The company is considering a switch to Commvault. It's a global company, so the transition will be worldwide, and we don't have a say. I still don't have any hands-on experience, but I know HPE has tightened its ties with Commvault, and they're producing technical best practices for the product. They are even promoting Commvault as their backup solution of choice when providing backup solutions to customers.

Data Protector used to be their product, so they did have the chance. Once Micro Focus acquired them, even HPE was not satisfied with the level of support and gradually started looking to Commvault. At the same time, if somebody asked me which backup solution I would suggest, I couldn't recommend Commvault because I don't have the experience yet.

I didn’t evaluate any other options in my current job.

We kind of matrixed it out, and said, "These do that, this does that." Every time we asked, "What's this Data Protector? What's that Data Protector?" By the time we'd done that little exercise, it became very clear how to proceed.

We did not evaluate other options first.

We had it included in a large purchase we were making at the time.

We're currently planning on changing out backup tools. At the moment we're looking at Veeam and Barracuda. We have some systems deployed by Spanish users and they already use Barracuda, which is why we are considering it. We're taking licensing costs into account, however, we're finding that the most visible difference is the user interface as well as the style of use - for example, how to backup and recover data.

We are currently evaluating similar backup solutions in the market such as those from Veeam and Veritas (NetBackup). 

Yes, at that time they are leaders in the backup

There's always a bake-off process between competing products regarding feature sets, like Symantec. Customers typically go through a list of criteria as they relate to applications, and how they're trying to protect data, such as how it's encrypted at rest and in flight. These are decisions we all have to make. Other issues are whether there was encryption inflate, was it encrypted at rest, how many GO's did I need to protect that data, and what the replication scheme looked like.

I've also looked at Veem and have downloaded both solutions for free.

Before, we did not look at other solutions, but now we are analyzing other solutions, e.g., probably Veeam, Commvault and Veritas.

Other products (i.e., Backup Express, Alexandria) were pre-existing solutions which had become inadequate for the task at hand and required replacement.

We are looking at other vendors now. With the announcement that the software layer is leaving HPE, we need to make sure we can protect our assets; so, unfortunately, we will be looking at other backup vendors.

• We had a chat with Veritas because we are already a Veritas customer. We are going to check with them first because we already have that relationship with them.
• We looked at an offshoot called Navigator. We felt this was going to give us everything that we wanted from a reporting point of view. I had to provide reports for our stocks, but I also wanted to provide reports for our CEO on how our data footprint was changing. Navigator was incredibly expensive.

If you’re looking to move from one software to another, you need to understand how well it can be integrated with your legacy information and be backward compatible. If it’s not backward compatible, you must be given a clear strategy or process to follow.

From an auditing point of view, or a needs discovery point of view, the most important thing to look for in a vendor is the capacity to understand your environment; and provide you with the right solution and a process to follow.

Evaluated Backup Exec and it is limited in what it supports.

I know that Veeam is becoming a market leader in backup software. But, I haven't recommended anybody else but HPE. It just works for us at the moment, so no need to change.

The most important criteria to me when selecting a vendor is not so much the vendor as the product itself.

EMC Networker

We have looked at several including Cobalt, Upline, Veritas Backup Exec, and Dell EMC.

Luckily for me, I inherited HPE Data Protector.

I have evaluated other backup products for some of our overseas remote sites and found Veeam Backup and Replication 9 to be the best product to meet our needs.

We tried other products but we do not share more information about them.

Every other year, we look at what's new in the market. We take a quick look, and scan to see what’s around to see if we should switch. We look mainly for vendor reliability. The support level should be good. For the past 15 years, we haven’t done much switching because there was no reason for it.

Still, there are other products that fill gaps in the backup market, like Veeam and other ones.

We've tried Veeam for VMware, for virtual machines. At the time, it had limitations. We have since stuck with Data Protector. We have evaluated other solutions, however, for some reason, we decided not to go further.

Commvault and Veeam, these are the options on the shortlist. We haven't made a decision because there are new features being added by Micro Focus to Data Protector. We need to see if the new features and updates - maybe up until the end of this year - cover our needs. Perhaps we will not change backup software. But if we find that no, there is still complexity in recovering and testing the backups, then we will choose one of the two above options. 

We requested a PoC from the vendors, just to see the features that are now available.

We conducted three comparisons and HPE were one of the top. There were better ones, but at a higher price. HP seems to be the most fit for purpose and the most cost effective.

We looked at solutions like Redstone, we looked at a product called Veeam and obviously the third product being Oxove.

Obviously, standardization played a big role in the decision to invest in this solution; the fact that we’ve got an HP house, so obviously, from that perspective; as well as the reliability of the software.

The reason why we chose this category of solution is that we're an enterprise, and Data Protector is an enterprise DLP solution.

When we chose the solution, reliability was absolutely the most important criteria, and we’re absolutely satisfied.

We usually evaluate other vendor products in backups environment. The top ones are Veeam and Commvault.

Our staff has used products during other phases of their careers. They have stated they are pleased with Data Protector.

We also considered Veeam and NetBackup. We chose HPE Data Protector because it is easy to use.

We are evaluating EMC.

We're probably going to have to start thinking about alternatives. Our data footprint is growing so rapidly that we're going to need to look at new solutions anyway. We have backup jobs that are over ten TBs for a single server. We need ways in which we can restore that data quickly.

We use 3PAR, so we're going to start looking at deduplication on it. We need snapshotting, and that sort of stuff. We've got to start looking at how we do things and how we can do them differently and faster. It may or not be with HPE.

We also evaluated Symantec Backup Exec.

We evaluated Veritas NetBackup, IBM Spectrum Protect, and Microfost.

It was very much cross-platform. We run H-DOX, Solaris, Windows and Linux and it fit in.

Originally, we did have a vendor shortlist. We were looking at NetBackup, Veritas and similar products. We also looked at IBM and since we use them a lot we decided to go with their solution. That was very easy.

Globally, TSM is a well-known product. It is another old legacy product that has been used for decades.

Yes, we evaluated BackupExec and ArcServer, which are better in some ways, but lost to Data Protector in a lot of ways.

No, but we know different customers that use more popular backup product like Legato, Tivoli, and Netbackup. Often, they tell us that these products are good but very expensive or complex to use. Often when competitors suppliers visit us for marketing, they always says that Data Protector is not an enterprise backup solution. This is a typical vendor approach and I really think that this is not true because in our experience, Data Protector does its work well, and this is what a customer need.

No other options were looked at.

We did not evaluate other options.

We also looked at Symantec Backup Exec.

No other options evaluated.

Yes. A free one, Cobian and Symantec Backup Exec.

We also looked at Veritas Backup Exec.

We evaluated other backup solutions all of which are very costly compared to this one.

No other options were evaluated.

No, but I'm very familiar with CommVault.

Netbackup

We also looked at options from IBM, since they have become a lot cheaper and easier to use.

It wasn't chosen, but mandatory for the specific customer.

Product, support, and implementation costs matter.

Other HP products, CA, Symantec.