Cohesity - SFP+ transceiver module - 10 GigE is rated
4.70 out of
5 by
45.
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1062186 from
Faster and easier to use than others
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for backup.
What is most valuable?
The tool is faster and easier to use than others. The most critical feature for our data protection needs is the accuracy of backups and restores.
What needs improvement?
Cohesity DataProtect needs to improve its reporting capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable, and we haven't had any significant challenges with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability works well for all our systems—we have various servers with two to three petabytes of data. Data recovery is pretty fast. We can bring up VMs instantly and haven't had any issues.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We earlier used Commvault and switched to Cohesity DataProtect since it was easier to use.
How was the initial setup?
While I didn't take part in the initial setup, I understand that the setup is relatively easy. Maintenance is also pretty easy.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Customer
Date published: 2024-09-09T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Andreas Kuncoro from
Customizable platform with efficient snapshot features
What is our primary use case?
Most customers use the solution for file backups, particularly for NAS file sharing. They back up files from Microsoft Windows OS to ensure they can restore data when needed. They also perform periodic temporary restores to verify the functionality of their backups.
What is most valuable?
The platform is highly customizable and adapts well to changing conditions. The snapshot features are the most valuable because they allow rapid restoration and provide dedicated space for longer snapshot retention.
What needs improvement?
I would like security improvements, such as enhanced backup immutability and better tape storage connectivity. Reducing storage capacity requirements and improving security features are also areas that could be enhanced.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Cohesity DataProtect for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable, with regular updates and patching.
I rate the stability an eight.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the product's scalability as an eight.
How are customer service and support?
The product's technical support is quite good. It is available 24/7 and has a high response rate, although it sometimes requires multiple communications to resolve issues fully.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively easy and involves configuration, integration with backup targets, and virtualization management. The deployment process usually takes about two weeks from the initial setup to installation, depending on the availability of hardware. It typically involves preparing the server, configuring it with either Linux or Windows, integrating it with the backup solution, connecting it to source storage, and managing the backup targets.
I rate the process a nine out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
Integrating the platform with the Acropolis Nutanix management solution is particularly valuable. It simplifies management by providing a unified interface for backup solutions.
Overall, I rate the solution a seven.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:integrator
Date published: 2024-09-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1410552 from
Easy to use, good file searching capability, and it is quick to deploy
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use is to back up our server from VMware ESXi, including MSSQL and Exchange. We also have a file server and it's possible to search for specific files in Cohesity.
You can create Auto BackUp Groups. As s soon as a VM is moved into this folder, Cohesity starts the backup process.
We use it also for archiving our e-mails and Metalogix data. That works fine, and also, the migration from our old archiving solution was done well.
When you restore a VM, it starts immediately. This means that you can have your downtime very short. After the completed file and data restore, it will be moved to your storage.
How has it helped my organization?
You can create BackUp Groups and sync them with vCenter. As soon as you create a VM in the specific folder, it will be backed up. That is very useful and you don't have to configure every backup for each VM.
We used to have to create a backup job for every VM and also SQL and Exchange Backups. This process was very complicated.
With Cohesity, you have a template that helps you to backup and restore the right thing to the right place. There is no configuration overhead. The admin can restore within seconds.
What is most valuable?
The SQL Backup and Restore is very easy. Also, File Search is a key feature.
It doesn't take very much space in the rack and has enough disk space available for you to use.
Once you have configured your backup groups and have them in vCenter, they will start automatically and you never have to worry about forgetting because it will do that for you.
You can start an SQL Database wherever you want. From production to testing, it will perhaps only take a few minutes to set up.
What needs improvement?
The support team sometimes takes a long time to resolve issues, although, in our experience, these have been specific things like SQL blobs.
It can be that some Bugs will be fixed in future updates and you have to wait. But normally they will release a Hotfix for you.
One thing that would be great to see in the next release would be an complete restore for an SQL Instance (or multiple Databases). At the moment you have to restore one by one.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for one year.
How are customer service and technical support?
Cohesity support will help you with every problem, regardless of the environment.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Cohesity, we used Actifio. It was an old solution and we wanted to switch to a new one.
What other advice do I have?
As is the case with any product, I recommend running a proof of concept before fully implementing it. This will help you to make sure that it fits the requirements.
In the proof of concept, you can test everything you want. Examples include SQL, Exchange, and File Backup. You should also test the replication between nodes.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-09-04T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
StewartSJ3 from
Has enabled us to not only backup more of our data at faster speeds, but also recover that data quicker
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Cohesity as our backup solution, however, we are leveraging Views to replace our MS Cluster file shares. We run these in 2 separate clusters. We are backing up 600+ VMs, multiple file shares, and leveraging other pieces, such as Kroll for Exchange, to recover our data quicker. With Views, we currently have what were once FileShares stored in an MS Cluster leveraging the speed and protection of Cohesity. We are also using Insight and Spotlight from the Marketplace to gain further insights into unusual file activity and audit trails.
How has it helped my organization?
We have been able to not only backup more of our data at faster speeds, but also recover that data quicker. What used to take us hours to recover is now done in minutes. Since deploying Cohesity we've been able to help our end-users get their data back quicker than ever. This savings in time has increased their productivity and helped them avoid complete data loss. On top of this, the performance boost we've gained in using Views has made our file shares much quicker to access and use, not only for normal file explorer use but for applications that write to those Views as well.
What is most valuable?
The ease of use and the GUI have really been most valuable to us. Configuring the system to do what we need is simple and straight forward and a lot of guesswork has been removed. One of my favorite features with Cohesity is Kroll for Exchange item-level recovery. The software is simple to use and fast. We've been able to recover individual emails in minutes instead of hours, some of which were time-sensitive matters. Helios has also proved useful to give us a look at all of our clusters and their performance.
What needs improvement?
The product is still young and is continually improving. There have been a couple of buggy releases in the software that have caused us minor issues, so possibly some better QA before releasing would prove to be useful. We have also been inquiring about new app and functionality via the Marketplace that was teased months back but has yet to come to fruition. The apps are coming, but slower than expected. While we know they are working at getting more of these features out and doing so as fast as they can, a better product roadmap would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity for over a year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Overall, Cohesity has been very stable. We've had a few hiccups with some software releases, but have been able to get Support involved and resolve those in a timely manner.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cohesity is easily scalable, simply adding more storage or nodes when needed.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service and Support are top notch. Each issue we've thrown at them has been answered and addressed quickly. We've even had times where we're not expecting to hear anything until the next day and we'll have a Tier 3 engineer on the phone within minutes. Overall their Support has been one of the most impressive things about them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used CommVault. We switched due to costs and speeds primarily.
How was the initial setup?
Setup, with Cohesity's Support, was very straightforward. We had it up and running jobs in a matter of hours.
What about the implementation team?
We used Cohesity's team to implement our solution.
What was our ROI?
I don't have an exact figure, but when you save dozens if not hundreds of hours for multiple engineers, the savings add up quickly. We've been able to focus our attention on bigger issues and some other lingering problems instead of worrying about our backups.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Setup was very easy and pricing/licensing were very straightforward. We didn't feel like we were getting nickeled and dimed for every little thing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at CommVault, Cohesity, Veritas, and Veeam.
What other advice do I have?
If you're on the fence about moving to Cohesity, I suggest making the jump. We have been amazed at what we've been able to accomplish with it in such a short time.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-08-05T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1183848 from
Good performance, easy to use, and helpful dashboard
What is our primary use case?
We use the cluster for local backup and restore as well as for sending backups offsite. We make use of the file server capabilities as well. We can spin up test and dev workloads as needed without impacting our production storage. This solution replaced Veeam and ExaGrid.
How has it helped my organization?
Backups and restores are much faster and we were able to increase our backup frequency where it made sense to do so in order to have lower RPO. We were also able to move our backup solution off of the fiber channel, which will help with our eventual decommissioning of that portion of our infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
Instant volume mount and the SpanFS filesystem itself, which has great dedupe and compression across all of our backups. Our admins have been able to run restore jobs with little training, as well. The dashboard makes it easy to see if you have any issues with your backup jobs.
What needs improvement?
Reporting is one area that isn't as robust as it could be. The next release supposedly improves upon that but I have not seen it yet.
We had real issues with restores on our older Red Hat 5.x systems, but we have upgraded those and no longer need support for that OS.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've had our Cohesity cluster in place for more than one year.
If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
We previously used Veeam and ExaGrid. We liked Veeam, but we did not see any innovation out of ExaGrid and they were becoming progressively more expensive. I was wary of vendor lock-in if we continued to invest in that platform. The speed of their solution was just not good enough for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I advise others to spin up a Cohesity virtual edition on their infrastructure. We ran backups in parallel for a month to test all features before even bringing in test hardware. Spinning up the virtual edition was quick and painless.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Veeam with other back end storage as well as Rubrik. Rubrik looked nice but was more expensive and we felt it was lacking features. It would have been a step up from our tired ExaGrid solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would say that Cohesity seems like they are a very forward looking company. They are adding features with each release and seem to be investing heavily in extending their product. I feel like we will get good value out of our investment.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-11-03T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Lars Hoidis from
Easy to administer many services from a single dashboard, with good instant recovery capability
What is our primary use case?
The Cohesity Cluster solution is a great second-tier data management cluster for the backup of various sorts of servers like VMware VMs using the VMware API, Baremetal hardware using a Cohesity Agent, but also for hosting file shares and archiving data like emails and DBs.
How has it helped my organization?
In the past, we had a two-node cluster for backups and a second two-node cluster for archiving purposes. We were able to replace these four other systems with a two-node Cohesity cluster solution.
The new web-based UI has made administration much more central and a lot easier than it was with the software-based tool for the old systems.
What is most valuable?
It makes our administrators' lives much easier to combine backup, archiving, and services like hosting file shares in one central system with only one user interface.
One dashboard for all services, no need to have multiple ones to check.
An instant recovery capability that includes indexing of the backed up data helps a lot.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see minor features added to the user interface, such as the software version in the dashboard.
I would like to see Microsoft Exchange DAG supported as soon as possible. I have been told that it's on the roadmap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for four months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The cluster is modular and can be expanded without any problems.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have moved from Actifio Data Management and a Dell EMC Centera archiving solution to a Cohesity Cluster.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Cohesity is available on your own hardware or on hardware like HPE.
We purchased support from Cohesity to ensure that should we face an issue, we don't have to deal with different service providers. This makes the solution probably a little bit more expensive, but I'm sure it will safe time and money later on when support is needed.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Cloudian Hyperstore prior to choosing this solution.
What other advice do I have?
To me, the Cohesity Cluster solution is almost complete. There are only minor things that I would like to see added to the user interface.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-11-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Dustin Voyles from
AWS integration and lifecycle versioning has helped protect our organization from end-to-end
What is our primary use case?
We use this product for the enterprise data life cycle and data retention.
How has it helped my organization?
With the ability to stage an entire lifecycle through versioning, integrated with AWS, it has made it possible to protect our corporation from end to end.
What is most valuable?
Integration with AWS has been invaluable to us. To have one platform that can leverage a cloud platform, as well as on-premises, has given us a full solution.
What needs improvement?
Technical support being outsourced is a downside but not different from every one of Cohesity's competitors. I was an early adopter when technical support was with actual developers and engineers, and not technical support staff. So, you can understand my point of view.
