I concur on everything Cruicer said about DPM. It's a decent product designed for ALL-Windows shops. It's now been enhanced to support Exchange and SQL Server (last I heard), but it will never support anything on Unix. But for an all-Windows shop that's reasonably-sized, it's actually pretty cool.
I also heard the CommVault sales pitch and was very impressed. After a full evaluation, though, we didn't see enough reason to change. We didn't think it was
garbage, but we did see it as another Windows-centric product. This probably is because Microsoft was a key investor when they did their redesign back in 2000. If you're a Windows-centric shop, that may be great. If you are Unix-centric, then I think you might have a hard time with this product. How are they Windows-centric? Here are a few examples:
- The Commserve (i.e. the master server) only runs on Windows and it will probably always be that way. If you ask them about this, they talk like Unix is dead and why would you ever want a Unix server?
- Their nifty features ALWAYS come out on Windows first, such as full text search of backup files (now on Unix)
- They were the first to support SharePoint 2007
- Their features on
Sharepoint/Exchange/SQL Server always tend to be a little ahead of anybody else ( a little not a lot) An example would be they have syntethetic full backups on Exchange and SQL Server. Very nice if you have those products.
- They have the equivalent to Flashbackup for Windows & Unix, but they can only do file-level restore from image backups on Windows. NetBackup can do that on Windows and Unix.
So if you view the world through Microsoft-centric eyes, then this product might be better for you than NetBackup. We are a mixed environment, and we prefer to keep some things on Unix. For example, I prefer a Unix or Linux master server for a lot of reasons, and I don't think you'll ever get a Unix Commserve. If you don't want that, then your view of the product might be
different.
I don't want to sound like I'm slamming it. I just want to discuss the relative merits of these two products. Again, I don't think that CommVault is garbage, but I don't agree with their usual assertion that they're years ahead of NetBackup. (They do have some features that I really with NetBackup would add, but I'm not ready to throw away years of work for a few features.)
Here are a few comments on the features Crucier listed in his email (not to pick on you, Crucier) ;)
The priority engine will pause lower-priority jobs to finish higher priority jobs
This does work and is very nice, but I feel the way you set this up is very cryptic. Make sure you try this part out when evaluating, and I think you'll see what I mean. NetBackups 1-99 setting is much easier to understand.
Simultaneous restore of multiplexed images.
NetBackup has the same feature and I've used it. If you start several restores from backups that were multiplexed to the same tape, NetBackup will read the tape once and restore all of that data. (See http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/242380.htm)
Fully operational reporting
Have you actually tried it?
They talk about it like they've invented reporting or something. I actually thought it was kind of Mickey-Mouse. I also found it very difficult to figure out what actually worked or didn't work last night. (Kind of important.) The bigger the environment, the bigger this issue would become. In addition, if you want a commercial reporting product like Wysdm, Aptare, etc you are out of luck I'm not sure if any of the commercial reporting apps support it.
Single Instance Store
This is file level only (possibly windows only). I think if you want single instance store, you should do it at the sub-file level using either NetBackup PureDisk or a deduplication disk target. (In 6.5,
NetBackup supports a PureDisk-based storage unit as a target for all backups.) Commvault added this so they could say they have a dedupe story, but it's far from dedupe if it's file-level only.
SharePoint single file restore
I'm pretty sure NBU has this coming out soon if it's not here already.
Gartner lists Commvault and Symantec as #1 and #2 respectively
I don't believe Gartner even rates things in order like this. I believe that backup software has moved into the mature
market category, which means they stopped doing the quadrant. But I've seen their reports on mature markets, and I'm pretty sure they don't rate them like this. They just list them alphabetically and give an opinion on whether a given vendor is moving things forward or backward, and I think both companies are moving things forward. I would ask to see the Gartner report before you believed this.
Message level for Exchange
I'm PRETTY sure NBU now has this, but have you thought about what that would be like? Do you really want users to be able to call up to the help desk and request a restore at the message level?
