Altaro the new VM backup solution on the block!

Given my background I’ve been kindly asked to review a beta of Virtual Machine backup product from Altaro. Altaro are not so well known in the VMware community but have been doing Hyper-V backup for some time. More recently they decided to take their simple functionality and apply it to backing up VMware VMs too. When I was asked do this the first thing that came to mind is I should perform and run through the same tests with Altaro that I did to the other products listed in the VM backup bake off paper I authored found >HERE<.

So this is what I found out through testing Altaro. Where applicable I also scored each test. Best score = 5

Ease of prerequisites:

• Just a single executable and very simple install.
• Only had to deploy a windows server.
• Altaro installed any prerequisites for me
• Score = 4

Ease of Install:

• Super simple to install
• Next next next , that’s all it took
• Score = 5

Time to Deploy:

• Very very quick install. Took no time at all
• Score = 5

Ease of post install config:

• Prompts you to walk through steps
• Not sure it has any transport mode other than NBD mode, although it is a beta
• Score = 3

Ease to setup job:

• Would love to see a walk though wizard . Although it has a different approach to scheduling. (Note: Altaro told me that this will be coming in v6)
• Also has a nice drag and drop function so you can drop VMs into schedules.
• Score = 3

Backup Job Realisation:

• Backup completed smoothly and first time without hassle
• Score = 5

Backup Performance:

• Time to complete backup is 21 minutes. Now this is comparable to the other products I test in the VM Backup Bake off paper.
• No Mb/s speed indication though. But I have to remember this is the Beta of v1

Integration with CBT:

• Yes CBT integration
• No CBT restore, not that I could find
• Score = 4

Restore Job Realisation:

• Completed no hassle
• Nice feature to disable NIC on restore. Not only product to offer this though
• Score = 4

Restore Performance:

• Time to complete restore is 9 minutes. Again this is comparable to the other products I test in the VM Backup Bake off paper.

File-level Restore:

• Fairly Straight forward but no option for direct restore.
• Unsure about which file-systems it supports. Test was performed on NTFS
• Score = 3

 Space Optimisation:

•  Has compressed feature but unsure if  it offers any form of de-dupe (Note: I was informed it has in VM dedupe function)
• Score = 3

 Self-service Portal:

•  Could  not see any sign of self-service portal although this is beta product
• This is important to my line of work.
• Score = 0

 Ability to Backup VSS Apps:

•  Has VSS function
• Option to truncate logs too
• Score = 5

 Ability to Backup non VSS Apps:

•  Only with Pre-Freeze scripts, so I believe
• Score = 3

 Support for physical server:

•  I could not find this option
• Score = 0

 DR capabilities:

• Off-site capabilities
• No replication function
• Score = 3

Data Availability:

• Nice sandbox feature
• Score = 4

API functionality:

• Unknown
• In this day and age of SDDC and self-service API driven functionality is a most for me.

Multi-hypervisor:

•  Hyper-V
• VMWare
• Score = 2. Seems low but comparable to other products on the market.

 Cost:

•  Very competitive cost with this product. Altaro license per host not CPU socket and the cost is £390

 Conclusion:

I believe I have been fair in my assessment of the product as with all the other products and I conclude that for a first attempt at dipping their toe in the VMWare space this is a very very good effort. Doesn’t do everything but will capture the requirements of most organisations. And the most compelling part is the cost. Out of all the products I have tested it was super super easy to install and setup. Drag and drop scheduling took a bit to get used to but maybe that’s the future. You can see from my test results there are a few features I would like to see but I cannot give Altaro a hard time as it’s a version 1 product for VMWare. 10 out 10 for effort.