Features I would like to see include a more visible data lifecycle monitoring tab, and an easier to read backup status dashboard. For example, I would lie to be able to see the status of all VMs for all jobs without drilling into each one.
Chat customer/technical support would also be great.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for three years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used many different solutions including Veeam and Rubrik.
We switched because the return on investment was much greater with Cohesity.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to have a high-level understanding from your engineers before committing to a package. Cloud integration is a must. Do not pass up the licenses even if you are not currently using them.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Veeam and Rubrik were both evaluated and turned down.
We did not choose Veeam because the technical complexity was just not there to give us a full solution. Rubrik was passed over, due to the price.
What other advice do I have?
In my opinion, Cohesity is the way to go, with no doubt.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-11-16T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
FrancoisLepage from
Offers high performance VM restore with a simple and responsive GUI
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution for the DataProtect feature in our VMware environment. It is also protecting SQL and Exchange 2013 servers.
We have two clusters that replicate to each other; this process is also very fast.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has given us a three-fold performance increase.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the instant mass restore of VMs. I am able to restore VMs in a few minutes.
The other great thing is the Google search, as it helps a lot and accelerates the restore process.
Apps are very cool too!!
The Cloud Archives are very easy to configure. We are using AWS Glacier.
Fully hydrated Snapshots give you the ability to do incremental forever.
The GUI is simple and very responsive.
This solution is easy to manage. Just a quick look to the dashboard every morning and that's it. You will spend ten minutes, max, of your day on Cohesity ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/cohesity-reviews ).
What needs improvement?
Being able to take a backup of OneDrive and Sharepoint in Office 365 would be great. It is in the Roadmap, but we would like to see it in the next release of this solution.
This solution is only compatible with a limited number of storage arrays, including Pure and Cisco Hyperflex.
The cloud management solution needs a little more development. Now it is really like the same dashboard than the one you are using locally. They put some AI in the prediction of when you will be out of space but I would appreciate more AI to discover malware (but is in the road map for version 6.4 I think) .
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable solution. It is running by itself.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of this solution is impressive.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support for this solution is excellent.
If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
Our previous solution which was Quest Rapid Recovery ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/quest-rapid-recovery-reviews ). We switched because of the performance, which is three times better with Cohesity ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/cohesity-reviews ).
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of this solution was very easy.
Implementation took only a few hours and backups begin the same day it has been physically racked.
What about the implementation team?
We were assisted by the vendor team. The knew what they were doing!
In a few hours, the solution was in production.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Prior to choosing this solution, we evaluated Rubrik and Commvault.
What other advice do I have?
The software is running by itself! It was a very great acquisition for us.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-09-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Jay Stelmach from
Rapid VM restores, elastic search, reliability, and good support set this solution apart
What is our primary use case?
We use Cohesity for backup and recovery primarily, though we are starting to look into it for file service as well. We perform on-premises backups of Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, VDI Golden Images, and a host of Windows Servers and Linux Appliances.
We test the restores weekly with file-based restores. The product makes this surprisingly easy to search for folders and files. The elastic search puts Cohesity above the competition. We will be leveraging the long term retention to the cloud later this year, but with the level of support that we receive from Cohesity, we don't anticipate any issues.
How has it helped my organization?
This product has allowed us to finally remove tapes from our environment. Prior to this, our service desk would waste two to three hours a week swapping tapes and then an additional five to six hours each month shuffling the tapes all over the place. All that time has been recovered.
For the admins/engineers, we would spend ten hours a week trying to keep our old backup system running properly, and that includes needing to be up at 1-3 AM when their "follow the sun" tech support would return your call from 10 AM (with a two hour SLA).
It also has allowed me to stop focusing on fixing the backups daily and I can trust that they will run reliably.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the rapid VM restores and the ability to quickly find files and download them directly to my desktop so that I can put them where I need them to be.
The elastic search function is unbelievable. It has saved us so much time, not just in finding files to restore but also in finding lost files or files that were misplaced by an employee. This has led to quick ticket turn arounds for our service desk and they are growing more confident in the backup solution. If they had to leverage our previous product, they considered the file lost.
The granular restore functionality in AD is also extremely helpful.
The best part about Cohesity is that there is an active user community that can request improvements and the developers will incorporate them as they move through releases.
What needs improvement?
The error handling could be improved. The errors shown on the GUI tend to be just what the log spits out and that can be quite confusing. The nice feature is that the logs are in the GUI, so you don't have to go hunting for them, you simply need click the drop down to show the information. There are a few cryptic error messages, thankfully the support staff is fantastic and knows what the errors mean.
There are a few user interface concerns with some of the functionality, such as what screens you get dropped back on when moving in between different areas. If you use the back button on your browser, you may not go back to the last page due to the coding. However, overall navigation isn't tough or complicated.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity for four months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There have been bumps in the road, but overall the solution is working wonders in our environment. A 38-hour full backup has been reduced to a 10-hour full (it was only needed once) and then 45-minute incremental backups after that.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe it will scale up where we need it to and it can scale down where we expect it to. I think that it is great in terms of scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
The tech support is fantastic. Even when I e-mail on the weekends I get responses within 20 minutes, tops. If I call, it is immediate.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched from a previous solution because it was unreliable and their tech support was unable to adequately fix the issues we were having.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was simple. There was an engineer who was on hand to do all of the work, but I chose to do quite a bit of the work myself instead. From power on to the first backup was about 30 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
The engineer that they provided to us was amazing. He was dedicated to getting the job done right and quickly. We couldn't have asked for better.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
With respect to pricing, make sure that you look at both Rubrik and Cohesity as they are very similar and are quite competitive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Rubrik, Unitrends, Veeam, Dell, and Cohesity for this project.
What other advice do I have?
Cohesity's elastic search gives it a leg up on Rubrik.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-01-30T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Roberto Sciaccaluga from
An all-in-one package that consolidated and simplified our backup solution
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is as a backup solution. We also use Cohesity for cloud enabling and seconday storage.
With respect to backup, our environment is based on virtual and physical machines, and Cohesity fits great. The virtual machines are based on VMware 6.5/Nutanix solution with vCenter. Cohesity can handle up to 2,000 virtual machines with a classic schdule of one backup per day. CBT works great so it is an incremental forever solution.
For our physical system, we use agents for AIX, Windows from 2003 to 2016, SUSE, and RHEL.
The application backups handle SAP, SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL Server.
How has it helped my organization?
Cohesity has improved our backup architecture. Now everything is simple. Before using this solution there was a master server, media server, repository, dedupe server, cloud server, and a report server.
Cohesity is an all in one solution in a hyper-converged way. From three nodes and more, you can have one platform for everything. The storage and compute exist in the HA cluster.
No more IT department is required for backup. From four-person teams to general system administration, everything is logical and there are no more difficult concepts. There is no need for training and certification.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the cloud support. We can use it as a lift and shift solution for cloud migration. This feature is called CloudSpin. After linking a cloud subscription, like Azure for example (AWS and Google are also supported), you can "spin" a VM onto the cloud from any backup snapshot.
You can use this solution for test and dev, or for testing migration to the cloud. However, it is not so useful for massive cloud migration, so it is better to use the Azure migration tool for that.
It is useful for backing up a cloud workload. For better value in terms of cost, I suggest deploying a cloud edition of DataProtect.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see the CDP features integrated into this solution.
Replication is working great, but with backup replication, you should have the option to link and RPO to the backup schedule. This would reduce the RPO in case of a disaster. It would be great to have something like the Zerto software.
The GUI is in need of improvement.
The upgrade path is not so clear because there are too many branches.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity for about ten months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The cluster is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution has good scalability by adding more nodes.
How are customer service and technical support?
Cohesity provides great support, both remote and onsite.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use TSM from IBM, NetBackup from Veritas, and Veeam.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We have implemented this solution on two occasions. The first was with the Cohesity team, and the second was done with our in-house team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Sizing is important and it is easy to overestimate. It is difficult to understand how dedupe will work with your workload.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are near a coin-flip with Rubrik. Same benefits but less power on dedupe.
What other advice do I have?
Cohesity can replicate backups to a secondary cluster (also virtual edition).
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-02-03T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1280316 from
Easy to use with an impressive GUI, good search capabilities, and good support
What is our primary use case?
We are primarily using Cohesity for Backup and Recovery (and compliance). We can use it for "basic" disaster recovery, but we are looking to implement CloudSpin and a cloud Cohesity node in Azure for replication and to bring our DR to the next level.
This will allow us to collapse our secondary/DR datacentre, retire aging hardware (avoiding maintenance costs and/or new equipment costs), and move to a cloud disaster recovery solution.
Our old backup and recovery solution was much too big for our organization, whereas Cohesity is powerful and simple!
How has it helped my organization?
I would say one of the most impressive features of Cohesity is the ease of implementation. During our Proof of Concept, I had the virtual edition set up in our VMware environment, licensed, and backing up virtual machines within an hour.
When we installed the physical nodes as part of the production implementation, the longest part of that process was unboxing, racking, and cabling the hardware. Bringing up the cluster was dead simple and having done the Proof of Concept previously, I was able to get all of my sources added very quickly.
Cohesity is extremely easy to use and intuitive. I have done a couple of demos of the product to my team and they are all very impressed with the GUI and how it works. The indexing/searchability that Cohesity provides has also been a huge hit!
What is most valuable?
The indexed search is amazing! It has already proved itself useful when trying to help our end users find files that could be in any number of different locations on our NAS. We're able to find and recover them quickly, which saves our end users time and the company, money!
Dev/Test is something we are also playing with and has some really cool applications.
Being able to create a NFS mount using a Cohesity view has been really useful.
We've been using O365 backups for Exchange Online and backing up the mailboxes on-premises.
What needs improvement?
We're still waiting for the ability to backup SharePoint Online & OneDrive but have been told it is coming soon. As we move towards a "cloud-first" implementation strategy for new solutions, these types of backup/recovery features will become more important.
We have Oracle databases running on Linux servers in our environment and we have found the Oracle backups were quite complex to setup. Simplifying the backup and recovery of Oracle would go a long way.
NAS incremental backup performance is a bit slow. This has apparently been fixed in version 6.4.0, but we waiting for it to go LTS before upgrading.
For how long have I used the solution?
We implemented Cohesity in October 2019, so we've been using it for about four months. We completed a Proof of Concept with Cohesity over the summer of 2019, which solidified our decision to go with their solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've already had a power failure to the Cohesity cluster where a UPS went down. In our environment, we have 2 UPSs (an A-side and a B-side) ... we lost the A-Side, but because the Cohesity chassis has dual power supplies that support the same power backplane in the chassis, all 3 nodes of our cluster stayed up. The Cohesity cluster also has a call-home feature that generated a problem ticket with Cohesity support automatically, which emailed our team that a power supply issue had been detected.
Upgrades are also very easy; in a multi-node cluster, the upgrade process takes one node out at a time and upgrades it before moving on to the next node. No downtime required.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is one of the best features. Basically, you just need to add hardware and licensing to expand the cluster.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer support from our local team has been great. There is lots of expertise and a general willingness to help. Cohesity support has been great and they are often proactive about creating service tickets if they notice an error on the cluster.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Cohesity is simple to install, configure, and maintain. Our old system was very complex and did not integrate well with cloud backups.
