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 tool's most valuable features are backup management and speed."
"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."
"The setup is very easy."
"Dell EMC Avamar is very good with endpoint backups."
"The solution scales well."
"They are extremely reliable and scalable — they provide the best de-duplication on the market."
"It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
"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 file-restoring feature is the most valuable."
"We can scale. Today, we have an average backup volume of 100TB a day."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"You can do restores very quickly. You can mount a drive and restore it right from the drive."
"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 is pretty easy to use and maintain."
"Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs."
"It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements."
"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."
"Dell Avamar could improve by adding more backup features."
"We'd like to see something that could also work with Unix servers and physical servers to have a unified solution that works with everything."
"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."
"This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository."
"The recovery is a bit slow."
"The product could offer more integration capabilities."
"Its ability to back up very large objects can be improved. In terms of new features, they can include the ability to use cloud services, like S3, more natively."
"I should be able to backup Linux. I would like SUSE for Linux on POWER. Right now, we have to use Storex, which is a pain to use."
"I find the solution somewhat difficult to use with virtual environments or VMware."
"We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem."
"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
"We need everything cloud. Strong support for cloud services. S3 connectivity, which is mandatory for us in the future along with this integration of Spectrum Copy Data Management or Spectrum Protect services together with these Spectrum Protect Plus functionalities, e.g., hardware, snapshots, and Copy Data Management. They should come together in one solution."
"My customers are not always happy with the Level 1 support. Sometimes, it just takes too long for the response to come, which is probably something that needs to be addressed."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"No one can fix every solution for backup and restore."
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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