Dell PowerProtect Data Manager

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is my primary solution for centralized backup and recovery management, database protection, NAS and file system backup, and cloud integration with Azure.

I use Dell PowerProtect Data Manager daily for installation, architecture, troubleshooting, and backup policies.

The best features that Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers are encrypted backup, cyber recovery, and ransomware resolution, automated discovery, policy-based account protection, and self-service restore capabilities.

Encrypted backup is the feature I rely on the most and find the most valuable in my daily work. Centralized backup and recovery management is also a significant feature that Dell PowerProtect Data Manager provides.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has positively impacted my organization by saving time, improving security, and providing reliable data protection.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager can enhance automated backup management, faster backup and recovery, stronger cyber resilience, centralized visibility, and governance.

For automated backup management, it can automatically discover applications, databases, VMs, and file systems.

I have been using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for two years.

I find that it is performing as expected in terms of accuracy and reliability of its output.

My advice for others looking into Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is that it is a high-capability product that is easy to use and improves security, data backup, and automated data backups.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is also improved with AI, focusing on the strongest AI-related values. Today, protecting the data that powers AI initiatives and strengthening cyber resiliency is focused on generative AI administration features. Regarding Dell PowerProtect Data Manager's AI capabilities, I think it can help to protect and manage data security.

I rate this product an eight out of ten.

I have dealt with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for many years, perhaps five to ten years or more. My first experience was with HP and IBM, and then I moved to Dell, which has remained with me because I prefer iDRAC and the other solutions for management. The warranty with Dell is one of the best in the world right now. My customers buy Dell products from partners, such as Tech Data and others, rather than directly from Dell or from any third parties.

ESET Endpoint Protection Platform is also very good for me because it does not consume much memory and other hardware resources, and it has a good database about malware and other issues we have from the BIOS and other sources.

My impression of its transparent snapshots feature in terms of data protection depends on what type of software solution we have. The snapshot for VMware is very good, while for Hyper-V it is not as important. The snapshot in VMware is one of the best, which I prefer. However, right now VMware is very expensive and most companies are moving to Hyper-V from Microsoft.

I find Dell PowerProtect Data Manager also good, and the anomaly detection feature is not that important for me. When I have stabilized good servers, power supplies, and other solutions like Bitdefender, and we have backup and replication with a minimum of three in the cluster, it feels very secure. Management and monitoring tools like Zabbix or NetCrunch do not matter to me because those are just solutions, and Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is very good for my needs.

About Storage Direct protection, we have a special matrix for about twenty or more hard disks, and one of the best and fastest solutions is NetApp right now. I also use Dell storage for special cases, which depends on how fast we need to read and write data.

Kubernetes support provided by Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is good, and I think it has the best warranty, with good solutions and no issues. We have servers working full-time in other cases from Dell.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager could be quicker.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager could learn from their competitors from their partners and vendors. They have good competitors, and Dell PowerProtect Data Manager could improve by checking storage solutions like NetApp, which has a much faster solution. However, it depends on what they need.

I am talking about storage, and NetApp is indeed very good and fast, faster than Dell. However, it is probably more expensive. Perhaps Dell will provide a new solution similar to that. I need to find the new product and check what they have in their offer.

When it comes to performance and stability, for me, it is around a nine or ten.

In my region, for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it is acceptable. I use only what I choose for the part and other cases. If I need to find something, I find it myself, looking for the best price to go to the shop and get it.

If they have knowledge about databases with some issues, they can give me answers when questions arise, and there is always good support from them.

For me, it is the best company for things like laptops and other solutions, as they send engineers the next business day. Although sometimes for servers we wait for parts from another country like the USA or other places.

I rate their technical support a nine because it can be better sometimes. I mean quicker support, and I give a nine because sometimes I need to explain what I need regarding parts and other cases.

I have experience with Bitdefender, ESET NOD32, Norton, and probably some more solutions, but I do not remember all full names because there are many solutions. Currently, I am dealing mostly with Bitdefender, which is one of the best for me, but I also prefer ESET NOD32 the most.