How was the initial setup?
Setup of both the PoC and physical cluster were very simple. The most complex part of the physical setup was finding someone to help me lift it into the rack!
What was our ROI?
We have realized substantial cost savings over our old solution, as well as avoiding expenses related to aging hardware such as maintenance and possible replacement.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Microsoft Backup and Rubrik prior to choosing Cohesity.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to set up a Proof of Concept with Cohesity. They are more than accommodating and basically treat you like a licensed customer. Any issues you do encounter get fixed during a PoC, so make sure to document them well because it makes the production implementation of Cohesity dead simple.
Just try it ... and be prepared to like it. Make sure to have a set list of scenarios to test.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-02-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
JohnBowling from
Its web-scale architecture enables us to scale up as needed
What is our primary use case?
Primary Use: PoC to test and evaluate DPS solutions with production workloads. Overall, the use case is to evaluate solutions in a multi-petabyte environment with more than 100 remote sites. The majority of the environment supports more than 5,000 VMs (VMware ESX) and several physical systems. The key criteria is the support of more than 100 remote sites connected together over slow WAN links with limited bandwidth. Image-level backups, Windows, Linux, SQL, Oracle, etc. are all key. This environment is primarily focused on traditional on-prem applications with an eye towards leveraging public cloud initiatives in the near future.
How has it helped my organization?
The Cohesity firmware upgrade process was a surprise benefit. We expected ease of setup, policy settings, single management interface, search capabilities, flexible architecture and scalability would be key features to help reduce operational management overhead. But, a nice & unexpected benefit was our ability to quickly upgrade the Cohesity ecosystem. Our legacy systems require coordination between internal personnel as well as the OEM Vendor to complete Firmware\Software upgrades. Dealing with our internal change control process as well as a remote vendor's change control process requires a lot of coordination\communication and typically took 3 months to complete all 100+ systems. With Cohesity, we can centralize a deployment package and automatically schedule upgrades - We can complete system-wide upgrades within a few days.
What is most valuable?
There are many features that make Cohesity stand out. A single, global federated search engine from a single, unified interface is a key standout feature.
We can easily search for any file/folder/DB/system and quickly restore from any point in time across any globally deployed cluster. From the same management console, we can quickly monitor the health of the entire DPS ecosystem. We can also manage any system from the same interface: check policies, dive into configurations, perform audit inquiries, etc. The overall simplicity and design of the management interface has quickly become one of most valuable features for me.
What needs improvement?
The one area where we would like to see additional improvements is with reporting. There are very granular reports from each grid. There are also some built-in reports within Helios (SAS Management Console) that offers basic reporting. However, for complex, large-enterprise environments, a more robust reporting engine that supports detailed audit reporting and enhanced ad hoc reports would be welcome. There are REST APIs which can be leveraged and most of the data we need is tracked and stored within the Cohesity ecosystem.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity on production workloads for several months now.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cohesity's web-scale architecture enables us to scale up as needed. Currently, we need to deploy several point solutions and manage many storage silos within our major data centers. This complicates asset management and requires additional data migration resources to replace legacy systems every few years. Due to the scale-out architecture, we are able to expand easier with the Cohesity solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We lack an easy way to access the data without involving a developer. For their part, Cohesity has provided talented resources to help script the reports we need, dedicating those resources and their time for free. This is refreshing and welcome.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We currently use several different products and are seeking to standardize on a single, simpler solution that meets our needs today as well as supports more cloud options/tools.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing, setup costs, etc. are pretty typical. The initial cost for Cohesity was less than other products the we evaluated. Cohesity's pricing does offer benefits as DR target costs are less than other solutions. You are not charged for DataProtect licensing for target DR data consumption.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Rubrik, Avamar, NetWorker, and PowerProtect.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, it is an easy to use, flexible backup solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1081776 from
Simplifies data protection by eliminating legacy backup silos
What is our primary use case?
We use two versions — one version is deployed on the cloud, the other version is on-premise.
We use Cohesity with Windows Servers, SQL, Microsoft SQL Servers as well as Hyper-V, AHV and VMware VMs.
I am the primary backup operator. There are two to three people that assist me.
What is most valuable?
The Cohesity views are valuable to us just because of the speed of the backup and recovery options — Cohesity VM backups are good for us. We have both VMware and Hyper-V.
The ability to essentially instantly recover a VM and have it run on the Cohesity Platform while all those bits are technically being recovered in the background is useful to us as well.
What needs improvement?
We've certainly had our share of problems with it. Since March, I think we've opened about 150 tickets with Cohesity for support for various issues; we're averaging 4 tickets a week with them. We're working through the issues that we have, but it seems like, on many levels, we're rewriting their code to make it work in our environment.
We, as a city, a local government — we have a lot of old legacy hardware, old operating systems, and old applications.
Commvault was pretty good about supporting those legacy operating systems that we still have in our environment, which includes things like Windows 2000 and Windows 2003. I understand that Cohesity has to keep up with the times and everything, but our inability to back up some of those older platforms is a pain point for us.
I'd like to be able to pause a backup while it's running and have it resume when I tell it to resume. Unfortunately, I can't do that today. I have to basically kill or cancel a job — that's one of my biggest pain points. I'd like the ability to backup clustered file servers, which I can't do today. I have to back them up as NAS devices basically, as opposed to Windows Servers. Those are my two biggest pain points.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for roughly nine months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
One of our Cohesity nodes apparently partitioned itself off from all the other nodes.
We have a five-node cluster, and that was preventing one of our SQL backups from running; it sat there for roughly two days in this partition state. Then, just as suddenly as it partitioned itself, two days later it unpartitioned itself, and the backup eventually completed. It took two days to back up what normally takes about 20 minutes.
Nobody's really been able to explain anything about that to me, other than that somehow a node partitioned itself away from the cluster. I don't know what that means, but yeah, it screwed us up for a few days.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've had to add nodes — that was pretty simple. We did run into some problems with the IPMI Lights Out Interface, but I wasn't involved in that. As far as I know, once we worked through that issue, it just added itself to the cluster, and all of a sudden we had 20 terabytes of additional storage and a bunch of extra CPU and RAM.
How are customer service and technical support?
Sometimes, getting help from support can be difficult. On a scale from one to ten, I would give their support a rating of three.
Although we have full support with them, 24/7, it seems like we always fall into this email support model first, as opposed to just picking up the phone and calling me and telling me exactly what the problem is. When we speak over the phone, the issue is usually resolved within a few minutes.
But it takes four weeks to get to that point, after a couple of weeks of exchanging one email a day. They'll say, "Oh, we'll try this." Then I say, "Okay. I tried that." After a couple of weeks of that, I feel compelled to escalate matters through our account manager — "Why can't you just pick up the phone and call me? We can fix this right now."
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to use Commvault but we switched to Cohesity DataProtect mainly for cost reasons.
We also switched to Cohesity for the ability to backup to the Cloud. The version of Commvault that we were using at the time was tape-only, and we didn't want to pay Commvault to upgrade.
How was the initial setup?
It wasn't an easy install for us.
Like I said of our legacy environment, we had an old VMware environment that the latest supported versions of DataProtect would not backup through vCenter. We had to build multiple legacy Cohesity environments to try to get those backups so that legacy VMware environments could work. It probably took five or six tries before we finally said, "Screw it, we'll upgrade the VMware environment". We were finally able to do it because we were able to get some licensing from another department that they were no longer using. Otherwise, we would still be stuck on legacy — with Cohesity backing up legacy VMware.
As always, there was a learning curve that comes with learning a new product, and trying to get our DBA's involved in SQL backsups, etc. That's something that they've not really been involved with in the past with Commvault — we always managed that. There was some learning curve for them as well.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, it's a good product when it works — don't hesitate to go with it, just make sure you get a good implementation engineer from Cohesity that can answer all your questions. Be sure to ask questions every step of the way. They also have a pretty decent training program; I've gone through a few of their training courses and those are useful. Definitely, I would recommend that anybody that's putting it in for the first time, definitely attend a couple of their all-day, six to eight-hour-long courses, and take some of their administrator-type courses.
Overall, once we worked through some of the problems we had, it's been pretty good. Not counting the tech support who I rate low, but the overall product, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Cohesity a rating of eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-20T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Jon Seet from
Good backup and restore capabilities, scales well, and the instant recovery option saves us time for urgent cases
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use this product for backups, reporting, and auditing. As we are a publicly listed company, we rely heavily on the reporting that comes out of Cohesity to ensure that we are compliant across all aspects.
The backup and restore solution is a big step forward from our last solution and packs more than just backup in a box, allowing for additional features such as Disaster Recovery and utilising the space available in the cluster for storing files.
The auditing and reporting features are as important as the backups themselves.
How has it helped my organization?
We moved over from another backup solution that wasn't as innovative, which made it an easy solution to move away from. Cohesity uses up less rack space in the datacentre and allows for more than just backups, paving the way for more hyper-converged solutions, not just physically.
The initial contract with Cohesity is an improvement in terms of pricing above our previous solution but it remains to be seen what will happen after the contract comes to an end. The fundamental tasks of backups are restores are ahead of its game, relative to our previous solution.
What is most valuable?
The backup and restore feature is the most valuable.
Instant recovery options are a big benefit for urgent restores, as we don't need to wait for hours or days for a restore to complete before being able to access the files.
The restore to the appliance itself allows for faster (instant) access that saves us from waiting for the restores to happen to the datastores/volume/containers, which can take upwards of weeks in our case if we were to restore the larger VM guests.
We have seen many iterations of this such as restoring to the cloud but the outcome has always been a hit-and-miss solution.
What needs improvement?
The canned reporting could be improved. Many of the reports are basic, at most, and at times we had to open a support ticket to help find or develop a report for our needs. This is something that even our last solution had in place already.
Error reporting could also be improved. Rather than 'errorcode -2', it needs to be more descriptive or at least, provide KB articles related to the error or problem. This would save time in creating a ticket and try to describe to the support engineer what happened to cause an 'errorcode -2' that most of the time, we don't know either.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, so far so good.
The initial implementation requires a lot of babysitting and reporting on issues is a bit lacking. Hopefully, you've purchased a good support contract to help with those teething issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable. It doesn't require a replacement appliance to expand for more capacity. Simply purchase another block/node and it's done.
How are customer service and technical support?
My experience with support is mixed. There are times where the response and resolution are quick but at times, there are large gaps in the response. I'm not sure whether this is timezone-related.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched over, as the previous solution was very lacking behind in innovation. It was missing basic features such as finding VMs and we were told to simply use "ctrl+f" to find them. However, this didn't help if the screen spanned across multiple pages.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, as we engaged with the company to help with the deployment. As long as the provided templates are completed and networking is done properly, it should be a smooth ride.
What about the implementation team?
Our deployment was completed by a mix of both. The vendor team was very qualified and personnel was made available at each region to assist the local teams with implementation.
What was our ROI?
This is difficult to measure and quantify but the time saved across the regions baby-sitting the previous solution would be about eight hours per week.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My advice is to always negotiate for better pricing.
A contract with any backup vendor will always be a long-term deal, so think ahead and force them to sharpen their pencils. Never sign up without evaluating the price of other vendors over a three to a five-year term.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Rubrik, Veeam, Nutanix Mine, Barracuda Backup, and Commvault.
