OpenText Data Protector Reviews

We rely on generating daily reports on our stocks for auditing purposes. Those reports are useful; so I would say they are the most valuable feature.

It is also very good that you can use it either from the command line or from a GUI. It depends on who is using it, what they want to do with it, and on their preferences.

Our data footprint was constantly growing. We couldn't back it up according to the backup schedules we had, so we needed a solution for this.

We have used Data Protector for as long as I have been at the organization. We're a huge HPE house, so all of our technology for backups is HPE. We were hoping to leverage as much of our current HPE technology as possible by keeping all our technology and software within one software house. Over the years, the ratio of capabilities in terms of what we wanted compared to what it was able to give us has changed.

A couple of years ago, I said that the reporting wasn't sufficient. There should be better reporting within Data Protector, rather than making you turn to an additional HPE software application.

I think that no company can get reporting right. Whatever software I use, we are always looking for reports that they just can't provide.

Our data footprint has grown massively, and we're asking a lot more of it than it can do. When I started back in 2012, it was perfectly fine. It was the hardware that was not capable of providing us with what we wanted, not the software. Now it seems that the hardware is providing us with what we want, but the software is not.

If I base my evaluation on the conversation I had recently with my SME for backups, the software is not very stable. Maybe that's because it is integrated with the hardware layer. I would say that it runs, but there are always a lot of errors. The software's stable, but the actual components are not stable for doing what we want.

We have scaled out and, therefore, needed the software to scale with that technology. We have a global backup solution, so it has been scalable in that respect.

Based on a recent conversation, technical support has been working to fix a problem for six months, but still haven’t actually fixed it. With the process that he says he had to go through, they need to look at it, and start getting their third-line engineers working directly with the customer much faster.

The professional services department is excellent in terms of the setup and configuration. We updated the hardware technology to work with the software. I definitely couldn’t fault them in that respect. The issues are with troubleshooting and when you need support.

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.

Go out to your network and ask people. If you've worked in IT, I always say it is worthwhile reaching out to old colleagues. If you're still in contact with them, ask them what they are doing, why they are using that software, and what the benefits are of using that software. You're going to understand more from someone’s first-hand experience.

A company can come in and say, “We have all these customers that can be references for us; but they just pick really small customers who it has been easy working with. They're not going to tell you about a customer like us who has been currently having lots of difficulty. So I'd say: Use your network and ask them if they can help answer your questions.

Our primary use is for disaster recovery, but the most frequent use is the restore function when a user accidentally deletes a file or two. Being able to restore the files quickly is extremely important.

We are required to provide an offsite location for our tape rotation, and we use the D2D function regularly. This function allows the backups to run faster and more efficiently.

I think the GUI needs a vast overhaul. DP has looked the same since its inception. The functionality has improved, but the interface is not attractive and a little clumsy.

We've had this solution for over eight years now. I've been the subject matter expert for it for the past five years. I've upgraded the solution from v6 to v10.

The deployment was standard, other than hardening the product for use in our secured environment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

When we need to upgrade or increase scalability, the procedure is quick and painless.

Customer service is good, not great. Usually when we need some level of assistance, hold times are about 20 - 25 minutes on the phone, or about two days via email (in response).

Tech support has been good and they are usually able to assist us once we get in contact with them.

We went with HP for their solution from the beginning. Since most of our hardware is HP, we decided to use them for this solution as well.

The initial setup was extremely straightforward. We have a great team of system engineers and they worked on getting the solution to run within our environment without any real issues. There weren't any real issues in getting the system setup and running.

We had the option of using professional services to do the installation, however, we chose to do it ourselves. Just think about an overall design, what your current and future needs are, and implement for the future.

I'm not sure in dollars our ROI, but the system has definitely paid for itself time and time again. We've used it for basic backups/restores and have successfully utilized it in our disaster recovery plan.

The product works as described in our environment, but we are required to harden the application, which causes some backup failures. Otherwise, the D2D function and backups/restores function fine.

The only advice I'd offer is to plan your backup solution with great detail. Make sure it will fit within your infrastructure and that the system is scalable. Make sure licensing is understood and that there are professional services available to implement the system in case your team needs assistance.

The GUI is nice. However, the command line options are more important when setting up customize backups and restores in a custom scripts routine.

