We compared Azure Backup 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: Azure Backup is commended for its scalability, comprehensive security options, and non-disruptive backup process. Users also like its seamless integration with various Azure services. 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. Azure Backup needs to improve its backup and file-level restoration procedure. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Azure's customer service is generally considered helpful and proactive, but a few users have reported longer wait times and slow issue resolution. 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: Azure Backup's setup is easy, quick, and can be completed with minimal user involvement. 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: Azure Backup is a cloud-based solution, so its pricing depends on factors like storage and data consumption. Azure offers competitive pricing and is considered more cost effective than many competing solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Azure Backup offers a solid return on investment with its affordable pricing and low initial costs, particularly when upgrading solutions. 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: Azure Backup is an affordable, scalable solution that features an effortless deployment and native integration with Azure services. While reviews of Azure Backup’s features were generally positive, some users reported unsatisfactory experiences with Azure support. 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 most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its ease of use and good integration with other Azure services."
"One of the most valuable features is security and connectivity to the data."
"It offers seamless integration."
"The backup features are very useful."
"I like that it's a stable solution and their support is good. I think Microsoft's commercial force is superior."
"It's very simple to configure which is very useful. It's not complex to configure it."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it is easy to create a backup by using Azure Backup. It also has a good user interface and nice features for sending notifications when any backup fails or there is a change in the status of virtual machines."
"You have the flexibility to encrypt your backups and choose the storage capacity you're comfortable paying for."
"The scheduled backups ensure we meet the requirements for our business, and we keep backups of certain environments."
"It scales from very small to very large. It is easily the most scalable product out there."
"The solution is not complex, it's very easy to configure agents or VM backup and restore. Upgrades from one version to another are very fast and the product is very stable."
"The way it covers backup and archive needs. The flexibility of backup copy group always allows me to cover the customer's requests."
"Some of the people in our group, like our DBAs and non-technical people, can restore some stuff themselves via Spectrum Protect. That is how simple it is."
"We have better, faster backup times, and it has improved efficiency in the backups."
"We can use it with any storage for the back-end to save data."
"We have been using it for several years, and it is quite reliable and predictable. We are quite comfortable with this solution. They're coming up with new features as well. It has good scalability, and it provides good integrations with business-critical applications or databases, such as SAP HANA. It works as expected, and we don't see any issues."
"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."
"It can be further improved by continuously meeting its compliance requirements."
"The support for Office365 backup is atrocious and is something that has to be improved."
"We have a concern with the backup when were are working with VMs that are running in Barracuda Firewall because it usually fails."
"Azure Backup is limited to certain workloads. It would be helpful if Microsoft focused on enabling backups for Oracle and other unsupported databases."
"Azure Backup's licensing model is very challenging because it doesn't give a clear picture."
"In Avamar, the file-based restores are very quick and fast, whereas, in Azure Backup, VM restore is super easy, but if I have to do a file or a folder restore, I have to mount the entire VM image. I have to wait for some time for it to be mounted, and then I have to go inside and then check the file and copy it somewhere. It's a bit of a manual process, whereas in Avamar, you can directly select a file and folder, and it'll recover with whatever permissions you want."
"It would be beneficial to receive alert messages if something isn't configured correctly, for instance, if service principal names are missing, a message could prompt you to set them up."
"We are not so happy with the technical support because dealing with them is not easy. We have a very complicated environment, therefore I understand for a support person that it is not easy to troubleshoot it."
"They need to do a better job on Windows, because if you are running Windows, the scalability is more limited than AIX and Linux."
"The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement"
"The previous GUI that they had was slow, and it did not have enough information on it."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Their support is lacking. I've talked to their developers and stuff in the last couple of weeks and they reassure me that some people have retired, and they're working on getting that bumped back up. But the support lacks a lot to be desired at this point."
"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."
"The solution could be more user-friendly and provide better monitoring. The monitoring should be improved first since it is a higher priority."
Azure Backup is ranked 9th in Backup and Recovery with 51 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Azure Backup is rated 7.8, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Azure Backup writes "Straightforward to set up and manage and allows us to monitor all backups in one place". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Azure Backup is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Rubrik, Commvault Cloud, Acronis Cyber Protect and Veritas NetBackup, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Rubrik and Iron Mountain Connect. See our Azure Backup 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.