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.
"The backup is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very reliable."
"Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup."
"For the on-prem backup, it has all the necessary features that we require. They keep coming up with new scripts and new updates."
"The most valuable feature of Avamar would have to be the way it works over needing very little bandwidth to move data across a WAN or LAN."
"The product is very powerful and offers very good performance."
"Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable."
"The solution is very stable."
"We've found the product to be stable."
"Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features."
"Nothing beats this solution for file backup."
"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."
"Every time customers make a change or we have made a change, then they use the product to do a cloning and refreshing. They are happy that they get good performance something changes."
"Its flexibility is valuable. It is a very flexible solution. There are always more ways than one to do something. It is a software solution, which means you can buy your own hardware and expand it whenever you want. You are not boxed in or locked into something you've bought and outgrown. You can always expand it."
"The business value comes from the capability to overcome data losses."
"Spectrum Protect's best feature is that I can use it practically anywhere, on any platform, and for any servers or clients."
"It scales from very small to very large. It is easily the most scalable product out there."
"Desktop-laptop backups and backup over the WAN needs lot of improvisation. For DTLT there must be a provision to push agents from the management console."
"The challenges we do face typically revolve around aligning specific features with our accustomed tool usage."
"It would be helpful if there was cloud support."
"This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository."
"It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first."
"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."
"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."
"What would make Dell Avamar better is if it can do faster backups because right now, PowerProtect Data Manager is better in this area with its new UI and a new way to implement backups. Customers nowadays also expect more up-to-date solutions, and this is another area for improvement in Dell Avamar. It's not as up-to-date, so I'm counting on PowerProtect Data Manager, but customers who have Dell Avamar don't want to switch because you don't have as many backup problems in Dell Avamar compared to other solutions. What I'd like to see in the next release of Dell Avamar is an updated UI and a different way to manage backups because currently, backup management is a bit heavy for customers using Dell Avamar."
"The usability of IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved, specifically additional features to the product in the operations center. Additional reporting facilities and stronger reporting tools such as build dashboards would be beneficial."
"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."
"It lacks reporting and an efficient alert mechanism. The GUI could also be improved."
"The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line."
"The solution should have better integration with VMware and with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"I think Spectrum Protect's interface is not so user-friendly, but the interface is not so friendly. Some of the functions are too complicated. I prefer a simpler solution."
"This solution is not mature in terms of disaster recovery and could be improved."
Dell Avamar is ranked 12th 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 7.6, 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 Iron Mountain Connect. See our Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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