NetWorker Alternatives

Question

We are moving off of tape to disk for our backup and archiving. We currently use Networker 7.4, but this change is also an opportunity to change the backup app we use, so I was wondering how the alternatives stack up against Networker.

I like EMC support and will stay with one of their products. There are several listed in these forums....AlphaStor, DiskXtender, EmailXtender, AutoStart, AVALONidm, Replication Manager.

Has anyone used these? have opinions on reliability, ease of use, etc? If you had your choice which one and why?

Thanks

dpinink_silva · Answer

I like EMC support and will stay with one of their
products. There are several listed in these
forums....AlphaStor, DiskXtender, EmailXtender,
AutoStart, AVALONidm, Replication Manager.

None of those are backup softwares. Of course most of them can be used together to optimize your backup environment, but if you're talking about backup of large enterprises, and about EMC, you can only name Networker and Avamar, or the best way, Networker with Avamar.

The Xtender family helps you to low your storage costs, AutoStart is a cluster solution and so on.

If there's a chance to change your backup software, but you want to stay with EMC, put some Avamar to backup your file servers. I'm sure your EMC vendor will be happy to help you on this.

ble1 · Answer

Depending on your retention you could use just disk for backup via HW based snaps.For something more like NW (but still very much different) Avamar should be an option (but not in all areas like NW).

Kellar · Answer

We are in the same situation and CommVault seems to be the vendor with the most to offer. I have to state however, with all that Commvault offers in the way it handles disk we are reluctant to move off of NetWorker for the fact that a "rip and replace" will be majorly disruptive to the environment and operations.

I think we are going to stay with NetWorker. Avamar will integrate nicely for the archiving piece and I have started to hear serious rumblings about the replicated save sets being a feature coming up, which is useful for us.

ble1 · Answer

Avamar itself is not ideal for archiving, however de-dupe engine will be integrated soon into EMC hardware thus archiving and NAS will benefit too.

When you say replicated savesets, what exactly do you mean?

cfaller · Answer

Your biggest question is: why are we changing?

if your just changing to try out other software products, then migrating your entire env to a new backup software is a tad extreme.

if Networker is not working in your envirnoment or you have bad service, or the licensing costs are an issue, then by all means investoigate other options...

why not just install eval/test systems using other products and see what you think. They all have their Pro's and Cons....
Commvault is a great backup product, but is predominantly Windows and still relatively new, is well on its way to being a great Enterprise product.
Netbackup with puredisk integration is also a great product, and in my mind the clostest competitor to Networker....

i could go on for each and every backup product, but its not worth it, just try them out in small doses. Networker in its own right is a solid, well supported Enterprise backup tool that does in most cases delivers what it's meant too...

ble1 · Answer

Avamar itself is not ideal for archiving, however
de-dupe engine will be integrated soon into EMC
hardware thus archiving and NAS will benefit too.

Seems as it started... EMC released DL3D hardware now... I believe pretty soon we will see almost all hardware to have DD engines (nteresting enough, while Falconstor was used before for DLs these new ones are Quantum based).

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