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 deduplication feature is the best aspect of the solution."
"The fast backup and recovery and the Full Backup features are valuable."
"Every product is good and bad, but its claim to fame is that it is scalable. We're doing more than 3,000 VMs. Every single night a complete image backup to disks and replication are easily done in under four hours."
"I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."
"The backup is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very reliable."
"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."
"The performance of Dell EMC Avamar is good."
"The stability is okay."
"We can use it with any storage for the back-end to save data."
"The main thing is to keep the data safe and in files, keep it on tape ready for a request from a bank, and it is working perfectly with all our hardware."
"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."
"The technical support for Spectrum Protect is very mature. It is very committed to giving a top-notch support experience."
"The most valuable features of Spectrum Protect would be the compression and the deduplication."
"It's a very stable product, and we've never had any downtime with it."
"Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs."
"We do not lose data. That is why we are using this product and have a backup in place."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"Backup image browse times should be faster."
"The bare-metal restores could be improved."
"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."
"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."
"If there is a need to move the data from one backup solution to another, it might be difficult since there is no option for a straightforward migration."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Dell EMC Avamar solution. The snapshots are not being erased after backup."
"It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution."
"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."
"Although I am not a technical user, I would say the cloud integration features could be improved."
"Perhaps some better documentation, which I believe was better in the past."
"In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
"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."
"Replication services would be nice. If these could be enhanced to be always on so multiple storage backup services could be added as a cluster pool. This would provide a better availability service."
"Its price can be better. It is very expensive. Its interface is very old and not user friendly. They can improve its interface. Their support can also be better. My clients are not very satisfied with the support because they are not really quick."
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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