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.
"Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup."
"Its deduplication technologies are the best in the market, currently."
"We have a lot of backups, and this tool helps us with the RMAN Backup."
"I have found the product to be scalable."
"It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
"It is one of the best solutions for backing up Oracle and other servers."
"Client deduplication."
"Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"What I found most valuable in IBM Spectrum Protect is that it allows you to back up physical machines, and its proxy feature lets you back up virtual machines."
"Regarding technical support, if one has the entire enterprise support, I would rate it a nine out of ten...Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"High availability (HA): It is one of the best features."
"We work very closely together with IBM using their Support Center, but we have a strong contact in their development teams, and we have dedicated people from IBM working with us."
"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to verify the recoverability of backups."
"It is very stable after deployment and will perform in a steady state."
"Performance can sometimes be affected when tools are utilized for tasks like backup or deep archiving."
"The solution is not very strong on the Cloud. They should work out how they can use this as a backup as a service."
"Its ability to back up very large objects can be improved. In terms of new features, they can include the ability to use cloud services, like S3, more natively."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"It would be helpful if there was cloud support."
"It lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example."
"The bare-metal restores could be improved."
"Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage. It can only be implemented with an EMC product. We want to have a backup solution that allows us to use independent storage and other hardware. It would be good if they can simplify its technology and make it possible to implement it with another storage. This is probably not possible because Avamar is an EMC product, and EMC would like to sell its own products."
"Generally, the implementation of virtualization could be improved. The workflow service and so on are not working properly."
"I would like to see monitoring within the platform: monitoring for storage pools and monitoring for the server's health (e.g., CPU and memory)."
"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."
"I find the Level 1 and Level 2 support spend 80% of the time communicating the same information that I have already provided."
"Perhaps some better documentation, which I believe was better in the past."
"We would like to see cloud integration."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"RTO is a huge gap for us. If we had a disaster scenario and had to recover a bunch of stuff from tape, the RTO would be too long for us."
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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