We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Rubrik based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Rubrik’s users report that, in addition to being a powerful solution, it is simple to deploy and work with and therefore it comes out on top in this comparison. According to reviewers, PowerProtect’s deployment process can be difficult.
"Our clients like the wide range of features that are available within this single solution."
"It is very fast as compared to the other competitors. Its simplicity and bit rate are also valuable. It takes less time if we compare it with the old solution that we have."
"9900 has around 1.5 petabits of capacity in a single rack, and that's huge."
"Deduplication and compression are the best features of the solution, which are popular and very effective."
"We have found the product to be scalable."
"The product provides good backup and compression services."
"Dell PowerProtect DD is a stable solution."
"Stable and scalable suite of solutions with deduplication, apart from data protection, storage, and backup."
"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."
"The web-based approach is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds."
"The main benefit is that we are secured in terms of workloads. We know that if we need to restore any VMs, or even any files inside a VM, that we will succeed 100 percent. This means that we don't need to spend much time administering the backup environment because we know it is self-healing and efficient. So, we are spending that time on something else, which is always a plus."
"The live mount reduces complexity."
"The Auto-Snapshot SLA feature and recovery time are amazing. It took seven seconds to have a server back up and running in production from a total failure."
"It has the ability to test DR in a controlled, inexpensive way and to restore between environments."
"I value the options it has for storage tiering (i.e. whether it should be a flash, SSD, or pushed to the cloud) depending on the data provided."
"We have some problems with backing up on the Power Platform. PowerServer is an IBM product, and it forces us to back up over LAN, which is not suitable for us."
"The pricing could be better, but it's still not too expensive."
"The pricing should be adjusted. Customers continuously talk about the price. They know it is a good solution and they really need the type of storage the solution offers, but it costs somewhere around $100,000 and up. It's not cheap, but it's very important for data vendors."
"Dell PowerProtect DD could improve by having better integration with other backup solutions."
"Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is expensive. Also, it has a sort of a big physical footprint that data domains have, and that's part of the problem."
"Looking at Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), there is a need for improvement, especially in terms of protection from cyber resiliency, cyber recovery, or man-in-the-middle attacks."
"When you use Data Domain, you have to have at least 20% free space so it can work properly. Sometimes we struggle with that, because we wanted to use all the free space, but then Data Domain becomes really slow. I understand that 20% is needed to process all the data, and doing the duplication and compression and all that, but it would be a big improvement if they did not require that 20%, because it is just too much to have available."
"DD doesn't have Intel's air gap technology."
"The functionality is missing, but they are very receptive to our thoughts and ideas."
"The dashboard and user interface could be improved to make them more user-friendly."
"Looking at how the data is broken down, we can see the total story, but sometimes it's difficult to see how big a particular snapshot is. Across 90 days of snapshots, which one is a particularly large one? Looking at the data holistically could be a lot easier."
"Two areas I would like to see improvement in Rubrik are pricing and localization."
"The Polaris piece could use improvement. When you get a report and you have events that are suspicious, you cannot drill down and find out why it's suspicious. You only know it's suspicious, but you don't know the root cause. Other than that, everything works well."
"The web interface could benefit from some improvement, particularly in terms of alerting and dashboard clarity. The cloud web interface is somewhat confusing and could use more development attention. Additionally, it's essential to ensure that local on-premise management options remain available alongside cloud-based solutions, as internet availability can affect backup management. Regarding features, cross-hypervisor restore functionality would be a valuable addition, allowing for greater flexibility in restoring VMs across different environments."
"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."
"It would be nice if they could work on the pricing a bit."
More Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is ranked 1st in Deduplication Software with 61 reviews while Rubrik is ranked 4th in Backup and Recovery with 82 reviews. Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is rated 8.4, while Rubrik is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) writes "Supports business continuity process but needs improvement in pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rubrik writes "Easy to use with minimal training required, innovative, good support". Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is most compared with HPE StoreOnce, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, ExaGrid EX Series, Veeam Backup & Replication and Veritas NetBackup Appliance, whereas Rubrik is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Commvault Cloud, Zerto and Azure Backup.
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The biggest difference is Rubrik has native software and hardware on one platform. Data Domain is only a disk target and a very good one but you still need backup software such as Networker, Veritas, Commvault, etc. That software requires both a master and media server which drives a lot of complexity. Rubrik is hyperconverged data management, there is not software licensing, end of year true-ups or additional infrastructure. Policy-based backup and restore functions with cloud archiving integration. It’s also really fast! Finally, if you’re running Nutanix and its native hypervisor AHV then Rubrik can protect that hypervisor and VMware.
I agree with the other answers - With Data Domain, you still require a software solution to go with the back-end storage. I.e., Avamar, Networker, etc.
Rubrik is a Software Defined Solution or can be deployed with its own set of hardware\storage.