Data Analyst at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Supports multiple platforms and applications, and the multi-tenancy is critical to our business
Pros and Cons
  • "The multi-tenancy is the most valuable feature for us because it's the only software that is fully multi-tenant and that has all the features we need to provide to all our tenants. It provides us with advanced features for MySQL and Oracle, among other platforms"
  • "There is room for improvement in its user interface and web console, called Command Center. They are improving it every year so if they continue in that direction, I think it will be a very reliable console."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for backup as a service for our tenants. We are service providers. We host Commvault partially on our cloud and we also use some physical servers for a part of the Commvault infrastructure.

How has it helped my organization?

We need the solution for our tenants. We need a reliable solution with as many platforms and applications supported as possible and a solution that is multi-tenant. Commvault has helped us to win some customers against our competitors because we have this solution and they don't have anything like it. They don't use Commvault.

It provides us with steady growth in our sales. It's a unique solution. In our region, we are the biggest provider with the Commvault solution. We're not so big compared to Europe or the US, but we are big here.

Commvault has helped us in some unusual cases when we needed to move a tenant's environment to our cloud or to migrate a tenant from one data center to another. Commvault has been the best solution for this. It has helped a lot.

It has also minimized admin tasks a lot because it has a very good number of settings and tools. You need to spend some time configuring it. After that, you click the start button and everything goes okay. Occasionally we have to check that everything is okay and that nothing is broken. But it's excellent in manageability. It saves us a significant amount of time.

In addition, we have managed to save some costs because the solution supports so many platforms and has so many supported applications. So we need one solution and not ten. It has reduced our costs in terms of infrastructure. If we didn't use Commvault, we would spend 50 percent more on several other software solutions similar to Commvault to replace it. And it has significantly reduced our storage. One of the categories that we measured when looking at software to use for our backup as a service was storage efficiency. Commvault was one of the few that has a deduplication engine and our storage is about one-eighth of what it would be.

What is most valuable?

The multi-tenancy is the most valuable feature for us because it's the only software that is fully multi-tenant and that has all the features we need to provide to all our tenants. It provides us with advanced features for MySQL and Oracle, among other platforms. Many backup solutions have support Oracle backup, but not many have as many features as Commvault for this kind of backup.

The user interface for managing multiple environments in one place is okay for our engineers. It has all the needed features, all the needed settings, available in both the old console and the new web console. I think our tenants are also happy with all the available features from the Commvault consoles.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in its user interface and web console, called Command Center. They are improving it every year so if they continue in that direction, I think it will be a very reliable console.

Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
771,063 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

As a company, we have been using Commvault since 2015. Personally, I have used Commvault for six or seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is okay. It's stable. We haven't had many problems with the solution. If you know the solution and know what you are doing, the stability will be okay. But you must have a deeper knowledge of the solution. For this, they have good Education Services on their site, and they will help you a lot. If you do it yourself you will make mistakes and encounter some problems with configuration. It will be much slower and more painful for you. Or you can use help from Commvault Education or Commvault Services.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have scaled out since our initial configuration. Our initial configuration was around 300 TB and now it's around 1.5 PB, if we measure it by backup size. If we measure it by servers, initially it was around 10 servers and now it's around 50. We have around 60 tenants. Some of them are smaller and some of them bigger.

How are customer service and support?

Commvault's technical support is very good. I have experience with other software products and their support so I can compare Commvault with the others. Commvault support is very good. We have had about 160 tickets and almost 99 percent of these tickets were resolved very efficiently and very quickly.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have a second solution just for our virtualization platform.

We searched for a solution for other areas of protection, such as agent protection or protecting applications and virtualized cloud platforms that our previous solution could not handle. Our previous solution, EMC Avamar, was more restricted in terms of applications and platforms that it could protect.

How was the initial setup?

In both my current and my previous company, I was the one responsible for the initial setup and it is straightforward. But the next step is the initial configuration and that is difficult for a less experienced person. Now, I can say that I could set it up and configure it much more quickly.

From deployment to production, in my current company, took two to three weeks.

