Dell PowerProtect Data Domain Virtual Edition for AWS

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  helps users with configuration, troubleshooting, and optimizing the system. A recent troubleshooting task I handled involved an upgrading pre-check failure caused by system activity when an administrator attempted to update the data domain operating system while a background task was running. The user ran the system upgrade pre-check version, and it failed at 100% with a generic blocking error. I directed the user to check the infrastructure logs using log view debug. The log revealed a critical block indicating that filesys cleaning was in progress. To optimize and unblock the system, I provided the exact command to safely halt the active space reclamation process, which was `filesys clean stop`. Once stopped, the pre-check passed cleanly and allowed the administrator to successfully proceed with the system upgrade.

The key features of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  include its core capabilities, encompassing deduplication, which provides high-speed, variable-length data reduction that minimizes physical storage needs. Retention Lock protects backups from ransomware deletion or modification, and the Data Invulnerability Architecture offers continuous automated validation that detects and repairs any data corruption. Additionally, the most common and useful feature is the DD Boost  client-side deduplication that offloads processing to the backup server, speeding up backups. Another notable feature is the Smart Scale and logical management pooling that aggregates up to 32 exabytes of data across multiple appliances.

There are several benefits of using DD Boost  and Smart Scaling. The first benefit regarding DD Boost is faster backups, as backup speed has been increased by 50% by handling deduplication on the backup server. The second benefit is network relief, as the dataset across the network has been reduced by up to 90% using significantly less bandwidth. The third benefit is improved server efficiency, which has reduced the CPU load on the backup server by offloading heavy data processing. When it comes to Smart Scale, the first benefit is simplified management, allowing management of up to 32 exabytes of logical capacity under a single, unified namespace. The second benefit is nondisruptive migration, enabling the movement of active data between physical appliances seamlessly without altering client configurations. The final benefit is balanced storage, which automatically distributes incoming backup workloads evenly across multiple Data Domain units.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain has positively impacted my organization by achieving remarkable outcomes, including storage efficiency of 10:1 to 50:1 deduplication that drastically reduces physical disk purchases. It also provides faster recovery that decreases RTO by up to two times faster during disaster recovery drills. Additionally, there are cost savings due to lower floorspace, cooling, and power consumption costs, which result from consolidating multiple legacy backup targets into one system. Lastly, I would mention our ransomware defense, with zero successful deletions or encryptions on data volumes protected by strict Retention Lock compliance.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain does have some limitations, with a common pain point being the high upfront cost, as licensing and specialized hardware appliances carry a premium price tag compared to generic cloud or software-defined storage. Another limitation is that complex cloud tiering makes moving older data to the public cloud require separate Cloud Tier licenses, which can be complex to configure and manage. Upgrading physical capacity often necessitates buying expensive rigid expansion shelves rather than scaling incrementally, which represents another pain point. Lastly, there is noticeable performance overhead when enabling strict encryption, replication, and Retention Lock features simultaneously, as it can slow down ingestion speeds.

Regarding needed improvements, the licensing cost is somewhat complex, as managing license capacity basis alongside separate feature licenses for DD Boost or Cloud Tiering creates administrative overhead during renewals. Additionally, I have personally experienced slow file-level restore, with reconstituting highly deduplicated data for a small single-file restore from a large backup set taking longer than expected.

I have been used Dell PowerProtect Data Domain for about six years.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is a very stable, mature solution, as it has been around for a very long time and is highly regarded as the standard industry benchmark for data backup reliability.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is scalable and can easily grow with my organization's needs, as it adapts well to massive enterprise data growth. You can perform virtual capacity planning to avoid upgrade costs, and when scaling up, you can add physical hardware units by connecting external disk shelves using SAS for more storage on the fly, though you must purchase additional capacity licenses from Dell to unlock that new storage.

The customer support for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is quite good, as they are effective at resolving issues and are widely considered excellent for hardware failures, although support for complex software application issues often depends heavily on the specific SLA contract that an organization purchases.

Before using Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, I sometimes had physical tape libraries and generic NAS  and SAN storages, as those standard network storages lacked inline data reduction and resulted in massive storage costs. The reason behind switching is that moving data to Dell PowerProtect Data Domain reduces data footprints by a factor of 10:1 to 50:1, drastically lowering hardware purchasing needs.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is that it is somewhat costlier, as the high premium on physical appliances such as DD6900 commands a substantial premium compared to generic storage.

The professional services setup cost surprises often stem from mandatory deployment services. Hiring Dell engineers to properly configure network topologies, replication fabrics, and initial backup policies adds substantial cost to the day one bill.

While I do not have a particular metric for ROI, the TCO reduction is up to 61%, as comprehensive economic modeling shows an average of up to 60% reduction in total cost of ownership over a five-year lifecycle compared to public or generic storage targets. The massive inline deduplication allows a company to pack up to 75 times more backup data into the same physical hardware, which means buying up to three to four times less physical disk space than competing solutions require for identical workloads.

