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 installation of the solution is easy."
"Its deduplication technologies are the best in the market, currently."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Data Domain and your VM stacks."
"The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"It works quickly and is very stable."
"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."
"What I found valuable in Dell Avamar is the deduplication feature. I also like that the solution can be integrated with Data Domain."
"The product has a proven track record of good backups without much of a failure ratio. It also has a good backup in terms of the compression ratio."
"The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best."
"IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"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."
"Enterprise-wide type of architecture supports a lot of different platforms."
"For initial setup, we started with the blueprints, which were great. The blueprints allowed us to be able to decide if we needed to use small, medium,k or large. Because we are a large environment, we used a large blueprint. Once we followed everything in the blueprint, it was a smooth transition from there."
"Once it is completed properly, it is low maintenance. Most of the functions do not require much deliberation. It is all the blueprints and technologies laid out, and it is straight forward."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"The management of this solution is a little bit difficult for IT administrators. They have to be trained before going through the system."
"The recovery is a bit slow."
"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."
"Avamar needs a greater emphasis on storage targets. If it's going to keep pace with the times, it needs more ability to leverage cloud storage."
"The performance takes up a lot of resources, unfortunately."
"The UI is not easy to use. There are other products such as Veeam that are easy to use for the end-user which is why they are moving away from Avamar or Networker."
"It lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"There needs to be a bit more automation."
"Our new leadership has pushed us to go more toward the cloud, so we are definitely going to leverage anything we can in that direction."
"They need to do a better job on Windows, because if you are running Windows, the scalability is more limited than AIX and Linux."
"We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"The administration tools for GI need improvement, as the current assessment suggests shortcomings in the back-end system."
"It doesn't integrate with storage pools, with a normal pool. I'd like to see that."
"We are having a balance issue between the reclamation and the backup function. It has to take the space back from the tapes before it can record to those tapes, but sometimes those two processes are overlapping."
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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