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.
"It is one of the best solutions for backing up Oracle and other servers."
"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution integrates well with Unix, Windows, Hyper-V and VM."
"The deduplication feature is the best aspect of the solution."
"The most valuable feature for me in Dell Avamar is the automation, which is good for completion."
"It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
"Avamar has long been the best in its class, but that's changing as new solutions emerge. However, Dell has traditionally been a leader in deduplication and compression. Avamar enabled us to shift data from on-premise local appliances to data centers and multi-tenant infrastructure. That's a powerful feature. because customers can back up to the cloud without upgrading o high-capacity links or congesting their backups."
"We optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup. The TDP software provides us many ways to protect our data, so we don't need to use monstrous scripts for doing backups now."
"Enterprise-wide type of architecture supports a lot of different platforms."
"Spectrum Protect's best feature is that I can use it practically anywhere, on any platform, and for any servers or clients."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to verify the recoverability of backups."
"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."
"We apply the new dedupe and compression technology, using maintenance and time to give more time for the backup window and less time for the overhead related to the daily housekeeping."
"The D2D2T archive of my PACS data improved after I put Spectrum Protect 8.1.4 into production."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"Dell Avamar could improve by adding more backup features."
"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."
"The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now."
"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."
"It would be better if we could integrate easily with other platforms."
"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."
"The stability could improve, a lot of scheduled backups failed at one time."
"Backup image browse times should be faster."
"The solution's initial setup process wasn't easy...The solution is overly complicated in terms of architecture, especially compared to other tools in the market."
"The only thing that I would like to have a little more of is insight in reporting. I find that Spectrum Protect needs a lot of monitoring, and I have to actually log into the servers."
"Sometimes we experience trouble with the backup transfer of the control files."
"Technical support could be improved."
"For Spectrum Protect Plus, I would like to see more enhanced reporting features and integration with Spectrum Protect."
"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."
"It needs BMR (bare machine recovery) solutions for both Windows and Linux systems."
"They should introduce more features for virtualization platforms and backing up IBMs. Backup speeds should also 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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