Initial capital expenditure can easily run into six to seven figures, and the professional services setup cost surprises often stem from mandatory deployment services. Hiring Dell engineers to properly configure network topologies, replication fabrics, and initial backup policies adds substantial cost to the day one bill. Licensing is complex and fragmented, heavily tied to capacity which, while allowing organizations to scale, creates a hidden trap. If your data grows faster than expected or your deduplication ratios are lower than anticipated, you will face unbudgeted, expensive capacity expansion licenses.

Before switching to Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, I evaluated HPE StoreOnce  as an option.

My advice for others considering using Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is to build a precise growth forecast and conservatively calculate deduplication ratios, avoiding initial hardware budgets based on a best-case 50:1 deduplication ratio while instead using a safer 10:1 or 15:1 estimation for first-year budgeting to avoid premature capacity shortages. It is also vital to check the hardware capacity ceiling of the appliance model purchased so that if data growth exceeds that limit, it forces a costly forklift upgrade to a larger chassis, and optimize the financial contract accordingly. Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is deployed on-premises with dedicated physical hardware appliances such as DD3300 or DD6900. Overall, I would rate this solution an 8 out of 10.

I use Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  for backup storage and target storage backup.

The biggest advantage of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  is that it is integrated with leading backup solutions such as Commvault, Veritas, and Veeam. Additionally, it offers very good deduplication and compression capabilities available with the hardware.

My favorite features of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain are the deduplication and compression capabilities. These provide a very good function with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, delivering the highest deduplication and compression in backup.

In terms of analytics and monitoring features, Dell PowerProtect Data Domain acts as a backup storage appliance. Backup solutions such as Veritas or Commvault have the AI capability, while Dell PowerProtect Data Domain stores the backup data effectively.

The only improvement I see for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is pricing.

The issue I experienced is primarily with support rather than the product itself. The product is rugged and runs smoothly, but if I encounter security vulnerabilities or bugs in the firmware, or if my backup software upgrades require specific firmware for compatibility with the storage, I may face certain issues.

I started using Dell PowerProtect Data Domain more than ten years ago.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is highly scalable, as they have multiple products, including a highly scalable product and a fixed-configuration product, allowing customers to choose based on their roadmap and future requirements.

My impression of customer service is that it sometimes could be better. Normally, Dell is very good at providing services, but there are occasional hiccups, so I would give it ninety marks out of one hundred.

The hiccups I faced with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain include certain bugs or firmware upgrade updates requiring substantial support from the Dell team.

The installation of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is easy and not complex.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is worth buying and provides value for money because it delivers the highest deduplication and compression in the backup storage industry.

It is not completely justifiable to quantify the return on investment with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, but I can justify that if I have ten TB, twenty TB, or maybe one hundred TB of data that I am going to back up and store, I can achieve almost thirty percent to forty percent deduplication and compression, whereas with other backup storage solutions, I might not exceed ten percent deduplication and compression, allowing me to save around twenty percent in higher capacity for data storage.

Comparing Dell PowerProtect Data Domain to other vendors, it is one of the leaders in backup storage solutions and is recognized as a leader.

Dell is considered a leader because it provides a rugged product with main deduplication and compression, high-speed backup and restore, and many features, including replication, native cloud integration, and immutable storage solutions.

There are certain products more expensive than Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, as it is in-between in terms of pricing.

I assess the speed and reliability of backup and recovery with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain as excellent, and there is no doubt about it. It has been a leading product in backup storage for many years.

The installations I do are basically a hybrid model, with the majority of customers using on-site solutions. For some customers requiring an immutable copy, I can use the cloud solution of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain.

I have never deployed Dell products on AWS  Cloud. I have not purchased Dell products from AWS Marketplace  because we are not receiving any credits, which is why we are not pitching it.

I would rate this review nine out of ten.

The use cases for clients include one for Cyber Recovery and another one for backup.

From my experience as an integrator, I can say the biggest advantage of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  is the simplicity in terms of management and also the deduplication when it comes to data compression.

The deduplication feature does impact storage efficiency, as the customer was able to gain more space.

In terms of disadvantages, the only thing that can be improved is the number of years they keep the data domain. The number of years for the data to expire or for the support on the domain needs to be addressed. Additionally, they cannot reuse the disk shelf again, so a new disk shelf must be purchased. They should make it possible to reuse some disk shelves.

What could be better is the ability to reuse the existing shelf instead of buying another shelf if you want to upgrade. There is one implementation we are doing now where the customer has to buy another shelf for the upgrade, and the existing shelf must be removed from the rack.

My experience with the hardware solution, backup, and security is about 10 years.

The backup and recovery performance in terms of speed and reliability is quite good depending on the type of network being used. The customer has never complained that there is an issue with the backup or recovery, so the performance is quite satisfactory.

In terms of scalability, you need to populate the empty slot on the shelf. The scalability is quite impressive.

Regarding customer support, it is very helpful. The support is quite great from the customer perspective as well. They act proactively when it comes to support.

If I were to rate support from zero to 10 points, I would rate it a 10.

