Arctera Backup Exec is a backup and disaster recovery solution. It works in virtual, physical, and multi-cloud environments and integrates with several third-party software releases and applications.
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PowerProtect DD Series
Score 8.9 out of 10
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PowerProtect DD (a next-generation appliance replacing Dell EMC Data Domain) is a suite of hardware appliances used for
data protection, backup, storage and deduplication. PowerProtect appliance offerings are
cloud-enabled and vary by organization size, capable of supporting small
business and enterprises.
PowerProtect appliances are separated into two categories: entry-level
to midrange, and enterprise.
Entry-Level to Midrange Backup Appliances
PowerProtect…
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Pricing
Arctera Backup Exec
PowerProtect DD Series
Editions & Modules
Veritas Backup Exec
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Arctera Backup Exec
PowerProtect DD Series
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
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Community Pulse
Arctera Backup Exec
PowerProtect DD Series
Features
Arctera Backup Exec
PowerProtect DD Series
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
One of the differentials is that of all the backup tools I used, Veritas Backup Exec has the best management and control interface. It is very easy to use and configure the rules. There are several options that we can optimize our work for our specific needs, from scheduling a backup, restoring data, directories, alerts system, error reports, backups, inconsistencies and other very interesting things. It has integration with SQL, vmware, hyper v. Backup and restore speeds are fast and secure.
When used as a backup target PowerProtect DD models offer incredible density and can efficiently replicate to another cloud-based or offsite unit. Most complaints about these have been addressed in software over the years and they are now a intuitive and easily managed backup system. You are not buying a Swiss army knife, you are getting a machine designed for a purpose, use it for that and you will not be disappointed. While they have the ability to serve as a CIFS server, they are not a filer and lack many of the features inherent to filers and are a poor substitute.
The user interface can sometimes be sluggish and hang between options.The minimum spec is 2Gb but if running on a dedicated server I think 4Gb is recommended
As more companies seem to be entering the backup software market, Acronis is very aggressive on pricing and even offer discounts if you are replacing other backup solutions, the Backup Exec pricing plans have become a more expensive
Our version is an older 2014 version and has inadequate support for VM backs
Depending on the model of Data Domain, there is a limit to the number of NFS/SMB threads that can run concurrently. When this limit is reached, the system is slow to respond to client requests.
Data Domain support is very slow to turn out new features and bug fixes in their code.
This software is a mess in my brutally honest opinion. I've spent more time babysitting this software while backing up 20 servers than I did with Veeam backing up 600+. I've had multiple jobs run fine for weeks at a time that just randomly fail out of the blue for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There's no intuitive way to chain jobs, so automation becomes somewhat more problematic if certain jobs depend on other jobs. The forever incremental feature feels tacked on since the merge operation merges all your incremental jobs into the most recent backup and doesn't have the option set a limit on how long to keep your point in time restores.
DD has performed flawlessly for almost 10 years as our backup/recovery storage with offsite replication. Given its track record and great support from EMC, we're unlikely to look elsewhere any time soon.
It can do a lot of things on paper and sounds terrific, but in practice it doesn't do any of them well. It can easily be sold to non-technical minds and C-levels, but of all the backup solutions I've used in the last 15 years of my career, Backup Exec is easily the least fault tolerant. Unless this software is a sunk cost and you're on a shoestring budget, I recommend almost anything else. Jobs fail often with obscure error codes and the KB articles in the Veritas support portal are a mess. Within 30 days of a fresh deployment I've logged more tickets with their support than I did in 3 years with Veeam.
In the few instances of having to contact support, our overall outcome was always good. They would have received a better score if the wait time was less, but I attribute this to the timing of support calls - it was during the previous owner's time. We have not had to open a support ticket since Veritas Backup Exec took the product back over.
Customer support has had some ups and downs here. We've had several issues with EMC support before and during the acquisition by Dell, but in the last 18 months support has been top notch. Quick and knowledgeable help is but a chat away, or they will call you back so you don't have to wait on hold. The team supporting us is responsive and is quick to assist with any request or issue.
Veritas Backup Exec is very comparable to Unitrends and in some areas is easier to use. The license side of Veritas Backup Exec is much more difficult to manage compared to Unitrends. Unitrends seems to be a much smoother solutions to protect virtual environments. Restoring data with Veritas Backup Exec is logical and easier to achieve, Unitrends is a bit less logical or intuitive.
We already had Avamar in place, and since we have a good ecosystem of Dell Solution suite and wanted to evaluate PowerProtect DD also from that perspective, hence we thought of going ahead with it. We knew the limitations with Avamar and PowerProtect DD were right there from that side of the business.
As the person tasked with the job of protecting the company's data, I am glad that Backup Exec performs that job well. I am able to often set-it-and-forget-it and go about the rest of my duties. I have never had a situation where Backup Exec was called upon to restore data and it was unable to do so. This reflects well on both me and my department and provides a sense of security to the rest of the company.
I am not making full use of the product and have not licensed a number of its features, but even the base feature set is impressive. To be clear, Backup Exec is no longer the only product we reply upon for data protection, but it is still a large part of that program. If an SMB can find the budget to afford to license the set of features meet its particular demands, Backup Exec will do what you need.
As an industry leader, Backup Exec is well positioned to stay at the head of the pack (as they have done for many years) and provide their customers with a comprehensive set of capabilities that will always remain in the forefront of technology.
