Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs NetApp AltaVault vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

DD series enables your organization to protect, manage and recover data at scale. As the next generation of Dell Data Domain appliances, DD series sets the bar for efficient data management from edge to core to cloud and includes the ecosystem support and comprehensive data protection that customers have come to appreciate from Data Domain. The DD series offers a super-fast, secure, and an efficient solution that is built for multi-cloud data protection and to keep up with future demands. The DD series consists of the DD9900, DD9400, DD6900, DD6400, DD3300, and a software-defined option, PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).

DD series empowers organizations to protect, manage and recover data at scale across their entire diverse ecosystems. DD series provides broad ecosystem support, efficiency, powerful data protection, cloud-enabled capabilities, and the cyber resiliency that our customers demand.

The DD Operating System (DDOS) is the brilliance that drives the DD series. DDOS contributes the agility, security, and reliability that pushes DD series to deliver high-speed, scalable, and standard-setting protection storage for backup, archive, and disaster recovery. DDOS integrates seamlessly with many existing infrastructures, permitting ease-of-use with leading backup and archiving applications, and provides superior performance in conjunction with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite. When you decide to purchase a new DD series appliance you can easily consume DDOS as a subscription providing greater flexibility for deployment while minimizing your overall upfront costs.

DD series does a great job to minimize the threat of data loss and adds to the value of protected data while meeting ever-increasing demands of SLAs and increasing ROI. DDOS drives DD series to deliver up to 38% faster backups and up to 45% faster restores at significantly higher compression levels.

DD series supports high availability within the single rack. Additionally, DD series can greatly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by minimizing downtime in the unlikely event of a hardware failure. DD series delivers amazing high-speed networking connectivity with support for 25GbE and 100GbE network adapters.

Benefits of Dell PowerProtect DD

Fast, secure, efficient data protection:

• Provide 1.5PB usable capacity in a single rack
• Allow for Up to 3PB capacity for long-term retention
• Logical capacity is increased by up to 30% per TB when compared to the previous generation
• Allow for instant access and instant restore of up to 64VMs and 100k IOPS
• High-speed network connectivity – 10GbE, 25GbE and 100GbE
• Seamless fast integration and outstanding performance with PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite
• Supports many of the leading enterprise backup and archive applications

Industry-leading multi-cloud protection:

• Provides software-defined protection storage on-premises and in-cloud with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).
• DDVE scales up to 256TB in-cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others).
• Greatly improves in-cloud restore performance by as much as 10x when compared to previous versions.
• Cloud Tier delivers super simple and value-added long-term retention to public, private, or hybrid clouds
• Cost-efficient disaster recovery to the cloud

Operational simplicity:

• Enhanced DD System Manager supports a complete chassis view
• Significantly lower administrative costs
• Grants a single point of management for all DD series by PowerProtect DD Management Center
• Deploy Smart Scale for PowerProtect appliances directly from PowerProtect DD Management Center. Smart Scale helps drive down management complexities while increasing storage efficiencies. 

Reviews from Real Users

One user, who is an enterprise IT architect at a tech service company, says that “Dell PowerProtect DD is highly stable and reliable. I have not had a time when the system did not work and in an emergency this is critical.” He rates the ROI it has brought his company a five out of five.

A pre-sales and technical manager at a tech services company says that "The features that I have found most valuable with Dell PowerProtect DD are its deduplication feature and its DD Boost protocol for fast transfer, which is amazing."

Chris C., lead infrastructure architect at ThinkON, relates that Dell PowerProtect DD “allows our organization to send more data to this device compared to others. It also allows us a fast recovery of files or Virtual Machines if needed being on-premise.”

NetApp AltaVault is a cloud-integrated storage solution created to increase recovery capabilities and lower cost and risks. It is better than traditional backup and recovery solutions because they are considerably slower, more expensive, risky, and can be too complex for the comprehension of many users. NetApp AltaVault solves issues related to backup, archival, and restoration. Compared to on-premises solutions, this software claims to be up to 90% less expensive while solving multiple issues related to data storage in the cloud. AltaVault presents three solutions to its customers: backup and recovery, cold storage and archives, and disaster recovery.

