Altaro VM Backup Features

- many functions - relatively easy to use (when it works) - reasonable price - fast and relatively good support

I cannot belive how SLOW this thing is. It has been a fight for years to make it run at some acceptable speeds. Painfully SLOW! no matter how good the harware is. It does not use the RAM/CPU/HARDDrives/NETWORK etc. fully. And noone can tell me why. I guess they have some crappy programming that throttels the threads or something. For example: it can do , when it works properly, a backup of like 10VMs...

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We are sorry our product has not met your expectations. Version 9, set for release this year, will include enhancements that are specifically aimed at larger scale customers and data. We assure you that our SMA covers new product versions and support, as is standard across the entire market.

I have a few things I like - but the most nicest thing: The user interface on Altaro product always seems so simple, and logical. Being in IT support, I dread those times when it takes 20 minutes to work out the GUI or interface to try and restore a file or check a backup log.

OK - Not being funny - I'll have to come back to this question, because I struggle to think of something I really don't like right now.

very easy to use. Nice Dashboard with a lot of first sight information.

German Language! Not everyone can understand it.

Many thanks indeed for your review of Altaro VM Backup. We have taken note of your request to have a version of the product in German, but cannot make any commitments about this at this point.

It is relatively easy to restore my Hyper-V servers, granular recovery takes some time but overall, I am pretty happy with this suite at my org

Altaro has a replication model that doesn't work well for DR. If you have subnet a and subnet b both segmented and seperated by WAN VPN, do not expect this to be a viable DR solution. YES, it does allow you to restore from VM (boot from VM) in the second backed-up subnet, but if that subnet is different to the VMs original subnet, those machines will not talk. Networking 101. There needs to be a...

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Thank you for your review. We appreciate your feedback. Although we have no ETA as yet, DRaaS is on our roadmap.

Extremely easy to install, configure and get running. Within 15 minutes, all the Hyper-V hosts and the VMs were recognized and ready for backup. A non-experienced junior employee can get the product up and running. User GUI is very clean, clear and intuitive. We managed to perform all the tasks without reading any instructions. Altaro is fast, very fast. The first time we performed a full backup,...

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Too sensitive with error codes from storage devices. In cases that other products complete the backup and restore, Altaro fails due to minor errors reported from storage devices. I wish they would complete the backup and just add a warning that there was an error code reported. Using a new storage device resolved the issues in our case. No support for defining many backup JOBS. You can only define one primary and one offsite backup source, and each VM can only belong to these 2 sources. It would be nice to be able to backup a VM multiple times, to multiple primary sources, each source with different location and retention policy. This can be achieved only by a many to many relationship between VMS and Primary/Offsite sources. I was told this may be coming out in the next release.

Thanks for reviewing Altaro VM Backup - we really appreciate it. We confirm that the support you require for backup jobs will become available in v8.5 of the solution, scheduled to be released later this year.

Setup and configuration is fairly quick. Restore options allow for a granular file level from a VM image backup. Ability to restore to different host. Ability to copy an Offsite backup to remote location. Support for Cloud storage sites for off site backup storage. Speed of recovery time on a failed host. Able to restore a VM to new host within a couple hours. Compression and de-duplication saves storage space on backup media. Product support is excellent. Usually able to solve errors within the Support Chat. Support is always ready to answer even the simplest question to help us out.

The local management console is not password protected. Limited explanation of error messages in the software. Setting up network connections to NAS storage can sometimes fail with cryptic error message.

Thank you for reviewing Altaro VM Backup. We appreciate it! We do understand where you are coming from here, however, efforts should be made to tighten the OS security layers in this case. If a hacker gains admin access to the server, this means that they have access to the backup data with or without the Altaro console. We agree that having restricted access to the console would be a great feature; in fact, we have discussed having granular access for different users but we cannot offer an ETA for this just yet. Currently, our primary recommendation here is to strengthen password policies for accounts that have server logon access, and restrict access through the OS layer itself.

We are a medium-size organization with Altaro installed on 6 hyper-v hosts. Experience has been great with Altaro when it comes to backups of all our VMs and restoring data/files. Very easy setup and administration even a nontechie can get this set up in less than 15 minutes. GUI is very intuitive and gives you all the information required. Cloud management console makes it easier to manage and receive alerts from anywhere. Support is great and always very helpful in resolving issues promptly. 5 stars!!

Little sensitive to storage device errors. However, nothing to concern about as it usually gives you plenty of information to troubleshoot the issue. Support is great from Altaro in resolving them quickly and efficiently.

- the ability to boot from backup is a life saver. On more that one occasion we have had to boot from backup after the clients onsite IT accidently "borked" their SQL server. With boot from backup the client was able to continue working while the software completed the restore of the VM in the background. - offsite backup allows us to store the nightly backups from our clients at on offsite location, with this feature we no longer have to pickup and return drives on a daily basis to our client locations. Not only do we save time, but we are able to charge for the service and save our clients money on the costs of a daily hard drive rotation.

- trivial, but it would save a step if when upgrading the software it would uninstall the old software for you. Currently you have to remember to manually uninstall it first then install the new release

The software is simple to install, configure and use. Possibly more importantly it's really easy to test the backups as you can restore them in a sandbox environment.

The user interface can be a bit slow and unresponsive at times especially when using the file granular restore. I know a 2 or 3 second wait for a list of files isn't bad, it's just that I've no patience. Other than that my biggest gripe is that you can no longer buy the software or SMA's direct from Altaro in the UK.

Reliable, Easy to set up, and Efficient. We also love how it dedups data and how it can alert you when a backup fails.

I did not like how the upgrade required us to create all the backups all over again requiring us double the storage space. That requires some juggling. But after a few successful upgrades, we cleaned house and had it back to normal.

