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Bacula Enterprise

Bacula Enterprise

Overview

What is Bacula Enterprise?

Bacula Enterprise is a data center backup, restore, and recovery solution from Swiss, Dracula-themed software company Bacula Systems.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Bacula Enterprise is a versatile backup tool widely used by businesses to ensure the safety and accessibility of their data. Users praise …
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TSM Convert

10 out of 10
July 06, 2023
I've recently started using Bacula Enterprise after switching from IBM's TSM. I wanted to do a proof on concept before …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

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  • Multiple backup destinations (44)
    10.0
    100%
  • Incremental backup identification (45)
    10.0
    100%
  • Platform support (46)
    10.0
    100%
  • Retention options (46)
    9.7
    97%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is Bacula Enterprise?

Bacula Enterprise is a data center backup, restore, and recovery solution from Swiss, Dracula-themed software company Bacula Systems.

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  • No setup fee

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  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Features

Data Center Backup

Data center backup tools send data to a secure storage location after encryption and de-duplication

9.3
Avg 8.1
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Product Details

What is Bacula Enterprise?

Bacula Enterprise is a modern backup, restore, and disaster recovery solution for medium and large enterprises that does not penalize you for data volume.

Bacula delivers a complete feature set to meet the needs of the most demanding data centers, MSPs and cloud providers. With a combination of reliability and functionality, it spans virtual, physical and cloud environments, all from one platform. The vendor says their product is designed with flexibility, scalability and high security in mind, and uses an industry standard SQL database, supports relational database catalogs, and has heterogeneous client support including Linux, OS X and Windows, as well as backup to disk, tape, virtual tape, robotic libraries, public and private Cloud.

According to the vendor, Bacula Systems works to deliver extremely high standards of support. Customers receive direct access to senior support engineers.

Bacula Enterprise Features

Data Center Backup Features

  • Supported: Instant recovery
  • Supported: Recovery verification
  • Supported: Multiple backup destinations
  • Supported: Incremental backup identification
  • Supported: Backup to the cloud
  • Supported: Deduplication and file compression
  • Supported: Snapshots
  • Supported: Flexible deployment
  • Supported: Management dashboard
  • Supported: Platform support
  • Supported: Retention options
  • Supported: Encryption

Bacula Enterprise Video

Bacula Enterprise Edition (www.baculasystems.com/products/bacula-enterprise) is the modern data backup, restore and disaster recovery solution that does not penalize you for data volume. Bacula Enterprise Edition is a subscription-based enterprise data backup solution which ...
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Bacula Enterprise Integrations

Bacula Enterprise Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, FreeBSD, AIX, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat, Suse, OpenSuse
Mobile ApplicationAndroid

Frequently Asked Questions

Bacula Enterprise is a data center backup, restore, and recovery solution from Swiss, Dracula-themed software company Bacula Systems.

Veeam Data Platform, Veritas Backup Exec, and Tivoli Business Service Manager (legacy) are common alternatives for Bacula Enterprise.

