Veeam Backup for Azure vs. Zerto on IBM Cloud

When migrating from on Prim to AWS then to AZure the process was a little challenging because of some of the way we configured up front but once we went from AWS to Azure it was no looking back. We didn't have the extra storage to move things around like most companies to but it worked out great and we were also able to store more cold backups on Azure due to the low cost of cold storage.

Incentivized

If the environment is fully IBM cloud-based with simple infra components like the SQL servers, standard VMs or applications with short recovery time objectives. This cost-effective solution can save in implementing rather than an expensive DR mechanism or tool to support the overall recovery strategy. If you have complex environments where mission-critical apps like Oracle Databases are running in a cluster mode and features like data guard is used this option would not be a good choice due to complexity.

Incentivized

• Reduce storage costs and minimizing the impact on network consuption.
• Veaam Backup for Azure provides application-aware backups for Microsoft SQL Server, ensuring that our data is backed up and available for recovery correctly.
• Replication: Veeam Backup for Azure helps us to replicate our workloads to another Azure region or on-premises environment for disaster recovery purposes and compliance needs.

Incentivized

• Ease of setup and upgrade. Installation and configuration was a breeze and can get you protected in just minutes without having to set up additional hardware.
• Consolidated billing of the IBM infrastructure and Zerto licensing. One bill to pay monthly.
• Ease of support access. Contacting IBM Cloud support is quick and easy and they can quickly involve Zerto support if needed.

Incentivized

• Documentation around service account permissions was a little sparse when we implemented it
• It's sometimes hard to get the reason behind a (rare) job failure without going into logs
• The UI around snapshots and backups could do with some clarity around the restore points that will be available

Incentivized

• Enable the ability to use IBM Cloud Object Storage as a target for Zerto's long-term retention feature.
• Easier access to the underlying VMware infrastructure would be nice. Right now we have to connect to IBM's VPN and use other tools to do some infrastructure management tasks.
• More insight into the IBM-side VMware environment that we replicate to (i.e. ability to see available IPs, etc). Most of that is managed by IBM.

Incentivized

Plainly, the product just works. I don't have to babysit it.

Incentivized

Still clunky compared to the on-prem version but getting better with every release. It does what it needs to do, and does it well. They are stuck with some limitations in the way Azure works so I don't know how much better they can make it but they've just added 365 backup management all from the same pane so it seems they're not done yet.

Incentivized

Great support team!

Incentivized

Backup Exec was a very clunky application and took forever to backup to and restore from. We would backup to SSD external hard drives from a flash array, but the process still took forever to finish. Sending our data to the Azure blob storage via Veeam is a faster and more secure process than saving to the external hard drives with Backup Exec.

Incentivized

We had prior experience with Zerto and we were very happy with how it worked. Rubrik is also a very good product, but we wanted to go with the solution we were most familiar with. Zerto combined with IBM Cloud is a reliable combo that we feel works together well in addressing what we are trying to accomplish.

Incentivized

• We have had fast recovery of documents when needed; sub 10 minutes from start of restore to complete and in the users hands
• Easily a value add for backing up files outside of the given Microsoft retention period; piece of mind
• Easy tool to use with minimal training required to use it and set up backups
• When you do change your cloud licensing it does require manual intervention to update backup data requirements. if the business makes changes then your backup person may not know to make these changes

Incentivized

• Overall, it's a very effective solution both from a cost and operational standpoint. We now do DR tests once a quarter rather than once every 6 months.

Incentivized