The experience with installation is easy and not that complicated.

I can see time saving from the product. The customer perspective is totally different, so it depends on the customer. I cannot quantify it to 10 percent as it depends on the individual customer.

Regarding the price of the product, it is very expensive.

I looked at similar products to Dell PowerProtect Data Domain , but for now, there is no similar product that I am certain of. The only one I can say is somewhat closer to it is Hyper-Scale.

Despite the high cost, I see value here for the customer, and if not, the customer would not be buying it. They are seeing the value for the money, but it is very expensive.

Analytics and monitoring features in Dell PowerProtect Data Domain would be a great addition. I cannot say for now if they could add new features in the future or if new capabilities could be added.

I would rate this review a 10 overall.

My main use case for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is as a data backup target.

The features of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain that I like the most are the immutability, speed, and deduplication, which saves us a lot of money on storage costs.

The impact that Dell PowerProtect Data Domain has made on my organization is more efficient backups, a 99.9 percent backup success rate, and no data recovery issues in the last twenty years.

To improve Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, I would suggest making it cheaper.

I would like to see the ability to use more back end data ports as a new feature.

I have been using Dell PowerProtect Data Domain since it first came out.

I would rate customer service technical support an eight out of ten because sometimes there is a language barrier when talking to offshore support.

Prior to adopting Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, I was not using any other solutions to address the issues.

I do not deal with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain; I simply inform my manager, and he signs the check.

The other solutions I considered before selecting Dell PowerProtect Data Domain were Rubrik, Veeam, and Cohesity.

It would be beneficial to make support easier to access.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain  serves as a backup repository for my customers, where I began implementation with Avamar , using Data Domain as the repository, and integrated it with the ECS platform for cloud archiving. However, I have not performed file solutions to back up or attach directly to clients' PCs, as all backups end up on Dell PowerProtect Data Domain .

Most use cases for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain as a backup repository are in VMware backup environments, where I integrate it with IDPA, Avamar , and Veeam by installing proxies inside the VMware environment and performing all backup restoration tests and processes as needed. Although I have only performed replication once, in some cases I have installed agents inside Windows servers or customer PCs to perform agent backup or file backups.

Regarding my main use case with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, I have not encountered any issues, though I would perform a replication scenario if the opportunity arose. Unfortunately, our customers in LatAm are not large enough for such projects, as their architectures typically involve active-passive or active-active setups for servers and storage, but not for backup solutions, which presents a challenge in educating customers on the need for proper disaster recovery or business continuity architectures.

What I value most about Dell PowerProtect Data Domain are its deduplication features, as the amount of information that can be stored is quite impressive. I also appreciate the DD Boost  protocol for its enhancements and integration with other platforms, and I recall a provider using that protocol to improve the transportation layer, along with the data-at-rest encryption that protects all information inside Dell PowerProtect Data Domain. Primarily, the standout feature is the DD Boost  protocol.

The DD Boost protocol improves my workflow with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain by using a native communication protocol, which allows for faster information transfer without protocol translations. Its integration with Dell's other products like Avamar is beneficial, and the openness of DD Boost enables compatibility with other vendors, making it important for customers with large information volumes to store efficiently and perform both backups and restorations with ease.

The impact of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain on my organization has been significant, particularly because its integration with Avamar and Veeam allows for instant recovery where the disk of VMs runs on Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, facilitating an easier restoration or recovery process since I can simply perform a vMotion to recover the VM.

I cannot quantify the exact time saved, but I have two scenarios with customers needing to restore large VMs. The ability to restore these in a few minutes is a remarkable improvement compared to the hours typically required for the whole restore process.

The significance of having fast backup and recovery solutions with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain for my organization revolves around business continuity, focusing on how quickly I can help customers get back on track.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is currently well-developed, and at this moment, I cannot think of any improvements needed.

I have been using Dell PowerProtect Data Domain for approximately eight years, implementing backup solutions and installing it as a repository for backups, including integrations with Veeam.

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is stable; however, stability does depend on the customer's infrastructure and network setup. In terms of support, implementation, and maintenance, it is very predictable and easy to maintain in a positive sense.

The scalability of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is impressive, as you can add expansion shelves that significantly increase capacity.

The customer support experience I have had with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is quite good, characterized by fast service and a support team that resolves issues in a short time.

In my ten years of experience, I have not used a different solution. We explored alternatives but remained with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain.

I perceive a return on investment from Dell PowerProtect Data Domain in terms of the valuable time saved for every customer, emphasizing that time is indeed valuable.

Pricing, setup cost, and licensing are not my areas of expertise, as I mainly focus on implementation engineering.

Before choosing Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, we did not evaluate other options, as we consistently opt for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain.

I advise those considering Dell PowerProtect Data Domain to try it out, as there are various products on the market, but Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is easy to use, easy to install, and integrates well with the customer's environment, boasting spectacular backup and restore capabilities. I recommend conducting a proof of concept of the product. I have rated this product a ten.