. Especially on a Windows Environment, admins prefer using a centralized MS SQL Instance, and this is not possible with Vembu.
• More work needed on SharePoint, Active Directory, and Exchange Restores. All three are critical workloads in almost any infrastructure.
• Reporting can be greatly improved.

I think the product will remain useful for us and as the company keeps improving features it will continue to be relevant and useful. We don't like switching technology much and BDR solutions shouldn't be something that a company replaces every few years., that's why most likely we will keep using it.

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.

Vembu is a great solution, but it still requires some fine-tuning. The user interface for Managed Service Providers could be more streamlined. Support logs need to provide clearer information about an issue whenever there's a failure. Backup agents should have the ability to automatically update when there's a new version and support should be on-shore during US business hours.

If I had to dislike something about the system it would be how much it changes once you upgrade. This could be more of a problem of mine since I get used to one way and don't like it when it changes so much. I am enjoying the newest update, but it is a mess when you are actually going through the upgrades.

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.

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

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 Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.

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.

• We have been able to automate our patch management, firmware and other security concerns.
• We have a standardized "image" ensuring our setup is consistent across the enterprise. This alone has saved us in time to support and time to understand how to use our desktops.

• 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