Reviewers rate Instant recovery and Recovery verification and Multiple backup destinations highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Bacula Enterprise are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(56)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Bacula Enterprise is a versatile backup tool widely used by businesses to ensure the safety and accessibility of their data. Users praise the software's flexibility, power, and adaptability to accommodate ongoing changes and evolving needs. For example, the BGW Group relies on Bacula Enterprise to perform daily backups of their company servers, which consist of a mix of physical and virtual machines running different operating systems. The software's comprehensive backup solution supports plugins for MySQL, Postgres, LDAP, Docker, and S3, making it an ideal choice for universities like the Rectory, where it performs daily backups of critical systems. Similarly, CloudHQ values Bacula Enterprise for its reliability in backup and restore operations across their mixed Windows/Linux environment. The Brazilian Naval Supply System Command depends on Bacula Enterprise for efficient backup and restore of their database, taking advantage of its advanced features and ability to handle high volumes of data. Additionally, individuals and organizations use Bacula Enterprise as a cost-effective and flexible solution for data backup and restore needs. Government facilities employ the software to protect meteorological and hydrographic data while ensuring fast restoration capabilities, serving as their last line of defense against encryption attacks. With its value-for-money proposition and simple management interface, Bacula Enterprise is trusted by many companies to centralize backup solutions for heterogeneous systems. It provides compatibility with different environments and expertly handles monitoring, encryption, secure cloud support, and multi-platform compatibility. Municipalities such as Campinas rely on Bacula Enterprise as their primary backup tool for structured and unstructured data across various applications and operating systems. In the case of McLean Imaging Center, Bacula Enterprise backs up servers, databases, virtualized environments, applications, and shared files – delivering an effective backup framework for disaster recovery purposes. Furthermore, users leverage Bacula Enterprise's extreme security measures and fast data recovery capabilities for tasks such as restoring lost files or performing bare metal recoveries. The software's efficiency, compression, and storage reduction capabilities have garnered high regard from the data recovery industry. Bacula Enterprise is used in different scenarios, including by technical teams managing big projects, organizations performing file-based backups, and government facilities aiming to make backups accessible. Its centralized management features, user-friendly graphical interface, and support for various operating systems are highly appreciated by users across industries. With a focus on agility and security, Bacula Enterprise is the go-to backup solution for organizations with virtualized environments, physical servers, files, and databases. It caters to a wide range of backup needs, such as daily backup maintenance, data recovery from servers and databases, and compliance with legal agreements. Bacula Enterprise offers centralized management through a graphical interface, allowing multi-user access and providing solutions to various backup problems. The software's simple and efficient interface automates backup tasks and supports different operating systems. It is frequently used for backup and restore of virtual machines, file servers, email accounts, ACLS, active directory, and databases like Oracle and PostgreSQL. Users appreciate the optimization of backup workflows, resulting in faster routines and enhanced data security. Whether it's a department within an organization or the entire corporate technological environment, Bacula Enterprise is chosen as the backup solution for extensive information systems. From backing up physical servers, virtual machines, files, and databases to managing backups across multiple data centers, Bacula Enterprise proves its value with cost-effectiveness, efficient compression, and storage reduction capabilities. Users have reported positive experiences with the software's quick response times and helpful support from the support team. With its ease of administration and good cost-benefit ratio compared to traditional solutions, Bacula Enterprise is considered an effective choice for businesses seeking reliable data protection across a diverse range of systems.

Efficient Backup Process: Many users have found the backup process of Bacula to be efficient, allowing them to specify file size for backups and easily locate and restore their data. This pro has been mentioned by several reviewers, highlighting its effectiveness in streamlining the backup process.

Complex and Flexible Scheduling System: The complex and efficient scheduling system of Bacula has received praise from a number of users. They appreciate the customization options and flexibility it offers, allowing them to tailor their backup schedules according to their specific needs.

Data Deduplication Feature: Users have commended the data deduplication feature of Bacula, which helps optimize storage by eliminating duplicate data. This valuable feature has been mentioned by multiple reviewers as it contributes to more efficient use of storage resources.

Outdated Backup Storage Format: Some users have found the backup storage format in Bacula Enterprise to be outdated, lacking deduplication support. They feel that this hampers the efficiency and effectiveness of their backups.

Inconsistent Support for Filesystem Snapshots on Non-Windows Platforms: Several reviewers have complained about the inconsistent support for filesystem snapshots on non-Windows platforms in Bacula Enterprise. This limitation poses challenges for users who rely on these platforms for their backup processes.

Interface Needs Improvement: Users have expressed frustration with the interface of Bacula Enterprise, both graphical and CLI, stating that it still needs improvement. They find it unintuitive and not user-friendly, which can slow down their workflow and make it difficult to navigate the software effectively.