For the initial setup of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it is easy for me. I never have any issues during setup; it has always been correct for me. It is very easy, and it depends on the type of license for iDRAC and the software, but I have had no cases with that.

The pricing of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is acceptable for me.

For Dell PowerProtect, I also use APC, and I have two power supplies for redundancy. About PowerProtect, we also have one big UPS for handling all servers and a few machines in the operation team, and it takes eight hours to stabilize.

Regarding the Recovery Orchestration feature, Veeam from VMware is one of the best right now for simplifying recovery processes. I have recovery processes, and in the past, I put my scripts on the PowerShell command line for backups. For recovery from hard disks with RAID on one hard drive, we need to replace special parts to recover all the disks, but it depends on what solution the company has to pay to use.

I work with the Dell server and iDRAC solution from the management. I also work with HP and other solutions, and Lenovo and IBM. I am dealing with Dell PowerEdge. The PowerEdge I am using is E-series, if I am correct, and not C-series or XR-series.

I probably did not use the Dynamic NAS Protection feature of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.

I think everything is fine right now with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. I rate this review a nine overall.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager reduces storage costs in DPVM and is easy to manage. These are the key benefits of this product.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a single point of contact, functioning as a purpose-built backup appliance where I can take the data and manage everything with a single console.

The Transparent Snapshots feature provides excellent data protection through virtual lock and immutable snapshots. With immutable snapshots, I am protecting data from unauthorized access and unauthorized ransomware.

Storage Direct Protection is very effective in managing my data storage needs because data transfer is straightforward in DPVM since I am not involving any third-party transfer devices. Data transfers directly from PowerStore to DPVM without third-party hops in between, which is faster than traditional transfer rates. A higher transfer rate means I can restore or take backups in minimal time.

The Recovery Orchestration feature simplifies recovery processes by reducing the recovery restoration point and restoration time. When restoration time is less, the RPO and RTO are always less, and data loss is also minimized. The RPO and RTO will be near zero if backups are done regularly with smaller backup windows.

The major benefit I have seen from using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is that the backup window is significantly reduced. When the backup window is reduced, the backup transfer or backup speed is higher than before. Previously, I was transferring data from servers or storage to a SAN switch and then to an extended backup appliance. Now the number of hops is reduced, and fewer hops result in higher transfer rates. This reduces backup time substantially, making it much faster than other backup solutions. Additionally, data reduction and longer retention policies exceed what standard backup solutions offer.

For improvement in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I do not have significant concerns as the engineering team consistently updates the solution. All the things I require are covered in this solution.

I do think there might be some slight improvements from the UI perspective. I would like to see AI technologies, guidance, and documentation integrated with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. It should be integrated with AI analytics so I can fetch reports about utilization, peak time utilization, and other metrics. I need information about total storage availability. These features should come with an analytics agent so I can generate reports and showcase them to management.

I have been working with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for around two to three years.

I find Dell PowerProtect Data Manager stable, and it is more stable than other solutions.

I do not find any scalability issues with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. It is an elastic solution, so I can scale it without any challenges.

I evaluate the customer service and technical support team of Dell as fantastic. When I raise a ticket or call the toll-free number, they assign an engineer within the agreed timeframe. The engineer calls me and resolves the issue promptly. I rate the Dell support as nine out of ten.

The initial setup process for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not the toughest one. I can easily install it as there are multiple videos available on the Dell portal. I can go through those videos and then easily install and integrate it. The guide is also available, so even if someone is not very technical, with basic knowledge about the setup, they can easily integrate and configure it.

I have not calculated the return on investment with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager yet. However, I heard from colleagues that they purchased this box for a certain amount. In that scenario, I understand the investment, but I have not obtained the total cost of ownership for this solution, nor have I completed a cost comparison between these devices.

Regarding the pricing aspect, setup cost, and licensing, in comparison to others such as StoreOnce or ExaGrid, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a little costlier than other solutions.

The key differences of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager compared to its competitors include a reduced physical footprint and tight integration with DPPM and other third-party solutions. I have worked on ExaGrid, and there are multiple challenges with that solution. With Dell, there is a single point of contact for everything. If I face any challenge, I just need to call Dell, and they will definitely help me out whether it is related to DPPM, servers, or storage. The main advantage is that I can get support in a minimal amount of time and receive a resolution faster than with other solutions.

