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 solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"Centralization is Avamar's biggest advantage. It moves data to a central location from various geographical locations."
"The backup is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very reliable."
"The setup is very easy."
"The solution is very stable."
"We've been using this solution to backup our servers. It is a simple backup and restore data application."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Its deduplication technologies are the best in the market, currently."
"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."
"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."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
"Once it is completed properly, it is low maintenance. Most of the functions do not require much deliberation. It is all the blueprints and technologies laid out, and it is straight forward."
"It is more efficient than most traditional backup solutions."
"It covers all the different operating systems. If you need backup, it can pretty much do everything."
"The scalability of IBM Spectrum Protect is good."
"It's an expensive solution."
"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."
"The user interface still needs to have some level of improvement. It could be more user-friendly and intuitive."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Dell EMC Avamar solution. The snapshots are not being erased after backup."
"Some integrations are not in place, such as the email alerts, which are not compatible with Office 365 SMTP gateway."
"The bare-metal restores could be improved."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"The stability could improve, a lot of scheduled backups failed at one time."
"The administration interface should implement more functionalities that exist only in the command line and needs improvement in how some reports are created."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"They should introduce more features for virtualization platforms and backing up IBMs. Backup speeds should also be improved."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"The user interface (UI) for the admin is still not good. It is way too complicated to manage the product, as we still need to use command line. IBM launched the Operations Center (OC), but there are still functions lacking, especially since we cannot manage all our scheduled tasks by using the GUI."
"The installation process could be simplified."
"It does not do too well in our virtual environment."
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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