We compared Dell Avamar and Rubrik based on user reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Dell Avamar earns acclaim for its scalability, data compression capabilities, swift incremental backups, and seamless integration with Data Domain and VM stacks. Rubrik is praised for its automated policy enforcement and efficient ransomware detection. Dell Avamar could improve its tape connectivity and bare-metal restoration. Users also requested better Azure backups and a more user-friendly interface. Rubrik could expand compatibility with open-source databases, improve documentation, and strengthen its ability to back up remote sites.
Service and Support: Some customers express satisfaction with Dell support, but others said there is room for improvement. Rubrik customers appreciate the support team's expertise and fast response.
Ease of Deployment: Opinions on Dell Avamar’s setup were mixed. Some users found it to be straightforward, while others considered it complex and difficult. Deployment time ranged from a few hours to a week, and assistance from Dell engineers might be necessary. Rubrik's setup is simple, and users say the support team was available to assist as needed.
Pricing: Dell Avamar’s pricing is generally seen as reasonable, but some users think it is expensive. Some users find Rubrik's pricing expensive, but many say it’s justified by its encryption and security features. Rubrik's license includes both software and hardware without any additional costs.
ROI: Dell Avamar provides cost savings through data reduction, deduplication, and compression. Rubrik provides peace of mind and some cost savings, but users say that quantifying the ROI is difficult.
Comparison Results: Dell Avamar is a scalable solution that offers excellent data compression and fast compression. However, Avamar earned mixed reviews for support, deployment, and pricing. Users also requested better Azure and bare-metal backups and restoration capabilities. Users like Rubrik’s advanced ransomware features, excellent support, and automated policy enforcement. However, some had issues with its remote backup abilities and high price tag.
"They are extremely reliable and scalable — they provide the best de-duplication on the market."
"Dell EMC Avamar is easy to work with and is user-friendly."
"The fast backup and recovery and the Full Backup features are valuable."
"The product is good for backups."
"The solution integrates well with Unix, Windows, Hyper-V and VM."
"The performance of Dell EMC Avamar is good."
"Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup."
"I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end users and integration with EMC products for businesses."
"The Live Mount feature is excellent; it's useful for the backup administrator and end user."
"Time dedicated to backup was drastically reduced."
"Product support team is excellent, with issues typically being resolved on the same day."
"CloudOut, because only blocks are pushed after compression and deduplication, not raw sizing."
"What I like about Rubrik is its strong focus on security, particularly in combating ransomware threats."
"It has also saved us time managing backups. It's pretty stable. So it sends us a report if something goes wrong, then you get a report. You don't really need to manually monitor this software over time. If something happens, you'll get an error and you'll get an email notification and then address it. We found the product pretty stable if it's configured correctly. So it has reduced management time."
"Not having to specify a time to run a backup with a fixed schedule is something that's really beneficial. In the past we had to schedule and try to manually stagger things over the window, to back up everything. Because Rubrik is SLA-based, you say, "Well, I need it to fit in this window here," and it just backs it up when it's most convenient for the Brik and for the third-party system. It looks at the CPU usage and says, "Okay, it's not as busy now. I know I've got time to take the backup." That's a real advantage."
"We do like the instant recovery... Now, we say, "Okay, give me 15 seconds and I can get this back up for you." And within that 15 seconds it's on and the only thing that we have to do afterwards is vMotion it off of the Rubrik storage back to where it should rest."
"It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first."
"More integration would be helpful, as well as the addition of more applications."
"Backup image browse times should be faster."
"It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution."
"Technical support should be more knowledgeable."
"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."
"When we used the solution, it was still new, and so the customer service/technical support was not the best."
"In my opinion, the user interface and the user friendliness could be improved. The specific thing I have in mind are the graphics, which are not quite user-friendly."
"The solution needs to be more secure and needs to better protect against ransomware."
"Rubrik could improve in customization options for dashboards."
"Its cost is high."
"The functionality is missing, but they are very receptive to our thoughts and ideas."
"The recovery of Oracle databases is too complicated. It is not something that helps the DBA, the Database Administrator, but it should be done by the backup person like many other solutions. Everything is ready for the DBA to recover the database. It is a way of doing things, but I don't think you should give the backup people the ability to do it."
"The Office 365 protection could be improved."
"Capacity reports could definitely be improved. It's hard to determine what is using the space and why. For instance, you can see that some host is using 2 TB on the Rubrik node and the disk space on that host is 400 GBs. It's hard to explain how there can be 2 TBs of data on local storage when nothing has changed on the host for the past three days."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I need to create reports to know whether something is available or not, how much frontend data is being protected, etc. Rubrik gives a lot of things in the report, which can be confusing. It isn't very easy to get reports. It shows all the backup, index, replication, and everything else in one report. So, I have to export, filter, and then do the calculations."
Dell Avamar is ranked 12th in Backup and Recovery with 81 reviews while Rubrik is ranked 4th in Backup and Recovery with 83 reviews. Dell Avamar is rated 7.6, while Rubrik is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell Avamar writes "Stable, integrates well with other solutions, and has a good price, but its UI needs a refresh". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rubrik writes "Easy to use with minimal training required, innovative, good support". Dell Avamar is most compared with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, Veeam Backup & Replication, Dell NetWorker, Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) and Commvault Cloud, whereas Rubrik is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Commvault Cloud, Zerto and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. See our Dell Avamar vs. Rubrik report.
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