I have not used the Anomaly Detection feature in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager yet.

I am not using the Dynamic NAS Protection feature.

Regarding Kubernetes support provided by Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not using the Kubernetes platform. I am using only VMware, so I cannot comment on Kubernetes.

I have not evaluated the impact of the availability of a unified dashboard on my strategic decision-making processes, so I cannot comment on this.

I have not noticed any disadvantages or cons of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager so far.

Regarding analytics with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, nothing can be 100% perfect. However, when I compare it to other solutions, it is better than others.

Regarding recommendations I would give to other organizations considering Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I already recommend it to colleagues. I have a group where colleagues and friends are connected to each other from different verticals. Some colleagues are in defense, some in healthcare, and some in financial institutions. I have conveyed this recommendation to them.

For other users looking into implementing Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it is not that tough. If any challenges arise, I can raise the situation in our group, and I will get help from local friends.

I use Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Cloud Snapshot together.

I work with the on-premises deployment of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager only. As a financial institution, I am not working on public clouds.

I buy Dell PowerProtect Data Manager through Dell or through a local partner, most of the time through the local partner.

My overall rating for this solution is nine out of ten.

I am currently working with both Dell products and HP products. By Dell, I mean Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. I have been dealing with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for around four to five years, approximately, and before that, it was coming with a different name.

Currently it is coming as Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, which includes the Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Data Domain systems I am dealing with along with its Dell PowerProtect Data Manager backup solution, that is PPPDM.

That environment for Kubernetes support by Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is available, but because I am using it for my on-premise solution, not in the cloud, and my on-premise solutions do not have that type of setup, we are normally using the hypervisor options or a hypervisor integrated with my backup solution, which is why it is not explored much by me.

In PPPDM, I find the centralized console for managing all sets of applications the most valuable feature, as it gives us the feasibility to perform backup operations for physical as well as virtual applications, and all of them can be managed through the central GUI console, which is a good thing.

Overall, regarding the Transparent Snapshots feature in terms of data protection, it is reducing the workload setup by utilizing this Transparent Snapshot mechanism, and with that, the additional proxy VM requirement is reduced, meaning the ESXi host can directly send the data to the Data Domain system, thus reducing one overlapping or dependency prospect to the proxy system.

The availability of a unified dashboard is significant for my strategic decision-making processes, as it is providing a single glance of the backup status jobs and a view of the existing storage provisioned for the solution, enabling me to see prospects for growth, reduction, data compression, and deduplication, which enhances my strategic point of view to decide when and how to get it extended based on daily growth rates.

In my opinion, what can be improved about PPPDM is that for the reporting perspective, we need to install an additional reporting component. If it gets added in-built in the PPPDM solution itself without the added requirement of this reporting utility, it would make our life a little easier, especially since I have around 13 to 15 PPPDM infrastructures running, and installing additional overhead for reporting all locations complicates things. We need to improve the reporting functionality.

I would like to see additional features regarding reporting in the future, as the additional component makes it a little difficult, and the reporting is very critical right now, with different sets of reporting requested by customers, but we are not getting that much exploration regarding the reports.

I have been using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for around four to five years, approximately, and before that, it was coming with a different name.

Currently it is coming as Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, which includes the Dell PowerProtect Data Manager Data Domain systems I am dealing with along with its Dell PowerProtect Data Manager backup solution, that is PPPDM.

The product has been stable and scalable.

The product has been stable and scalable.

I would rate the technical support by Dell as excellent, you can give it a ten out of ten.

It is easy to deploy PPPDM.

I may have gone on the portal for knowledge perspective, but as a consultant working for a different set of organizations, that is probably why I cross-checked it.

Regarding the price, I think it is reasonable and competitive. While it does not come to my head, the support for licensing and getting the license file for implementation is okay, but I am still not aware of the costing, as the costing part is managed by a different team, so I am not much aware of that.

I am not dealing with the competitors of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, and I think it is the best option on the market at the moment.