What other advice do I have?
Although the NPS score was rated highly, this should not be the only factor to consider. There may be other factors involved that affect this score and as mentioned, backup solutions are a long-term deal. Not many companies will be willing to jump ship, risking their backups that are kept on proprietary platforms.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-06-03T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1547802 from
Centralized interface is simple to navigate, reduces storage space and related costs
What is our primary use case?
We are the largest organization in Europe and have 10,000 servers in-house being protected by Cohesity. We use several solutions including Archive, DR, SAP, Oracle, VMware, and others.
Our business thrives on Cohesity storage. Cohesity makes data management as simple as Sign Up, Connect, and Protect through new SaaS offerings for backup and disaster recovery.
We have been testing DataProtect delivered as a service for some time, and we very pleased with its performance. The UI is simple to navigate, and data ingestion and retrieval have been a snap.
How has it helped my organization?
Before Cohesity, we were mostly de-centralized in operations. After implementing it, our operations are now managed in a single pane of glass.
We have achieved a single source of operation and observation for backups. Every team has a stake in operations, and policy management helps to delegate the proper roles.
The storage costs and storage area occupied are now reduced dramatically.
What is most valuable?
We are using almost all of the features available in Cohesity today.
Our favorite feature is DataProtect but there are many good features that are part of the DataPlatform.
We use Cohesity to eliminate mass data fragmentation by consolidating our silos onto a single, easy-to-manage software-defined platform that is managed using a single pane of glass.
The dashboard is very rich and provides details needed for a moderator.
What needs improvement?
Cohesity needs more hardening, in terms of stability. From our experience, we noticed gaps in the product function and the solution guides/documents. Better documentation is needed because the lack of information has necessitated having our team depend more heavily on Cohesity support. We need to have a more self-sufficient system.
More automation is needed for easier management.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity DataProtect for the past four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, Cohesity is moderate and needs more hardening.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We found scaling Cohesity to be very challenging.
How are customer service and technical support?
The product team and Cohesity representatives are always reachable and fill the gaps that are not available in the documentation.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to using Cohesity, we were using Agility Data Backup and Recovery.
We are moving to Cohesity by migrating existing backup/storage solutions. We switched because were not confident in delivering backup solutions and managing SLAs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing model is impressive and very effective.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Prior to implementing Cohesity, we evaluated solutions by IBM, NetApp, Commvalut, and Rubrik.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-04-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1353246 from
Provides ransomware protection for immutable backups
What is our primary use case?
We are using it to back up virtual machines, VMware level, SQL server, Oracle Domain Controllers, Linux.
We're currently using hundred percent of it to back up 80% of our data.
How has it helped my organization?
It has absolutely improved our ROI. We moved from Microsoft DPM to Cohesity. Now, our incident tickets for backup have dropped by around a thousand per month.
DPM is a load of crap. It's horrible, absolutely horrible.
What is most valuable?
Its most valuable feature is its ransomware protection, so it has immutable backups.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, it just needs some maturity. But, it gets better with every release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for about a year.
We are using version 6.5.1E. We're about to go to 6.6.
It is on-prem today and it'll go to Azure public cloud soon.
.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good.
We probably have about 20 people using it and we have backup administrators and database administrators.
Main deployment and maintenance requires three people.
How are customer service and support?
Their technical support team program is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Microsoft DPM and it is a horrendous solution. It's horrible. From from one to 10, I would give it a minus 10. It is that bad.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two months.
Our deployment strategy was to do it quickly as we can.
We did an initial POC, then a full POC, and then migrated everything as quick as we could.
What about the implementation team?
We used TGS and they were good.
What was our ROI?
We saw ROI was after about nine months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I believe we pay yearly. Additionally, there is the cost of the hardware.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I also evaluated Rubrik and Commvault. The main difference between Cohesity, Rubrik and Commvault is price. It came down to price. Cohesity is more affordable.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to anyone using Cohesity is to use vSphere tags.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Cohesity DataProtect an eight and it's still maturing.
It will get better.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-11-17T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1581405 from
Scalable, handles hybrid workloads, and good support
What is our primary use case?
We have a customer that is looking to consume cloud-based workloads in AWS. This is why we are looking to Cohesity to be able to protect those workloads in the public cloud. Additionally, they have Commvault on-premise, which they may want to switch out with Cohesity in the future.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Cohesity DataProtect are SpanFS and the handling of hybrid workloads.
What needs improvement?
Cohesity DataProtect can improve in the area of databases. We have had some challenges with both Cohesity and Rubrik being able to effectively back up in a timely manner the SQL Oracle workloads.
In an upcoming release, they should add more migration capabilities across public clouds.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not heard of any stability issues, such as bugs and glitches. My impression of the Cohesity DataProtect is that it is fairly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The file system is able to be scaled.
The founders came from Google and their Google file system is very good.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Veeam and it is not as function in the cloud as Cohesity DataProtect is and this is why I prefer Cohesity DataProtect.
How was the initial setup?
The solution has a good interface making the installation straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend those wanting to implement Cohesity DataProtect to do a proof of concept and have a list of success criteria that they are trying to meet and go on from there.
I rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Reseller
Date published: 2021-10-24T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer723912 from
Very straightforward and modern interface
What is our primary use case?
We use the Data Protector to back up all our VMware virtual machines, as well as a SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange. We're not that big of a company anymore. We have three people who know the product: two specialists and someone from second-line support who can handle the tickets.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable thing about Cohesity is how it operates as a whole. We are very satisfied with the product as a whole—all the backup functions, the data protection functions. We are very satisfied with those, and the product is very simple to use.
What needs improvement?
We have had our share of minor bugs over the past two years and a few bigger ones. But I think it's because the product has so many features, and they try to add new stuff reasonably quickly. For example, Cohesity adds certain functionality in what they call a "feature release." This doesn't mean a long-term release. They added new functionality very quickly, and it was things we needed that were not yet available in a long-term release. When I say "long-term release," I mean one that is more static and gets updated once every few months. We wanted the feature, but we had more issues than some of us might've liked.
On the other hand, they managed to fix all the bugs without significant issues like data loss or anything like that. So it was more an inconvenience than it was a real problem. But if I have to have any criticism of them, maybe it's that. There are some minor improvements on SQL Server backups that we are waiting on, five services. We had one problem that will be solved in one of the subsequent releases, but those are small things. We are not waiting on any major stuff. The product currently meets all our backup needs.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cohesity for just two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Cohesity's stability is very good. We haven't had any major issues with that.
How are customer service and support?
I would say Cohesity support is somewhere in between good and very good. But, of course, it depends on which region you get. We know that if we log a ticket before noon here in Belgium, we are not in the region where we want to be. It's something we told Cohesity about, as well. We asked them if they could arrange it so that our ticket will always get picked up by the people in Cork. For one thing, they're in our title. They're also much more capable compared to the other regions. But that's our experience. Generally, we are very satisfied with the support we are getting.
How was the initial setup?
Setup is pretty simple, especially compared to the product we had before. It was an older legacy product that was much harder to implement. We deployed with the help of an integrator, but we do all the day-to-day maintenance on the product by ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We paid for the entire solution because we have done a few expansions already. I think it's between 400 to 600k. That is the price for the complete system, including the hardware, the support, the subscriptions for the software, I think for four to five years.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Cohesity nine out of 10. So, I would recommend it because it's quite a simple product and can do a lot. With the last product we used, you had to be a specialist to navigate in it. It's a much more straightforward and modern interface—very intuitive to use. And the speed of the backups, we do much more backup than we ever did before. So, I would certainly recommend it, yes.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-10-03T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1649424 from
Easy to scale with excellent support and seamless backup and restore functionality
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for backup and DR. We have two clusters. One is all-flash. The other is a DR cluster with spinning disks. We use the all-flash to host shared storage, as well as a number of other services. We also use a number of other features such as SmartFiles. SmartFiles allows us to host all of our shared storage on the all-flash nodes, while keeping a DR ready copy on the DR cluster. This frees us from the constant management of a traditional Windows SMB environment and allows us to maximize up-time.
How has it helped my organization?
The seamless backup and restore functionality has made file recovery and patch Tuesdays inconsequential. VM and SQL cloning in the test and dev feature sets allow us to immediately bring up backups both to test or for immediate availability (if needed). The VM can stand up within the Cohesity cluster and live vMotioned to our production VMware cluster.
While other solutions might take hours to recover a VM, we can instantly bring one up and have our users back to work. The file recovery is equally simple, with the ability to clone entire SMB shares with a click.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is just one suite of features. Obviously, instant recovery and a live VM environment to bring up backups in would be the top feature set, however, there is so much more.
ShareFiles allow for SMB shares to be stood up in minutes. Currently, we store our surveillance, user shares, department shares, and a number of other internal shares on SmartFiles. We even have a witness share for our SQL clustering.
With instant DR failover using SiteContinuity, we are able to keep our files available no matter the situation.
What needs improvement?
DataProtect is a full-featured backup suite. Better support for legacy platforms would be nice, but we should be moving off those anyway.
The marketplace app stability is still an issue at times. The company is very quick and hotfixes are released regularly. Their support is really fantastic, and I’ve only had one notable outage relating to an update. Ultimately it boiled down to a configuration error on my part, so I suppose I can’t blame them too much for that.
Now that we have added additional nodes stability has been much better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
With only one (self-inflicted) outage, I would say it is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Adding nodes is trivial and can be scaled out to petabytes easily.
How are customer service and technical support?
I’ve had many experiences with Cohesity support. They clearly keep support a primary concern and I’ve never had a bad experience. Recently, I had to submit a P1 case, and I had two top-tier engineers on the phone within 10 minutes.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously we used CommVault. We needed a more agile and robust solution.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is simple. We simply had to assign the interfaces an IP, set up our port aggregation, and create the cluster.
What about the implementation team?
We had Cohesity support come on-site to assist, however, we were there every step of the way. The Cohesity PS teams are very knowledgeable.
What was our ROI?
Unfortunately, I am not privy to the business side of this decision, however, we've recovered from ransomware successfully without paying any ransom. Considering the organization wouldn’t exist any longer without Cohesity, I would say it was worth it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would advise others to invest in their backup infrastructure. It is literally the most important solution you will purchase for business continuity. As a ransomware survivor, I cannot stress enough how valuable this solution is.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other solutions and Rubrik was a major contender. Ultimately, Cohesity won out with a Cisco Hyperflex platform and superior support.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1077105 from
It offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud
What is our primary use case?
We are using Cohesity DataProtect for all our platforms, including the VMware platform and the site server.
What is most valuable?
I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud.
What needs improvement?
DataProtect's recovery time is too high. It takes a long time to recover things from the cloud. I'd also like them to increase the capacity of the file server.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
DataProtect is very stable. We haven't seen any great problems with the platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
DataProtect is totally scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We've contacted Cohesity support at times. It's good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Symantec. It was so expensive to add new hardware. We have more capacity on Cohesity than with the Symantec appliance.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up DataProtect was very easy. With two people, we could deploy it in a couple of weeks.
What about the implementation team?