Users recommend Bacula for its data security, low cost, and guaranteed updates and support. They suggest that Bacula may not be the easiest backup software to work with, but it offers the capability to perform complex tasks. To maximize its potential, users advise taking the time to familiarize oneself with Bacula. They also recommend testing and evaluating Bacula among other backup solutions before making a purchase. Users emphasize the steep learning curve of Bacula and recommend taking Bacula Enterprise training. Bacula is praised for being a cost-effective and robust backup solution. Users mention the availability of a repository with all necessary packages and helpful documentation for specific use cases. The helpfulness of Bacula's support team is also highlighted by users. Finally, users consider Bacula as the option for backup, especially for disaster recovery purposes.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-21 of 21)
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Gilles Wackenheim | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Bacula Enterprise backup solution is, for our company, the ultimate solution that guarantees the preservation and recovery of data from both our Windows and Linux environments. All in a simple, transparent and efficient way while guaranteeing cost control whatever the evolution of the company's workforce or that of the IT infrastructure.
  • Ease of use: you don't need to be an expert to accomplish daily tasks
  • Economical solution and cost control compared to competing solutions previously used
  • Responsiveness and efficiency of support in case of question or unusual operation
  • Better separation in terms of organization of interface menus between daily tasks, maintenance and system configuration.
Our backup robot one day had a mechanical problem that led to several days of downtime. After changing this robot, Bacula Enterprise took over all the backups in plug and play mode without the need to carry out any specific operation.
July 06, 2023

TSM Convert

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I've recently started using Bacula Enterprise after switching from IBM's TSM. I wanted to do a proof on concept before pruchasing the product and Bacula helped with not only one proof of concept but also another one several months after the first trial. During this time I had Bacula helping set the system up and I also logged a few support calls to see what the ticket system was like. All tickets were picked up quickly and the support team were helpful. We purchased Bacula including a weeks training course. The course was great and explained Bacula clearly. So much so I was able to download the community edition at home on my NAS! Now we are using Bacula I've been able to see how support is after purchase and so far so good!<br>
  • Fast support
  • Great communication for pre sales and after sales
  • Admin 1 course explaned Bacula beautifully
  • Would love to have a upto date ARM version that can be run as a VM on ARM machines
For me, Bacula is well suited for backing up our on prem NAS system to AWS and tape. Bacula gives us a huge amount of control of how we do our backups and how long we retain data.
Bacula isn't suited for archiving. There is no archive function in Bacula so you'd need to find another product to handle archiving but I think Bacula has a function to set a backup to never delete.
Welisson Figueiredo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Bacula Enterprise helped a lot in the backup solution, I had already used other solutions but not one as complete. -It has the differential of backup using dedup that helps the network not to copy twice. -there's the virtual full that we use for weekends. -connectivity with various services and systems (windows, linux and database) Among many other things, incredible technical support!
  • Backup Virtual Full
  • dedup
  • nutanix, vcenter, xen PLUGIN
  • compreension
  • Bweb
  • interface restore
  • plugin nutanix
In the disaster recovery parts, we already had virtual machines that were totally destroyed by hackers but it didn't affect the backups made by Bacula, since it can encrypt and even if we lose we can recover by installing it again.In addition to the explanation to use tape backup against ransomware, today many customers of the organization feel more secure in making processes in homologation knowing that they will be able to restore at any time.In terms of storage, it saves a lot of space because we can keep for years that space is always compressed, reaching a 3:1 ratio.
August 22, 2022