I tried to use the anomaly detection feature, but I think somehow it got stuck. However, it is already on my agenda to get it added into our existing one, so it is still pending for me.

I am not very clear on assessing the effectiveness of Storage Direct protection in managing my data storage needs, and I may have to do some more fine-tuning or research on that.

I have tried the recovery orchestration feature, but only for testing perspective.

I would rate this review overall as an eight out of ten.

In Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, we are using it for retention policies. The retention lock policy is a very important feature for us. We have also achieved a reduction policy of about sixty-five percent reducing capacity. The capacity sizes are very efficient for our needs. We can also use hot-swap operations, which is fantastic for us to make the old product new by just changing the head.

These are very key features for us when telling customers that the total cost of ownership is better than the storage for backup operations.

For Storage Direct Protection, it is a good option for us to tell customers that we have good features for it. We are using a NAS slicing feature that is very efficient in our solution. We are talking to customers about the new catastrophic options available to them.

We are using Dynamic NAS protection.

For the Kubernetes support provided by Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, we are using some additional customers that have been using the Kubernetes solutions. They are using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for this right now, and it is good. Sometimes we have struggled with some S3 operations, but we can solve all the problems. The customers are satisfied with the Kubernetes solutions for backup in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.

Regarding the Transparent Snapshots feature, we are talking with the customers about PowerStore and the Data Domain replication, and Power Snaps, or also instant backup and instant recovery operations. We tell the customers that these are very efficient for them.

We are right now using the CRS solutions with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager operations. We have sold twenty petabytes of CRS solution in Turkey. We are also using the CyberSense software for our CRS solutions every time. Data Domain is the heart of our business right now in Turkey, in GlassHouse.

I am using the Dell PowerProtect Data Manager anomaly detection feature. We are publishing to our customers that use it in their environment. We are also making the proof of concept for all customers. We are also using the Dell demo center for our customers, talking about all the experience on the customer side.

About the recovery orchestration feature, sometimes we have a struggle, but we have no problem right now. We can use it, and we are using this feature. It is working correctly.

Improving Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a difficult question because we are using it for the tape library operation, the cloud customers' cloud operation backups, and client backups. We can make these options much better. These three features must be applied to Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for the future, which can be better for us.

For additional features, we are trying to reach the future for tape library backups. It is very important for us that the feature will come, but we do not know when it will be. Kubernetes backup is very important right now for us.

We had some problems with Kubernetes. Sometimes we are struggling, but we can solve it without problem.

I have been dealing with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager for fifteen years, with NetWorker and also Avamar. It is now working with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager solutions.

I have no idea about the availability of a unified dashboard because I am not familiar with the customer's usage. I am pushing up the customers about using this. I would rate this product an eight out of ten.

In my current role, I mainly help customers build the solution design on Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. This product is a backup and resilience solution. Its goal is to allow customers to back up things that they consider vital and mission-critical. Once the data is backed up, they can be resilient in case of human error or data corruption. They can also work against cybersecurity threats and data center disaster recovery. For example, a couple of months ago in London, we had a fire occur near Heathrow airport. IT systems definitely need resilience and backup. This solution simply protects operations so that when bad things happen, they have backup systems and resilience data to carry on operations.

The strongest point for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is because of Dell's very broad product portfolio. If the customer has already invested in Dell servers and Dell storage, it certainly makes sense for them to use Dell backup as well with this PowerProtect solution. Definitely, it would synchronize, and in terms of compatibility, their support will be best for the customer. When they do the backup within a Dell environment, it is an integrated experience. Everything is Dell, so definitely there are no issues with connectivity.

When it comes to support, when bad things happen and the customer needs to call for support, they only need to call one number and reach out to one party, which is Dell support. One Dell support team will be able to help figure out what is going on. Because everything is under Dell, the Dell support side will also be able to find the root cause much more easily. That will help as well.

Although Dell has the broadest portfolio in terms of hardware as well as the software side, the customer can enjoy that piece. However, this is a two-sided blade. On the good side, the customer can have the best compatibility. On the bad side, Dell right now is not having the best interest or not having the best investment in the development of this particular product. Dell is not putting much investment in development on the backup piece. I understand this because right now the market has so many buzzwords, including AI. Every customer is more interested in putting their investment into buying new servers, new AI servers, storage, networking, and things of that nature. But on the other side, it is very common that customers are setting a much smaller budget in terms of their data protection as well as their cybersecurity side.

