Unitrends v. NetBackup

NetBackup (latest version is 7.1) is available as a software product from Symantec. With the Symantec NetBackup product offering, Symantec has become a contributer in the physical backup appliance market.

COMPARE UNITRENDS BACKUP TO OUR COMPETITORS
Unitrends Appliance Family
v. (select the competitor)
Unitrends Enterprise Backup v.
(select the competitor)

Primary Advantages of NetBackup:

NetBackup has a large market share of the enterprise backup space, although that share has been eroding.
NetBackup (like its counter part Backup Exec) has a lot of agents for different operating systems and applications.
There are a lot of resellers who sell Backup Exec and NetBackup.

Primary Disadvantages of NetBackup:

NetBackup's licensing fees tend to be expensive for growing businesses due to the licensing model, which includes charging on a per-feature, per-client, per-operating system, and the like basis.
NetBackup tends to have a lower ROI (Return on Investment) and higher TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) due to the higher operational expenses of putting together, managing, and monitoring servers, storage, networks, operating systems, and data protection (backup, archiving, disaster recovery) software.
The non-integrated nature of NetBackup leads to finger-pointing among the server, storage, networks, operating systems, and data protection (backup, archiving, disaster recovery) software vendors when a problem occurs.
Setting up NetBackup for deduplication can be difficult in terms of balancing the software requirements with the hardware and operating system requirements of the system upon which the NetBackup software operates.
Care must be taken when performing source-level deduplication (as well as compression and/or encryption) using NetBackup on systems because of the load it places on those systems.
In an industry in which bad support, unfortunately, occurs far too often, Symantec (Backup Exec and NetBackup) is legendary for poor support.
NetBackup's multi-tier configuration setup increases the complexity of the product and usability of the solution.

Products and Licensing

Product and Licensing
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Non-restrictive licensing	No	Yes	Standard licensing does not include restrictions on features, platforms supported, or per-client fees.
Integrated appliance	Yes	Yes	Support handles a vertically integrated data protection appliance - not just software.
Available as physical appliance	Yes	Yes	Available as an integrated server, storage, networking, operating system, backup software, archiving software, replication software, and so on. NetBackup has an appliance set (5000 and 5200 series) that will be referenced specifically in this comparison; Unitrends offers physical appliances as its core offering.
Available as virtual appliance	Yes	Yes	Available as an integrated operating system, backup software, archiving software, replication software, and so forth as a virtual appliance. NetBackup offers no virtual appliance; Unitrends offers a VMware-based virtual appliance.
Available as software only	Yes	No	Available as a non-integrated software. NetBackup is primarily sold in this manner; Unitrends does not offer non-integrated software.

Support

Support
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Supports hardware and software	No	Yes	Support handles a vertically integrated data protection appliance - not just software. NetBackup doesn't do this with their software product; Unitrends does this with their physical appliance.
Proactive hardware monitoring	No	Yes	Standard support includes proactive hardware monitoring.
Remote diagnostics	Yes	Yes	Remote diagnostics are available from support.
Self-installable	Yes	Yes	The product may be installed by a customer.
On-site support	Yes	Yes	On-site support is available.
Phone support	Yes	Yes	Telephone support is available.
E-mail support	Yes	Yes	E-mail support is available.
Online interactive chat support	No	Yes	Online interactive chat support is available.
Online support form	Yes	Yes	An online support form (or portal) is available.
Knowledgebase	Yes	Yes	A knowledgebase is available.
User forums	Yes	Yes	Support monitored and managed user forums are available.
Video tutorials	Yes	Yes	Video tutorials are offered by the backup vendor.

Monitoring and Management

Monitoring and Management
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Appliance-based monitoring and management	No	Yes	Monitoring and management of data protection software, operating system, storage, server, and other solution components.
Single pane of glass	Yes	Yes	Monitoring and management of multiple backup servers (in the case of NetBackup) or appliances (in the case of Unitrends from a single web-based user interface).
Web-based management	Yes	Yes	Monitoring and management can be performed via the web.
SNMP/SMTP/alert-based notifications	Yes	Yes	Notifications are available via SNMP traps, SMTP e-mail, and alerts.