We had help from a consultant to deploy DataProtect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Rubrik. Cohesity is less expensive, and I think it gives us more capacity.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Cohesity DataProtect 10 out of 10. I would advise new users to be careful with traffic from the cloud. If you don't manage your traffic, it might spike one month, and you end up paying a lot.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer953199 from
Robust and feature-rich solution
What is our primary use case?
We use it for both local VM recovery, exchange, SQL recovery, and disaster recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
We have an on-premise exchange environment and it is really large and sensitive to backup impact, where it'll actually slow down the mailbox servers due to the stunning effect of trying to snapshot the VM. We previously had to do dedicated backup servers, which was an additional consumption of on-premise resources of storage and compute. When we moved to Cohesity, we were able to target the passive copies of those databases so we no longer needed to have dedicated backup servers for the exchange environment, thereby reducing both the footprint of exchange and the resources consumed to support of the backup server.
What is most valuable?
I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, their UI requires a manual refresh. It doesn't seem like it updates itself sometimes when you're moving from screens or waiting for a change to take effect, so you have to manually refresh. I would say that is an area for improvement, and I would also say that they have room for improvement for being able to roll back to previous versions after you've upgraded. They don't have a good rollback methodology to go back to previous versions if there is a problem with the new version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for two months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I feel like it's very stable.
We are running with a full no-redundancy, so we can lose an entire node in the clustering and it will operate without any downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cohesity DataProtect is very scalable. You can add resources just by adding additional nodes to the cluster and it seems to be able to scale out as large as you need it to.
It is used primarily by engineering and by a couple people in the app team on the SQL side. I'd say maybe half a dozen people total use it in our organization and they're in a combination of apps and engineering.
Deployment and maintenance are all done by me and my counterpart for the most part, just senior engineers on the engineering team. There are just two of us that are primarily handling that.
It is being used extensively in both of our data centers for all virtual workloads, as well as the SQL Server and exchange application level workloads. Those are our use cases primarily for those applications and the VM.
How are customer service and support?
They have excellent technical support. I give them high marks for that. They all seem to know the product well and be willing to assist with things and have experiences all around with the support team.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Rubrik and we switched due to Rubrik tending to focus more on public cloud solutions over the past couple years and also the overall price of the solution - Rubrik was very expensive. We wanted to have more of a competitive product up against it.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup is straightforward.
It took one day for each site. We have two sites. We deployed each site in one day for a two day deployment total, and then our overall deployment strategy was to begin ingesting at the VM level and then start focusing on the agent-based deployments to equal an exchange.
What was our ROI?
In terms of ROI, the time of management is lower than what we were previously using so we are getting some cycles back from an engineering perspective. Also, we were able to reclaim our exchange environment in terms of resources, so there was some return there that we were able to recoup immediately, and then just the overall cost across the duration of the licensing and the hardware is expected to be lower than what we previously had.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is on a yearly license. It actually includes the cost of the hardware, as well. So the cost of the hardware and the licensing is all rolled into a single bundle with the support.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before going with Cohesity, we spoke with Pure, Commvault, and with Rubrik and Cohesity and Rubrik were identified as the two finalists and we did a proof of concept for both of those.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to anyone considering Cohesity DataProtect is to try it out because the performance seems to exceed the competitors in the market. If it fits well in your organization or your use cases, then give it a shot.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine. I did a lot of research into the different products and found this one to be pretty much top across the board and after using it, we are very happy with the performance and the results that we are getting.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1483470 from
Great pricing with an easy initial setup and good backup performance
What is our primary use case?
Primarily, we back up our VMs on the solution. All kinds of VMs are backed up on it. Not all of them we back up, however, the major ones we do.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect for me is that I don't have to deal with media in terms of tapes like our existing system does.
Pricing was one of the big features. We chose it largely based on this.
The solution scales well.
We've found the product to be stable.
It's my understanding that the initial setup is simple.
What needs improvement?
In terms of the solution overall, it's so far so good. I'll have to check with my team, however, so far, from my perspective, it's working great. We aren't missing any features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We just got the solution last May. We haven't used it for too long just yet.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been good. There aren't bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability has been fine. It's used by us, the IT department. We back up the servers for our entire organization.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't had to call tech support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are.
How was the initial setup?
As far as I know, the initial setup was pretty straightforward. My team members dealt with all that. I did not directly participate.
We have a team of five people that can handle maintenance duties such as updates, et cetera. Both users and sysadmins can get into it if they need to.
What about the implementation team?
Our team members handled the implementations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is pretty good overall. It's less expensive than some competitors, such as Rubrik.
I'd rate the solution at a five out of five. It's quite affordable. That said, I can't speak to the exact pricing. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were going against another option. It was between Cohesity and another vendor, a pretty big player, called Rubrik. The pricing was better with this solution.
What other advice do I have?
We're a customer and an end-user.
We have an appliance and cloud. We have two deployment models.
I would advise those considering the solution to watch the demo and compare it to Rubrik and make your own opinion.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1742715 from
Works flawlessly with easy replication of backups and numerous supported backup sources
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for backing up SQL Databases, Sybase Databases, SAP HANA, Kubernetes clusters, active directories, NAS services, some Azure services including virtual machines, Office 365 (Exchange mailboxes, Sharepoint Sites, Teams Data), VMware virtual machines, and much more
We're using Cohesity clusters in different locations which are replicating the backup data each to another location. Replication is working fine.
We're using more and more NAS services for SMB Fileshshares, for example, for Citrix Profiles with FSLogix.
How has it helped my organization?
All backups are working flawlessly. The replication of backups has never been easier. Cohesity cluster replication is a great feature!
There is no need to buy licenses for any new features or backing up new software products. If Cohesity is supporting it, you can just use it. Their list of supported backup sources is impressive!
You just have to license the amount of storage you are using. It does not matter how/for what you are using this storage. You can shift it from backup to NAS usage without any problem.
What is most valuable?
The backup is radically simplified. Backup and replication have not been easier. It is simply working! Replication to the cloud? No problem! Backing up new software? No problem! Have to set up a new NAS service? No problem!
Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software.
By using their Helios Cloud service, you have all your clusters, no matter where they are located, in one web portal. You can view all errors and information in one place and you do not have to connect to each cluster itself. There is also a Helios App for your smartphone.
What needs improvement?
Quality testing of upgrades should be somewhat improved. There really are many upgrades for new features and I really like that. Nevertheless nearly every upgrade brings its own bugs. Cohesity support, however, is really good and they always know how to solve these problems.
While support does ask the customer if they are allowed to restart service XXX or set parameter X to Y, they never explain if this affects your business or if there can be any further problems by settings the parameters. As a customer, you have to agree to something you cannot really estimate.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for about a year.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had been using Dell EMC Avamar, however, we switched to Cohesity due to their pricing and due to the fact that Avamar was a mess.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-04T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2145594 from
Effortless setup, speedy restore options, and issues are resolved quickly
What is our primary use case?
We are using Cohesity DataProtect for ensuring the safety of our entire system by creating backups. This includes backing up our virtual VMware environment, as well as some standalone servers that we use.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is user-friendly and straightforward. The setup process was effortless, and both the backup and restore operations are speedy.
What needs improvement?
When a new release is launched, there may be some bugs that need to be addressed by the developers. However, they promptly resolve these issues, and the software runs smoothly once again.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Cohesity DataProtect within the past 12 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable overall. There has been some issue with updates causing issues but they are resolved quickly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable, but it requires purchasing of hardware.
I rate the scalability of Cohesity DataProtect a seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I did not use the support from the vendor.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup required some assistance to complete. However, it was not a long drawn-out process.
I rate the initial setup of Cohesity DataProtect a seven out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
We have one systems engineer for the maintenance of the solution.
It's important to obtain an accurate count of the number and size of servers that require backup. By gaining insight into potential future growth, you can correctly size your environment and prepare for the upcoming expansion. This way, you can avoid the need for additional investments in the future.
I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-04-05T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Bill Huff from
Highly reliable, robust, and useful instant recovery
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the solution handles instant recovery and file-level recovery from a VMware image backup seamlessly.
What needs improvement?
The platform has certain limitations, mostly stemming from the restrictions imposed by the VMware API and some other factors. One area where there is room for improvement is the tracking of replicated copies, especially in the context of remote archive duplication.
Although there are certain interfaces and reports within the solution that provide detailed information about features like duplication to archive, they are not well-documented. In my experience, I have used some of these interfaces and reports in the past to gain additional insight. However, it would be helpful if these interfaces were properly documented and made readily available, instead of relying on support calls and breaking down URLs to access them. This would make it easier for users to leverage the full functionality of the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for two and a half years.
Our primary use of Cohesity DataProtect is for backing up VMware, with some Microsoft Windows workloads also included. At present, our usage is limited to Microsoft Windows and VMware only.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Generally, the solution is stable.
I have observed some stability issues when scaling the Pure Storage solution, and one of our customers who used it experienced some problems. However, I believe these issues were due to the solution being relatively new and possibly oversold in an environment without adequate hardware to support it. Overall, these issues were rare and isolated, and I have not seen similar problems with other customers.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution scales well up to a certain point. When dealing with larger environments, it's crucial to exercise caution while distributing IO and managing the number of nodes in use. However, for small to mid-sized environments, it is perfectly scalable. In scenarios involving massive enterprises, it may be worth considering the Pure Storage solution or Cohesity DataProtect with a peer back end, rather than Cohesity DataProtect with their standard nodes.
How are customer service and support?
I have had a positive experience with the tech support provided by the vendor. Their ability to access the system remotely and provide insights or fix issues has been particularly helpful. It is beneficial to be involved in the support process and to observe how they resolve issues, so I can replicate the solution in the future. Fortunately, the support team is usually willing to share their expertise and help me learn, which is greatly appreciated.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the solution is simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more advanced security features than Cohesity DataProtect currently, Cohesity DataProtect is releasing a new solution in the near future that will compete directly with Rubrik.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have evaluated other solutions, such as Rubrik.
What other advice do I have?
I have recommended the solution to multiple customers, and it has been well-received. While we do not currently use it internally, we have successfully recommended it to new customers who have implemented it based on our suggestion.
I would recommend that others give Cohesity DataProtect a try, provided that their environment can support it. It is important to note that like any other solution if it is deployed in a poorly designed environment, it may not perform well. However, in a well-architected environment, Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable and robust solution.
I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-04-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2083311 from
A good backup with an easy setup and good reliability
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for VMware Backup and SQL backups that are replicated and copied to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
They basically can do what Rubrik does. It's a backup device. There aren't necessarily any special features.
What it does well, it does very well. It just works.
The initial setup is easy.
It's stable.
The solution scales well.
It's not overly expensive.
What needs improvement?
Support needs improvement, but the product is fine when well deployed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for a few months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a solid product. It's quite stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I found the product to be scalable. You just add nodes if you need to. It's a hyper-converged solution, and scaling is easy.
How are customer service and support?
I have not had a good experience with support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am also familiar with Rubrik.
I've also worked with Commvault and find that you do have to do a lot of fine-tuning with it during implementation. This solution is easier. Commvault is also a lot more expensive. Cohesity has a simpler workflow and for people in operations, it's a blessing.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process is very straightforward and simple. It doesn't have huge requirements and it is not that complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is okay. I'd rate it seven out of ten in terms of affordability. How expensive it is depends on how big the contract is.
What other advice do I have?