Because they do not have many resources or are not being actively invested in new features, I have a feeling, and this is also from customer feedback, that other vendors and competitors' products, including Veeam, Commvault, and Cohesity, are doing quite well. As a comparison, while Dell is backing up their own system, there is definitely no problem. But when it comes to a mixed environment, if the customer has in use other vendors' solutions, including HP, Cisco, or other Lenovo things, it can be a little hesitant from the customer's side.

I have been using this solution for seven to eight years.

For the licensing cost of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, because it is software, it does not get affected by the skyrocket pricing of things including chips and memory. So it does not get affected that much, which is good. Also, for this data protection portfolio, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, among the Dell offering portfolio, is considered a lower tier within the whole portfolio. That is also a good thing. But if compared to other competitors including Veeam or Commvault, Veeam is by far offering the most cost-effective solution. Back to the comparison, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager among the Dell side is relatively cheap, but within the market, it is still not as attractive.

The initial setup of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager can be done within half a day, less than four hours. That is what we usually do. Once the system is set up, we will ask the customer to do testing and fine-tuning. Once the backup works, the software will function accordingly. The customer will select which product or which server, for example, PowerStore. With the backup software, they select the servers, the storage, or even the servers that they host. They select those, and then they will run the backup during the scheduled time, for example, over the weekend. Once they set it up, the backup definitely takes time because usually the customer's backup network is not the premier one, not ten gig or twenty gig. Basically, it means it takes time, but the setup time is fine. Everything can be set up within less than four hours. Sometimes, I used to do a two-hour setup, and that is totally fine.

For the deployment of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, one engineer is fine. One engineer can do it. Because Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is basically a software piece, it does not even require any physical rack-mount hardware. If this involves hardware movement, then you probably need two engineers on-site to do the rack and stack, rack mounting, cabling, and things of that nature. That will help speed things up. But on the software setup side, one person is sufficient to do the setup.

I would say yes, if the customer has already invested a certain amount of money. If they are using a lot of Dell hardware and a lot of Dell kit, and the majority of it is Dell, then it certainly makes sense. Plus, think about it in terms of a meal deal. If the customer buys A, they buy B, and potentially if they buy C as well, they will get an overall discount on everything.

The product is a backup and resilience solution. Its goal is to allow the customer to back up the things that they consider vital and mission-critical, so they can essentially be making backups. My overall review rating for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is seven out of ten.

Our main cases for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager are for virtual tape library.

The features I like the most include the decompression, the duplication, compression, and deduplication.

The availability of the unified dashboard fundamentally impacts my strategic decision making because it is a fundamental dashboard.

I think Dell PowerProtect can be improved in that I see PowerStore supporting the synchronous and asynchronous replica, similar to PowerMax.

I have been using it for 10 years.

I don't know if prior to adopting Dell PowerProtect Data Manager we were using another solution since I have worked here for five months, and we were using this solution.

Regarding return on investment, I have worked in this company for five months, so I don't have this data.

I have had a great experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing; it is clear and simple.

I did not consider any other solutions before Dell PowerProtect Data Manager; it is supported and suggested with our software, making it the correct and right choice.

The main use case for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is to secure all of my company's critical data and ensure that data can be restored in case of an incident.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has drastically improved our backup processes, reducing the time needed for backups from 12 to 15 hours to just an hour and 30 minutes, allowing me to efficiently manage critical data resources.

I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager through reduced time spent managing a backup solution. I set the policies and let it do its job efficiently in the background while being alerted to any issues by reporting.

The feature I like the most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is Instant Recovery, which allows me to restore a VM instantly by mounting it directly to the Data Domain and then performing a vMotion directly into my production environment, providing me instant availability and access to a backup that I took place up to seven hours ago.