This software is one you can set and forget and it does its thing without fail.

Its not let me down yet. It took me a bit to get the interface, but it wasn't terrible. I am bad about not following directions though.

Ease of setup and handling Nicely streamlined workflow and appearance Perfectly supporting Hyper-V clusters Backup speed Compression effiency (extremely good compression (around 80%) with ultra-low cpu footprint Stellar support!

Major version updates often introduce not only new features (...), however so far the support team was always able to help out quickly. Some optimizations could be made to ease the management of large VM populations (500+) Default settings should be customizable throughout (e.g. Schedules, Retention Policies)

Thank you for you reviewing Altaro VM Backup. We'll add your vote to this feature request - thanks!

I install Altaro in HYPERV Only enviroments. In general it works fine. I am a reseller since 8 Years and run Altaro on various sites. Installation is very easy and you will get good results.

The easyness has issues in bigger enviroments. One of my customers is running 6 Clusters and aprox 10 standalone hyperv hosts. I would like to have a better reporting tool to plan the jobs. Reporting is poor in general. Ex. Time for backup in real live is much longer than shown, depending on weh the stop watch is started. Altaro Seems to measure the time after a succesfull snapshot, saving the data. Lots of other features (includung LOG Mainentance is promised for years).

very easy to operate and most simpler of restoration. day by day its improving smartly

1. Support timings limitation as per Indian time . if we need some urgent support, need to wait till 3.00 PM IST.

Straight forward step-by-step design. In-app software chat support. Frequent QoL improvements. Quick and easy implementation. Hassle-free, worry free backup.

The software is so good for VM's that we wish it had hardware functionality. It'd easily compete with major vendors like Symantec for physical backup.

Many thanks for your review -- We actually do have plans to release a backup solution for physical servers later this year, which will give the option to restore that physical server to a VM. We will keep you posted!

Easy to use, easy to setup Regular updates Ability to replicate entire servers to Hyper-V host in hot site Very space efficient Exchange mailbox item level restore Competent support Priced competitively

Doesn't do physical machines: if it did physical machines to tape libraries as well as disk I'd use nothing else for backup Support doesn't cover all time zones: there's sometimes a delay in getting assistance

Thanks ever so for your review of Altaro VM Backup. We appreciate it. I wanted you to know that we will soon be providing backup of physical machines and will notify our customers and followers about this in due course. We're also now starting to provide 24/7 support.

The speed of backups and compression/de-duping are phenomenal and the features available are fantastic. I love being able to send my backups to an offsite location and not having to worry about data volume, and I love being able to pull files at will, and spin up backed up clones to test for or locate issues. I've also come accustom to great new features being developed for nearly every new release.

-having to start the backup chain over again between version upgrades -having to rely on Microsoft's shadow copy, which fails every now and then

The software can be setup and automated in a set-and-forget method. I have it email me status reports so I know if there's an issue. It just works.

When you first open the UI, there is a slight delay while it checks for your license status. If you try to do certain functions prior to the software confirming you are licensed, you will be notified you're running an unlicensed version - minor heart-attack the first time that happened! Now I just wait a few seconds.

Easy of use. It take some time to learn the software schema, but after that, it is very easy to use on the day to day experience.

Support is almos informal. There is a ticket number, but the follow up is poor. Chat is almost always offline. About disk space, the backups keep groing indefenitely, even if the VM has not much updates. The optimization tool to recover space does not work properly, takes too long to execute, while it runs, it blocks ALL backups funcionality and at the end there is almost no space freed. There is no limit for backup space per VM or per storage. You need to always keep following up the disk usage. There is no support for ReFS, what is a shame for a software that runs on Windows Servers and ReFS has been around for a while already.

We are sorry that your experience with our support team has not met our usual high standards. Our support team prides itself on the great feedback it receives from customers, so feedback like this really does stand out. We answer support calls within 22 seconds on average and follow up email tickets within 2 hours on average. Our customers have the option to use chat or phone for quicker responses,...

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We have been using Altaro VM backup for about 4 years now and our experience has been exemplary. The compression and deduplication feature is phenomenal, I never imagined I would be able to keep 3+ weeks history retention and still have my backups take up less space than my VMs themselves. The offsite server is also a huge bonus, absolutely free, just pay 3rd-party hosting and storage fees and put the server wherever you like. Their support is top-notch.

Cost can get a little high if you have a lot of hosts, but still worth it and still less than most other options

Ease of use of the product, it is not a problem to use it for the first time and figure it out by yourself. Quick and reliable backup Possible to backup locally and externally. Quick support team.

Limited database and active directory recovery fonctionnality. There is not version of the product that can be used for a physical machine to back it up completely.

Thanks for your review of Altaro VM Backup. We appreciate your feedback. We are working on backup for physical servers and look forward to rolling that version out shortly.

We use a layered approach to both Security and Data. Using a Hyper-v environment we have all our assets immediately available through an emergency Hyper-V replica server. Both the main and replica get backed up regularly using Altaro Backup. That is THREE extra levels of protection! Now the LATEST BEST edition they can give a FIFTH layer of another Replica Hyper-V/Altero Backup Server!

Licensing is a little bit of a pain point, no the cost, just how to maintain licenses.

From day one this software just gets better and more features added for a great price point. It is easy to use and reliable. When an issue does happen support is a great help and it too just gets better over time as this software and company have evolved.

I have none this does everything I need it to and more.

Functional Backup is set up in no time, there is basically no learning curve at all. All functions are pretty much self explanatory. It can be used by people without any IT background at all, therefore it is a great solution to implement at customer sites that have no own IT management.

Backup locations are limited, one main location, one offsite location, that's it. You sacrifice some options for ease of use.

Many thanks for your feedback. We will add your vote to this feature request!