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 entire system operates seamlessly, with minimal hands-on involvement, allowing us to focus on monitoring rather than constant adjustments or deployments, as seen in larger, more dynamic environments."
"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."
"The data reduction feature and the ease of enabling a server in a DR location are the most valuable."
"It's stable and offers good performance."
"Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable."
"The installation process is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"We are talking about a complete end-to-end solution which comes with its own hardware storage to back up the data on tape-less."
"High availability (HA): It is one of the best features."
"It saves you a lot of storage."
"Because of the flexible parameters, everything can be fine-tuned to the customers’ needs in their environment."
"We have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis."
"The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."
"Spectrum Protect's best feature is that I can use it practically anywhere, on any platform, and for any servers or clients."
"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."
"The customization and the ability to backup across all platforms are the most valuable features."
"The solution could be a bit easier to use in the sense that they need to make it simpler to backup products and restore items."
"A benefit would be support for either Azure Cool Storage or AWS Glacier."
"Performance can sometimes be affected when tools are utilized for tasks like backup or deep archiving."
"Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution."
"When we used the solution, it was still new, and so the customer service/technical support was not the best."
"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."
"I would like to see better integration with third-party applications and platforms."
"We don't trust the product 100 percent. Kaspersky has many features Dell Avamar doesn't support, such as granular backup and history."
"We would like to see capabilities of long-term archiving and more support for hardware platforms."
"It needs agents that take into account more databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.)."
"They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration."
"It needs better connectivity with other non-IBM application hardware and non-IBM platforms."
"There is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"Anytime you are not very current and call in with an issue, it is hard to get it resolved. It will depend on how far back you go though."
"The software is very complicated. You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore."
"Our customers would like to see metadata replication, tearing to tape, and more cloud capabilities."
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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