The best

Eloi Cunha | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently, the Brazilian Naval Supply System Command uses Bacula Enterprise to backup and restore the database. As a result, we have advanced features and the ability to handle the high volume of data we need for daily life, performing snapshots, advanced deduplication, single-file restores efficiently and reliably. I can detail as pros & cons the following personal use cases. Pros: Data reliability and great cost-benefit. Cons: interface difficult to handle, demanding high study time.
  • Snapshots
  • data backup
  • data verification
  • Storage Daemon
  • Script BSys
  • Plugin Bacula MSSQL VDI
Bacula Enterprise is absolutely suitable for large database backup and advanced restore for companies that want to have a great backup system at an affordable price. The bacula enterprise becomes less accessible and difficult for companies that have employees with low professional qualifications because they need a qualified professional to operate the bacula.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Bacula Enterprise as a data backup and restore solution. Currently, I also use the solution to verify that all Backup services are active and running correctly. The use of the tool made it possible to manage backup services in an easier and simpler way, as this is an activity that I perform routinely. In addition to data recovery, we also use Bacula to ensure that our databases, files and other types of data are safe and accessible by transferring to LTO tapes.
  • Easy Integration with Virtual Environment
  • Simple data transfer to tape
  • Reliability in data restoration
  • Scalability as the computing environment grows
  • Configuring the graphical environment can be a little difficult, but the support offered solved it
Bacula Enterprise is indicated for scenarios where there is a need to store large volumes of data and reliability in the recovery of this data. Bacula is also highly configurable, which makes it easier for the responsible team to manage Backup Jobs. A negative point is the use of some plugins that could be free, but there was no need to acquire any other functionality in the implementation of the system.
Patrícia Chaves | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We currently use Bacula to back up multiple virtual machines. We have 103 important jobs that perform data copying every day for the organization. Backup is very important as this data is constantly updated and is essential for navigation and safety at sea. It is centralized management through a graphical interface and is released for multi-users. This solves our problem.
  • Ease and speed of data recovery in the event of a disaster
  • Ease of backup management by staff
  • Easy-to-use, intuitive graphical interface
  • Compatibility with legacy systems
  • So far no problems with the backup tool
It is suitable for backing up files that are updated daily. We use Bacula to backup various files in virtual machines. It is centralized management through a graphical interface and is released for multi-users. This solves our problem as it is easy and fast to recover data in case of a disaster.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
A system with a simple and efficient interface for its management, in addition to providing backup solutions for several mixed operating systems, automating backup tasks that normally require the intervention of a system administrator. Currently, I perform backup and restore of a VMware environment with several virtual machines and databases, such as Oracle, and PostgreSQL. The ability to modulate the solution, separating management responsibilities for both the application and the Director and Storage servers, simplifies management.
  • Backup sizing
  • Simple schedules
  • User interface
Positive: Great integration with the virtual environment of VMWare, file servers, and databases, such as Oracle, and PostgreSQL. Fast data recovery in the event of a disaster. The backup tool is well divided into modules, making it easy to manage. It has an active community, which helps in solving various problems.

