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.
"So far, Avamar covers everything we want. We are replicating to other sites for disaster recovery, so it's working well for us."
"We have seen huge data reduction and data deduplication and compression, which is very cost-effective and cost-reducing for the company."
"The most valuable features are image backups and file backups."
"The backup and recovery speed is very fast."
"The setup is very easy."
"The most valuable features are scalability and integration."
"The solution scales well."
"I have found the product to be scalable."
"With the new features that we have added, it has made a difference as far as faster recovery and speed."
"The solution can back up every kind of workload in the environment."
"The solution is very stable. It is one of the most important features that we look for in a product before putting it into the market and when establishing a strategy with our customers."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"The platform has valuable stability."
"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"Every time we go and try to get a file, we can get it. Restores are quick and the data is always there."
"The product could be improved by simplifying the components available."
"Some customers need to back up to tape, but Avamar lacks support, so it costs a lot."
"More integration would be helpful, as well as the addition of more applications."
"The product could offer more integration capabilities."
"The configuration and expansion aspects of the solution need improvement. They're complicated and don't really integrate well."
"It's very slow to backup and store information. It has two consoles and an application which are more difficult to use than a solution like Veeam."
"The solution could be a bit easier to use in the sense that they need to make it simpler to backup products and restore items."
"The bare-metal restores could be improved."
"We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center."
"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."
"If you take Spectrum Protect into account, and you have it along with restrictions to Spectrum Archive by means of LTFS, this is also something which should be made better within the overall product's program."
"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."
"We would like to see cloud integration."
"I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution."
"Needs more support for non-mainstream databases, in particular PostgreSQL, SQL, and MySQL."
"The GUI has long been a problem for TSM/Spectrum Protect."
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.
See our list of best Backup and Recovery vendors.
We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.