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 source site replication feature is valuable."
"The stability is okay."
"Effective in protecting the virtualization system and end points."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
"The product is good for backups."
"We love the instant recovery functionality. It's very useful."
"The product has a proven track record of good backups without much of a failure ratio. It also has a good backup in terms of the compression ratio."
"The solution is very stable."
"Our performance is better."
"Disk-based implementation of a data protection solution for multiple sites is a better fit for my complex data protection needs."
"The MN backup for a cluster is most valuable because it has made backing up the GSF as a zero-file system easier. I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it."
"Good user interface."
"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."
"The product is very stable."
"Every time customers make a change or we have made a change, then they use the product to do a cloning and refreshing. They are happy that they get good performance something changes."
"IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem."
"Avamar needs a greater emphasis on storage targets. If it's going to keep pace with the times, it needs more ability to leverage cloud storage."
"If you need to pull data out of it to offload to tapes, that's messy. You have a mechanism for it, but it is painful."
"There also needs to be single sign-on support."
"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."
"Interfaces need to be improved."
"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."
"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."
"The interface could be more helpful for people."
"I would like to advance reporting and analytics for the platform to see how much data is coming into the platform. how much data is expiring everyday, and what tape savings we are getting through reclamation."
"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."
"Our customers would like to see metadata replication, tearing to tape, and more cloud capabilities."
"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."
"I would like to see the operations center be a lot more functional. It was nowhere near as functional as the admin center, and I'm doing a lot of command line with it."
"It's difficult in terms of the configuration at set up. In our case, it required another admin, one person dedicated to the backup."
"For the database side, it does not have object level recovery."
"IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved by making the installation easier. Once it's implemented, it's okay. IBM started lagging behind when things started moving to storage and cloud-based solutions. Even though they've recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, personally, I still believe they are not up to par with the likes of Rubrik. The entire product is a little bit clumsy because they have co-joined two different products, so it's complex. Even from a sales/explaining to people what it does point of view, it's complex. Whereas, if you take more current products, it's a single box solution. You reel it in, you fire it up, you do a couple of points and clicks, and off you go, whereas the IBM system is seriously complex. There's a lot of training involved and it's a massively difficult product to sell at this point in time."
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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