1. NetApp’s backup and recovery solution works with Kerne-Based Virtual Machine, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere, creating a solution for mid-sized businesses as well as for bigger companies that want to protect their offices in different locations. The usable local cache capacities of this solution range from 32TB to 383TB, providing clients with enough storage for their important data while giving them the option to retrieve it if something goes amiss.

2. NetApp AltaVault can be configured in cold storage mode and used for data that is not often used. The solution is scalable, thus allowing minimal costs for operating with cold data and allowing fast access to it at the same time.

3. AltaVault offers disaster recovery for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Your data will be secured on the cloud, providing you with a secure backup if the need for disaster recovery arises.

NetApp AltaVault Features

NetApp AltaVault’s many valued features include:

• Data reduction: NetApp AltaVault applies deduplication and compression, reducing data up to a 30:1 ratio.
  
  
• Network and cloud optimization: AltaVault can increase data transfer speed by up to 4 times due to its built-in WAN optimization.
  
  
• Data restoration: Because data is restored from the local cache, recoverability is up to 32 times faster than other methods.
  
  
• Deployment and scale: Users can choose their preferred method - virtual, physical, or cloud-based in Azure or AWS. Since NetApp AltaVault starts at 2TB and can scale up to 57PB, it is one of the most scalable products in its category.
  
  
• Compatible with existing backup software: NetApp AltaVault is compatible with NetApp SnapMirror, EMC, IBM, Commvault, Veritas, and Veeam, meaning it offers a vast array of options for its users when it comes to backup software.
  
  
• Cloud choice and agility: AltaVault supports NetApp StorageGRID, Azure, Google, IBM, and AWS. This provides users with the assurance that their data is safely stored, even if their cloud provider experiences technical issues.

NetApp AltaVault Benefits

The benefits of using NetApp AltaVault include:

• Efficient solution for data reduction
• Compatible with leading public and private cloud storage providers
• Provides data encryption

Reviews from Real Users

A Pre-sales Manager at a computer software company says NetApp AltaVault has fair pricing with a good GUI and a straightforward setup.

NetApp FAS series is an enterprise-level storage system that provides a wide variety of data management services, including data protection, block and file storage, and data management.

NetApp FAS is designed to be highly scalable, allowing your organization to grow storage capacity on demand. NetApp FAS also supports multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel, as well as various storage architectures, including SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

The FAS series has multiple data protection and data management features, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication, to help secure your data and manage it more efficiently. The system integrates with other NetApp products and solutions, to create a unified data management platform. The system can be deployed on-premise, on multi-cloud environments, or hybrid.

NetApp FAS Series Benefits and Features

NetApp FAS series provides its users with several key benefits and features, including:

• Scalability: NetApp FAS series is easy to scale, allowing organizations to rapidly grow their storage capacity according to demand.

• Security: Protect and manage your data with various data protection and data management tools, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication.

• Seamless integration: Integrate with other NetApp products and solutions to ensure a unified data management platform across on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

• Reduced costs: Consolidation of multiple storage boxes greatly reduces the data center footprint. From a management point of view, with NetApp FAS you manage a single storage box instead of multiple storage boxes.
  
  
• Compatibility: Forward and backward compatibility ensures that you don’t have to trade in existing controllers. New controllers can always integrate with previously released controllers.

• Multi-protocol support: Support for multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.

• High performance and availability: The solution has high input and output per second performance and ensures that critical data remains accessible in the event of a hardware failure.
  
  
• Intuitive interface: The FAS series has a user-friendly interface and management dashboard, making it easy to manage your storage systems. With unified management, you can quickly run a single protocol on your entire system
  
  
• Data cloning and replication: Easily clone databases of any size. Clones occupy a very, very small footprint on the storage until they are severed from the main database. Replications carried out by the system are fast and require very little bandwidth.

Reviews from Real Users

NetApp FAS Series stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its speed, reliability, and a wide variety of features.

Adriano S., IT project and infrastructure service manager, writes, “The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.”

Temitope O., a NetApp product manager at Hiperdist Ltd, says, “I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system. You rather have a system for a particular protocol and another system for other protocols, especially in a big environment like mine.”