I'd advise potential new users to do their due diligence before, know what they want, and get some training.
I would rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Implementer
Date published: 2023-01-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Nelson Sendino from
Easy to set a schedule and backup time, and is reliable
What is our primary use case?
We basically have standard use cases such as backing up our virtual machines on VMware and restoring them if we need to.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspects of the solution include being able to select sources and set a schedule, set up a backup time, and be able to restore.
It's stable.
What needs improvement?
I can't identify a specific area that needs improvement.
They could always keep up with continuous interface refinements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for almost a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. I'd rate it nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's very scalable as a solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten.
We have five users on the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I personally haven't dealt with technical support in the past, however, one of my colleagues has. My understanding is the experience was positive. We were able to close the ticket.
How was the initial setup?
I wasn't too involved with the initial setup. Some other team members were.
The deployment took a few months. We had a team of four people in place to deploy the solution. One was a network engineer. The other one was a systems analyst. There were also a couple of network analysts.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have any details about the pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated a couple of other products. Rubrik was one of them, and obviously, we selected Cohesity.
What other advice do I have?
I'd advise potential new users to just compare it to something else, and maybe you'll arrive at the same conclusion that we did - that it's a good product.
It's a good product. It integrates pretty tightly with our VMware infrastructure.
I'd rate it nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-01-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Adam Badorrek from
Reliable backup solution with a friendly, logical backup/restore infrastructure
What is our primary use case?
Our experience with the Cohesity DataProtect Platform has been overwhelmingly positive as we been able to manage our 500+ VMs and physical servers with only a few backup policies. Backups: VMs are currently being added to jobs automatically through tagging. But, we also manually add VMs to jobs at times as we need to split up the load of VMs to multiple backup jobs. We try to keep a ratio of 15 VMs to 1 job. After getting a Cohesity Agent on a SQL server and syncing it with Cohesity, it is simple to set a backup/retention schedule for Log, Incremental, and Full backups based on policy. We utilize the Cohesity APIs to produce daily reports on jobs that have succeeded, failed, paused, etc. We send an email to our Systems team with this information and log it in a .csv. This allows us to give a timeline to backup auditors as well as let us know when something isn't going right. Restores: We have used Cohesity to restore granular files as well as restore SQL databases. VM's restore to vSphere directly. VM's typically restore quite quickly and work right away as long as they're restored to the original vSphere they came from. Individual files can be searched on multiple VM backups and downloaded locally or placed back on source machine. SQL Databases can be restored to any SQL server instance, not only the original. As long as the SQL versions match. *We have had some luck restoring databases from older SQL versions to newer SQL versions. Support: Cohesity has been very responsive to support requests and resolved issues in a timely manner. They openly assist in filling in knowledge gaps about the application.
How has it helped my organization?
Our previous backup solution was unable to be upgraded after several engagements.
I was surprised to see how well the Cohesity appliances performed and how easy the setup was. After a couple of hours, the cluster was up, and we were able to take backup of our VMware infrastructure. After that, I tested a few backups and restores, and everything was running smoothly.
Our previous backup solution was unable to be upgraded after several engagements.
I was surprised to see how well the Cohesity appliances performed and how easy the setup was. After a couple of hours, the cluster was up, and we were able to take backup of our VMware infrastructure. After that, I tested a few backups and restores, and everything was running smoothly.
What is most valuable?
Reliable backup solution with many options and friendly/logical backup/restore infrastructure.
The product is easy to put in place, all backups are done very quickly, and it's easy to perform restores. What I prefer in the product is its simplicity. No useless settings to define, everything is ready just after the initial setup.
I also had the opportunity to deploy new nodes and upgrade the cluster; everything is well thought and is running very well.
Reliable backup solution with many options and friendly/logical backup/restore infrastructure.
The product is easy to put in place, all backups are done very quickly, and it's easy to perform restores. What I prefer in the product is its simplicity. No useless settings to define, everything is ready just after the initial setup.
I also had the opportunity to deploy new nodes and upgrade the cluster; everything is well thought and is running very well.
What needs improvement?
Volume Shadow Copies can get very large on SQL servers so be aware of this if OS says a drive has a lot of space but everything else is saying that the drive is out of space. This mostly occurs when the backup job fails, which is very uncommon. We've run into issues where network segmented computers couldn't reach back to Cohesity over 445 and that has caused restores to fail. Split large Database/NAS/Phycial backups into their own backup job so smaller devices can stay on their backup schedules and backup more often. SQL and Physical (Block Level) backups need to have a Cohesity Agent installed (requiring a restart) and they have to be manually added into Cohesity but the process is still pretty simple. Cohesity cluster upgrades have not been as easy as a single button click but a manual process that requires upgrading each node in the cluster individually. The upgrades do go pretty smoothly though.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-04-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Joshua Van Camp from
Easy to implement with great technical support and easy upgrading capabilities
What is our primary use case?
We were looking to replace our legacy tapes and Veritas Backup Exec. We were tired of spending money on tapes and the time it took to physically handle and transport the tapes as they cycled through the system. We were also looking to do something to get rid of some of our older legacy NetApp devices. In the end, we were looking for a solution with redundancy and support for encryption for data at rest. We were also hoping for something that would enable on-prem storage, but at the same time, give us cloud capabilities down the road when the organization was ready to make that leap.
How has it helped my organization?
We were able to eliminate tape backups by utilizing Cohesity to backup our VMs. We then replicated the backup data to a second offsite Cohesity cluster. In the future, we will archive older backups to the cloud as well via Cohesity. We have also been able to utilize Cohesity as a replacement for our older legacy NAS devices - serving up unstructured data on file shares. This was a major win for us, as it greatly simplified our environment and we saw a substantial increase in speed from our legacy NetApp devices.
What is most valuable?
The overall ease of implementation and use has been outstanding. Upgrades are easy because of the way that redundancy is built into the Cohesity solution. You simply go to the web-based GUI, download the update, and apply.
The system automatically takes down the nodes one at a time and performs the upgrade and brings the node back up before proceeding to the next. Upgrades can now be done at any time with a high level of confidence.
The engineering team also seems to be working hard to constantly add new features. Since we purchased the product, Cohesity added the ability to perform Office 365 backups and AD backups at no additional cost. The features just showed up in the new release, which was great.
What needs improvement?
There have been a number of improvements since we purchased the product two years ago that has since made it even more attractive to users. Things liked education and training have been a greater focus. Cohesity now offers "Cohesity Academy" for education, and recently launched Cohesity User Groups for people to join other Cohesity users in discussing best practices, use case scenarios, etc.
In terms of the product itself, there have been a handful of patches that have had to be applied outside of the GUI via the command line. It's very straightforward and easy and in the same redundant fashion, but not quite as simple as one or two clicks. I'm hoping that will decrease going forward.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is absolutely rock solid. I'm not aware of any issues with file services and the backups have been 100%. We have not had any file share outage or issues with SMB which is awesome as SMB fileshares were a critical part of decision to purchase Cohesty.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable. If you want to buy the boxes, this solution will work at the largest of enterprises.
How are customer service and technical support?
Support has been very good - particularly in the last 6 months. They seem to have grown the support organization as the install base has increased and the quality of the engineers is very good. The remote support functionality in the product makes it very easy for Cohesity staff to diagnose problems and either guide you through the fix or even perform it themselves.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used Veritas Backup Exec and LTO tapes. On the storage side, we had legacy Netgear and NetApp NAS devices that Cohesity replaced with a single device.
How was the initial setup?
Cohesity sent a local sales engineer out and in an afternoon we had it racked, networked, and backing up.
What about the implementation team?
Cohesity sent a sales engineer out and it was done in an afternoon. They made the whole process incredibly simple.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to estimate a dollar value for the peace of mind in knowing that my files and backups are there and they work. In the face of ransomware and other threats, I can roll back in a few clicks. Upgrades are simple and Cohesity has a security focus. I wish we could have made the change years ago.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The costs vary, but the vendors will sometimes work with you depending on your purchase and what time of year it is in order to make deals happen. The Cohesity licensing was pretty straightforward, which was also attractive in that we didn't have to license a whole bunch of features. Everything was bundled together.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at Rubrik, which was pricier and did not offer file services at the time. We also looked at a budget play in Storage Craft but were not sure if the product was going to have enough market support to continue. Also, the features seemed rough compared to Cohesity, which felt more polished and finished.
What other advice do I have?
We have been very happy with the performance and ease of use of the solution. Support has been very good - even as they have grown and scaled up in size.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-08-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1276815 from
Easy to use, improves efficiency, has good support, and saves us time and money
What is our primary use case?
We have two primary use cases. The first was a replacement for magnetic tape backups via Backup Exec. We were tired of continually handling physical tapes, the increasingly long backup windows, and the cost of all of the tape infrastructure. We are backing up about 20TB of data between VMware and legacy NAS appliances.
Our second use case was a replacement for a legacy IBM/NetApp device and a legacy NETGEAR NAS. Both devices were substantially older with no inline compression or dedupe. We were running out of space at a time when we knew that modern storage features such as compression and deduplication would give us substantial space savings.
How has it helped my organization?
The change has been night and day. Our backups have gotten MUCH faster and MUCH simpler. Our weekend full-backups were taking close to 48 hours to write to LTO8 tape. We are capturing a full backup nightly now in under three hours for all of our VMware and NAS data. We are able to replicate that data to our colocation facility seamlessly.
The storage features have been easy to use right out of the box. We have been able to provision "copies" of our legacy NAS devices into Cohesity for testing purposes in seconds. Speed is substantially faster than our legacy devices, even with Cohesity's lowest tier of storage.
What is most valuable?
The backup features have saved us enormous amounts of time and money already. We have been able to stop buying media, stop licensing BE, stop paying for service on the physical backup server, stop paying for service on tape library, and stop paying for another Windows Server license.
The restores are easy to do and have made it so that we can incorporate restores into our troubleshooting processes. The fact that we can provision copies of storage in a few seconds has been great for testing. Cohesity has a growing pool of third-party apps that can run on your Cohesity environment. Antivirus tools and tools to analyze file usage patterns are things we are looking to utilize in the near future.
What needs improvement?
There were a few things that required quick support calls in order to get to function correctly. We were told that the issues that impacted us were going to be corrected on the next release and would not impact other customers.
We would love to see direct compatibility with HPE Simplivity, which we also leverage.
Cohesity could do a little better job communicating features in new releases and helping customers to understand when features will be released. For example, I found literature indicating that version 6.3.1 would have support for Active Directory backups when installed. That feature appears to have been pushed to version 6.4, but is still available in 6.3.1 if you call support and have them toggle it on.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have had Cohesity installed for about six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is very stable. Upgrades are easy and do not require downtime. Set and forget.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't had to scale and don't anticipate needing to do so in that we bought enough capacity to last us for some time. However, based on my other experiences with the software, I don't think this would be an issue.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have had a few support tickets, which have been dealt with quickly and appropriately. We did have one ticket where we requested an escalation and this was also handled appropriately. Support did a good job of periodically checking with us to verify that the fix resolved our issue, which it did.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Backup Exec teamed with an IBM Tape Library for magnetic tape backups. Legacy IBM/NetApp and NETGEAR NAS devices were also replaced by Cohesity.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very straightforward. It took a couple of hours for each cluster at each of our sites.
