We compared Dell NetWorker 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: Dell NetWorker is recognized for its intuitive graphical user interface, integration with Data Domain, and impressive speed. 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. Dell NetWorker needs improvements in reporting, integration, and documentation. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Dell NetWorker received mixed reviews, with some customers expressing frustration about delayed responses and unresolved problems. 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: Some users consider Dell NetWorker's setup to be effortless, but some said it was somewhat complex. 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: Some reviewers consider Dell NetWorker to be expensive, while others find it to be reasonable and cheaper than other options with similar features. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Users have provided no feedback about Dell NetWorker’s ROI so far. 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: Dell NetWorker is regarded as a reasonably priced, high-performing backup solution with a user-friendly GUI. At the same time, many users were dissatisfied with Dell’s support and asked for improvements in reporting and documentation. 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.
"Simple, stable and straightforward."
"I like that it's stable and scalable."
"The response time of the tech support is swift. The support is fantastic."
"The solution offers compatibility with many types of database systems. It is one of the largest backup solutions. Additionally, it gives important information about data domain systems with deduplication."
"The possibility of recovering up-to-the-moment data is very useful."
"It is scalable software. All you need to increase is its RAM and CPU. It's pretty easy."
"Storage-wise, EMC is user-friendly."
"The backup capabilities and the automatization of the backup - along with the potential to make the back up on a virtual machine - are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."
"Space efficient data reduction, using progressive incremental forever in combination with deduplication and compression."
"We can scale. Today, we have an average backup volume of 100TB a day."
"This solution has improved our organization through better file and database recovery."
"We have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis."
"The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."
"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."
"There could be a possibility of constructing full backups from incremental data intelligently."
"The web console could be a lot better."
"The support is an area with concerns where improvements are required."
"It would be beneficial to have a single user interface for all of the features."
"I haven't had a good experience with technical support. It takes them a very long time to resolve issues."
"It's not easy to integrate. We have to read a lot of documentation in order to configure the solution."
"The end-user experience is not good."
"It is a little buggy at times, which is the only thing that I dislike about this product."
"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."
"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement."
"I would like to see a way to have "always on" implemented."
"IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved by making the installation easier. Once it's implemented, it's okay. IBM started lagging behind when things started moving to storage and cloud-based solutions. Even though they've recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, personally, I still believe they are not up to par with the likes of Rubrik. The entire product is a little bit clumsy because they have co-joined two different products, so it's complex. Even from a sales/explaining to people what it does point of view, it's complex. Whereas, if you take more current products, it's a single box solution. You reel it in, you fire it up, you do a couple of points and clicks, and off you go, whereas the IBM system is seriously complex. There's a lot of training involved and it's a massively difficult product to sell at this point in time."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."
"They should introduce more features for virtualization platforms and backing up IBMs. Backup speeds should also be improved."
"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."
Dell NetWorker is ranked 13th in Backup and Recovery with 73 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Dell NetWorker is rated 7.8, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Dell NetWorker writes "A stable tool that has an easy-to-use GUI that enables quick restoration". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Dell NetWorker is most compared with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, Dell Avamar, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veritas NetBackup and NetApp Cloud Backup, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Commvault Cloud, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. See our Dell NetWorker vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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