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 have a lot of backups, and this tool helps us with the RMAN Backup."
"We are talking about a complete end-to-end solution which comes with its own hardware storage to back up the data on tape-less."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
"Duplication and the speed of backup are great."
"The product is good for backups."
"So far, Avamar covers everything we want. We are replicating to other sites for disaster recovery, so it's working well for us."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Data Domain and your VM stacks."
"Its deduplication technologies are the best in the market, currently."
"It is pretty scalable. It will scale to anything."
"The scheduled backups ensure we meet the requirements for our business, and we keep backups of certain environments."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"Instead of taking three different backups of your systems, you're taking only one. You're able to crack that open and get what you need. The incident recovery, where it creates the VM and then you're running it, technically you're running it on Spectrum Protect. But then in the background, it's doing the storage motion and moving it off the Spectrum Protect back to your VMware environment. The users don't know the difference."
"It is very stable after deployment and will perform in a steady state."
"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."
"The best part of this solution is that it just works."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"Performance can sometimes be affected when tools are utilized for tasks like backup or deep archiving."
"I want to see a more user-friendly and administrator-friendly Dell Avamar. The solution also needs a better UI and dashboard."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"The UI is quite old. We've been using this UI since last year, and they haven't changed it. It would be better to update the UI periodically and create attractive dashboards from an administrative point of view."
"More integration would be helpful, as well as the addition of more applications."
"The interface could be more helpful for people."
"It would be helpful if there was cloud support."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"We would like to see cloud integration."
"This solution does not have good support for virtualization and a hyper-converged environment."
"We recently had a situation where we quickly got code, and the number of tapes exceeded the library capacity so we were waiting a while to change. We got a fix for this right away."
"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."
"In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business."
"It needs BMR (bare machine recovery) solutions for both Windows and Linux systems."
"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."
"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."
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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