We are required to send sensitive information offsite, and Data Protector has made it easy to meet this requirement.

Better documentation on how to backup the device itself through a flash drive or CD.

I've used HP Data Protector, formerly OmniBack, since 1997.

No issues encountered.

No problems after I upgraded to v7. On version 6.10, it would not bar-scan a pool correctly. After upgrading, I no longer had the issue.

No issues encountered. What I like about it is that you are licensed per drives not how many clients/agents are installed. It can support various filesystem types (HFS, VXFS, Windows, etc.), and use a databases utility like RMAN to backup to other disk or tapes.

9.5/10.

9.5/10.

For the projects I support, I used Data Protector. Other projects used BackupExec. However; Backup Exec is very limited of what it can support in filesystem types and even operating system support matrix.

It's straightforward for me.

We implemented it through an in-house team of only one member. They were very knowledgeable, with over 20+ years of system administrator experience and knowledge.

My personal satisfaction is that the products work as intended.

The licensing is based on your primary purpose, what type of cloning environment you are utilizing, and if it is a disk to disk copy etc. The technical assistance should help with your decision.

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

Evaluate your need first of all. We are a small government shop, and the needs are limited here. However, Data Protector can do much more.

We are using the on-prem version of this solution. We use the software for both the Microsoft application backup and Oracle backup.

We are planning to switch to Veeam in the next six months.

The feature that was most valuable was that we could restore one mailbox and we could do different backups for different databases.

I'm sure Data Protector has improved because we have an old version and I think the new versions have many new features but I'm not familiar with them. The version we are using now does not work with virtual machines and it lacks many features. I'm sure the new version is better. It has many functions that can compete with Veeam, but the problem is that its price is more expensive. It's very expensive compared to Veeam and other similar solutions.

We changed Microsoft to a virtual environment, so in a virtual environment, we could not do a backup with the version we're using. It doesn't work with a virtual machine. In addition, we could not restore the machine. This is the main problem with it. 

We are switching to Veeam because Data Protector is lacking good virtualization features and because the cost is very high.

The solution is very stable but we had some problems with our VTL although, this is a hardware problem.

The scalability is good. 

We have three users using this application: Infrastructure section head, one senior infrastructure administrator, and one infrastructure administrator.

We require two staff members for the maintenance of this solution. We use this solution daily. 

Their technical support is good. When we wanted to change our partner and to have the support from another partner, we didn't find any partner in Egypt that could help us. We didn't know that HP is not responsible for this solution. When we bought it, it was HP Data Protector and now it's Focus. It was very hard to know this. We sent a request to Focus, but they didn't respond to our request.

Before this solution, we were using a Linux platform and we were using an open-source program, I don't remember the name. We switched from Linux to Microsoft. 

The initial setup was complex. It was not easy. Data Protector itself is easy to install, but sometimes when we re-install it, it doesn't work and some agents do not work properly especially for Microsoft and for Unix.

Our deployment was done in 2008 and it took two to three days to finalize our deployment, the agents, and everything and to be sure that all backups were working well.

We used a partner for the deployment. We had a good experience with them.

The licensing cost was not annual. We didn't pay any license. We paid when we deployed and we didn't pay for anything after that. There were no additional fees after the initial payment. 

The solution is very stable, it was very helpful. We are confident that when we do a backup, we are sure that we can restore it which is very valuable. It's very reliable and we are confident when doing a backup, we could restore it. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. It is very stable and we trust it but we've had some problems with it which is why I would deduct two points. 

SAP R/3 Integration is what I like best because our main production systems are SAP based with Oracle database, the “save-delete archive” feature is of ultimate use. It actually saves the Oracle archive file to the disk and after the save is verified it is deleted form the disk. That way you actually keep an eye on archive space on the physical disk and at the same time you are safe that no archives have been delete from the disk without been checked.

We started using this product back in 2000. At that point we mainly used the SAP R/3 Integration along with some filesystems backups. From that point on, the software started getting integrated with Exchange Server, and lately SAP HANA. The Data Protector software is getting along with the growing needs of our company.

I haven’t found any issues that need to get improved. The main purpose of this software suite (safely backup and restore main systems) is fully achieved. It was already implemented as the company’s first backup and restore solution. As the company evolved and the technology implemented evolved along, it seemed that the software adequately supported our systems.

