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.
"Effective in protecting the virtualization system and end points."
"The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"We love the instant recovery functionality. It's very useful."
"The solution is very stable."
"I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end users and integration with EMC products for businesses."
"The backup and recovery speed is very fast."
"We used Dell Avamar for backup and recovery of a virtual environment."
"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 solution is not complex, it's very easy to configure agents or VM backup and restore. Upgrades from one version to another are very fast and the product is very stable."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."
"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."
"by backing up only the changed data, we average around 75TB per night. If we had to do full backups, even occasionally, we would not be able to complete the backup within 12 hours, or we would have to make a large investment to fit a full backup within the 12 hour window."
"The ability to use S3 Data Store as a repository."
"The recovery is a bit slow."
"We don't trust the product 100 percent. Kaspersky has many features Dell Avamar doesn't support, such as granular backup and history."
"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 solution could improve by having better integration and more flexibility."
"Compared with Cohesity or Rubrik, which have some continuous data protection for backup and replication, this solution tends to lack in this area."
"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."
"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."
"Better integration with other tools and databases is needed."
"Scalability is poor. As you get to bigger environments, this is where our gaps have been introduced. As we have grown over the past couple of years, the gaps have become more apparent."
"It doesn't integrate with storage pools, with a normal pool. I'd like to see that."
"I think Spectrum Protect's interface is not so user-friendly, but the interface is not so friendly. Some of the functions are too complicated. I prefer a simpler solution."
"We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"I need two separate solutions for virtual and physical systems. I need IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for virtual systems and Spectrum Protect for physical systems and that's a pain. It would be an improvement if they were combined."
"Getting technical support all the necessary diagnostic information is still very painful."
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.