What about the implementation team?
Our Cohesity sales engineer along with an engineer from our VAR assisted in getting the solution in place. Each cluster in each location took a day to deploy.
What was our ROI?
We have not calculated a formal ROI, but we have already saved tons of time. I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at Rubrik and StorageCraft.
Rubrik seemed like a solid product but was substantially more expensive then Cohesity. They also did not do anything outside of backups. StorageCraft offers good value but doesn't have the same expansive features as Cohesity.
What other advice do I have?
We have been very happy with Cohesity and it has solved several major problems for us. At the same time, they are aggressively adding and further refining features.
We are now backing up our O365 email via Cohesity, which is something we didn't even know it could do when we purchased it.
They really are developing a great platform for unstructured data and backups.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-02-01T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1661862 from
Offers good UI, great support, and helpful knowledge sharing
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for data protection and data platform. We are backing up VMs, physical servers, and other applications.
We are even using the Exchange cluster backups in our environment. It became easy for us to administrate the data and for handling recovery as well. The best part is the UI. I have never seen this level of enhanced UI.
The best use case is when we are facing issues while taking the exchange backups. Cohesity made it easy for the exchange backup and restore processes. We are happy with the Support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.
How has it helped my organization?
I am very satisfied with the UI of Cohesity. Day to day, they are enhancing it.
We are now easily managing the data from Helios for all the clusters centrally.
Cohesity has made it easy for exchange backup and restore functions.
We are happy with the support provided by Cohesity.
What is most valuable?
When we are facing issues while taking the exchange backups, Cohesity makes it easy for the exchange backup and restore processes.
We are happy with the support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.
Knowledge sharing has become easy by technical sharing and galaxy also evolving drastically.
What needs improvement?
For Oracle DBs, we have observed a few bugs. This can be done better.
We'd like to see easy Administration and non-disruptive upgrades and node additions.
For a few engineering issues, we've observed delays and they are asking for an upgrade of the cluster. It would be good if they modified it with gflags.
Knowledge sharing has become easy by technical sharing and has been evolving drastically.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity for the past 3 years, from 6.3 to 6.5.1.d Hotfix 10.
How are customer service and technical support?
We are happy with the Support provided by Cohesity for the issues we've come across.
What other advice do I have?
We'd like to see easy Administration and non-disruptive upgrades and node additions.
For a few engineering issues, we've observed delays and they are asking for an upgrade of the cluster. It would be good if they modified it with gflags.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-09-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1271712 from
Easy to use with impressive search capability and has eliminated the hassle of using tapes
What is our primary use case?
We were using Backup Exec and IBM's TSM for our Intel and PowerPC systems, respectively at our data center. Add to that the monthly tapes from our two dozen remote locations, and you had a tape mess. We started having tape drive failures at the remote locations and were tired of playing the game of upgrading tape technologies and drives. Our SME for the TSM platform was leaving the company, and rather than spend time learning that system, we wanted a single solution that could protect all our data.
How has it helped my organization?
While we're still new in the implementation, we are excited that we now have a single point of view for all of our backups. As we begin to roll out the virtual nodes to our remote locations, we're looking forward to not having to hassle with tapes anymore as the data will be automatically replicated across multiple locations.
The search abilities are very impressive, and we hope to soon start to leverage immutable archiving off to the cloud to replace the tapes. All of this, from a single pane of glass.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is ease of use. Even our manager can figure it out. It sounds like a joke, but really, it is that simple. Being able to tell Cohesity where to put the data and when, and let the system find out the logistics of how to best do it and still have your data protected.
We were also starting to feel the struggle with secondary data fragmentation, having multiple copies of a file across locations that were different versions. The users just accepted it as business as usual, but now we will be able to serve much of that via a large NFS share.
What needs improvement?
There is limited support for legacy systems, which is something that could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for a PoC for several months.
How was the initial setup?
Setup can be a little tricky, but support is there to walk you through it at every step.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Prior to choosing this solution, we evaluated Commvault and TSM.
What other advice do I have?
Officially, we do plan to implement this solution one day.
We're new enough to the system, and we are excited about it enough that we are still in the 'Honeymoon' phase. With respect to legacy support, we don't have funds to stay up to date with a lot of leading things. There is also a mentality of 'if it is not broken, do not fix it' with systems that we are working to overcome. This almost made it a deal-breaker for us, but Cohesity came to rescue with support for our versions.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-01-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
ManiKanta from
A highly scalable and easily manageable solution, but it takes hours to restore a single file
What is our primary use case?
We are in the banking industry and use the solution to take the backups of all Tier 0 and Tier 1 applications. The majority of the applications are hosted on virtual machines.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is easily manageable, and you can see every option from the user interface. You don't need to go to the CLI or any other place. The solution is based on the Master-Slave concept. When any one of the nodes goes down, that load will be moved to another node.
What needs improvement?
Cohesity DataProtect takes hours to restore a single file, even a small one.
Currently, Cohesity DataProtect occupies the total size of the virtual machine. In my opinion, the solution should create a snapshot of the used space in the virtual machine, which would help the environment consume less space.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 14 people in our team working with Cohesity DataProtect.
I rate Cohesity DataProtect ten out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support team is very responsive. Their technical account managers proactively monitor the account and pitch in immediately if we need any help.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have previously worked with other solutions like Commvault Rubrik. I switched to Cohesity DataProtect because of its better performance, accessibility, maintenance, and cost.
How was the initial setup?
We sometimes face issues while deploying the solution, which we can fix with the help of the support team. There are no long pending issues while deploying Cohesity DataProtect.
What about the implementation team?
The solution's deployment time depends on the cluster size we are deploying. If I am deploying the twenty-node cluster, it will take around six to eight hours. The deployment time varies from node to node and the cluster size.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are using a capacity-based, one-time purchase license. The solution's pricing is in the mid-range, where it's neither costly nor cheap. You need to pay extra for some dedicated services.
On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I am using the latest version of Cohesity DataProtect. Most product-based companies are switching over from legacy products to Cohesity DataProtect. I would recommend Cohesity DataProtect to other users.
Overall, I rate Cohesity DataProtect a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2024-01-19T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Mashood Atitebi from
A cheap backup solution that is easy to operate and deploy
What is our primary use case?
We use the product as a primary backup.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is easy to deploy and operate.
What needs improvement?
You need to put the full name instead of a few letters while searching for backup. It should also improve customization.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for more than a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Cohesity DataProtect is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is scalable. My company has eight users.
How was the initial setup?
The tool's deployment is easy. The deployment takes around 30 minutes to complete.
What about the implementation team?
Cohesity DataProtect supported us during the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-11-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Alex Hart from
A highly stable solution that can be used for on-premises backup
What is our primary use case?
We use Cohesity DataProtect for on-premises backups.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is the primary backup platform that we use for data recovery. The solution's SQL cloning is great, and its Instant Mount restoration of virtual machines is brilliant. Cohesity DataProtect's multi-factor authentication (MFA) is good. The solution's security and immutable snapshots are very good.
The solution's storage efficiency is very good. The data reduction techniques on the platform are very good.
What needs improvement?
I would like alerts if any local accounts on the platform are changed for security. If someone were to change an admin account password, I would like an alert raised for that, which is not available at the moment.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability is fine, and I haven't faced any downtime issues.
I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cohesity DataProtect is a scalable solution. Around three people access and use the solution in our organization.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's initial setup is very simple. It takes less than a day to get it all configured and working.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution through an in-house team. A team consisting of five database engineers is needed to deploy the solution. The solution's deployment is very simple and involves setting up IP addresses, VLAN tagging, creating protection jobs, and creating replication.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have a capacity license for the solution that we renew annually.
On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Cohesity DataProtect for things like Oracle backups and SQL backups. I rate the solution ten out of ten for its effectiveness in managing backups across multiple environments or clouds.
We chose Cohesity DataProtect because its SQL Clones and SQL backups were very good. The solution's instant restoration of virtual machines is very quick. The solution's integration with Azure is very good, and it uses cloud block storage for long-term retention.
Overall, I rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2024-02-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Giovanni Golinelli. from
Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support
What is our primary use case?
We use not only DataProtect but also the platform and all the service subscriptions to manage both data protection and other services like SmartFiles.
Our customers use it to replace other data protection solutions, not only for the orchestration of the process but also for the data repository.
With Cohesity, we have one solution for managing data protection. We also have a very useful storage system to be used, not only as a static repository but also for test environments and so on.
What is most valuable?
The product is quite simple and user-friendly, without limitations on scalability. And, it's a very good product if a customer wants to have total governance of their data.
We use Cohesity extensively, not just for a few products but in most of our SmartFile deployments. So, many of our customers use it both as a file service and a repository for DataProtect processes.
We use Cohesity to sell and implement the liquidity solution to our customers.
What needs improvement?
As a Cohesity partner, I won the Best Cohesity Sales Engineer award in 2023. My team discussed, essentially, improving Cohesity reporting because that's a feature gap I feel could really enhance the product.
Reporting is quite limited and not customizable. Many customers can't access specific numbers or insights regarding their daily data protection, something competitors like Veeam integrate quite seamlessly.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my experience, it is quite a stable product. Similar to Citrix, we typically do basic checks before implementing new features or patches. In terms of completing operations for customers, the continuity loss is less than 3%.
We have around 30 customers using it.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are fast and professional, and we have a dedicated support colleague who acts as a DataProtect wizard, confidently handling any issues we can't resolve ourselves.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup.
Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance.
We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site.
Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price could be better. It could seem better, not necessarily bad, but not great, either.
We partner with Cohesity in Italy and have a strong collaboration. So, when we propose Cohesity to potential new customers, we talk directly with Cohesity to get the best possible price and make everyone happy.
What other advice do I have?
I am an implementor, so I've prebuilt for this scope. And I put it in your environment. Then, I will ask the configurer to check.
And then I give you the the toy to play with.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2024-02-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2322249 from
Evolving data protection with user-friendly interface, fast performance, and efficient maintenance, but faces challenges in delivering HANA support
What is our primary use case?
We use it in the realm of data protection. We have comprehensive coverage, including backups for all our databases, VMs, file systems, and various auxiliary components.
How has it helped my organization?
One of the notable benefits is its user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate. Additionally, it demonstrates faster performance compared to other vendors.
What is most valuable?
The recovery process is effective, especially when it comes to other types of data, such as VMs, and overall, the performance is commendable.
What needs improvement?
We have been facing challenges, particularly with HANA databases. Despite initial promises of delivering an agent within a few months, it has been over two and a half years, and there is still no indication of when the Cohesity agent for HANA systems will be available. The absence of an agent for replicated recovery makes it impractical for our current needs. We are highly dissatisfied with the level of support and functionality provided for HANA within the Cohesity product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with it for two and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The overall stability has been consistent. The only noteworthy concern is related to the HANA aspect, which falls short of expectations. However, in terms of performance and support, there have been no issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would estimate that approximately two hundred users are involved.
How are customer service and support?
The support quality is commendable – upon opening a ticket, a responsive and capable team promptly assists. However, managing cases with a global team working across different time zones can pose challenges in terms of knowledge transfer and handovers between teams. Occasionally, the transition between teams for a specific case doesn't go smoothly, resulting in the need to repeat explanations for each new team member involved. I would rate it seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The installation process requires a couple of straightforward connectors to be installed on our servers, and the setup is quite simple. It's a one-time task, and overall, we haven't encountered any issues with the setup.
