IDERA SQL Safe Backup Review

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

December 3, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using IDERA SQL Safe Backup couple of years new on MS-SQL clusters servers.

The the backup and restore process is cross data centers and cross countries for the QA and prod environment.

We are using the capability of logs, diff and full backups. In some cases with encryption and some without encryption.

Pros

History visibility
Very intuitive
Easy to set up

Cons

The UI are old
Need to babysitter the system all the time
Events not reflecting the reality
The support is terrible, in my opinion

Likelihood to Recommend

It may be cheap but the system stuck in the 90's, the UI\UX are not as you will expected.

The alerts are not provide reliable evidence and human supervision is needed constantly.

The system not knowing how to backup automatically the secondary server in the availability group, you need to configure that explicitly.

Verified User

Manager in Research & Development (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

This makes SQL disaster recovery a piece of cake

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

August 17, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use SQL Safe throughout the entire organization to manage backups for all of our SQL Server instances. SQL already has a very solid backup mechanism, but when you start having to manage more than a few instances, checking to make sure backups run every day and scheduling time to do test restores of your backups becomes tedious. SQL Safe allows me to spend only a few moments per day doing a disaster recovery health check and allows me to quickly to test restores without impacting production loads.

Pros

Rather than having to copy scripts between SQL servers when you create a new instance, all I have to do is design a policy that predetermines backup location, what to back up, the schedule, encryption settings, etc and then simply assign instances to it as they come and go. And if I need to pause backups to troubleshoot something I simply go to the policy and disable it. SQL Safe handles the rest. Policy-based management of SQL backups is the way to go.
Any good DBA knows that backing up data is important, but that isn't what we're paid to do. We are paid to RESTORE data when needed. And unless you're 100% certain that you can restore any database to an acceptable point in time, then you should rethink your strategy. SQL Safe makes it easy to not only backup the data, but restore it. In addition to vanilla restores, which are amazingly simplified, you can also do test restores without affecting the production load, and even schedule restores to a development (or other) server to keep a test environment refreshed with current data.
If there are failed events, not only does SQL Safe let you know, it provides a very easy way to retry the missed or failed backups. Making sure your environment is okay is a simple as opening the SQL Safe management console and making sure all of the lights are green.
I probably know more about SQL backups than most and can easily manage a set of SQL servers without this tool. But it makes it so darn easy! I would venture to say that even people that know nothing about SQL (general sys admins, small business owners, etc) could learn to use this tool without having to know much about SQL or how backups/restores work. The interface is powerful, but very simple to learn.

Cons

When you're adding a new SQL server, sometimes the install from the management server to the SQL server will fail. I'm guessing this happens because of some version difference in Windows components or similar. Not a huge deal because you can just copy the agent to the SQL server and install it there, but considering how easy everything else is, I would expect this to be a little more fluid.
I ran into a situation where part of our business decided to move their servers to a third-party data center. When they took away a SQL server that I was managing with SQL Safe, anything having to do with that policy took forever. Click. Wait 10 minutes. Window reacts. I'm guessing this is because the Management Console is trying super hard to contact the server in question, but I wish it handled losing a server better than it does.

Likelihood to Recommend

SQL Safe is appropriate and well-suited for any backup scenario. Having used SQL Safe, I probably wouldn't want to manage a set of servers in the future without it. If you only have a couple of SQL servers, it might not be worth the spend as there are well-maintained free options that are very functional (though they do require more technical knowledge). But I can't think of a scenario where SQL Safe wouldn't be appropriate.

Greg Goss

SQL Database and Business Intelligence Manager in Information Technology at Ten Cate (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

This makes SQL disaster recovery a piece of cake

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

August 17, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Rather than having to copy scripts between SQL servers when you create a new instance, all I have to do is design a policy that predetermines backup location, what to back up, the schedule, encryption settings, etc and then simply assign instances to it as they come and go. And if I need to pause backups to troubleshoot something I simply go to the policy and disable it. SQL Safe handles the rest. Policy-based management of SQL backups is the way to go.
Any good DBA knows that backing up data is important, but that isn't what we're paid to do. We are paid to RESTORE data when needed. And unless you're 100% certain that you can restore any database to an acceptable point in time, then you should rethink your strategy. SQL Safe makes it easy to not only backup the data, but restore it. In addition to vanilla restores, which are amazingly simplified, you can also do test restores without affecting the production load, and even schedule restores to a development (or other) server to keep a test environment refreshed with current data.
If there are failed events, not only does SQL Safe let you know, it provides a very easy way to retry the missed or failed backups. Making sure your environment is okay is a simple as opening the SQL Safe management console and making sure all of the lights are green.
I probably know more about SQL backups than most and can easily manage a set of SQL servers without this tool. But it makes it so darn easy! I would venture to say that even people that know nothing about SQL (general sys admins, small business owners, etc) could learn to use this tool without having to know much about SQL or how backups/restores work. The interface is powerful, but very simple to learn.

Cons

When you're adding a new SQL server, sometimes the install from the management server to the SQL server will fail. I'm guessing this happens because of some version difference in Windows components or similar. Not a huge deal because you can just copy the agent to the SQL server and install it there, but considering how easy everything else is, I would expect this to be a little more fluid.
I ran into a situation where part of our business decided to move their servers to a third-party data center. When they took away a SQL server that I was managing with SQL Safe, anything having to do with that policy took forever. Click. Wait 10 minutes. Window reacts. I'm guessing this is because the Management Console is trying super hard to contact the server in question, but I wish it handled losing a server better than it does.

Likelihood to Recommend

Greg Goss

SQL Database and Business Intelligence Manager in Information Technology at Ten Cate (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

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