Item: BDRSuite
Rating: 10
Author: Daniel Castro

Usability

It does what it says, it does it efficiently, it does it at a decent price point, and the support is great. That's from my perspective. You can go download a trial, set it up and chat with support if you run into any issues getting it going. When messaging support, you don't get some low-level schmo, either. You get an engineer that knows his stuff. So I'm pretty technical and setting this up and getting it going myself was not an issue. Once it's working, backing up, and you test some restores, you'll see how usable it is!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Vembu BDR Suite is used as a backup/recovery, disaster recovery solution and can also be used for Hyper-V and ESXI VM replication and migration. There's an image-based backup client for Windows/Server and Mac, and a file-based backup client for Windows/Server, Mac, and Linux. No client needs to be installed on the hypervisors for backup - you can run the backups directly from the backup server.

Pros and Cons

Fast VM backups
Fast image backups
Fast file based backups
Easy restore options
Excellent support with minimal hassle
Excellent value

I would like image based backups for Linux and FreeBSD.
I would like the ability to directly restore an image backup to ESXI or more cross-platform restore options.
Managing storage by yourself (without support helping you out) can be tricky. I wish there were easier options to assign storage to users/backups, especially "after the fact."
Windows image-based backup needs to assign drive letters to partitions that don't usually have them (system reserved, etc.). There should be a way for the program to identify the drives by different means.

Return on Investment

You can set up a BDR hosting server that will make you recurring income.
You are provided NFR licensing so you can set this up, test, and train yourself.
Having efficient, proper backups and restores pays for itself pretty quickly. Servers die, misconfigurations happen, people delete stuff, and there are ransomware hoodlums out there. Don't you think it's worth it to have your data protected?
The licensing is affordable.

Decision Factors

Best bang for the buck, period.

Fast
Hostable
Great support
Fast
Good pricing
Fast

If you have half a wit, an ounce of imagination, and faith the size of a mustard seed, you can make this product work great for you. If you have none of those, but you have money for the licensing, VembuBDR's support will make this product work great for you. You win either way.

Physical Server Support

Some handy options:

You can backup a physical Windows machine and restore it to different hardware, or spin up the backup as a Hyper-V VM.
If you're hosting the backups from your environment, you could potentially host the spun-up backup to your clients while their instance is down.
You can set up a VMWare replication job to aid in migration, or setting up a test environment.

Hive File System

It moves data fast and securely and keeps files size in check.
DC

Alternatives Considered

I used to recommend Aconis, but it gets super-expensive when you get to the server and hypervisor level stuff, and I'm finding myself to not like the latest user interface and options. I also used BackupAssist, which is actually a great product for Windows Servers, but Vembu just smokes it in performance, so if you have multiple servers and workstations backing up to one location it makes it easier. You have more time and you don't have to troubleshoot Windows Server Backup/VSS components.

Likelihood to Recommend

I really can't think of too many scenarios where I would not prefer to use Vembu. I guess I would never sell this to a client for them to set up themselves—it's not like Carbonite or some other backup solutions where the user pushes a magic play-mobile button and derp derp derp the cloud, but a technical person can manage this easily. There are cloud options, but I prefer to host the BDR servers to clients on my own resources, and I think technical folks can do this without involving the big data companies.

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Ramya Ramesh
commented 5 years ago
Thanks for the great review, Daniel. We're excited that our product has met your expectations and has worked out well in your environment. While we welcome your feedback to improve the product and user experience, we just wanted to let you know that some of the suggestions you have given are already in Vembu BDR Suite. 1. You can restore your image backup to an ESXi host using Quick VM Recovery. 2. You can migrate your machine across platforms using the Download option. By downloading an image file in the required file format you can start a new machine easily. 3. Image-based backups for Linux machines are already in our roadmap and we will take Free BSD backups as a feature request. 4. As for system reserved partition backup, you will be prompted to assign a name before configuring the backup. If needed you can assign or skip and continue. To clarify the concern in detail, please drop us a mail at vembu-support@vembu.com. Looking forward to giving our best with Vembu BDR Suite.

VembuBDR Smokes Other Overpriced Backup Solutions

Overall Satisfaction with Vembu BDR Suite