Can you imagine what those restore requests would look like? "Um, I got an email from a guy a week or so ago. I think his name was Steve, no maybe it was Fred. The subject said something like "Important message!" or "Urgent email," or something like that, and I'm pretty sure the body had the word "bubba" in it, but I'm not positive. Can you restore it?" No thanks. How about you just set the retention on your deleted items folder to 60 days and tell them to go find their own deleted emails?
Extremely scalable
Their claims about this come from their backup catalog being distributed among what NBU would call media servers -- it's not
stored centrally in the Commserve. However, that distribution comes with enough drawbacks (such as forcing a client to do a full if uses a different media server than it used last time), that most large environments centrally share their Commvault catalog (which CV charges you extra for!), giving them the same architecture as NBU has in the base product. Given that, I don't see how it's any more scalable than NBU. Make sure you see what I say about the GUI later, as it is aimed at scalability.
Microsoft uses them
They're a signficant investor. Of course they use them. Why would they use anything else? They probably get it
free.
Here's a few other features Commvault tends to talk about
The Common Technology Engine
Because they rewrote everything from scratch seven years ago, they have a common database across all their products. I just don't understand how this helps ME. Archives, backups, and replication are still going to be configured separately, so
how does the fact that they share a common database make my life easier? If anything, their adherence to a CTE prohibits them from acquiriing best-in-class products. They have to invent everything from scratch. So when they have to add something big like dedupe, they can't just purchase one like Symantec did and integrate it later. They have to code it from scratch, which takes much, much longer.
Storage Policies
This is the equivalent to NetBackup's 6.5 Storage lifecycle features.
Multiple data readers
Now this is VERY nice. NetBackup's automatic multistreaming feature only creates one stream per filesystem. They can create multiple streams for large filesystems. It did seem difficult to configure, though.
SSO for disk
They don't call it that, but they can share disk between multiple media servers. NetBackup has this in 6.5.
NetBackup is ahead in a number of areas, too. Here are a few.
User community
Look at the number of people on this list and the amount of help you get from really smart people. Commvault users have nothing like this. Don't underestimate the value of thousands of people in your same position helping you out.
Synthetic cumulative backups
In addition to doing synthetic fulls (like commvault), NetBackup also does synthetic cumulative
incrementals.
Enterprise GUI
Commvault's GUI was designed for a workgroup not an enterprise. To modify the equivalent of one policy, you have to drill down three levels. Then when you're done with that one, you drill down three levels again to do the next policy. For a large environment, I'll take NetBackup's GUI any day.
Monitoring
Some people may like Commvault's reporting better (I didn't), but NetBackup has much better real-time monitoring. Pop up that Activity
Monitor and watch it dynamically display everything that's going on. Filter what you want in or out. If something failed, right click on it and run it again. Commvault has nothing like that. They have a series of after-the-fact HTML reports that you have to keep running and running.
Sub-file deduplication
Puredisk is awesome for remote sites. If you have remote offices, just try it. It beats anything Commvault has hands-down.
Cross-platform automated client install/upgrade
As of 6.5, you can update windows clients from a Unix master and vice versa. You can't do this in Commvault. In fact, the only way you can do automated Unix & MacOS upgrades in CommVault is to make modifications to core files on Unix and Mac clients. NetBackup requires no such modifications.
Block level incremental backup
If you like BLIB, you won't find it in Commvault.
Desktop/Laptop
backup
Commvault has no answer for this need if you have it. NetBackup has DLO, which is now (or will soon be) powered by Puredisk.
Commvault also charges you extra money for features that NetBackup includes in the base product:
- Inline tape copy
- Media server failover
- Backup verification
- Ability to create copies from copies
So, like I said, it's not that Commvault is horrible. It's just that I don't see how it's THAT much better than NetBackup. It's better in some areas and NetBackup is better in some areas. It's not like moving to them is going to change your life.
JS