I've been using them since 2000.

Generally no, but there were some issues that appeared when we first tried to deploy the software to a HANA database environment. However, they happened mainly because of the HANA database Linux environment.

Mainly, I can’t say that I have encountered major stability issues. At some point in time, patches fixed some minor issues.

No issues encountered.

Customer service is excellent with a ticket per call.

Through the fifteen years of support from HP, you realize that many things have changed. But, above all, I have to say that technical support has remained at a constantly high level. Depending on the issue, each time, the support may be local or international. Nevertheless you will get your job done.

This was the first backup and recovery solution.

The initial set-up is very straightforward. Nothing special to be done, as it's got very friendly user interface.

Back in 2000 the software was implemented by HP. I wasn’t present for the implementation, but after that, some upgrades and migrations has happened. Both HP Greece and an in-house software engineer have performed the projects. I have to say that the level of their expertise is more than adequate.

As we have most of our systems integrated to HP Data Protector, and because we have many daily and even hourly backups, I must say that we have a high ROI in our case.

Pricing and licensing clearly depends on the systems that you plan to backup. How many systems do you have to backup (licensing), what kind of support do you prefer for your systems (24/7, 8/5) (pricing).

You have to check the needs of your systems before you decide on your backup solution. Do you have many different platforms? Do you want to integrate the backup solution with a SAN environment? Do you want to use integrations (SAP R/3, Exchange Server, SQL, etc.)

The best thing I find with Data Protector as opposed to other products was the inter-compatibility with all different OSs. It's very OS agnostic; doesn't matter whether it be Linux or Windows or AIX or whatever. It just seems to work. That's useful, very useful. The GUI interface is very intuitive as well, I find. It's very easy to use.

The centralization of all the backup data is a valuable asset, and the ability to recover data quickly. It doesn't happen very much these days, to be fair. It's not very often we have to recover. We don't use Data Protector for data recovery. It does have that functionality, but because we're a 95% virtualized company, we use VMware replications for DR. But there is DR functionality within it. It needs work. It's not a simple thing to roll out. Of course now, it offers de-duplication which is big. The backup functionality is very, very good.

One of the things that they need to look at is the scheduler. At the moment, there are two ways to schedule a backup. There's a simple scheduler and an advanced scheduler. You have to do one or the other. Using the advanced scheduler is the only way to prioritize the backups. I'd like to see that merged into just one single scheduler that allows you to prioritize the backups. At the moment, backups come in and they queue with no priorities. For example, if you have four backups queuing, you can't say I want backup one to run before backup two before backup three. If they're in the queue, you can separate them with start times, but if they're all in the queue and all their start times have passed, any of them can start in no particular order. So that's one thing I would like to see.

I haven't looked at the VMware integration yet, but I'm just about to. I understand the VMware integration is quite good. That's obviously an essential thing for us.

We have been using it for about 7 or 8 years. We started at version 6. We're at version 9 now. Version 9 is very stable.

It's very stable. It wasn't in its earlier guises. But now it is.

It is scalable. It's not as scalable as HPE would like to think it is. I think the biggest problem we have with backups now is network utilization. Most backups will throttle your network, because you're shipping a lot of data around. Because of that, I've had to break up the whole service into smaller segments in order to back it up more easily. You've only got 24 hours in a day, ultimately, so you can only backup so much data in that time. That was a problem we were having, where backups were taking more than a day to run. As we scale, the backups are more challenging time-wise. Now, there are ways around that. I'm just about to start a new project on Data Protector to look in at the VMware plugin because we are virtualized. I believe that will help a lot with my network throughput.

The technical support for Data Protector is good actually. I have no problems with that. We log calls, and they get back to us straightaway. I've had a couple of P1s that have moved around the world with the time zones, so it's always been worked on. That's been good.

At various companies that I've worked for, I've used different backup solutions. I've used Veritas NetBackup and Backup Exec. That was a proprietary backup. They're the two main ones that I've used recently.

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

I've been involved in redesign and all the upgrades, not the initial setup. It's quite straightforward.

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.

I would recommend it, absolutely. Just check your network can cope with the product and the backup throughput.

