EMC NetWorker Reviews

los respaldos se realizan con efectividad, en muy pocas ocasiones falla, la restauración es rápida, las pantallas de navegación son sencillas y puedes revisar lo que se ha respaldado, la capacidad que ocupo, ver el ID, y la la hora de restaurar puedes buscar muy fácilmente la fecha ID etc.

cuando se des configura es muy complicado re configurar los respaldos, cuando se trata de Bases de Datos, a nivel de archivos es fácil. Cuando deja de hacer un respaldo de las bases de datos de exchange se complica.

Es sencillo de administrar e instalar, soporta la mayoría de las bases de datos, no se cae o dañan archivos, los datos se respaldan con seguridad, en ningún momento he bajado algún archivo corrupto, todos bien. Tienes una sección de reportes bastante fácil de utilizar.

Todos los respaldos en cintas de lo que tenemos en los servidores y en el almacenamiento EMC VNX, y cuando restauramos se hacer rapido, respaldos diarios semanales y mensuales, en cinta y disco externo USB.

How it ties to DataDomain and can talk to my VMWare environments.

How expensive it is and how it has fallen back compared to the other guys who are tackling VMWare backups.

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.

Backups Mostly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Backing up and restoring MSSQL databases. Taking a production backup to be sanitized and used in development is a great option.

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!

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.

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.

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/

Good scalability. Is possible automating many operations as client configuration. Is possible changing many parameters for tuning performances.

Centralized deploy of NetWorker agent is not very reliable. Error messages related to networking problems are often misleading

Backup of huge MSSQL DB, SAP HANA and others using data domain boost over fiber channel

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Networker has so many features that allow me to backup in a very detailed manner.

Troubleshooting could take a while, due to all the options available. However, this is a good thing.

Learn all the features, and you’ll enjoy the granularity the product offers.

Network is excellent for file level backup. I also like the deduplication.

The Command line interface is very flexible and can be used to automate backups through cron.

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.

We were attempting to backup a mixture of windows and Unix hosts. No benefits.

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.

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.

Protecting data. Since no longer using tapes, recoveries haven't failed.

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.

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.

Meeting RTO/RPO requirements.

Backups are insurance policies for many sites, and actively used for restores for other sites.

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.

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.

I recommend .

library issues are huge, I like how the daemon log is easy to pull to find what my problem is.

Scheduling of backups. java interface. Very complete reporting of backups.

Backup of Microsoft Exchange and Vmware VMs is complex to setup

There are some type of backups not easy to configure with EMC Networker, like Microsoft Exchange Backup

Backup adn recovery of Windows and Linux Servers

Networker has a vast knowledge database/ on line information that enables administrators to quickly resolve issues and learn/plan for the future.

This product fully supports itself, only downside is this does not fit well with third party schedulers.

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.

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).

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.

Good value, excellent customer service, great product, timely new features,

Disaster Recovery, good RPO / RTO solutions in Data Protection

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.

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.

Networker was part of an SAP data refresh project. We were able to backup and refresh multiple environments using the technology.

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

some times gets to complex to manage, require some level of technical expertise to manage

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

Integration with VMWare management WebUI tools.

Backup Image management and log search or reporting features. Need to use DPA to exploit full potential of solution.

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.

Protection of data and snapshots for test/uat environment.

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.

Networker Management Console on a virtual Windows platform.

we work on data center and installation, configuration of the enterprise using networker.

EMC networker is doing very well in packaging backup with deduplication and other features.

not much, user interface could be improved.

Back up files. Combine dedupe from its data domain and avamar acquisitions.

Simple to use, graphic user interface is fast

Error messages are ambiguous and do not guide to resolution

Depending on infrastructure and budget

Backup and restore

I like it's concept .

easy to handle .

Best support.

Recovering save set in NAS made my life very difficult.

Make EMC do a test period before you use it and send an engineer to training first.

Backup of VMWARE is not efficient as other product.

The speed of the backups and the ability to stream multiple mount points at once to a single tape drive

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.

Normal day to day backups and restores and then in Disaster Recovery Drills. The huge benefit is the speed of the backups.

EMC support is top notch. Creating jobs and labels is more streamlined. restores are more friendlier than Netbackup

sensitive to Windows patching and Java updates.

using multiple libraries to support multiple projects and their data retention requirements. data growth estimates through backups.

I like that it's compatible with several different databases. It's reliable.

It's an older technology . There are cheaper products that work just as well.

I used this software for backing up and recovery in a medical facility.

Rich feature and multiple ways to use it, I hope it is in the cloud.

nothing specific dislike but if they can improve some UI, it will be better.

It is pretty good if you are a large organization.

Disaster recovery

GUI is very easy to use and straightforward

I thin the description of the errors could be a little more detailed.

Storage related issues. Working with the vendor is very important

EMC Networker integrates very well with Avamar and our Data Domain Storage Systems.

Configuration of backup jobs can be difficult

EMC Networker is probably the best solution.

Backup of our older systems that we are trying to migrate out of our organization.

Intuitivness of environment, features that are being added and reliability of Networker

Licensing can be a burden and price for the solution is also quite steep

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