Negative: Requires prior knowledge for proper management, in my opinion.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Bacula Enterprise on all company network servers, backing up all information.
  • Backup VMware virtual machines.
  • Backup network servers.
  • Backup of PostgreSQL and oracle database.
  • Backup of oracle database.
  • Backup of file servers.
  • They could just improve a little the visual part of bweb, but in version 14.0.3 it is already very cool.
I believe that Bacula fits perfectly in small and large companies using Linux and Windows operating systems.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The reason we use Bacula Enterprise is to provide an effective backup and disaster recovery framework. As the solution is agnostic, that is, it can be deployed in practically any system or application, we understand that Bacula Enterprise is currently the most appropriate solution for our environment. We use it to backup servers (Linux, MS-Windows Server, FreeBSD), database (Oracle, MySQL and MS-SQL), virtualized environments (Vmware), applications, in addition to shared file backups
  • Backup Duplication and Deduplication
  • Database backup like MySQL and Oracle
  • Backup and fast restore of mailboxes
  • Our team always points out the same problems, I believe that, today, is our biggest complaint: The interface (both graphical and the CLI) still needs improvement.
  • There is no mobile app to manage backups and restores from smartphones
  • Manual installation is time consuming.
As stated before, the system is agnostic, and its implementation can be carried out in any environment, as long as there is a team to implement and maintain it or a support contract suitable for the needs of your organization. Due to its wide compatibility, it can be used in mixed environments, such as prepared with disks and tape libraries, as well as in cloud environments.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Bacula Enterprise in our company to back up virtual machines, file servers, email accounts, ACLS, active directory user accounts, LDAP, LGPD data, and especially research and development data. The use of bacula is extremely essential for our company because with it we have the security that all data will be stored and encrypted in case of loss of services or even the burning of a physical server. company business.
  • It is possible to restore a single specific file from a virtual machine backup, without having to restore the VM completely.
  • Possibility to restore a file with its proper ACLs, without losing user access permissions.
  • Full data encryption.
  • Possibility to perform backups to tapes or VTLs
  • Difficulty in visualizing the specific position of the media slot on the tape robot, without having to click on details.
  • When I perform the version upgrade, I always have problems using it in my PT-BR language, it seems that Bacula's operation in languages other than English is not validated, so we have to wait for patches for corrections.
Bacula Enterprise is very welcome in corporate environments, with full backup of data in high-volume data centers. I believe there is the no less appropriate place, as the tool is very versatile and can adapt to any type/format of data backup.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Bacula plays an important role to ensure our data recovery. Bacula also has so many flexibilities that we can configure according to our needs. We use Bacula Enterprise, Bacula vSphere Plugin, and Bacula Web. I would like to give a big shout to Bacula Support. Their reaction is great and is very helpful with troubleshooting the problems that I had. The explanation of troubleshooting is also clear and in a very detailed way.
  • Troubleshooting skills
  • Flexibility in configuring Job & Schedules
  • Bacula Support are top
  • Bacula Web could be improved in the future.
Flexibilities to configure the backup jobs, schedules are the most helpful feature in Bacula Enterprise. Bacula can almost cover everything.
Daniel Drucker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are the McLean Imaging Center--the neuroimaging center at McLean Hospital. McLean maintains the world's largest neuroscientific and psychiatric research program in a private hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital, and part of Mass General Brigham. The Imaging Center is primarily research, with some clinical duties as well. At the Center we back up ~50 clients and ~1.5 PB to a mix of disk and LTO7 tape. Our primary workload is research neuroimaging data.
  • Hyper-competent support staff
  • Extreme configurability
  • Extensive logging and reporting
  • Command line and GUI interface
  • Backups storage format is outdated--treats everything, even disk, as if it were a tape.
  • No deduplication support in base product.
  • Inconsistent support for filesystem snapshots on non-Windows platforms
  • Steep learning curve--but rewards learning!
Bacula Enterprise is not the easiest backup software to work with--you are expected to be competent at the command line and editing complex configuration files, even if you mostly use the web GUI for day-to-day operations. However, study is rewarded--you can do many very complex things. Easy things may not always be easy, but very hard things are possible (unlike many competitors that make easy things easy and hard things impossible).