Our initial setup was one CommServe, so it was a simple deployment, without disaster recovery clusterization. In addition there were two MediaAgents. We are extensively using a firewall proxy setup as well. The setup has grown over the years and now, the infrastructure of Commvault is around 50 servers.

We're planning to deploy another one in another installation. The current one will be preserved as it is, and we will deploy a new one with some improvements from our side and perhaps with a different overall design.

What about the implementation team?

Because it was my second installation of Commvault, I did it mostly myself. After the installation, I had some questions about the initial configuration and they were resolved by Commvault's standard support. I opened an incident with Commvault and they helped me with this very quickly.

What was our ROI?

Its efficiency has returned our investments over the course of about two years. Mostly it was an investment in infrastructure.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our cost is around $20,000 per month. The previous year, it was around $30,000 per month. It now costs less because Commvault changed the licensing type for providers. It's not that we are using Commvault less, but it's just due to a licensing change.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated EMC Avamar, Data Domain. And the second one was Symantec NetBackup, at that time, which is now Veritas NetBackup. Veritas NetBackup was the closest competitor when we decided on Commvault.

Commvault was slightly better in price and the licensing was simpler for us than on other platforms. Commvault was also better in terms of data deduplication. It's more efficient with storage.

What other advice do I have?

It's good software and you can create software that is diverse. It has just about every application platform and cloud platform you could need in one solution. You don't need several software programs to admin and to back up many solutions. It provides software efficiency. You can do what you need to do with one solution, not ten.

Use the Educational Services or Professional Services, if you don't have experience with this software. It will be a better experience if you have some background in the software. When I talk with people in my industry about Commvault, they complain that it is difficult, it's big, it's complicated, etc.. I say to them that we have no problems with it. Everything is fine. That is mostly because we read a lot about it through the documentation and watched some educational tutorials before we implemented it. And support is great. Support can help you to resolve questions, not only when something is not working, but also with configuration issues.

Commvault's breadth and depth of cloud support is okay. They continue to introduce new features and new ways to administrate, configure, and use cloud platforms. There may be some platforms that are better in certain areas, but Commvault is not bad and it's not excellent. It's good, it's in the middle. I can't say Commvault's cloud support has a major effect on our operations, but it has some effect. We have cases when Commvault is the only solution to move data from a given cloud to a private cloud or from a private cloud to on-premises. So for migration it's a great solution. But for cloud backup, we don't have a lot of tenants who use Amazon in our region. They mostly use private or regional providers, not global.

Everything is okay in Commvault and they're improving it by themselves. Every update brings new or updated features, which is great.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
System Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
A seamless and efficient backup solution
Pros and Cons
  • "Commvault is both very stable and scalable."
  • "The initial setup is rather complex, especially when switching versions."

What is our primary use case?

We use Commvault as our main backup solution.

Commvault is also a very reliable backup solution; this is one of our main use cases. There are several other use cases, but backup is the most dominant feature.

Our organization has between 500 to 1,000 employees. The IT department and a few admins use this solution.

What is most valuable?

Commvault has a very extensive report section, at least in the Java console and web console. There is a transition being made from Java to a web console currently, which offers a more sophisticated, more advanced, and more modern interface. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Commvault for over eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Commvault is both very stable and scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is very good. We don't get direct support from Commvault as our first line of support; there is an intermediate organization that is very capable, who are masters, the highest degree of admins — they provide us with support. If there's any problem or any advice that we need, they are always available to support us.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is rather complex, especially when switching versions.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price could always be lower. I do not have the exact pricing information but I know it's not cheap.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We would like to evaluate other options. Other products could be more suited to our needs, but currently, we don't have the time to evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

Think about your backup strategy before you begin making a blueprint — that's very important. Do not deploy it and then try to change it. This will only lead to unnecessary difficulties. What are the needs of your organizations? RTO and RPO are also very important. If you want to switch versions or solutions once it has already been deployed, it's not impossible to do so, but it's going to take some serious time and effort.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

In every product, there is always a balance between the features and how you use them. This solution provides many options; however, If you want to understand and use all of the features that are available, as there are so many, it's going to be quite difficult. I think that's quite common with every application: you use a specific set of features that you're used to and which are easy to use. There are almost too many features; it's almost too much for an admin to handle — It's just overkill. 

