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.
"We love the instant recovery functionality. It's very useful."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."
"The solution is very stable."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"We've been using this solution to backup our servers. It is a simple backup and restore data application."
"The deduplication feature is the best aspect of the solution."
"The product is good for backups."
"The platform has valuable stability."
"It is scalable beyond anything my customers ever aspire to."
"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"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."
"Good user interface."
"The most valuable features of the product are data deduplication and disaster recovery."
"The most valuable features are the stability and also how it's seamlessly integrated with other IBM offerings."
"We don't trust the product 100 percent. Kaspersky has many features Dell Avamar doesn't support, such as granular backup and history."
"Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution."
"Dell EMC Avamar is a very complex product. It took a lot of time for the IT admins to get trained on how to use it. It is not very user-friendly, and we won't be using Avamar anymore. It needs a lot of improvement in terms of how the backups have been configured, and the reporting is too complex."
"The user interface still needs to have some level of improvement. It could be more user-friendly and intuitive."
"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."
"There also needs to be single sign-on support."
"A benefit would be support for either Azure Cool Storage or AWS Glacier."
"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."
"Integration with some applications in the healthcare field could be added, as that is a big part of our business."
"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."
"We are not so happy with the technical support because dealing with them is not easy. We have a very complicated environment, therefore I understand for a support person that it is not easy to troubleshoot it."
"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."
"The solution needs to work on disaster recovery integration. Basically, VMware applications to the cloud, for example. There needs to be integration with the storage, and integration with VMware."
"I need to have more than two instances working together. I need a worldwide grid able to have replication between three, four, or five instances."
"There were scalability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released."
"The installation process could be simplified."
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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