We compared Dell NetWorker 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 NetWorker is recognized for its intuitive graphical user interface, integration with Data Domain, and impressive speed. 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 NetWorker needs improvements in reporting, integration, and documentation. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Dell NetWorker received mixed reviews, with some customers expressing frustration about delayed responses and unresolved problems. 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: Some users consider Dell NetWorker's setup to be effortless, but some said it was somewhat complex. 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: Some reviewers consider Dell NetWorker to be expensive, while others find it to be reasonable and cheaper than other options with similar features. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Users have provided no feedback about Dell NetWorker’s ROI so far. 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 NetWorker is regarded as a reasonably priced, high-performing backup solution with a user-friendly GUI. At the same time, many users were dissatisfied with Dell’s support and asked for improvements in reporting and documentation. 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.
"I started off as a storage engineer and ended up owning Dell EMC Data Domain and Dell EMC NetWorker. I've not used any other backup solutions at this scale. Dell EMC NetWorker does what I need it to do, it's efficient."
"There are no problems in terms of stability."
"The initial setup is very easy. It's incredibly fast."
"The updated graphical interface is better than it used to be."
"Technical support is good."
"The best feature is the DR replication for us."
"The GUI is the best feature. It's very good and easy to use."
"I like that it's stable and scalable."
"The main feature of this product is a flexible architecture and functionality that allows you to solve problems of any complexity and scale. Most importantly, it is not just a product that simply makes a backup, but it restores and saves a large number of services in critical situations. By the way, it works fine with different types of clouds, supports S3."
"It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"One of the main things that I like about IBM is the versioning of the data - meaning that we can have multiple versions of a file or directory of a server."
"IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
"Data reduction definitely reduces costs, not only software costs, but from the infrastructure needed."
"It allows us to have one interface."
"The tool proves invaluable in scenarios where systems need recovery, such as restoring damaged data."
"They need more support for image backups."
"Its console UI should be better. It should also have more out-of-the-box reporting functionalities. It should also have easier cloud integration. They have got cloud boost and things like that, but if you want to directly back up to the cloud, I'm not too sure whether you can do it. For example, you can easily send data from Commvault to AWS, Azure, or a container, but it seems to be not so easy in NetWorker."
"There are some limitations regarding scalability of the product."
"The configuration is too complex."
"Could have a better recovery system."
"When you're working with VMware, you need to use vProxy machines. You have to install the vProxy for every host in the VMware environment."
"The product should provide integration with AWS."
"The web console could be a lot better."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"It does not do too well in our virtual environment."
"We have run into some periods where we have found some tape issues which were causing us problems, but we resolved them. For some reason, we had a bunch of drives go offline on our disk storage (our virtual library)."
"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."
"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."
"There were scalability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released."
"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."
"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."
Dell NetWorker is ranked 14th in Backup and Recovery with 73 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Dell NetWorker is rated 7.8, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Dell NetWorker writes "A stable tool that has an easy-to-use GUI that enables quick restoration". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Dell NetWorker is most compared with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, Dell Avamar, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veritas NetBackup and Cohesity DataProtect, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Cohesity DataProtect and Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. See our Dell NetWorker vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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