A more simplified interface or front-end would be more preferable. This is not to say that the back-end should be easier, it can be complex. Moreover, it needs to be complex to satisfy demanding customers.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Commvault Cloud
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Commvault Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
771,063 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Their support is very fast when resolving our problems
Pros and Cons
  • "I can collect the target data, then we connect it to Commvault. There is not another system that can connect to our target database or target storage. This is very important for us, because there is the threat of malware right now. This can protect not only the product, but also the backup data from outside threats."
  • "I would like Commvault to have a feature for cybersecurity threats, e.g. securing the target backup repository. Commvault just started testing and releasing this feature, but it needs to be stabilized."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use Commvault as a backup solution.

I work as a system integrator. We implement and support Commvault in our customers' environments.

We usually deploy the latest major release.

How has it helped my organization?

We can monitor, with normal detection, from the regular backup. We can determine whether it is suspicious if the client suddenly has major changes in their data.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the integration with the storage center and support for most applications, databases, and security system platforms that exist on the market. 

The user interface for Commvault is quite user-friendly. It is easy to manage the Commvault environment using the user interface.

Commvault Command Center is fully supported and has many features for us to manage the environment.

Commvault is able to do the recovery process from their console, so we don't have to actually log into it. Also, Commvault can direct information to another server. The recovery option is a very good feature.

I can collect the target data, then we connect it to Commvault. There is not another system that can connect to our target database or target storage. This is very important for us, because there is the threat of malware right now. This can protect not only the product, but also the backup data from outside threats.

Commvault supports remote office backup. It backs up the local data, then keeps monitoring and managing it.

What needs improvement?

I would like Commvault to have a feature for cybersecurity threats, e.g. securing the target backup repository. Commvault just started testing and releasing this feature, but it needs to be stabilized. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been implementing Commvault for our customers for around three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Commvault is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Commvault is very scalable in terms of the data that Commvault can maintain.

How are customer service and support?

Commvault support is very good and helpful. We receive a lot of help for our problems.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The deployment of Commvault is pretty straightforward. Commvault can do remote installation for the client. The deployment time depends on the customer's or user's permissions.

What was our ROI?

One of my customers has seen savings when using Commvault compared to other storage solutions. They compared the price of Commvault with performing maintenance on their backup system, and Commvault's price is competitive versus other backup software.

Commvault helps our customers' admins to minimize the time they spend on backup tasks and other projects. Commvault is very good in terms of performance backup. I think support time has been reduced by around 25% to 30%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Commvault is quite high in terms of pricing and licensing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have also worked with IBM Spectrum Protect and Veeam. Overall, Commvault has better support than other backups. Their support is very fast when resolving our problems.

My customers use dedupe applications, so we don't use Commvault's feature to reduce storage costs.

What other advice do I have?

Commvault is very feature-rich. Its licensing is quite easy to configure, though we must pick the right size for the backup environment so the customer can have the best price.

I would rate Commvault as eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Scalable with good pricing and a reliable performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The diversity on offer is very, very good. Everything is supported. It's great."
  • "It would be a bit unfair to say that it's complex, due to the fact that it supports so many different workloads, however, if there's anything that is a bit of a shortcoming, then it's the fact that there's a bit of complexity involved when dealing with the product."

What is our primary use case?

I both use the solution myself and provide services to my clients using the product. Mainly, I use the product for virtual machine backup, Office 365 backup, file servers, SQL Service, Oracle, et cetera.

What is most valuable?

The diversity on offer is very, very good. Everything is supported. It's great.

The product has a very close partnership with Microsoft with regards to the current implementation, and always has the latest support - or, rather, the support for the latest iteration of software provided by Microsoft or Oracle. It's excellent in that sense.

The solution has been quite stable. It offers reliable performance.

The solution is very scalable.

The pricing is quite good. We have no complaints in that area.

What needs improvement?

It would be a bit unfair to say that it's complex, due to the fact that it supports so many different workloads, however, if there's anything that is a bit of a shortcoming, then it's the fact that there's a bit of complexity involved when dealing with the product.