I would not recommend Bacula to someone who just wants a quick plug and play solution; but in my opinion your backups and disaster recovery system shouldn't be plug and play - that's a great way to feel good about a solution that won't actually work for you when it's needed!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Bacula Enterprise is a robust backup solution. In addition to allowing complete management of the backup system in a graphic and intuitive way, it has plugins that enhance the backup of specific applications used in our organization. It has greatly optimized our backup work, making the routines more agile and bringing security to the institution's data.
  • Intuitive graphical web interface
  • Configuration of backup routines made easy
  • Specific plugins for different types of applications
  • Unlimited dynamic backup size
  • Minor difficulties in using web console
Bacula Enterprise adapts very well to the size of the institution and can be used from small companies to large companies, such as the Aparecida de Goiânia City Hall. The deployment process was easy, and we received all the needed technical support during the system installation and configuration process. Excellent training and an extremely reliable backup system.
Roni Peterson Alvarenga | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bacula Enterprise is the main backup tool of the Municipality of Campinas/BR. We use it for several applications and operating systems. Our goal is to guarantee backup of structured and unstructured data, something that Bacula does with mastery.
  • Compatibility with different systems.
  • Extensive documentation.
  • Proactive support team.
  • Rapid deployment.
  • Cheap deployment.
  • Simple configuration handling.
  • Web interface.
  • Mobile application.
  • Authentication layer.
Bacula Enterprise can be used in environments of different sizes, that is, from a small business to a large industry. Everything will depend on how it will be provisioned. There is no size limitation for your company. However, it is necessary that you have full knowledge of backup policies in order to make the best use of the tool.
Matthias Merz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently centralizing the existing scattered backup solutions into one solution. Due to the number of heterogeneous systems, we strongly need a centralized solution with dependable monitoring, encryption, secure cloud support for off-site backups and support for different environments and operating systems. Bacula's plug-in system provides support for our needs, may it be Windows, Linux, databases, Exchange, etc.
  • Good support during the decision phase: PoC with technical assistance and honest answers about what might pose problems.
  • Text-based configuration allows for utilization of config management and Git-based change tracking, even with merge-request-approval, if needed.
  • Supports all needed operating systems (whereas using os-specific solutions e.g. VSS snapshots on Windows, therefore utilizing the power of registered VSS writers).
  • CLI, as well as web management interfaces, are available.
  • Dependable job runs: If something goes wrong, the admin will at least know (we had issues with that in another backup solution).
  • Multi-cloud capable, with encryption support.
  • Extensive documentation provided on nearly every aspect, also covering typical sticking points.
  • There is a somewhat steep learning curve, but OTOH, I don't see how a "trivial" config could provide the flexibility and strength Bacula does.
  • Finding the right documentation may take some time due to structuring.
There are sometimes glitches in running backup jobs, but at least I get the knowledge about it by dependable job emails. This allows for quick re-schedules.
We previously had a backup solution where after rebooting a Windows server, you would receive emails telling you no backup had happened for four consecutive weeks.
Paul D Simpson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We deployed Bacula Enterprise to replace our incumbent, commercial, backup vendor after support costs increased significantly and support quality was less than expected. We conducted a PoC first, and were very impressed at the ease of use, scalability, and the effectiveness and responsiveness of the Bacula support team.
Bacula Enterprise is being used in all of our data centers throughout the United States to backup physical servers, VMware, and NAS arrays (NDMP) to deduplicating disk targets and tape.
  • Standard backups of hosts, whether physical or virtual work very well.
  • Restore of individual files or VMs is much faster than our prior solution.
  • Easy to script pre or post-backup tasks, in fact, almost anything can be scripted to work in the manner we want. Infinitely flexible!
  • Lack of "Archive" type job. (These backup files for long-term retention, then delete the original files, in order to save space or reduce clutter on production systems.
  • Config file management can become cluttered or confusing if standards are not adhered to (name by site, platform, etc), however, sheer script-ability and plain text config files instead of a proprietary database to hold configs is also one of the greatest strengths.
Bacula Enterprise is well suited to a variety of backup tasks... There are available plugins to accomplish pretty much anything we need to, and the cost for those plugins is very reasonable.