I have used the Anomaly Detection feature of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and recently turned it on, as it was not available in the version I was using prior. I upgraded to 19.22, which allowed me to start using Anomaly Detection, and I really appreciate it because it lets me train the data being backed up and provides insight before I ingest it into my Cyber Recovery Vault to be scanned by CyberSense.

Anomaly Detection has given me more awareness as a data administrator backing up all the data in our company because it allows me to see the overall grand scope of all the data being ingested into our organization structure and informs me about anomalies across a broad scope of accessible user data, making me more proactive than reactive.

I do utilize the Transparent Snapshots feature of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, which is one of the best features, because it communicates with my storage solution, PowerStore, allowing it to take a snapshot at the storage level without quiescing or freezing the VM, thus enabling backups at any time without hindering production.

From a cyber resilience perspective, this means I can take more backups and snapshots quicker and more frequently without fearing the loss of critical services and systems provided to my users.

I have used the Storage Direct protection feature of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager by directly connecting to PowerStore, allowing me to back up my unified file system individually and select different retentions, providing greater granularity.

The availability of the unified dashboard of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager gives me an accurate idea of how much of my data is being protected, allowing me to discover which VMs are not protected and providing visibility into all VMs and their inclusion in a protection policy, ensuring I can restore critical resources.

One improvement I would suggest for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is the ability to send data not just to a Data Domain but also to a PowerScale, which would provide faster backups for critical VMs, enhancing the Instant Recovery backups' speed.

I have been using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager since September of 2023.

I find Dell PowerProtect customer service to be very good; while Avamar's upgrades could take almost 24 hours, with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I complete upgrades in less than an hour with fast support available if needed.

I would rate the technical support from Dell for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager a ten.

In our previous solution, we used what was called Avamar, and how Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and their features helped us drastically was that if we had an outage with the main backup, our data protection application, which we called Avamar, it took me having to contact support and within 25 to 48 hours, I would have to get the unit back up online in case I had to restore critical structures.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I was using Dell Avamar, which was great at the time but lacked scalability and was complex, requiring support for simple tasks, whereas with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I can handle upgrades independently.

My experience deploying Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is straightforward compared to Avamar; with just a single OVF file, I was up and running and backing up within an hour, with the assurance of seamless connection to Data Domain for disaster recovery.

I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager through reduced time spent managing a backup solution. I set the policies and let it do its job efficiently in the background while being alerted to any issues by reporting.

Before selecting Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I considered a couple of solutions including NetWorker, but my Dell Solutions Engineer encouraged me to try Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, and although it was a gamble, it paid off in dividends.

My advice to organizations considering Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is to take the challenge, deploy it, and they will be amazed.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerProtect Data Manager a nine; it will not get a ten until another application piece I am waiting for becomes available.

It allows me to sleep much better at night.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a backup and recovery tool created from the ground up by Dell to cover modern workloads, mainly related to containers and Kubernetes, in addition to traditional hypervisors and normal workloads. Dell is moving their backup solutions toward everything being supported on Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, which will be their next offering. Avamar is coming to end of life, and NetWorker is still there mainly for tape output. In general, Dell's approach around tape-out solutions is becoming complex. Before it was simpler with NetWorker only, but I am not sure if Dell PowerProtect Data Manager will support tape-out or if the roadmap will include it. This has made it challenging for us to sell Dell PowerProtect Data Manager on the SMB market, and even some enterprise customers have RFPs that require tape support, which is still necessary.

Some of the advantages are the way it handles VMware backups with much superior performance and being lightweight, with something called Transparent Snapshots that creates almost very little overhead on the compute of the customer infrastructure. The way it introduces NAS backups is very competitive compared to traditional backup tools. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager integration with Data Domain and PowerStore makes it run as an orchestrator for backups to push backups from PowerStore to Data Domain. It has application-aware backup capabilities, which is not easy to find in the market with our competition. The integration with Cyber Vault and Cyber Resiliency, all these features, and AI workloads protection by supporting containers allows it to discover unprotected containers and include them in the backup policy. As a product, if customers are accepting Dell PowerProtect Data Manager with Data Domain as a target, we can easily sell it to them. However, when targeting Veeam customers who are more focused on simplicity, even though Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is very simple to manage, it is not easy to make satisfied customers change.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager works only with Data Domain in the backend, and both products work very well together as a very powerful solution. As Data Domain has a very tight integration with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, we have a whole solution with 65 to one data reduction guaranteed from Dell, which is something very significant compared to other competition as no one else can give this kind of guarantee.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has tight integration with Data Domain, which is very well known for the speed of backups and restoration of backup recovery. There is even the possibility to boot the VM directly from Data Domain without needing to restore it, as we can run it directly on the backup target. This gives customers less RTO. For example, in the case of a VM failure, we do not need to restore the full VM to production but can just boot it directly from the appliance.

