Dell NetWorker Reviews

We use this solution for disk storage, and to administer Save and Restore functionality in our client's data center.                                                             

When it was required that data had to be restored for our customer, it was accomplished successfully and this has kept our end users satisfied.                                                    

Stability of NetWorker is very good.

We would like support for tape space reclaim, using either the same or another pool.

NetWorker uses only a stage directed to a clone pool, which is not enough to recover space on the tape.

Our retirement system in Chile is private. In short, in our social security system, when you put funds in every month, you'll have some money for your retirement. One of our client companies uses this solution for backups. There are a lot of terabytes that need to be backed-up.

They have been using this solution for eight years. They are upgrading their hardware every day. Their hardware solution is EMC Data Domain and they use Dell EMC NetWorker in order to store the data. It works fine.

Another one of our clients is a telephone company. They need to keep call data for long periods of time. Our other client is an astronomical observatory — the largest observatory in the world. They use Dell EMC NetWorker to keep track of their astronomical images, etc.

We plan to extend our use of this solution. It's our life — we sell and deploy depending on our clients' needs.

They need to take off the tape and allow us to use different repositories in order to keep the data for five to 10 years. The data storage capabilities should be improved.

The next release will include better integration with Data Domain, which is a really good product.

This solution is very stable.

The technical support is okay, but it could be better.

You need to have some knowledge, but overall, the initial setup is not that complex.

Deployment depends on how many machines you want to back up — but that's not really a big issue. I think it's fast but it depends on if you have virtual machines, and on the size of the machines that you need to backup. The first thing you have to do is design. If you design everything properly, the setup is easy. Once this stage is complete, it's not a problem.

We have some integrators and consultants that help us with deployment.

Just one person is required for deployment, but you need some client representatives, some telecommunication guys, some storage guys, and some virtual machine guys. In reality, only one or two people are necessary — one technician and one project manager.

One technician and one project manager are enough, even for a big project. As long as you plan and you control the different phases of a project, there won't be a problem. 

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

It's a very good solution if you are using an Oracle-like environment. It's a very good, very powerful solution, but at the same time, it's a legacy solution. That's why we moved from NetWorker to Commvault.

They need to improve their level of support.

The software also isn't user-friendly like Commvault or Rubrik. The solution errors and management aren't so good in comparison.

The solution is very stable, especially if you are using a RAC environment.

The scalability of the solution is okay.

I was very dissatisfied with technical support. It's one of the reasons we switched to Commvault.

The setup was very difficult. 

We used an integrator for the implementation.

We use the on-premises version of the service. We were also using a legacy solution from EMC.

In terms of recommending the solution, it would be my third choice, behind Rubrik and Commvault. There are newer versions, which are hyper-converged, but I would have to seriously evaluate them before I could recommend them.

I would rate this solution five or six out of ten.

• Support for various operating systems, we use, AIX, Solaris, Linux, VMware, and Windows
• Excellent deduplication with Data Domain Boost
• A good user interface, so we can, from a single console, manage the entire backup infrastructure

We are using a single product, with the same licenses, to backup Oracle servers, SQL Servers, Exchange, and our virtual environment. It also allows us to clone the backups to a disaster recovery site. With the integration with Data Domain Boost we are significantly saving backup space.

I think, first of all, the part that relates to backup virtual machines. I've seen better and faster solutions, for example: Veeam.

We've used NetWorker for about ten years. We are primarily using NetWorker to backup our core servers with Solaris. For the last three years, we use Networker to backup the entire infrastructure.

We're also using the NetWorker Module for Microsoft v8.2.1.8, and the NetWorker VMware Protection v1.1.1.50.

No issues encountered.

We had no problems with stability.

We had no problems with scalability. We have two data centers with different infrastructure.

I have worked with local EMC partners, I have had a positive experience.

I did not use technical support for NetWorker, but I have used it for some other EMC products and I think they were a little slow. 7/10.

Initial setup was straightforward. The documentation is good.

We did it in-house.

We use NetWorker Capacity Licensing Model. Estimating the backup environment's capacity is, for me, very complex, and I think not even clear.

It is a good product with some problems backing up virtual machines (slow restore). We use NetWorker Capacity Licensing Model. Estimating the backup environment's capacity is, for me, very complex, and I think not even clear.

We primarily use the solution for backup systems at the company. Ther is also a secondary use case whereby if our customers have this software, we can supplement it.

The solution has a longer lifespan. The customer doesn't have to change their solution and upgrade every four years. It's much better for the customer to have a stable piece of software that has a lifespan of maybe ten years or more.

The scaling can be difficult when updates are involved.

Sometimes the systems come in faster than a producer of the software can react to the new features.

The solution should have better access to Linux or virtual systems of files based on Linux. It doesn't matter if it is a hard installation or only a virtual installation. Sometimes the client doesn't need a backup of the whole system and only needs a handful of files. 

The initial setup is complex.

Technical support should be more accessible.

While the company may have been using the solution for ten or more years, I'm new to the organization. I don't have as much experience with it.

The solution offers excellent long-term stability. The product doesn't have a short lifespan, meaning clients can use it and rely on it for ten to 15 years or so. It helps with continuity.

While it might be scalable, every day we see some new operating systems and some new updates, and so on. Occasionally, there is a problem with these new one updates, due to the fact that something is changed in some settings in the new system. Therefore, when you use the old settings for such a backup, sometimes it doesn't work normally. You need to go back and recalibrate.

Technical support is okay. They often have patches and other solutions that can help resolve issues. However, sometimes they are not accessible. It's a big problem.