It should be easier to implement for tech people. Right now, it's quite difficult.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for 16 years or so. It's been well over a decade. I've got a lot of years under my belt with it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is quite good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product can scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so. There shouldn't be any issues.

We might have about 150 users on the solution currently.

How are customer service and technical support?

We've been in touch with technical support many times. They're okay. Just good, not great.

Sometimes there are people, personnel, that are not that well educated. Sometimes I know more than the person I'm talking to and they are supposed to be helping me with technical problems. It's just not going to work.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup can but a bit complex. It can be a bit difficult to implement, even for someone with a good amount of experience.

We have about 10 engineers that can handle the deployment and maintenance aspects of the product.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is quite reasonable and more than fair. It's not overly expensive.

What other advice do I have?

We are official partners with Commvault. I'm a consultant.

I would advise companies considering the solution to first check out a trial or a demo and to evaluate if it's the right solution for them. If you have a very diverse data center set up, then it's likely going to be good for you. They have a strong implementation of Office 365 backup capabilities. If a company is using 365, it's going to be quite useful.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's quite robust and already has all of the features we need. Of course, its level of diversity has been great. We're quite satisfied with it overall.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Vladan Kojanic - PeerSpot reviewer
Vladan KojanicProject Manager - Business Consultant at Comtrade System Integration
Real User

When scalability needs to be discussed, everyone tries to justify the price of a product. What generates the price and some future development is whether you will have to buy certain segments later, later in the implementation. What determines the advantage for some solutions for me is that I know that later I can use all the possibilities that a solution offers me without the necessary additional tools or licenses.

Diego Torres - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at AT Vault
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
A unique administration platform and interface; its one platform is a key benefit for our customers
Pros and Cons
  • "Commvault has a unique administration platform with more features than its competitors."
  • "Could be easier to implement."

What is our primary use case?

We are the most important communications company in Argentina. We deal with a large variety of customers. We are partners of Commvault and I'm the company founder. Our company provides IT solutions. 

What is most valuable?

Commvault has a unique administration platform and interfaces, providing backup, archive, reporting and replication features. Commvault has more features than its competitors. Net Backup, for example, doesn't integrate a lot. Commvault has only one platform and this is important for the customer. They don't have a large market share in Argentina but whenever we present it to our customers they like the product and want to do a proof of concept.

What needs improvement?

The product could be easier to implement, they could create a new console to configure the solution. I'd like to see improvements on the user interface, support, pricing, and integration with other solutions. They could also improve their marketing of the brand.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with this solution for almost seven years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. Deployment time is dependent on the infrastructure of the customer.

What other advice do I have?

This is a relatively new solution for customers in Argentina, so I go to a lot of effort to know the solution well and to present it to our customers. It's not easy but I think that when the customer becomes familiar with the solution, many want to change to it. The stand out aspect of Commvault is that it supports its clients on a unique platform. Whether it's underlying solutions, cloud solutions, SAP Hana, for example, replication backup, archiving, reporting, all of this is one platform. I would suggest starting with small solutions, to learn the product and see if it's the best option for your needs.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Real User
Has the highest backup/restore granularity that I have seen in any data management tool
Pros and Cons
  • "A very stable and scalable platform (you can backup/restore/protect a couple of MBs or hundred of TBs as well from the same console/platform)."
  • "Reduce the complexity for better understanding of the reports. There are a lot of variables in which you can get confused while elaborating on reports."

How has it helped my organization?

Since our corporation is big, it was really difficult to back up specific data types, manage admin roles, have true visibility of where my data was stored and whether it was effectively being backed up.

Now, I know where my backup data is. I can leverage on cloud storage technologies as well and restore it with granularity level that I have not seen in any other data management tool.

What is most valuable?

There are a lot of good features. Here are some of them:

  • Capacity-based licensing
  • A very stable and scalable platform (you can backup/restore/protect a couple of MBs or hundred of TBs as well from the same console/platform).
  • Relatively easy to use GUI
  • You can protect/backup virtually any kind of data from virtually any corporate type application (in-house or commercial) from one management console.
  • Has the highest backup/restore granularity that I have seen in any data management tool.
  • An extremely fast search engine for restoring and securing data and is hardware agnostic so you do not depend on excessively expensive storage hardware.