The potential improvements are uncertain. The tape-out support and tight integration with Data Domain are advantages, but they can be treated as disadvantages because Dell PowerProtect Data Manager only supports Data Domain as a backup target. If a customer is looking for a cheap solution with backup to local disk, cheap SAN drives, or cheap storage, we cannot proceed with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager because it supports only Data Domain as a backup target.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager can scale to nine on a rating scale.

I would say support is seven points out of ten for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, though others rate it as eight.

The deployment procedure is quite easy and manageable for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is supported to run on the cloud as well, and it is available in the marketplace on Azure and AWS.

It is very important to have these kinds of features because there are different kinds of people to access the application. Sometimes we can have access to an application admin, so we will have an administrator to give users some backup admin access with full visibility in the full infrastructure. There is even integration with Oracle and direct integration with some applications like SAP HANA. These application admins have their own control over backups and need to make sure they can see their backups in case they are running test and dev environments where some batches are not going well, so they need to roll back to the previous version. They need to have the right access to give them this flexibility in their own backup policies.

The price for the software itself is very competitive. However, because it comes with Data Domain as a whole solution, the price will increase. From a license perspective, it is a cheaper option, and there is a subscription license as well. The way use cases are supported in the single licensing is something we can quote for each use case separately or through unified licensing. The unified licensing has flexible options to license based on source capacity in terabytes, frontend or backend, or socket-based. This depends on the customer side. If there is a customer with small two or three servers with a large amount of data, socket-based licensing will be more cost-effective rather than frontend capacity which can be very expensive. If there are a lot of servers with less capacity, frontend capacity will be more cost-effective.

The way Dell PowerProtect Data Manager handles VMware backups is very good compared to the competition. The way it handles NAS backups is very good. The way it has direct integration with storage direct backups adds value as well.

The dashboard interface is quite simplistic and quite easy to use. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager can be deployed on-premises, and it can also be deployed in mixed environments with some projects running on the cloud through partner deployment. My overall review rating for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is eight out of ten.

My main application is backup for the data center. Dell innovated significantly in the GUI of the product, making it very easy to use. I think it may lack some features like desktop backups, but for data center backups and enterprise applications, it is more than enough.

It supports new applications like Kubernetes and virtualized environments, and it excels in this part of the data center.

I believe it covers both operational facilitation and eases the backup process for the data center administrators. It covers the full range of data center requirements.

I work with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, which are the most common products in the PowerProtect family that I use regularly.

I cover the full portfolio of Dell, including PowerEdge, PowerStore, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, PowerScale, and PowerFlex.

I would suggest adding a desktop backup feature, which would be a valuable option for customers. It also lacks tape library support and does not back up tapes. Although tape is somewhat outdated technology, customers still have use cases where they maintain backups on tapes. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager does not have tape support. These two features would make it a complete solution.

I have been using this solution since its release, approximately two years ago.

The support is acceptable but not great. The teams are capable enough and can solve problems, but they take some time to do so.

The setup process is very straightforward and simple, taking only minutes to complete.

We primarily offer the implementation ourselves, configuring and implementing the solution for our customers. Rarely does a customer choose to implement the solution independently.

Veeam is the most comparable solution in terms of price and features.

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has full support and a comprehensive ecosystem, supporting many third-party solutions and non-Dell products.

We typically sell Dell PowerProtect Data Manager with other products like Data Domain as part of a larger solution. Customers benefit from the tight integration of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager with other Dell products.

I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.