Arctera Backup Exec vs. Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365

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.

Incentivized

Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 is well suited for medium-size companies who have a significant amount of free storage and want to keep their own copies for retention/legal reasons. It is also a great way to back up SharePoint sites in the event of something being lost or incorrectly changed by a user. It is not great for deep visibility into your backups and exact sizing. There is no good way to truly view which items are taking up storage without digging into PowerShell commands.

Incentivized

• The license/agent deployment feature in Backup Exec facilitates effective and speedy population within your data center.
• Veritas Backup Exec's feature rich job creation is intuitive and simplifies backup strategies.
• Customizable views in the Administrator console allow you to view your backup environment to maximize visibility.

Incentivized

• My CFO seemed to have lost a whole year of important emails. I simply restored them to his mailbox in a matter of minutes.
• An employee left the company but an issue came up with a quote this person sent out. I could search his mailbox and got the quote as well as all communications from that customer.
• It is nice to be able to search emails in various mailboxes without disturbing the user.
• It is also nice to go back in time. Say they deleted those emails last month I can go back years if needed.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Backing Up "Public Folders" is quite a hassle, but this is not the "fault" of Veeam but the way Microsoft exposes this data.
• No option to integrate the product into their other solution, it would be great to access M365 backup in the Backup & Replication application.

Incentivized

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.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 just works so well and is so easy to use. I researched multiple options for Office 365 backup and none seemed to be as easy to setup and use as Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and the pricing was very comfortable to us. I can't imagine any reason why we would change away from Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365.

Incentivized

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.

Veeam Data Cloud has an easy and user-friendly interface, easy integration with Microsoft 365 cloud, strong backup and recovery functionality, and robust security features. It is one of the few solutions that can export to .pst files and also has a very simple opt-out because the data is stored on the Microsoft cloud.

Incentivized

The weekly error on save needs a manual reload from me. The SDR can't restore the virtual machine of hyperV during a test.

Incentivized

I have yet to need it during any of their scheduled maintenance windows. It's always online.

Incentivized

No problem for this point it is in the average.

Incentivized

We have a lot of data, and pulling backups out of the store sometimes takes a bit of time - but this is within acceptable tolerances. I don't expect restores to be instantaneous, and I can't quantify if the speed is software or data repository.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Support for all Veeam products is pretty good. While documentation sometimes is written for someone who's already an expert on the platform, their support portal is easy enough to use, and they are very responsive once a support need is documented. I have never had a problem with Veeam that could not be resolved in fairly short order.

Incentivized

It was pretty straightforward.

Would have marked a 10 but the storage in AWS was very complicated. Would be nice to have more help/guidance connecting to external storage.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

My familiarity with Veeam Data Cloud specifically is what drew me to the product. They both seem equally capable, but when you know a product you generally tend to go that direction. I believe the other provider could back up our environment, but I am not familiar with it and as I have stated when you need to get up and going quick it is best to be very familiar with the product you are utilizing.

Incentivized

We only use it on the on-premise version on a single site.

Incentivized

I have had no issues scaling this software as my organisation or data estate has grown. It always does exaclty what it says on the box.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The only real impact is from a compliance standpoint. Our company is expected at a regulatory level to be protecting our data and even though the tenant has little traffic there could still be some regulated data in there. We have to be able to tell an auditor that it's being backed up by an enterprise grade solution, and that's what VDC was intended for.

Incentivized