What needs improvement?

Reduce the complexity for better understanding of the reports. There are a lot of variables in which you can get confused while elaborating on reports.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No.

How are customer service and technical support?

A 10 out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, we used a different solution. We switched due to consolidation and cost effectiveness.

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Know which type of data you are going to backup/protect and select the most appropriate bundle for you.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes. TSM and NetBackup.

What other advice do I have?

Try it. Think in functionality and solution rather than conventional big names believing that there is nothing better.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Vendor
NetApp E Series and CommVault Simpana

Data protection is a challenge for most organisations and many are very dissatisfied with their current solutions – common issues tend to be:

  • Point solutions are used for VMware/Hyper-V, physical servers, laptops, remote offices and archiving which increases complexity and costs
  • Purpose-Built Backup Appliances (PBBAs) are used, whilst they work well, they further increase the costs
  • Ever increasing amounts of data are becoming difficult to backup in the amount of time available
  • Tape backups can be unreliable, restores are slow and they are expensive to manage

To address the problem NetApp and CommVault have created joint reference architectures that consist of NetApp E-Series storage and CommVault Simpana software – just add virtual or physical servers and away you go.

So how do these joint reference architectures solve these issues?

  • NetApp E-Series provides:
    • Huge amounts of high-throughput and easy to expand storage, at a cost per TB way lower than PBBAs, that either negates the need for tape or keeps its use to an absolute minimum
  • CommVault Simpana provides:
    • A single solution to address all the above data protection use cases – managed from one console
    • An advanced software based de-duplication engine, similar to that found in PBBAs, tightly integrated with the data protection application
    • Advanced techniques for reducing backup times (i.e. source-based de-duplication, archiving, incrementals forever and array snapshots)

So we know it is good, but how much does it all cost?

  Hypervisor licenses Non-hypervisor licenses Replicated Disk Libraries Price
Small 6 CPUs 1 Tb 2x31 TB NL-SAS usable £23,000
Medium 12 CPUs 2Tb 2x103 TB NL-SAS usable £63,000
Large 24 CPUs 4Tb 2x181 TB NL-SAS usable £85,000

The beauty of this solution is that it includes two disk libraries therefore backing up to tape will often not be required, unless very long term retention is needed and even then it is likely to be very infrequent.

The above table is designed to demonstrate the affordability of the solution, in reality most organisations would want to customise both the software licenses and the amount of storage capacity to meet their exact needs.

Download the NetApp E-Series & CommVault Simpana datasheet to learn more.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are Partners with EMC and CommVault.
PeerSpot user
System Engineer at Darva
Real User
Easy to use, easy to deploy, and easy to update
Pros and Cons
  • "Commvault is a very stable product."
  • "I think there is room for improvement with the reports. They are a little poor."

What is most valuable?

Commvault is easy to use, easy to deploy, and easy to update.

What needs improvement?

I think there is room for improvement with the reports. They are a little poor. There is a lot of room for customization with Commvault, but we have not done that, so the reports do not work the best for us.

We have virtualization, but sometimes some virtual machines are not backed up.

For us, a system ransomware scenario would be a good solution. This would help us not be nervous about our backup solution if we experience a ransomware attack. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Commvault for seven years, since 2014. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Commvault is a very stable product. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are using VMware for virtualization every day. The issue with scalability that Commvault has is that any modifications in virtualization that we make have a direct impact on it.

We do not have a problem with scalability, but I think if we had to restore a large scale of information, it would be a problem because of the time we would have to spend restoring all of our virtual machines. However, we could backup as many as a 1,000 virtual machines very easily. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Commvault's technical support is good. However, because I am French and not a native speaker, I have a hard time understanding tech support specialists that are from India.  

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before Commvault, we used a French solution. It had issues with backups and was very bad. We had to migrate before we encountered a bigger problem. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. 

What about the implementation team?

Commvault helped us with the migration. A two-person team was involved in the deployment from our end, a system engineer and a hardware engineer. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Commvault is too expensive. 

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution. It is a good solution for cloud backup. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Commvault Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Commvault Cloud Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.