--- title: Dell NetWorker Reviews meta_title: 'Dell NetWorker Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 44 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Dell NetWorker works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 3.7 review_count: 44 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-17' parent_category: name: Backup url: https://www.g2.com/categories/backup --- # Dell NetWorker Reviews **Vendor:** Dell Technologies **Category:** [Server Backup Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/server-backup) **Average Rating:** 3.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 44 ## About Dell NetWorker Dell NetWorker is an enterprise-level data protection software designed to safeguard critical workloads across diverse environments, including physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures. It offers a unified and automated approach to backup and recovery, ensuring data integrity and availability across data centers and public clouds. With its inherent flexibility, NetWorker supports a wide range of operating systems and applications, making it a versatile solution for organizations of all sizes. Key Features and Functionality: - Comprehensive Backup and Recovery: NetWorker provides centralized management for backup and recovery operations across heterogeneous IT ecosystems, supporting various operating systems, databases, and applications. - Scalability and Performance: Designed to meet the needs of growing enterprises, NetWorker delivers high-performance protection for extensive data sets, ensuring efficient backup and recovery processes. - Multicloud Enablement: The software extends data protection capabilities to the cloud, offering backup to cloud, in-cloud backup, long-term retention, and cloud disaster recovery options. - Efficiency Through Automation: NetWorker's automation features reduce management time and operational costs, streamlining data protection tasks. - Broad Application Support: It supports a wide array of applications, including databases like Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP, ensuring application-consistent backup and recovery. - Integrated Snapshot Management: NetWorker offers built-in snapshot management for block and file storage arrays, providing point-in-time copies of data without disrupting application performance. - VMware Optimization: Tight integration with VMware allows administrators to leverage familiar tools, enhancing efficiency in virtualized environments. Primary Value and User Solutions: Dell NetWorker addresses the critical need for reliable and efficient data protection in complex IT environments. By offering a scalable and flexible solution, it enables organizations to safeguard their data across various platforms and infrastructures, including on-premises and cloud-based systems. The software's automation capabilities reduce administrative overhead, while its comprehensive support for diverse applications ensures that businesses can maintain continuity and meet recovery objectives effectively. Ultimately, NetWorker empowers organizations to protect their valuable data assets with confidence and ease. ## Dell NetWorker Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users praise the **seamless integration with Data Domain** and its exceptional speed and compression for instant recoveries. (1 reviews) - Users admire the **seamless integration and exceptional speed** of Dell NetWorker, enhancing their overall recovery experience. (1 reviews) - Users commend the **reliability** of Dell NetWorker for enterprise-scale backups across diverse workloads and systems. (1 reviews) - Users value the **data security and cloning features** of Dell NetWorker, ensuring enterprise data is well-protected. (1 reviews) - Users value the **cloning features** of Dell NetWorker for enhancing security and maintaining multiple data copies. (1 reviews) - Users find Dell NetWorker's **versatility** impressive, effectively handling diverse workloads for enterprise-scale backups. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users report that Dell NetWorker requires a **high bandwidth internet line** for effective data backups across networks. (1 reviews) - Users find the **confusing implementation** of Dell NetWorker challenging, often needing specialized expertise for setup and administration. (1 reviews) - Users find the **difficult configuration** of Dell NetWorker challenging, needing specialized expertise for effective administration. (1 reviews) - Users criticize the **lack of backup options** in Dell NetWorker, finding reliance on NDMP limiting and frustrating. (1 reviews) - Users find the **outdated interface** complicated and not intuitive, complicating even simple tasks and causing confusion. (1 reviews) - Poor Navigation (1 reviews) ## Dell NetWorker Reviews ### 1. Too difficult to operate **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hillel G. | Information Technology System Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 26, 2025 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The integration with Data Domain is excellent and works seamlessly. The speed of Instant recoveries and the compression is the best I've seen so far. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** I found the interface to be quite complicated. When I used it, the UI was Java-based and not intuitive, which made even simple tasks confusing. Additionally, several functions, such as NAS backup, were not available, so we had to rely on NDMP for backups. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** We needed a backup solution for our on-premises environment, and we used this software for several years before eventually switching to another product. The main use was with tape backup and it got the job done but it wasn't very intuitive. ### 2. Reliable Backup Solution with Room for Modernization **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Misbahuddin M. | Specialist Data Center, Real Estate, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 17, 2025 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** NetWorker is highly reliable for enterprise-scale backups, especially with diverse workloads like databases, file systems, and virtual machines. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** The interface and setup can be complex, requiring specialized expertise for administration. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** It supports long-term retention and regulatory compliance, giving us confidence in audits and recovery requirements. ### 3. Your data is safe **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mustafa L. | Network Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 25, 2024 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Securing your enterpraise data and keeping more than 1 copy with cloning features. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** It need high bandwith internet line to backup data across networks. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easier to manage servers backup and restoring data incase of disaster. ### 4. Great backup solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 19, 2022 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Emc networker is very beneficial for provinding backup solution to large organisation. It is compatible with multiple operating system and can easily be integrated with storage solution like data domain and physical tape libraries. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Networker version 18 is not compatible with windows 2008 and lower version . So to backup legacy environment of client , we have to look for other backup solution **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great backup solution for customised environment. I can recommend this solution to large organisation ### 5. Great product. Moving forward! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** I like the simple yet complex nature of the application. I appreciate the granularity. I really enjoy the command line interface. Being able to schedule and "forget" is a great option. Overall it is a great product and wish I could have worked with it more. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** I dislike the product being developed using Java. It seems to be an insecure platform for what the end user might be using this product for. Searching through save sets can be unintuitive. Clicking a tab is not usually the first thing one would think to submit a search query. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** To look into the virtual machine options as I have not. Make sure you're using the right menu for the job. Also, document the steps you use. There are many ways to automate a restore since some of them can take quite a while depending on your environment. As always, be careful and double check your work before moving forward. Backups are always important in an environment and can be the last "line of defense" when an issue occurs. This product gives a good peace of mind to both the end user and administrator. I unfortunately was not involved in the purchasing and implementation of our rollout but, from what I've been told, it is comparable. It could be because of our use of similar products. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backing up and restoring MSSQL databases. Taking a production backup to be sanitized and used in development is a great option. ### 6. once you get the hangs of it **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 14, 2022 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** once it's configured properly, it will be the best backup software **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** be ready to be the best troubleshooter once you have an error **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** It will work best to plan the implementation properly. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backing up massive databases and email servers. Restoring databases with table-level or email-level recovery. ### 7. Networker's robust configurability makes it difficult to use. **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bill M. | Systems Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 08, 2021 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Networker integrates with the data domain storage that we already own. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Networker is needlessly complicated and difficult to monitor, troubleshoot and manage compared to its competitors. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** we are backing up out virtual environments as well as the few remaining physical servers we have on prem. ### 8. Good Product For all Time Backup **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 22, 2019 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Dell EMC Networker provide good and enhanced dashboard. User can easily understand which backup is running which is not . We can get backup though this backup solution on multiple environment like Hyper V, VMWare and physical servers. We can recovered a single file from VMbackup, Its has multiple features which help us to maintain or backups fast and secure like, Deduplication,snapshot, full VM backups and file system backups. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Our experience is not good with networker support from our Asia pacific helpline . Although it is fast and good product, but Vendor (Asia Pacific) expertise not enough to resolved issue quickly. They took too much time resolved any single issue.. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** This product is best for multi platform and large environment. Deployment is not easy need more expertise to configure for best result of this product. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Fist benefit is, no more manage tape library for get backup, With this tools we run simultaneously multiple backups. We push it all to a data domain. Networker gives us reduced risk of data loss. We also restored many of VM from Network if found any error on Operating System. ### 9. Works well to make and control backups **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David V. | Gestión de Inside Sales, CRM y Marketing, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 01, 2019 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Power database of backups, multiple options, possibility of take a backup of many dates. Works well. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** A bit slow, not intuitive menus. When you have many backups it's difficult to find you want **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** The same descripted before ### 10. Slow performance **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 20, 2019 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** EMC NetWorker is an enterprise level data protection software product that unifies and automates backup to tape, disk-based, and flash-based storage media across physical and virtual environments for granular and disaster recovery. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** It is slow and less performant. Didn't like the performance as much **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using Microsoft Windows server. NetWorker also supports backup and recovery of Microsoft Windows Server and Hyper-V virtual servers by using the Volume Shadow Copy Services interface. This support protects the parent and child partitions (guests) as well as applications running within the virtual machines ### 11. Administration of backups **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lisandro T. G. | Jefe de infraestructura, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2018 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** backups are performed effectively, they rarely fail, restoration is quick, navigation screens are simple, and you can review what has been backed up, the capacity I use, see the ID, and when it's time to restore, you can easily search for the date, ID, etc. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** when it gets misconfigured, it's very complicated to reconfigure the backups, when it comes to Databases, at the file level it's easy. When it stops backing up the exchange databases, it gets complicated. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** It is easy to manage and install, supports most databases, does not crash or damage files, data is securely backed up, and I have never downloaded any corrupt files, all are fine. You have a report section that is quite easy to use. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** All the tape backups of what we have on the servers and on the EMC VNX storage, and when we restore, it is done quickly, with daily, weekly, and monthly backups on tape and external USB disk. ### 12. Dell EMC Networker **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 04, 2019 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Networker Simplified my backup solution with the ease of deploying the clients to different servers **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** The java based front end was a bit clunky and difficult to use sometimes. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowed us to have offsite redundant backups for the first time. ### 13. Dated file level and NDMP backup solution **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The interface is fairly straight forward. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Job Failures, java based application and long backup jobs. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Choose a more robust system like Veeam or Rubrik **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Offsite backup storage ### 14. EMC NetWorker **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Viraj M. | Sr. Infrastructure Architect, Retail, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** How it ties to DataDomain and can talk to my VMWare environments. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** How expensive it is and how it has fallen back compared to the other guys who are tackling VMWare backups. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Given the price point for this product, it will be better if one looks at Unitrends and Veeam for VM and Physical server backups. Unitrends while being a "smaller" company compared to Veeam or Commvault, surprisingly does really well. Veeam also does phonemically well in the backup space. NetWorker and DataDomain is now considered legacy technology and really hasn't kept up with the newer guys in terms of how quickly one can restore files and backup files. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backups Mostly. ### 15. Networker solves all my backup needs. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Adam N. | Sr. Storage Engineer at Hartz Mountain Industries, Real Estate, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Networker has so many features that allow me to backup in a very detailed manner. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Troubleshooting could take a while, due to all the options available. However, this is a good thing. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Learn all the features, and you’ll enjoy the granularity the product offers. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network is excellent for file level backup. I also like the deduplication. ### 16. EMC **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 30, 2018 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** I like that it's compatible with several different databases. It's reliable. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** It's an older technology . There are cheaper products that work just as well. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used this software for backing up and recovery in a medical facility. ### 17. Reliable and integration for many applications **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ivan V. | Backup Administrator, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 07, 2017 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Good scalability. Is possible automating many operations as client configuration. Is possible changing many parameters for tuning performances. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Centralized deploy of NetWorker agent is not very reliable. Error messages related to networking problems are often misleading **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup of huge MSSQL DB, SAP HANA and others using data domain boost over fiber channel ### 18. Backup used from several years **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Public Policy | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 30, 2017 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Scheduling of backups. java interface. Very complete reporting of backups. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Backup of Microsoft Exchange and Vmware VMs is complex to setup **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** There are some type of backups not easy to configure with EMC Networker, like Microsoft Exchange Backup **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup adn recovery of Windows and Linux Servers ### 19. EMC Networker **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christopher R. | Sr. System Engineer/Team Lead, Hospital & Health Care, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** I would say I like the reliability of the product. I have been using it in my past positions almost 20 years. Nothing feels worse when a restore needs to be done and for whatever reason, you are not able to get the file(s) back. That is not to say other products are unreliable, but Networker definitely fits into my comfort zone. Over the years, I have used Windows, True64, and Solaris as backup hosts. When I started at my present job, we had Backup Exec everywhere with multiple backup hosts everywhere to keep track of. It was nice to consolidate all of them on a single target host. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** The restore progress window in version 7.6 goes blank so you can't see what is going on. I am building a new server with version 8.2 so we will see if that is better and possibly if this is caused by a server bottleneck. Also, I must admit I have never looked to see if there is a solution to this, so it really just has been a minor nuisance. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Protection and consolidation from multiple backup solutions. DR with backup replication (Data Domain), cost savings since we no longer have to send tapes off site, daily. ### 20. Hopeful for its future but it was a proven failure. **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tom B. | SharePoint Administrator, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The large scope of supported client operating systems is a strong positive. Longevity of the product means there's a large base of experienced users with multiple community support forums. EMC continues to invest in development, so it's not a "dead" product. Product offers multiple backup targets and data migration options, e.g. disk-to-tape, disk-to-disk, disk-to-disk-to-tape, etc. Nearly every aspect is configurable making the product highly adaptive to complex environments. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** We've proven that this product persistently misses some files, but not always the same files, causing our Oracle DB recoveries to fail. Working with EMC support for months to years never resulted in a solution. Oracle DBA's refuse to rely on Networker backups. For file server backups it was fine, but continued failures to backup critical files and not report on missed files caused us to move away from the product. It's origin is command line driven with vague GUI tools offering partial functionality. Longevity of the product means persistent backwards compatibility with means code bloating to support features and abilities no longer present in modern operating systems. Attempts to modernize the interface hasn't helped in the vast complexity in setup and use of the product. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Although we are still using Networker v7 for some of legacy Solaris systems, we have moved away from this product for the simple fact that we've proven it misses file3, or did anyway from versions 5 through 7, which covers my experience with the product. Although EMC support was courteous, the problem was never solved. We are now using EMC's Avamar product for non-Windows systems and Microsoft's Data Protection Manager for Windows systems. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Products ability to define multiple network interfaces allowed us to backup systems in public, private and highly secured environments. Disk-to-disk-to-tape allowed us to backup to disk at local data center for quicker recoveries and also to tape for disaster recovery and archival purposes. ### 21. emc Networker is the best enterprise backup solution I've used. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew B. | Datacentre Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 02, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Despite the revised GUI interface in recent years, which is excellent, like most applications built on UNIX technology, everything is a file/command line underneath. This gives me the confidence of being in total control of the product. I also just like the logical way it's designed, i.e. with clients that are added to savegroups, and savegroups that are run according to a schedule. It makes it easy to control the timing of the backups of specific systems in the enterprise. I love the mminfo command for reporting on backup clients statuses - definitely one to learn! **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** As Networker is an enterprise backup tool, and has a necessarily comprehensive GUI that can be quite intimidating upon first sight. Once shown/trained on how to configure a client and add it to the backup schedule, it's really quite straight forward though and everything is pretty much where you'd expect to find it. For absolute confidence, I'd recommend formal training funded by your employer and embracing the command line.. It's one product that definitely justifies knowing what you're doing end-to-end. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** I'd definitely recommend official training. I was fortunate enough to have it back in 2000 and the product has evolved but the fundamental commands and the way it works remains the same. It is training you'd benefit from for your entire career as it doesn't become obsolete like many products from other vendors. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** My current client has moved a huge number of servers, storage, databases and applications to remote datacenters and networker 6 and emc data domain were the products of choice to back it all up and de-duplicate the save sets which are then replicated to a second remote datacenter for disaster recovery purposes. backing up such a large eclectic mix of different nas vendors filesystems, vmware datastores, different databases on different operating systems along with exchange etc and replicating those savesets to a remote facility with very few failures is no easy task, but emc Networker makes it easy and Data Domain deduplication is so efficient that the unique blocks of saveset data achieve a 96% compression rate, making replication of that data to a remote site easy. You'd think that data that is that compressed/deduplicated would take an age to recover but in fact the opposite is true. Recoveries are insanely fast too. It is quite possibly the most impressive tech I've seen in a decade after VMWare ESXi. The details of the specific challenges overcome can be read on my blog here. I am independent and not affiliated with emc (at the time of writing). http://www.cyberfella.co.uk/2012/08/28/emc-networker/ ### 22. Experience lots of environments with using NetWorker. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 25, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The support is great if you push for the assistance you need. It is just the reduction in head count in support causing delays. At one point a 5 minute delay was unacceptable. Now a five minute delay is a great day. The variety of hardware and software supported makes the product desirable. The collaboration available within EMC is excellent. CHAT is very useful to open an initial case. The best is they do not say it is not their issue without reviewing the problem and are willing to engage third party vendors to collaborate. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Support is falling behind with the reduction in head count and experience for support. I have had to call the Manager On Duty many times to get support. The adding of new "Centers of Excellence" is adding support staff, but not the collaboration and experience augmenting existing centers would have. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Learn the in's an out's. The software has a lot of easy work around's for issues not easy to find or even documented. Use CHAT as an initial point of contact faster to spawn a new case and if it is a real emergency get a warm hand off. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backing up data in a diverse environment from Hospitals to Military. I have worked with NetWorker for several companies. I have implemented, maintained and upgraded The software has the ability to fail and be recovered faster than the hardware can be recovered. I have worked with other backup software and there are ones loath. ### 23. Good product **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christopher R. | Sr Com Systems Security Technologist II, Defense & Space, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 17, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Networker is a good backup product. It's lightweight, and I haven't seen the client itself cause issues on any of our servers in the 11+ years I've used it. Like most enterprise products Networker needs to be setup properly and tuned for the environment it's in to be most effective. Networker does a good job, especially when using NDMP backups. While NDMP can be complex to manage and configure the performance gains are invaluable. I've also always found EMC's technical support of Networker to be relatively good. I've noticed in some reviews people criticizing Networker's ability to backup Oracle DBs and missing files. This is a configuration issue, and not Networker's fault. This is because you can't backup live files that are constantly being written to, such as databases. The DBAs either need to write a backup to file where Networker can pick it up or you have to use a Networker Oracle Module. In fact, it's best to add directives for Networker to skip live database files for file level backups on DB servers. There are also other very beneficial tools from EMC such as Recover Point, which we use in our environment in conjunction with Networker for replicating file systems to remote sites and backing them up there. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Networker's default TCP port range is large, and can tend to conflict with some enterprise applications on rare occasions. Networker does allow you to adjust the port range, but this is an easy thing to overlook. The large port range also means having to open more ports across firewalls than what some may feel uncomfortable with. Networker also tends to need a lot of tuning and administrative intervention, but probably no more than any other enterprise backup solution. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backups are paramount and one of the most critical parts of any data center. They should be the first thought before setting up any new environment, and Networker is a good solution for this need. ### 24. EMC NetWorker Review - Tim S. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tim S. | Owner and Senior Technical Implementation Specialist, Financial Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** DDBoost using client direct (DFA) is the most recent feature that I have the most appreciation for within our NetWorker environment. The distributed processing of data deduplication greatly reduces the load on both the Storage Nodes (SN's) and the NetWorker server allowing us to reduce the number of SN's in our backup environment. This reduces the administration effort required to maintain our environment. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Using DDBoost there is nothing that NetWorker reports on the will let you know when a client cannot backup directly to a Data Domain appliance effectively bypassing the Storage Node and reducing the bandwidth requirements on the SN. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Follow best practices when implementing, train your support staff, take advantage of the support offerings from EMC and test your backups in both production and DR. Backups are useless if they can't be recovered and to often companies wait until an emergency happens to find out that they were missing critical system components and cannot recover the required data. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Daily backups with offsite storage for DR is the main purpose of our backup and recovery/data protection systems. Benefits realized are simply that our organization is protected locally and remotely to ensure that our business can continue without data loss in the event of a system failure. We have been able to successfully recover systems within limited windows to allow business to proceed without impact or data loss. ### 25. One of the easiset business continuity solutions to implement for multiple sites **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David P. | Product Marketing Manager, Marketing and Advertising, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The interface for file-level management is easy to use and enabled us to provide a highly efficient response to requests for files pertaining to specific users and periods of time. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** There are UNIX and Windows versions. IT managers who use the UNIX version typically see them as different enough that experience on the Windows version does not seem to be sufficient to qualify one to use the UNIX version. I don't find that to be the case at all, however. The command line interface is the key differentiator between the 2 versions. I favor the GUI. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** For best results, have a sandbox for testing and practicing operations. This is a product best learned hands-on as opposed to using only the extremely verbose, hyper-specific documentation. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** We needed a centralized method of backing up files for 1) quick restore in support of business continuity and 2) backup to tape library in support of disaster recovery. It serves both purposes very well. With ~3000 users overall, we could handily support 5 satellite sites and a main office without concerns over bandwidth or operation time outs. ### 26. Backup administrator for a large retail company. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ezequiel S. | Backup and Storage Engineer, Retail, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 15, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** This product is intended for large organizations. Each Datazone supports about 2,000 clients. The standard 3 tier architecture (Master Server, Storage Node/Media Server, and clients) The best this this product offers is simplicity and flexibility of use. Support for SAN, IP backups and agents for most of the platforms and main hypervisors (VMWare, Hyper-V). Performance is what you make of it. Configure it right and it'll work well. Together with Data Domain and Boost, NetWorker has become much more powerful with client side dedup. client direct also works well. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** The UI is a little old and needs an update. The agent deployment is messy (you need proxies for cross platform agent deployment). The reporting capabilities are poor so if you are part of a large organization, you need Data Protection Advisor (DPA) and DPA lacks some features like the ability to report on VMs that are inside Hyper-V hosts. DPA and NetWorker should be one product, or at least an "Express" version of DPA specifically for NetWorker should be part of the NetWorker software since DPA is extremely broad in the reporting capabilities and software/appliances it can report on. NAS backups are terribly slow, but it's not really NetWorker's fault but NDMP itself. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Request an EMC Blueprint assessment of your organization to make sure NetWorker is the right solution. I don't want to say avoid Avamar, I'm sure there are cases were Avamar is the right fit, but Data Domain is cheaper and works wonderfully well with NetWorker. Train your team, get them certified. Troubleshooting NetWorker is an art, not a science, but at least you have one main log, unlike NetBackup where you have plenty. Ensure you plan for automation of backups (provisioning, client upgrades, etc), you'll save a lot of money that way. Built a test environment where you try new ways to perform backups and collaborate with EMC. You'll be glad you did! **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data Protection is key in every organization. NetWorker is a good tool that provides a good level of protection, but you will need a trained team of engineers to support the tool and maintain it. Automation is key and there are no automation tools embedded in the software yet to allow for self provisioning of backups. Eventually, that integration with tools like Chef or Puppet will be necessary. The price point compared to similar solutions, namely NetBackup, is good although NetBackup seems like a more mature solution do not discard NetWorker as your main backup solution. ### 27. Linux administrator **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ron R. | Linux Administrator, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 05, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The Command line interface is very flexible and can be used to automate backups through cron. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** The complete lack of support from EMC. We had less than 1000 servers, Windows, Unix mix. We had massive failures that EMC could NOT figure out. They kept pushing us to buy other products but we felt they would not be able to support them either. Very disappointing company. We will never do business with them again. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were attempting to backup a mixture of windows and Unix hosts. No benefits. ### 28. EMC NetWorker **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Managibility, since EMC bought it, my opinion, is at least 500% better now than it was. We have it writing to Data Domain now, tape is gone. I've worked with Avamar too, but the ability to find a file when the location (directory) is unknown is one of my favorite reasons. The indexes may be found to be its undoing one day, Avamar keeps the index in the saves (self referencing). But as it is now replication, cloning in NetWorker, to a hot site, works as three saves, the one at home site, the save to the hot site, and the index of the save to hot site. So, if you're thinking of implementing it, assure you test DR until you can recover at the hot site before signing off on replication functionality. Implementation of NetWorker can be completed by the client, Avamar and Data Domain require EMC or EMC partner to implement. So NetWorker is possibly more affordable, but if you get it, you'll definitely want Data Domain too, unless you don't have much data to save. NetWorker is saving over 20 petabytes at some implementations currently, and exabytes are probably less than 10 years off. With the amount of data being generated, I wouldn't trust anything but EMC NetWorker or Avamar. I think NetWorker will recover from a disaster faster than Avamar currently though, where you don't have a hot site. I've worked with NetWorker since version 4 in 1999 and Avamar 5 since 2011. I currently use NetWorker 8.2 on Data Domain and Avamar 7 on Avamar Data Store Gen4s. NetWorker and Avamar will most likely merge in the not too distant future with Data Domain or the Avamar Data Store as the storage media in the near future; no one will come close to the value in that for data protection. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Indexes in NetWorker for very large clients, where retention time is long and often. Very large indexes may be its downfall. If you're going to implement with very large servers, millions of files per server; over 5 million, go with Avamar. Indexes have to be in excess of 2.5 gb also go with Avamar. Avamar has index size solved by saving the index into the save. Even Avamar isn't designed for systems with over 10 million files per client. The presave has to look at all the files they will save and deduplication has to also for both products. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Protecting data. Since no longer using tapes, recoveries haven't failed. ### 29. Experience with EMC Networker **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Genevieve S. | Server Administrator, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** I enjoy the way Netoworker makes Me think when troubleshooting. It provides reliable and fast recovery options. I throughly enjoy how it handles virtual machines as I work daily with them. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** there isn't much I don't dislike. I would say that rebuilding a library is pretty tedious work, it's fun but time consuming, I have found. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** I recommend . **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** library issues are huge, I like how the daemon log is easy to pull to find what my problem is. ### 30. Long time NetWorker Administrator Review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 16, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** As a three tier product, NetWorker can scale to large enterprises. Quite flexible. This ranges from traditional tape backup, where storage nodes (aka media servers) offline IO movement from the backup server, either direct to tape for large servers, or to add more lan backup capacity. As with other enterprise products, NetWorker has a lot of flexibility. Product management continues to add both big and small features that extend functionality. For instance, they recently added an "auto-select storage node" feature, which helps automate load balancing of lan backups among storage nodes. Data Domain integration is where most efforts have gone recently. From client-side dedup ("hash checking") to DDBoost (NetWorker's version of OST) over both LAN and FC, and virtual synthetic fulls, NetWorker is leveraging Data Domain features to reduce backup windows. Other items to note: --Very strong command line. Advanced scripting (backups, recoveries, and reporting) can be done via CLI. IMHO, most powerful command line of any enterprise product. --Wide client and database support. --Good backward compatibility, even for systems and versions that are no longer supported. For instance, NetWorker client from 2009 can be used to back up Windows 2000. While not officially supported, it works, and provides an option for outliers. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Easy and useful reporting tends to be a constant battle. While great strides have been made, both within NetWorker and by leveraging EMC's DPA product, it is still difficult to get a handle on when things run, and where backup bottlenecks are. I find that the (shareware) NetWorker Reporting Utility (http://users.skynet.be/networker_reporter/) offers better reporting for optimization purposes than the build in reporting. The gantt charts, for instance, visualize run times quite well. Integration with other EMC products is a double edged sword. The addition of client-side dedup for Data Domain is truly amazing, but sites that don't have a Data Domain lose out on a lot of functionality; if a site wants to back up VMware 6 to tape, they are out of luck--VMware backups require the VBR module, which requires Data Domain. (If tape is not needed, it can be backed up to other disk, but that does not support tape for offsiting purposes). Another example is the block level backup feature: it is a great feature, solving the problem of backing up dense filesystems that standard backup agents cannot do quickly. But it requires backup to disk, and realistically backup to Data Domain. Some of the newer modules are really difficult to troubleshoot. This is not unique to EMC--the more complexity an application has, the more complex it is to back up. And by building in a lot of functionality to the application modules, they become more and more difficult to troubleshoot. (I'm specifically looking at NetWorker Module for Microsoft Applications and VMware Backup and Recovery) As with most enterprise products, licensing is tricky. EMC offers traditional feature based licensing (where tracking what is used can be difficult) or capacity based licensing (where increases in protected data require purchasing additional capacity each year). NetWorker is neither worse nor better than the other products, IMHO. Bare metal restores for Windows are good. They are essentially non-existent for other platforms. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Meeting RTO/RPO requirements. Backups are insurance policies for many sites, and actively used for restores for other sites. ### 31. Industry leading product - great experience. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eric I. | Backup/Storage Systems Administrator/ SE I, Retail, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 09, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Networker has a vast knowledge database/ on line information that enables administrators to quickly resolve issues and learn/plan for the future. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** This product fully supports itself, only downside is this does not fit well with third party schedulers. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** DDboost with networker enables you to have one of the best deduplications products available to source clients for less network traffic and better backup times and improved backup windows. ### 32. I am an EMC Networker administrator for almost 10 years. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 05, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Multi application / platform support especially with legacy applications and less widespread platforms. We are able to protect all our applications including, but not limited to : Informix, MySQL, Oracle, SAP, SQL, AD, OpenVMS, SharePoint, Exchange, Domino Lotus products, windows, linux, Solaris, etc). **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Lack of QA done by EMC on new releases, sub par backup application modules for Microsoft Applications. Expect bad Microsoft Applications Integration. (Exchange, SP, SQL, AD). Very slow compared to all other applications supported. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Good value, excellent customer service, great product, timely new features, **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Disaster Recovery, good RPO / RTO solutions in Data Protection ### 33. Seamless Integration with Datadomain **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Myles W. | Senior Technology Architect, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** EMC Networker has been making a lot of progress in the last couple of years. The native integration with Datadomain appliances is the best feature for using network optimized backups through DDBoost. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** A lot of feature advancements have taken away development of a true backend database for the catalog. I have had to restore Networker itself many times due to corruption. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Networker was part of an SAP data refresh project. We were able to backup and refresh multiple environments using the technology. ### 34. Review on data, users **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 02, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Install and maintain enterprise class backup / recovery using EMC Networker & Avamar. Networker architecture and functionality of all application components such as Master Servers, Storage Nodes, Media Pools, Clients and Juke box configurations etc. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Networker Management Console on a virtual Windows platform. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** we work on data center and installation, configuration of the enterprise using networker. ### 35. one of the leading backup software out in market **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ravi S. | System Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** able to backup multiple variety of filesystems\datasets have EMC avamar code integrate with in VM backups, which provides better deduplication and changed block tracking for lower cost **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** some times gets to complex to manage, require some level of technical expertise to manage **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** able to backup data types like VMware, NDMP, SQL, Oracle under single umbrella integrate too well with data domain DDboost, provides better deduplication & faster backups compared to other backup software integration with data domain ### 36. Protection: Feature Rich, Affordable solution for physical and virtual environment. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bandu V. | Storage Architect, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Integration with VMWare management WebUI tools. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Backup Image management and log search or reporting features. Need to use DPA to exploit full potential of solution. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** This is very proven solution to backup databases and network shares as well as bare bone OS. Compares very well other products. IF price is right, switch to this product. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Protection of data and snapshots for test/uat environment. ### 37. OpenVMS SA review of EMC Legato Networker from a Storage Node **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 02, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** The speed of the backups and the ability to stream multiple mount points at once to a single tape drive **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Restore process in a DR environment is kind of slow... And the fact that the files are not backed up in OpenVMS file format, however, if they were then it probably wouldn't stream as fast in the backup process. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Normal day to day backups and restores and then in Disaster Recovery Drills. The huge benefit is the speed of the backups. ### 38. EMC Networker should be market leader **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dennis W. | Backup Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 03, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** EMC support is top notch. Creating jobs and labels is more streamlined. restores are more friendlier than Netbackup **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** sensitive to Windows patching and Java updates. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** using multiple libraries to support multiple projects and their data retention requirements. data growth estimates through backups. ### 39. Networker **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohammed Iliyas B. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 15, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** I like it's concept . easy to handle . Best support. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Recovering save set in NAS made my life very difficult. **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Make EMC do a test period before you use it and send an engineer to training first. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup of VMWARE is not efficient as other product. ### 40. Admin who supported storage and backups **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Reginald M. | Systems Analyst III, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 22, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** GUI is very easy to use and straightforward **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** I thin the description of the errors could be a little more detailed. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Storage related issues. Working with the vendor is very important ### 41. EMC Networker is used to backup and restore Petabytes of data in our organization **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 20, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** EMC Networker integrates very well with Avamar and our Data Domain Storage Systems. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Configuration of backup jobs can be difficult **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** EMC Networker is probably the best solution. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup of our older systems that we are trying to migrate out of our organization. ### 42. Its getting there **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 20, 2015 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Intuitivness of environment, features that are being added and reliability of Networker **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Licensing can be a burden and price for the solution is also quite steep **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** DAILY BACKUPS ### 43. top tier backup application **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chen (Ellen) X. | SEO/SEM Social Media Expert, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 16, 2014 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** EMC networker is doing very well in packaging backup with deduplication and other features. **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** not much, user interface could be improved. **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Back up files. Combine dedupe from its data domain and avamar acquisitions. ### 44. Use this production to backup and restore databases and server filesystem **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tu L. | Senior Oracle Database Administrator, Computer Software, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 12, 2014 **What do you like best about Dell NetWorker?** Simple to use, graphic user interface is fast **What do you dislike about Dell NetWorker?** Error messages are ambiguous and do not guide to resolution **Recommendations to others considering Dell NetWorker:** Depending on infrastructure and budget **What problems is Dell NetWorker solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup and restore ## Dell NetWorker Discussions - [What is EMC NetWorker used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-emc-networker-used-for) - [What is storage node in EMC NetWorker?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-storage-node-in-emc-networker) - [What is the difference between Avamar and NetWorker?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-difference-between-avamar-and-networker) - [What is EMC software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/emc-networker-what-is-emc-software) - [What is Dell EMC NetWorker?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-dell-emc-networker) - [View Dell NetWorker pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/dell-networker/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-23+21%3A34%3A58+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=57bb4d9f-b58a-4240-a8a4-edfc246b0e52&secure%5Btoken%5D=6afeb4ccb2c3c02df4b5c84d2860d6496be0f28bdf06509d0cc99d164f85b32c&format=llm_user) ## Dell NetWorker Features **Compatibility ** - File Server Backup - Database Server Backup - Virtual Machines - Repository Models **Management** - Disaster Recovery - Storage Formats - On-Demand Restoration **Management** - Continuous Backup - Disaster Recovery - Storage Capacity - Remote Backup - Activity Monitoring **Reporting** - Activity Monitoring - Documentation - Alerts/Notifications **Compliance** - Security Standards - Cloud Data Protection - Data Deduplication **Security** - Security and Compliance - Deduplication **Agentic AI - Server Backup** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making ## Top Dell NetWorker Alternatives - [Veeam Data Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/veeam-data-platform/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (684 reviews) - [Veritas NetBackup](https://www.g2.com/products/veritas-netbackup/reviews) - 4.0/5.0 (105 reviews) - [IBM Storage Protect](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-storage-protect/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (59 reviews)