What about the implementation team?
We conducted a POC with testing and various evaluations, completing it in a couple of months. The deployment spanned across a broad range of systems, including both production and non-production, and we successfully implemented it within three months. This encompassed all our SAP systems, including ECC, BW, and others, up to ADA and earlier versions. Maintenance is necessary, but the majority of patches and updates at the cluster level can be seamlessly handled online.
What other advice do I have?
Despite encountering challenges with HANA, I would recommend moving forward with Cohesity. The observed improvements and overall convenience make it a worthwhile choice. Comparatively, the experience has been preferable to Symantec or other alternatives. It is an evolving product, and we've witnessed substantial enhancements from its initial stages. Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-12-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1097163 from
Enterprise search and instant restore are pretty valuable
What is our primary use case?
I'm using Cohesity DataProtect to do product demo's for my customers.
What is most valuable?
The enterprise search and instant restore are pretty valuable. Also, the Helios stuff is pretty good and the SAS engine for ransom malware detection.
What needs improvement?
I think Rubrik and Cohesity are pretty similar in terms of the user interface and user experience, but I think Cohesity could add more platform support. For example, they could improve integration with DB2 or make the integration S3 object storage a little tighter. Some of that stuff could use some work, but overall, it's a relatively comprehensive platform.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've never had a problem with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's easy to scale with their clustered architecture and add to the cluster. The builds join the cluster on their own without really having to do much. Most of our clients are mid-sized enterprises.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Cohesity support eight out of 10. I haven't had any issues. I guess it depends on who you talk to and what their experience was, but I think they do a pretty good job with Helios, where their support team can access the environment. I would say it's a little more modern approach than IBM, which has a 20-year-old support model, i.e., you capture and upload the logs. With Cohesity, you get a little more real-time visibility from support.
Then again, most of my support inquiries are in the pre-sales context, so our customers are the ones using it, but I haven't heard of any significant problems. Still, I think some of these companies are experiencing some growing pains. They're growing fast. Sometimes they get a little ahead of themselves, and maybe the support could be better.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up DataProtect is pretty straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'd say the price of DataProtect is reasonable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In some cases, a greenfield approach is a better fit for the customer's needs. The marketplace is robust. They can work as a filer and replace certain file service workloads, like user share type. You're not going to replace a NetApp or an Isilon solution necessarily, but you can do some consolidation. For example, one customer wanted to do their virus scanning right on the cluster, not their hosts. So you can run Tenable or something. One customer liked it because we could run the Christie Bare Metal Restore. They had physical systems and wanted to have BMR.
What other advice do I have?
I would give Cohesity DataProtect nine out of 10. It's a relatively complete solution. If you are thinking about implementing it, I would suggest looking at opportunities to consolidate some file workloads. Many customers are still doing dump and sweeps, and this is a good platform for it. You just dump, and you don't have to do a sweep. Now, the question is: Do you want a lot of NFS mounts in your environment? But it's good. You can buy this data platform that they call "SmartFiles," I think. You can have a 100 terabyte cluster, with half of it devoted to file services and the other half doing backups, then license it accordingly.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Reseller
Date published: 2021-11-29T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Nicco Putra from
Stable and scalable, but is overpriced and comes with a comparatively complex setup
What is our primary use case?
Cohesity DataProtect has numerous features, backup only being one of them. The solution's main product involves the data platform and consists of object storage, the file server and hyper convergence storage features. Their focus is right there. So, their backup software has been very helpful in respect of object storage and the file server. These depend on the data platform.
For the customer, Cohesity DataProtect allows him to have a single solution, ranging from software backup to hardware, all contained within a single contact.
What is most valuable?
The solution boasts good retention, as it is global in a single platform and, since they have their own appliance, it is scalable as well. This makes it easier to create a retention from the backup.
What needs improvement?
The pricing of the solution could be better, as it is quite high when compared with the competition, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik.
The solution offers many features, so my one reservation involves the pricing.
The solution has a more complex setup than Veritas and Veeam.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We do not have experience with technical support, so I am not in a position to guage it.
How was the initial setup?
We do not do implementation only as concerns the data protection, but must also implement the storage and then the appliance. I consider the implementation of Cohesity DataProtect to be more complex than those of Veritas and Veeam.
What about the implementation team?
A consultant was needed for the implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik offer more cost effective solutions than that of Cohesity DataProtect, whose pricing is quite high.
Veritas and Veeam have easier setups than Cohesity DataProtect.
What other advice do I have?
Cohesity is still new to Indonesia.
I rate Cohesity DataProtect as a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2021-11-23T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Michele Fumagalli from
Works well with backup virtual machines and SQL services we have been using
What is our primary use case?
We needed a more powerful solution for ransomware and anomaly detection. We enforced it with strong technology, and our needs are based on such functionality.
What is most valuable?
It works well with backup virtual machines and SQL services we have been using.
What needs improvement?
We have two big clusters for 16 nodes for each one, and we are trying to develop the IPAM technology for a new cluster on a vault site where we can store a third copy of our data.
The software can improve upon reports because, nowadays, reports are easy to understand. We have a set of reports on Cohesity, but we wish to use them on-premises. We want a feature with a set of reports embedded with the software.
I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution since 2020, it has been three years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. However, we had some hardware trouble because when nodes get broken, or the disc is not good, it becomes a problem for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution.
There are 10-15 users in the web user console, and the workload is about 1,000 databases and 1,000 digital machines. We use a yearly subscription model.
The workload is covered optimally. I don’t think we are going to increase the usage.
How are customer service and support?
The tech support team is good. We only have international support, so the timetable is not easy for us, and we have to wait for the response from the support team.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex. It takes several months to install from zero because we have to define the logistical points to find space through all the network interfaces and technologies available, and it took us around four to five months.
What about the implementation team?
Our deployment method was on-premises.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-02-27T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Eduardo Pardo from
A flexible, scalable, and stable solution that comes with good support and allows us to incorporate different workloads
What is our primary use case?
We are using Cohesity DataProtect to protect our internal data, specifically on the servers. We are also incorporating some capabilities for SQL and Java.
What is most valuable?
Its flexibility is the most valuable. Being a cloud version, it has more flexibility, and it allows me to incorporate different workloads and consolidate all the data in one place. It has good high availability, and it is also easy to maintain.
What needs improvement?
We would like it to have more capabilities for different kinds of PaaS or SaaS services in the Azure cloud, such as Azure SQL or Azure Cosmos DB.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for less than a year. We got it last year, but we implemented it in our company this year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a very stable product. We don't have any problem with the solution at the moment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is very good. You just need to add another node. Currently, we have ten users who use this solution, and they belong to the IT group. However, we are using it to protect the data for the whole company in some of the cases.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their support works very well. From the technical aspect, they are very good. I would rate them a nine out of ten because it is always possible to improve.
How was the initial setup?
It wasn't easy, but it also wasn't complicated. We completed the deployment in two or three months.
What other advice do I have?
It is important to establish beforehand what you are going to use because you need to pay for the license based on your subscription. It is a very good product. We have a good experience in using this product.
I would rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-27T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Christopher Fallon from
From a data security perspective, the utilized access is a key feature
What is our primary use case?
We use it for data corruption exaltation.
What is most valuable?
The immutability is a valuable feature.
In addition, from a data security perspective, the utilized access is a key feature. Within the system, we have rule-based access control, single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and basic identity and access management features.
What needs improvement?
Non-cloud services need improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect since 2019.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cohesity uses a sort of hyper-converged cluster architecture for on-premise infrastructure. They have on-premises deployments, but they also have cloud service platforms. The on-premises deployments are scalable.
Within the hyper-converged cluster architecture, there are three nodes. They can have anywhere from eight terabytes to 96 terabytes per node, but they can not be directly expanded. If customers want to add a fourth, fifth, or sixth node, this can be done without any interruption to the backup operations.
It is scalable in the sense that you can expand your infrastructure. However, it is not as flexible as the cloud, because you still need additional infrastructure to facilitate scalability. On the other hand, you have Quidget data cloud services, which is hosted in AWS and Azure. They are based on consumption, so they can scale on the public cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. We have somewhere in the region of thirty customers using Cohesity.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is monthly licensing.
What other advice do I have?
My recommendation would be that if you have an intent to use all of Cohesity's feature steps, then you should probably consider using Cohesity cloud services, especially if you're a service provider, and you're going to be delivering Cohesity to more than one customer as a managed service.
I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2024-05-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Joseph Pomerantz. from
Offers standardization across the enterprise and ease of use
What is our primary use case?
I'm a consultant, so my clients use it, and I assist them.
It is used as a backup solution.
How has it helped my organization?
It gives my clients an enterprise-wide solution for managing backups.
What is most valuable?
Standardization across the enterprise and ease of use are the most valuable features.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in terms of price.
In future releases, I would like to see a more comprehensive cyber resilience capability.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have experience from an architectural standpoint.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used NetBackup and TSM.
How was the initial setup?
It was already deployed when I started engaging with the client.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend using it. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2024-05-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2316069 from
A highly scalable solution that can be used for data protection and data management platforms
What is our primary use case?
We use Cohesity DataProtect mainly for our data protection and data management platform. We are evaluating Cohesity DataProtect against a few other solutions in the market.
What is most valuable?
Cohesity DataProtect is more of a unified solution, which is also trying to expand for ransomware protection. Given the market landscape around the cybersecurity portfolio, it would be really interesting to see how it evolves.
What needs improvement?
The solution's dashboard or UI can be enhanced and made more user-friendly than its competitors.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cohesity DataProtect for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Cohesity DataProtect a nine out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
As far as I can remember, my team did not face many issues with the solution's technical support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The solution’s initial setup was pretty straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
I didn't install the solution myself. Another team, consisting of two to three engineers, installed the solution smoothly without any issues. The solution's deployment should not take more than a day or two.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate Cohesity DataProtect an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-12-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Vishnu Mohan from
Provides ransomware protection, along with instant mass recovery for quick restores
What is our primary use case?
We have opted for Cohesity DataProtect to protect ourselves from ransomware due to its remarkable backup capabilities. We are transitioning from our previous solution, which was the Dell EMC.
What is most valuable?
Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with minimal downtime for our main customers. These features have significantly improved our recovery time objectives.
The most important function is ransomware protection, along with instant mass recovery for quick restores. Additionally, managing data via the Central Management console is crucial.
What needs improvement?
The tool could benefit from further improvements in AI features, particularly in areas such as a generative AI chat interface. This feature could help answer queries about the data being protected. One feature that would greatly improve our experience with the product is the ability to identify data redundancies through a central console. This feature would help us reduce storage costs by managing redundant data.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has 40 users.
How are customer service and support?
Cohesity DataProtect's technical support is responsive. Their response time is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Cohesity DataProtect is better than Dell EMC. I prefer working with it primarily because of its central management console, which is user-friendly and provides excellent visibility into what is being protected across different sites. Previously, everything was in silos, and I had to look at each site in isolation. With Cohesity DataProtect, I now have a consolidated view.
How was the initial setup?
The tool's deployment is simple and doesn't take long to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's pricing is average.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2024-03-20T00:00:00-04:00