The initial implementation is not straightforward. It's a bit complex. I wouldn't say the process is easy. You have to create a map of the main points and storage. There are three levels of the agents. While it's easy to use for the customer, setting it up is a bit tricky.

It may be helpful to get the help of an integrator during the implementation process.

While it's my understanding that the solution is a bit expensive, I'm not in sales and therefore can't really comment on actual costs. I can't compare it to other options on the market.

We are an authorized service provider of Dell.

The company is working on a hybrid cloud solution currently.

In general, I would rate the solution nine out of ten. If it offered better access to Linux or virtual systems of files based on Linux, it would be perfect.

I'd advise potential new users to take a look at the product if they are looking for a long-term solution. It is not software for one year. It is likely something that can be used for five or more years. That is why it is better to really research and compare to see if it really is needed as it's a bit hard to install it. And, once implemented, it's likely going to be hard to change.

We are customers of Dell and I'm a Data Protection Supervisor Engineer at a Telecommunications company.

Data domain is the best feature in this solution. I think that this application was better when it was a backup window for a huge number of VMs. 

Networker with Data Domain  has a great value in integration with VMware regarding the enhanced backup window and high value of deduplication and capacity saving we can get with this setup especially in case of protecting high number of VMs.

Things could be improved in several areas beginning with support. If you compare it to Commvault or Veritas solutions, their support is better than Networker. In terms of features that are lacking, I think the restore feature is important and it's not available on NetWorker. The other solutions have more programs. 

For additional features, I'd like to see integration with any storage place. NetWorker finance also doesn't enable deduplication, there is no source deduplication while using NetWorker, it's only accessible if it's on a different domain. I hope to see that in the next release. I also think the data protection adviser should be embedded in the NetWorker software so there is no need to install another server to collect logs. Finally, the PMR is no longer supported in Linux. 

I've been using this solution for 5 years. 

We have a few bugs but it's generally a stable solution. 

Technical support really needs improvement. Getting assistance is a long journey starting with collecting logs. If we're lucky, we can have things sorted in a day. If the issue is related to an application or a link or a restore issue, anything regarding the performance, it's very difficult to get assistance. 

The initial setup is easy, it's not complex.

The best feature in NetWorker is the data domain. If you're not using that then you cannot use NetWorker with any media or any storage vendor. There's no protection adviser to get selective reports and the graphs, so you need to get other products for that and it will consume a new server in your infrastructure. If you're providing customer support the solution is limited. I don't recommend this for dealing with customers. I do recommend it for internal use and for data domain only. You can get the best performance and best deduplication value and capacity saving.

I would rate this solution a six out of 10. 

We use this solution to protect our numerous file servers. We have SAP HANA servers, some Oracle servers, and we have an eM server. We have several partnerships and Dell is one of them. They are very good. I'm a solution architect and technical team lead. 

This is a very precise and simple solution which is a great feature. It's also very stable and straightforward if you follow the documentation. 

This is a good solution and I can't think of any additional features they could include. I went for NetWorker because it's a good physical as well as virtual environment, and the best possible solution compared to the other products on the market. The others are also good but I like NetWorker better. 

I believe that the reporting could be improved and the report templates should be easier to understand and more comprehensive. I believe they are already working to replace the Java console with the HTML web browser-based administration console which is the other issue. I hope they are able to do this quickly. In terms of my expertise, I can't think of any other issues. 

I've been using this solution for four months. 

The solution is very straightforward and very stable if you follow the documentation properly. When I've been in trouble it's because of my lack of knowledge or not following the instructions. 

We're not such a big organization that we need to scale and it would take a few years before we did that, if at all, so I can't comment on scalability. We have two administrators using the solution. Primarily we just go to the backup console every day to check things are okay. It could be managed by one person but having an extra backup doesn't hurt. 

I'm very satisfied with the support that Dell provides. As soon you create a support ticket, someone immediately contacts you to provide the support. The person might not be an expert, they are generally not techie guys but they are often very helpful. They immediately take the remote of your system to understand the problem and I appreciate that. 

The initial setup was a little complex but that was my issue. It's worth spending a couple of hours to go through everything thoroughly beforehand and take proper notes. If you don't follow the documentation, you can get into problems. Otherwise, it's pretty straightforward.
Deployment time depends on the situation. Implementation probably took three or four hours. Once it's running smoothly there's no maintenance required. 

For anyone planning to implement this solution, it's essential to read the documentation, otherwise you will face a few issues. If you deploy having done all the reading, you won't have any problems. I believe that if something works as expected, it deserves a 10. In my case, it is working as per expectations so I don't have any complaints. 

I would therefore rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

I feel that it is a good product. However, if its setup is configured correctly, it will work well but if it's not, it's a total disaster. I think that goes for any backup product. Coming into architectural design thinking, for example, we introduced a backup network. This has helped speed up our backup time and the time it took Windows to backup. That has made a huge difference without impacting reduction systems elsewhere that connects into the same systems. So the main thing would be to optimize scheduling and do the setup correctly, then it will improve the backup features. 

There are too many reboots and the software requires constant updating - just like Windows. I don't like that so I feel that it isn't very stable.

The technical support from EMC is 10 out of 10. I am really impressed by it. 

The pricing of this solution is very good.

I will rate this solution an eight out of ten, based on my knowledge and experience on it. In the next version, I would like it if Dell EMC could back up IBM. They call it IBMi, or the A400 system. That would be awesome for the networker. My advice to others would be that they should be very specific who they use to set up the software and make sure they check references for successful installations.