Druva: Backup & Recovery for Cloud, Data Centers & Remote Sites

Our clients are primarily pharmacy clients and pharmaceutical clients. We are backing up endpoints and M365. We have a large exposure to VMware workloads and file servers. Recently, we have undertaken many projects for Druva Cloud Ranger. People are moving from AWS to Druva Cloud Ranger because they perceive it as cost-effective and they do not want to keep their infrastructure and backup data in the same data center or infrastructure.

As a partner and consultant of Druva, the biggest advantage of Druva Data Security Cloud is that it is SaaS-based. I do not have to think about setting up different infrastructure or asking customers about servers. I do not have to consider RAM, CPU, disk IOPS, and other infrastructure concerns because it is a SaaS-based cloud solution where everything is managed from the cloud itself.

Druva Data Security Cloud has a centralized management console that helps gain control over data protection. However, others are also centrally managed. The difference is that this is a purely SaaS-based solution where you do not have to think about storage and related concerns. In comparison, when I work with Commvault SaaS Metallic, customers are taking their primary data to Commvault HyperScale Storage, which is hardware-based storage. This requires me to think about firmware, firmware upgrades, keeping the appliance in the data center, maintaining it, power costs, and space. Those concerns do not apply with Druva Data Security Cloud.

Druva Data Security Cloud has AI analytics that optimize data security. It also includes Air Gap functionality. We use MFA and Okta, and there is a way to make data immutable at rest. DataLock is available, and data transferring to the cloud over the network is encrypted. Data sitting in the cloud is also encrypted. Strict measures have been taken to keep the data secure. I particularly appreciate the ransomware product structure, observability, and threat hunting capabilities.

Compliance is another feature I really appreciate because we have pharmaceutical clients where extra care must be taken for HIPAA, FIPS, and GXP compliance. Machines and environments need to be strictly compliant. Druva Data Security Cloud meets all these requirements, making it a good tool.

Druva Data Security Cloud has automated backup and recovery workflows. While other tools also have these features, they are advantages. There are, however, many other disadvantages that we are struggling to manage.

The deduplication technology is very good. I am not certain about the specific deduplication technology Druva uses, whether it is file level, block level, or a combination of both with intelligent deduplication. The approach might involve dividing files and identifying what has changed within them, uploading only segments of files rather than entire files. I previously worked with a product called Avamar that used intelligent deduplication at the highest level. In Avamar with Data Domain, even when backing up five terabytes of data, the deduplication ratio was very high because it was block-based, breaking files into segments and sending only the unique data to Data Domain. I am unsure how Druva implements this, but the deduplication is good. We do not see a huge exponential increase in Druva cloud storage requirements.

There are significant disadvantages that need addressing. Failure reports are limited. Alert notifications for Druva inSync, Druva endpoints, and Druva M365, which are managed by backup profiles, cannot be configured to send automated or real-time alerts. We have to depend on manual checks and go to the console directly.

I had a customer who recently purchased Datadog. Even when filtering the logs, we see many "backup completed with errors" messages. However, when I go to the console, I cannot find anything. After researching, I discovered that backups showing as never backed up could involve many users or workloads that have not yet been backed up. They might be new joiners where backup has not started or has not been configured. However, since they were added to Azure AD, Druva provisioned them through the user provisioning process. If they have never been backed up, the system shows them as backed up with errors, which is disappointing. Druva's argument is that they want to flag them as errors because they have never been backed up, but customers should not be bothered by workloads that have not been backed up.

Reporting is another area where we are really struggling. If we need three months of data, we cannot get that report. We have received many requests from customers asking for reports showing backup frequency. For example, if backing up five times a day, they want a report showing exactly how many times it is actually getting backed up. There is no way to see that report. When downloading the last user backup status report or rollout report, we cannot see a single entry for all five backups for that particular endpoint. There is no way to tell customers that a backup is running five times a day and will generate five snapshots unless we manually visit each client and check the backup schedules. Those reporting limitations are really disappointing.

Documentation is not concise and clear. One of our clients got downsized and decommissioned everything due to compliance requirements. Some companies cannot pass FDA licenses and certifications, so they downsize and lay off staff. This client stopped their on-premises DFS file share in Windows and moved to Azure. We configured Druva Data Security Cloud backup for Azure file share, which completed successfully. During the cleanup process, the Azure team saw many keys in Azure Key Vault, deleted those keys, and performed a soft delete. The moment they did the soft delete, backup started failing. I worked with support, but Druva support had no idea because it was not documented anywhere that Quantum Bridge VM requires Azure Key Vault services for private machines or private shares behind private subnets not exposed to the public internet. Support searched logs, took extensive logs, and checked with the engineering team. It took around ten days to resolve the issue. They found that because the Azure team deleted the keys from Key Vault, the Quantum Bridge VM provisioned in the private subnet could not connect to the public internet, and therefore provisioning failed. However, this is not documented in Druva documentation.

I also received a request for AWS FSx backup for NetApp ONTAP. I searched and could not find any documentation. I was forced to create a ticket with Druva support. We have a CSM, and since we newly bought Druva Cloud Ranger, Druva appointed a CSM for this. I sent an email, and the CSM said they are looking internally, but externally or as a Druva user, I cannot find any documentation. These things are very disappointing and should not happen with an enterprise backup tool.

I have been working with Druva Data Security Cloud for almost eight to nine years.

Druva Data Security Cloud is a 99% stable and reliable solution.

Druva Data Security Cloud is very scalable. I would rate its scalability at seven or eight out of ten.

I would rate the technical support of Druva at nine out of ten, as they are very good.

Installation is very straightforward. However, as I mentioned, documentation is not clear. Every time we do something, even when we might not need it, we are forced to take Druva support help. The documentation is not clear about certain things, particularly regarding what permissions are required.

Return on investment is good. If you are investing in a product, you should think about ROI, and Druva Data Security Cloud delivers good return on investment.

The price for Druva Data Security Cloud is reasonable. Many customers are getting agreements with Druva and receiving good pricing. We as vendors are not allowed to be in those pricing and cost-related calls. However, I hear from customers that they are negotiating good prices from Druva and getting multiple products at that price. Druva is very flexible in terms of pricing.

Druva Data Security Cloud is not the most advanced product on the market. There are many others. Rubrik is there, and Veeam is very advanced. Veeam supports many products that Druva does not yet support. You cannot expect PostgreSQL to be backed up with Druva Data Security Cloud. You cannot expect RDS machines to be backed up, and RDS machines have no way to restore individual databases. That is very poor because other backup tools provide options for restoring individual databases from RDS snapshots. After doing an RDS snapshot restore, we have to go through native options or native steps to recover the databases. Veeam and Rubrik are more advanced in terms of database restores.

I work as a partner and consultant of Druva. Druva Data Security Cloud is deployed on Druva Cloud. My final rating for Druva Data Security Cloud is seven out of ten.