We compared Azure Backup and IBM Spectrum Protect based on user reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Azure Backup is commended for its scalability, comprehensive security options, and non-disruptive backup process. Users also like its seamless integration with various Azure services. IBM Spectrum Protect is highly regarded for its ability to integrate with tape libraries and its customization options. Users also praised Spectrum Protect for its compatibility with various products, scalability, and stability. Azure Backup needs to improve its backup and file-level restoration procedure. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Azure's customer service is generally considered helpful and proactive, but a few users have reported longer wait times and slow issue resolution. IBM’s customer service is described as high quality, friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive. At the same time, some said the support process can be lengthy.
Ease of Deployment: Azure Backup's setup is easy, quick, and can be completed with minimal user involvement. IBM Spectrum Protect's initial setup is challenging and demands skilled professionals to configure multiple parameters and features. This process can be time-consuming.
Pricing: Azure Backup is a cloud-based solution, so its pricing depends on factors like storage and data consumption. Azure offers competitive pricing and is considered more cost effective than many competing solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Azure Backup offers a solid return on investment with its affordable pricing and low initial costs, particularly when upgrading solutions. Users have realized benefits from IBM Spectrum Protect’s data protection and retrieval. They appreciate its ability to reduce storage requirements with larger tape sizes.
Comparison Results: Azure Backup is an affordable, scalable solution that features an effortless deployment and native integration with Azure services. While reviews of Azure Backup’s features were generally positive, some users reported unsatisfactory experiences with Azure support. IBM Spectrum Protect is a reliable, customizable solution that allows smooth integration with tape libraries. At the same time, some say that the user interface could be more intuitive and Spectrum Protect could integrate better with the cloud.
"It's useful, it works, and it's fairly reliable."
"The most valuable features of Azure Backup for us are its flexible retention options and the ability to recover to a second region with geo-replication and read access."
"When it comes to Azure Backup, the advantage is that it's native and it's very easy to configure. We don't require a separate tool or manage something on a separate server. At the backend, it's managed by Microsoft itself, and we don't need to manage it."
"The deployment process is quite easy in Azure."
"Setting up Azure Backup is straightforward and the total deployment time was about a month."
"It's stable."
"The hardware is always updated and it's saved us a lot of money."
"The backup features are very useful."
"High availability (HA): It is one of the best features."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the centralized enterprise backup."
"Scalability is pretty much unlimited."
"The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."
"It is scalable beyond anything my customers ever aspire to."
"It protects our data. That is what it is there for."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is application-aware backups."
"In Avamar, the file-based restores are very quick and fast, whereas, in Azure Backup, VM restore is super easy, but if I have to do a file or a folder restore, I have to mount the entire VM image. I have to wait for some time for it to be mounted, and then I have to go inside and then check the file and copy it somewhere. It's a bit of a manual process, whereas in Avamar, you can directly select a file and folder, and it'll recover with whatever permissions you want."
"The user interface is a little bit confusing and it could be better."
"I believe more options could be available to understand better what's happening in the system. Additionally, automating the client updates and connector updates would be beneficial. Updating the connector from time to time can be challenging, and it could be made more transparent and straightforward for users. Moreover, another drawback lies in the time it takes to test full data backup recovery. Deploying a full recovery takes longer. We need to allocate a longer period for complete data recovery to establish the environment again."
"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."
"The monitoring and tagging features could be improved."
"To make it a ten, it should have the ability to extend the retention and to perform a copy of the data outside of the subscription - with no additional costs."
"My company faces a lot of difficulties in restoring any encrypted VM backup."
"The extensibility onto hybrid environments needs a bit of tweaking for those on-prem."
"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."
"Its price can be better. It is very expensive. Its interface is very old and not user friendly. They can improve its interface. Their support can also be better. My clients are not very satisfied with the support because they are not really quick."
"It needs BMR (bare machine recovery) solutions for both Windows and Linux systems."
"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."
"There have been some sizing issues now, and we are dealing with those."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"It does not do too well in our virtual environment."
Azure Backup is ranked 9th in Backup and Recovery with 51 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Azure Backup is rated 7.8, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Azure Backup writes "Straightforward to set up and manage and allows us to monitor all backups in one place". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Azure Backup is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Rubrik, Commvault Cloud, Acronis Cyber Protect and Veritas NetBackup, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Rubrik and Iron Mountain Connect. See our Azure Backup vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.