Vembu BDR - freshening VMs backup scene
Overall Satisfaction with Vembu BDR Suite
Vembu BDR is used across whole organization both for backups and replicas of VMs. It's being used thoroughly to implement a disaster recovery strategy. In two occasions it has already helped to recover from a disaster occurred.
- Web interface, it's easy to configure and requires no proprietary client
- Multiplatform approach
- Postgres database and not usual Microsoft buggy bloatware
- Outstanding customer support!!! A++++
- Missing Linux file level recovery
- Replicas section needs improvements (already debugging it with customer support) and new features: add of VM to existing replica and merge of two existing replicas.
- The loss of the BDR VM itself means that in a total disaster scenario restore of the backupped VMs may be cumbersome or impossible: you should copy the strategy of veeam, which allows to import seamlessly an entire backup pool; this can be done, in my opinion, by also making a full postgres DB dump to the backup pool whenever a job completes.
- Some parts of the web interface should be refined: e.g. the part for email notifications is not enough clear (difference for mails sent for every event and just unsuccessful ones); also, I required as a feature timestamps in 24H format (most of the world is NOT anglosaxon); some actions which are possible in the interface sort out NO EFFECT, like adding a VM to an existing replica, but are yet accepted by the interface; also backup pool section needs refinement, especially to add a new one and to manage existing ones.
- It should be possible to instruct the software to take advantage of existing LACP network configurations, running parallel processes to speed up data transfer.
- An improvement of speed of overall throughput would be greatly appreciated.
- Possibility to backup/replicate BSD (e.g. OpenBSD, FreeBSD) and Solaris VMs
- PROXMOX support is missing :(((((
- Making customer save money over other more pricey licences
- Simplifying management and deployment
- Created "non-standard" problems with replicas (but thank God the outstanding customer support has always helped the way through)
Ability to work just with one ESXi node and its architecture (web+postgres) with lower cost license
We just use virtual and see no reason to run physical nowadays but for appliances and clients
Actually I haven't yet uderstood how it works, but I just care for successful restores and replicas
- Veeam Backup & Replication, NAKIVO Backup & Replication and CloudBerry Backup
Vembu is cheaper and less complicated, with lower HW requirements which means it more apt for my customers who are mainly small and medium business.