Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

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Bacula Systems Logo
1,378 views|1,030 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
IBM Logo
7,122 views|5,037 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Bacula Enterprise and IBM Spectrum Protect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Backup and Recovery solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: May 2024).
770,292 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers.""It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure.""It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light.""The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community.""It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite.""Bacula is pretty stable.""The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."

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"It is a very stable product. The cost is similar to that of other enterprise solutions.""You can scale the product.""Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features.""Data reduction definitely reduces costs, not only software costs, but from the infrastructure needed.""We are talking about a stable solution which boasts good performance and security.""Once setup, you do not need to touch it again. You just need to do a formal check on possibly batch updates.""The most valuable features are the stability and also how it's seamlessly integrated with other IBM offerings.""It allows us to have one interface."

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Cons
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist.""A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed.""Bacula needs a graphical user interface because, for administrators, the command-line interface is okay, but for the average user it is not very easy.""The initial setup could be a bit easier.""It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company.""We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI.""Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."

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"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement.""I need two separate solutions for virtual and physical systems. I need IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for virtual systems and Spectrum Protect for physical systems and that's a pain. It would be an improvement if they were combined.""Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console.""There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups.""When it comes to virtualization in IBM it's not perfect.""The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement""This solution is not mature in terms of disaster recovery and could be improved.""This solution does not have good support for virtualization and a hyper-converged environment."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This is an open-source solution."
  • "We have a perpetual license."
  • More Bacula Enterprise Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
  • "Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
  • "At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
  • "Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
  • "We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective.​"
  • "We chose IBM Spectrum Protect, because they actually have something called MSP pricing, which means managed services provider pricing. The pricing was attractive, and it seems to be a platform that IBM is totally investing on in terms of new functions and new capabilities."
  • "Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
  • "It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
  • More IBM Spectrum Protect Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light.
    Top Answer:It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company. A managerial user who wants more information beyond the operational technician should be able to access it. It… more »
    Top Answer:We use the solution as a complete backup solution for virtual machines and databases in Prodap - Data Processing in Amapá. Its very lean and simple architecture, with its deduplications not covering… more »
    Top Answer:Customers need a clearer understanding of how to implement IBM Spectrum. However, issues revolve around financial constraints. If you lack the correct service contract, resolving problems can be… more »
    Ranking
    30th
    out of 133 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    1,378
    Comparisons
    1,030
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    420
    Rating
    9.0
    17th
    out of 133 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    7,122
    Comparisons
    5,037
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    601
    Rating
    7.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
    Learn More
    Overview

    Bacula Enterprise is a highly scalable, especially robust and secure data backup and recovery software. Its unique low cost subscription model empowers data centers to truly escape data volume price traps. With a high degree of flexibility and customizability, Bacula offers native integration with a wide range of hypervisors, databases, file systems, cloud interfaces and containers. High numbers of enterprise organizations worldwide (incl. NASA, Bank of Austria, Swisscom or Sky PLC) have adopted Bacula Enterprise backup software in mission critical environments because of its advanced features and ability to handle high data volume at very low cost.

    IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.
    Sample Customers
    NASA, SwissCom, Navisite, Turner Studios, Bank Austria, Caixa Bank, SdV Plurimedia, Leibniz University Hannover, Zeta Global, Tricore, NetLog, Siemens, LocaWeb, wbsGo, itesys, Queens School of Computing, Escrypt.
    CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    University10%
    Government9%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company13%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Insurance Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Retailer8%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business56%
    Large Enterprise44%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise52%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    770,292 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Bacula Enterprise is ranked 30th in Backup and Recovery with 9 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Bacula Enterprise is rated 8.6, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Bacula Enterprise writes "Very cost-effective and well organized with good compression". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Bacula Enterprise is most compared with Bareos, Veeam Backup & Replication, UrBackup, Veritas NetBackup and Acronis Cyber Protect, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Rubrik and Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain). See our Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.

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    We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.