Recovery and Restore

Recovery and Restore
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Instant recovery for Windows	No	Yes	Recovery from a failed Windows server in less than 5 minutes.
Instant recovery for VMware	No	Yes	Recovery from a failed VMware server in less than 5 minutes.
Dissimilar bare metal restore	Yes	Yes	This includes P2P, P2V, V2P, and V2V.
Heterogeneous bare metal restore	Yes	Yes	This includes not only Windows but VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and other operating systems.
Heterogeneous backup	Yes	Yes	NetBackup supports more agents than any other product; Unitrends provides support for over 100 versions of servers, storage, operating systems, hypervisors, and applications.

Backup

Backup
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Virtual and physical backup	Yes	Yes	Supports virtual and physical environments.
Heterogeneous backup	Yes	Yes	NetBackup (like Backup Exec) supports more heterogeneous agents than any other product. Unitrends provides support for over 100 versions of platforms.
Heterogeneous storage protection	Yes	Yes	Support for protecting NAS and SAN volumes.
Integrated fixed/rotational archiving	No	Yes	Disk-to-disk-to-disk, -tape, -SAN, and -NAS for both long-term retention and disaster recovery.
Continuous incrementals supported	Yes	Yes	Continuous-based incremental backup is available (includes near-CDP snapshot).
VMware CBT (Change Block Tracking)	Yes	Yes	Support for VMware CBT is available.
Hyper-V CBT (Change Block Tracking)	No	Yes	Support for Hyper-V CBT (which Microsoft does not support) is available; NetBackup offers a file-level incremental backup of Hyper-V VMs.
Application-level backups	Yes	Yes	Application-level backup is available. NetBackup offers native agents for more applications, while Unitrends offers integration with the native application tools (e.g., Oracle RMAN).
Differential backups supported	Yes	Yes	Differential backup is available.
Direct backup to tape	Yes	No	Direct backup to tape (also called D2T) is available.
Maximum concurrent backups	Unlimited	Unlimited	The number of concurrent backups.

Technology

Technology
	NetBackup	Unitrends	More Detail
Supports agents	Yes	Yes	Supports client-level, agent-based protection where necessary.
Supports agentless	No	Yes	Supports agentless-based protection where necessary; NetBackup supports this for VMware, whereas Unitrends supports this for VMware, NAS, and iSeries (AS/400).
Deduplication	Yes	Yes	Supports deduplication; NetBackup supports both source- and target-based deduplication. Unitrends supports target-based, byte-level (content-aware) deduplication.
Retention control policies	Yes	Yes	Supports minimum and maximum retention settings.
Encryption	Yes	Yes	At least AES-256 level encryption.
Failover virtualization	No	Yes	Supports Windows and VMware instant recovery.
Grid-based scalability	No	Yes	Backup servers (or appliances) are configured in a grid for interoperability, monitoring, and management.
Integrated symmetric and asymmetric replication	Yes	Yes	NetBackup supports this via the NetBackup Realtime feature; Unitrends supports this in an integrated fashion for both public and private solutions.
Hub-spoke replication	Yes	Yes	NetBackup supports this via the NetBackup Realtime feature; Unitrends offers integrated replication to off-site locations on a single-tenant basis.
Integrated peer-to-peer replication	No	Yes	Cross replication in a private cloud environment; Unitrends offers integrated replication to off-site locations on a single-tenant basis.
Integrated private cloud replication	Yes	Yes	NetBackup supports this via the NetBackup Realtime feature; Unitrends offers integrated replication to off-site locations on a single-tenant basis.
Integrated public cloud replication	No	Yes	NetBackup does not seem to have a public cloud disaster recovery solution; Unitrends offers Vault2Cloud which is a multi-tenant disaster recovery public cloud solution.

Unitrends makes this document available for informational purposes only. While we do our best to keep this up-to-date and accurate, we can not and do not represent, warrant or guarantee that it is complete, accurate, or up-to-date, nor does Unitrends offer any certification or guarantee with respect to the opinions expressed herein. Changing circumstances may change the accuracy of the content herein. Opinions presented in this reflect judgment at the time of publication and are subject to change. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, Unitrends assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or damages resulting from the use of the information herein.

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