Recommended for (but certainly not limited to):
  • VM backups (VMware, Hyper-V, containers)
  • NDMP backups
  • Physical server backups via agent
  • CDP (Continuous Data Protection)
  • SAN backup transport
  • Encrypted backups
Rogerio Goncalves | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Bacula Enterprise is used as a main backup tool for the firm, is used to backup virtual machines, file servers, database servers and so on. Due to the flexibility and power of the Bacula Enterprise, we were able to achieve impressive numbers when compared to another tool in the market.
  • Extremely flexible and powerful, giving the operator confidence in what is happening.
  • Multi-cloud, multi-environment and multi-OS backups in one tool.
  • The BWeb interface could be improved.
  • It requires operators to have deep Linux knowledge to operate Bacula Enterprise.
Bacula Enterprise is well suited for small or big companies. It is very well documented, powerful and flexible. You can run all the components on a single server as well as in a distributed installation to achieve scale. There is no `too much` data for Bacula Enterprise.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Bacula Enterprise is being used by one department within the organization. It supports our need to have regular and reliable backups of our data to protect against system failure and user error. We use it to back up data from around 50 systems, both physical and virtual, to disk storage and then to tape for offsite storage.
  • The support services provided by Bacula Systems are superb. They usually respond extremely quickly and have clear and useful answers upfront, which is a welcome change. Their support enabled us to get Bacula Enterprise up and running quickly and well configured, in a relatively short period of time. In addition, they also offer proactive support on a yearly basis. This involves sending an automatically generated report on your system configuration and status from which they provide advice on any issues or configuration problems that they find. I haven't seen this level of proactive support from another company.
  • The configuration is extremely powerful and flexible. If you're used to dealing with text-based configuration files then you'll find this system familiar. It also fits well with configuration management tools - in our case, Puppet - allowing the configuration across the whole system to be managed centrally. The flexibility of the system allowed us to have backups running exactly when and how we wanted, performing staging to tape via disk, and with various admin, tasks to automate the handling of tapes within our tape library.
  • The command-line console tool allows all operations to be done from the command line. In an emergency situation, or stuck in a datacentre with only a dumb console, being able to do everything via the command line is an important feature to have.
  • Bweb is an optional extra that provides a web-based interface for both management and configuration. If you don't want to edit text files and use the command line console tool then Bweb is the best interface to use. We don't use it for configuration (favoring external tools for managing the text-based configuration), but we do use it to monitor backups and perform restores. It provides an excellent overview of what's happening with the system.
  • The manuals, whitepapers, and additional documentation cover everything in detail. The whitepapers give a good overview of the installation, concepts, and specific scenarios, whilst the manuals cover in more depth how specific areas work and how the configuration is handled. It's very easy to find out what a particular option means and does.
  • The software can run on and is supported on, a wide variety of operating systems, including Ubuntu which is what we use. This is a level of flexibility that was important to us after being tied to RHEL for our previous backup system.
  • The configuration can be hard to get started with. It took some time and reading of the documentation to understand how to get Bacula Enterprise to do what we wanted. This can be a hurdle when initially getting started.
  • Although the documentation is good, there's a lot of it and it isn't always structured in the best way. When you know what you're looking for it's fine, but when getting started it can be overwhelming.
  • Bweb is an optional extra, so without it, you're stuck with text files and command-line tools. This could likely be a turn off for sysadmins who prefer to work in a graphical environment.
  • It could do more to support hardware-based LTO encryption. With some web searching it's not too hard to figure out the changes needed to load encryption keys into the drives, but it'd be nice if Bacula Enterprise handled this by itself given it's a fairly fundamental part of tape backup.
  • Scripting actions using bconsole is ugly. More could be done to making scripting easier.
Bacula Enterprise fits a certain type of market. The Unix-based sysadmin who has a diverse range of systems to back up and is happy to get their hands dirty with command-line tools and text-based configuration files. They have a large range of plugins to back up specific systems (eg. databases, VMs, and lots more) making it a truly flexible product in a single package. Addons like B web further improve on the already well-equipped product.

