We compared Dell Avamar 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 Avamar earns acclaim for its scalability, data compression capabilities, swift incremental backups, and seamless integration with Data Domain and VM stacks. 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 Avamar could improve its tape connectivity and bare-metal restoration. Users also requested better Azure backups and a more user-friendly interface. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Some customers express satisfaction with Dell support, but others said there is room for improvement. 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: Opinions on Dell Avamar’s setup were mixed. Some users found it to be straightforward, while others considered it complex and difficult. Deployment time ranged from a few hours to a week, and assistance from Dell engineers might be necessary. 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: Dell Avamar’s pricing is generally seen as reasonable, but some users think it is expensive. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Dell Avamar provides cost savings through data reduction, deduplication, and compression. 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 Avamar is a scalable solution that offers excellent data compression and fast compression. However, Avamar earned mixed reviews for support, deployment, and pricing. Users also requested better Azure and bare-metal backups and restoration capabilities. 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.
"I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."
"The stability of Dell EMC Avamar is very good."
"The entire system operates seamlessly, with minimal hands-on involvement, allowing us to focus on monitoring rather than constant adjustments or deployments, as seen in larger, more dynamic environments."
"The data reduction feature and the ease of enabling a server in a DR location are the most valuable."
"The installation process is pretty straightforward."
"The solution integrates well with Unix, Windows, Hyper-V and VM."
"The backup and recovery speed is very fast."
"Effective in protecting the virtualization system and end points."
"Regarding technical support, if one has the entire enterprise support, I would rate it a nine out of ten...Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"It allows us to have one interface."
"The archiving feature is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"The software-defined ability to do data reduction through deduplication and compression, as well as being able to replicate data to a cloud container."
"The most valuable features of Spectrum Protect would be the compression and the deduplication."
"You can scale the product."
"The product could offer more integration capabilities."
"Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better."
"The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"The solution is not very strong on the Cloud. They should work out how they can use this as a backup as a service."
"A benefit would be support for either Azure Cool Storage or AWS Glacier."
"The configuration and expansion aspects of the solution need improvement. They're complicated and don't really integrate well."
"The reporting should be improved, as we currently have to use another tool for that purpose."
"They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration."
"I find the solution somewhat difficult to use with virtual environments or VMware."
"We recently had a situation where we quickly got code, and the number of tapes exceeded the library capacity so we were waiting a while to change. We got a fix for this right away."
"I would love to see something which allows us to do an auto restart of backup jobs."
"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."
"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."
"It needs better connectivity with other non-IBM application hardware and non-IBM platforms."
"The administration tools for GI need improvement, as the current assessment suggests shortcomings in the back-end system."
Dell Avamar is ranked 13th in Backup and Recovery with 81 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Dell Avamar is rated 7.8, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Dell Avamar writes "Stable, integrates well with other solutions, and has a good price, but its UI needs a refresh". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Dell Avamar is most compared with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, Veeam Backup & Replication, Dell NetWorker, Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) and Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Cohesity DataProtect and NAKIVO Backup & Replication. See our Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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