Restarting the failed session, where you don’t need to run a whole selection list backup.

Newer DP versions even have a resume feature, which should allow you to continue from the point of failure, instead of ruining the whole partition in case of a “restart failed objects“ error.

There are lots of bugs around; inability to downgrade version, issues with version upgrades, etc. For example, Data Protector version 8 didn’t have a properly working restore feature; the next upgrade came within week. All kinds of small things required workarounds and support engagement to find some tweak within the config files.

When comparing other backup software, such as BackupExec for example which I have used at the same time as Data Protector. For BackupExec our backup team did raise one vendor case throughout four years, while for Data Protector, we had three to four vendor cases opened every month. That is just in general, as I really do not remember all the details for all those, I dont know, but hundreds of cases opened with HP Data Protector support. What I remember we didn‘t have a single patching/upgrade of Data Protector version without issues, which could only be solved by HP Data Protector vendor support. While for BackupExec it was always smooth and any issues we encountered we were able to solve them on our own.

I have been using it for 4+ years.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues.

Customer service is great.

Technical support is great.

We switched because of company policy, the tapes aged, etc.

Initial setup was straightforward.

I was within the support team, which did implement as well as support the solution.

Huge. Simply eliminating the need for tape changers returned the cost of the hardware within less than half a year.

Get an expert who knows the products, so you can get the best prices possible for both DP and StoreOnce. Because there are some things that can work for the same solution in different ways, hence they are differently licensed as well as priced.

Make sure architecture is planning properly, e.g., centralised or decentralised HPE DP Cell Managers give you some quite different options and etc.

The primary use case is mainly for data protection for both short-term and long-term retention. We are resellers of Micro Focus and I am a storage and backup engineer.

Many colleagues complain about poor and complicated implementation of VMWare granular recovery

The feature I like the most is the deduplication implementation with CAPA. It's very good. 

I think the VMware backup integration and the cloud recovery is lacking. I also found it difficult to implement the granular recovery solution with Micro Focus for both VMware integration backups and for exchange integration backups. Implementing this solution was a big challenge. Other products like Veeam, or NetBackup have a simpler and more user friendly solution than Micro Focus. Implementation really should be more straightforward. I'd like to see stronger integrations, and an easier setup for granular recovery. It's a feature that plays a great role for data protection.

I've been using this solution for 11 years. 

Stability depends on the platform. It's quite stable on a Linux platform but I've had bad experience in the past with Windows. I don't know if there is more stability with the new releases, but we abandoned the Windows platform for the core services of Data Protector. We're using Linux.

The scalability is okay although there are issues regarding the database. If you're installing the solution in a physical machine, and you have to extend the database, it's not so easy.  With virtual machines, it's easy to extend it. Scalability depends on the type of installation. I suggest deploying the core as a manager that contains the database, then if you need to scale up storage, you can easily extend the virtual disk in a short time.

Technical support has not been good recently and in several cases, I have found the solution myself. I would expect support to be able to manage these issues. 

We currently also use NetBackup and Veritas which are both more open to other systems. There is also the Veritas fast solution for appliances together with the pro. With Micro Focus, you need to contact the vendor for equipment for the storage device, and for the new servers and the physical middle servers. NetBackup and Veritas only have one vendor and we get everything from them. It makes it easier to prepare bonds and to design a solution for customers. Veritas also has integration for cloud-native backup, and we have integration for the backup storage before the middle server. There is also good integration with VMware and Data Protector. Micro Focus is not like that. We need three different vendors to provide the same solution.

The time it takes to set up a virtual machine with the software operating system is very quick if it's a new installation. But if it's an upgrade, it is quite difficult, because it takes time to convert the database to the new user. The performance of this product in the Windows platform is not great so we usually don't install it. With VMware, it is easy to attach the kit, the package ISO file. Then the setup is quite easy. In that sense, it's like the other products for this. It's probably more difficult than implementing in a network environment, with firewalls in between middle servers and clients, or between some manager and the new servers.

Implementation was in-house

This solution is a manager service. We resell this product with the manager service in our private cloud that we provide the customers so for us, it's a good price. However, I do think they should lower the price as there are other, better technologies available.

EMC Networker

I would rate this solution a six out of 10.