However, this approach may not suit everyone, so I'd be hesitant recommending it in all situations.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization uses Bacula to perform file-based backups of our production and production support resources. The entire organization is being backed up with varying degrees of granularity - allowing us to tune our backup and restoration schemes without impacting end users negatively. The services are unobtrusive to deploy and run nightly without any interference from a human being.
  • Heavily tunable with regards to backend storage, scheduling, and filesets
  • Enterprise deployment is straightforward and easy to roll out
  • Customer support is top-notch - any question I've ever had has been asked and answered within a few business days.
  • Support engineers are very proactive in helping maintain your infrastructure with regards to running reports and checking for system health
  • Training programs offered by Bacula are very thorough
  • Documentation is fantastic
  • Steep learning curve - with high configurability comes lots of reading and trial and error
  • Directory tree for configuration tends to get confusing depending on which host is being configured
Bacula is well suited for any long-term data persistence and retrieval applications. Within my organization, our persisted production data changes depending on the day, and Bacula allows us to schedule proper filesets to match how quickly they change. Additionally, the restoration and retrieval of those filesets is a snap -- with the Enterprise edition, the GUI has a quick drag/drop interface that allows you to choose which files need to be restored and where. This saves us time from muddling around in complicated configuration files or using the console.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company uses Bacula Enterprise to ensure that our servers, projects, and files are being backed up reliably. Our strategy includes making virtual machine backups to facilitate restoring complete systems as well as making file level backups to restore files one-by-one. We also use Bacula Enterprise to back up our active directory database and our Microsoft Exchange email. Bacula Enterprise can be customized to the extreme, and we take advantage of this by creating backup jobs that are exactly suited for each situation -- in some cases we need to keep files for years and in other cases we are only concerned about having a reasonably recent backup. Although Bacula Enterprise could be used on individual user's computers, our disaster recovery plan only requires that our servers be backed up. We do not use tape. Our backups are stored locally to disk and then replicated off-site.
  • The ability to restore files is equally as important as backing them up, and this is where Bacula Enterprise really proved itself for me. In my IT career I have used many backup systems and found that the weakest point -- often the failing point -- is restoring files. After switching to Bacula Enterprise and doing some test restores and several real restores I am convinced switching to Bacula Enterprise was the right choice. I also appreciate that restore operations can be done through a simple text console program. I have been in emergency situations where the internet connection was so slow that a GUI would not work and yet I was able to quickly restore the needed files.
  • Another great thing about Bacula Enterprise is the licensing structure. I simply don't have to worry about cost when installing a client on yet another machine (other than the cost of storage).
  • Last but not least is Bacula Enterprise support. I have used Bacula Enterprise support for installation issues, pro-active check-ups, configuration help, and then even reviewed my company backup policy documentation and made some recommendations. Bacula Enterprise tech support is unlike any other support team I've worked with. They stay familiar with our configuration through pro-active checkups and communicate well when there is a problem ticket. I really feel they are genuinely interested that my backups are working as expected.
  • The Bacula Enterprise takes a while to understand and install. I found the terminology that Bacula Enterprise used to be a bit different from what I was used to and I needed to think about our backups in a slightly different way than I was used to. It seemed at first that it was too complex, but actually it is very straightforward and very flexible and very powerful. Looking back, I don't know how I could do without the options I have with Bacula Enterprise.
  • Also, although Bacula Enterprise is well documented with manuals, whitepapers, articles and even books, I find it a bit difficult to navigate through all the available information. More than once I've read through an explanation of a feature only to find out that it no longer applies and that I should have read a different paper. I've learned to ask support for the right article to read, but I'd rather see the documentation organized better so I can learn on my own.
  • Personally I prefer working with configuration files and text consoles, but if I were looking for a slick graphical user interface, Bacula Enterprise does not have it.
  • Bacula Enterprise technical support is excellent, but the ticketing system needs work. One creates a ticket on a web portal but can only follow up on that ticket via email. I would very much like to update the ticket on the website as well as via email.
Backup software needs to be rock-solid reliable, not pretty. That is what Bacula Enterprise brings. I go home each night confident that I'm not going to lose my job because a backup that was supposed to be working isn't working.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I have been using Bacula Enterprise for 3 years throughout an organization. At our headquarters in "Teresina / PI Brasil" I back up ~ 170 daily backup jobs and in the 226 branch offices in more than 7 Brazilian states (4 daily backup jobs per branch).
My main challenges for backup were to have centralized and monitoring management of headquarters and all branch offices to VM-level backups, compatibility with multiple operating system platforms (Linux, Windows, AIX, Unix ...) and databases (PSQL, Mysql, Oracle, SQLServer).
  • Back up a very good and simple package of files, including compression and different levels, differential and incremental.
  • BWEB's html interface is very good and intuitive for the amount of backup and clients I need to monitor and manage.
  • In smaller branch offices, the managers manually trigger the backup "because it varies the time of shutdown of each branch", with tool bconsole I was able to easily customize this drive inside our application, simplifying enough for the end user.
  • The vsphere plugin works 100%, could have been more intuitive and practical. For example -To specify that you want to restore a backup of a VM, enter the "where" parameter / because the default value "/ tmp / bacula-restore" would restore the .bmdk files in the plugin client.
  • An identification of the name of the virtual machine in the act of restoration and naming for Bacula Systems as "Host Name" would be more intuitive "Guest Name or VM-Name", since Host implies "Host ESXi".
  • After running the datastore from a VM, there is no bacula for the backup to continue.
  • A compression could have been a multi-thread on the client to make faster, when a document was not available on Bacula Systems roadmap.
You really need to spend more time in the Bacula implementation phase and I do not recommend it for sysadmins who do not have Linux experience because of the architectural quirks and they do not run the "DIR Director" server on a Windows platform.

The agent for Linux clients is very stable and of today I have had no problems.
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