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.
"Quick incremental backups and product replication are the two highlights of the product. Once you capture a full backup, incrementals are pretty quick. It is fairly efficient from that perspective."
"It works quickly and is very stable."
"The solution scales well."
"It's simple to configure."
"Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable."
"The solution is very stable."
"The backup and recovery speed is very fast."
"We have seen huge data reduction and data deduplication and compression, which is very cost-effective and cost-reducing for the company."
"The scalability of IBM Spectrum Protect is good."
"It integrates well with Spectrum Scale."
"They have recently added support tickets specifically engineered around performance. This has been very useful for us when we run into issues where customers are looking to try to squeeze a lot more horsepower out of older system."
"Nothing beats this solution for file backup."
"I love the TDP for VMware because of the web interface and the possibilities provided by this tool. It's amazing."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well."
"It is very stable after deployment and will perform in a steady state."
"It's very robust and has been on the market for a long time."
"The management of this solution is a little bit difficult for IT administrators. They have to be trained before going through the system."
"Technical support should be more knowledgeable."
"It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
"It's an expensive solution."
"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."
"There also needs to be single sign-on support."
"Some customers need to back up to tape, but Avamar lacks support, so it costs a lot."
"The reporting should be improved, as we currently have to use another tool for that purpose."
"An area for improvement would be the ease of use - the GUI is not up to the mark compared to other products in the market."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem."
"The solution could be more user-friendly and provide better monitoring. The monitoring should be improved first since it is a higher priority."
"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."
"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."
"Getting technical support all the necessary diagnostic information is still very painful."
"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."
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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