Compare IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 4th in Backup and Recovery Software with 54 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is ranked 21st in Backup and Recovery Software with 10 reviews. IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.4, while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus writes "Enables us to have longer retention which saves us more money". IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, IBM Spectrum Protect and Commvault. See our IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report.
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 Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: January 2020. 399,230 professionals have used our research since 2012. | ||||||||
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros | ||
It provides us a good holistic view of everything that we have backed up so far. It also provides us all the recovery points. If we look at an an object that has been backed up, we can tell how many retention copies it has, how far we can go, and recover any data, if needed. The solution's interface is easy to use. For manageability, it doesn't matter where the resource is coming from or going to. That's the great power of the Control Panel: It's easy to use and does not matter if you manage on-prem or cloud resources. I'm a big fan of the reporting. You can build your own reports; it's very customizable. You can have individual reports going to groups of people or individuals. You can have them go out multiple times a day. It's basically a free-for-all as far as reporting goes. If anybody wants a specific job report every day, you can build it, schedule it, and have it go out and never touched it again. It's pretty nice. The solution provides us with a single platform to move, manage, and recover our data across on-premise locations. Some of the guys have been using it to move a virtual machine from VMware to the Microsoft solution, Hyper-V. They back it up and then they restore to the different virtual machine provider, and that works great. The multi-tenancy is the most valuable feature for us because it's the only software that is fully multi-tenant and that has all the features we need to provide to all our tenants. It provides us with advanced features for MySQL and Oracle, among other platforms The most valuable feature is sharing data sets like they're in a private cloud. We call it our "private cloud" because we can share anything that is inside our backup set with our colleagues or with other people, and yet, everything is still in Belgrade, in Serbia. It's not somewhere else on cloud servers. Everything is in our environment. We are using a KVM system in our cloud, and this solution works very well with it. It's a complete software that can protect all the main applications. Perhaps that's the feature I like most. The integration with the NetApp and other apps is also very nice. | This solution has improved our organization through better file and database recovery. The fact that we can take the backup straight onto tape is the most valuable feature. The most valuable features are compression and de-duplication. The best part of this solution is that it just works. The product is very stable. It is a very mature product. We optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup. The TDP software provides us many ways to protect our data, so we don't need to use monstrous scripts for doing backups now. I love the TDP for VMware because of the web interface and the possibilities provided by this tool. It's amazing. | The solution offers a very straightforward deployment. You click, click, click and it's done. There's not much configuration to do. A full-featured data protection solution that is reliable and stable. This is a multi-platform backup solution where you can take a backup from AIX, Windows, or Linux servers and restore from CD, disk, or tape. The feature I find most valuable is the offload to Spectrum Protect for long-term retention. I think the deduplication and replication are quite nice on Plus. With this product, we now have a reliable backup solution. This solution is very stable and has good support available online. The most valuable features are the API features because it allows you to integrate with your Microsoft SQL, your Oracle, and your IBM Db2. The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration with Oracle. |
Cons | ||
It does not have an easy deployment. The deployment is not something that just anybody can go in and deploy. The solution's breadth and depth of cloud support are good, but could be better. Some cloud features that are common-sense, especially on AWS, are not completely integrated yet in the product. They are a work-in-progress. Command Center definitely gives us a complete view of our data. But finding some of the granular, very small items that we sometimes have to find, such as auxiliary copies for tapes, I still find that it's easier to navigate and, sometimes, only possible to find them using the CommCell tool. Just to keep it running is time-consuming. There are five people on my team. Commvault was supposed to be one of the less time-consuming solutions, but in reality it takes 60 percent of our time just to keep it running, and that's not even fine-tuning it; that's just to keep it running. There is room for improvement in its user interface and web console, called Command Center. They are improving it every year so if they continue in that direction, I think it will be a very reliable console. They can always improve the interface design to make it easier. Sometimes, you need to click two or three times to do something. They should look at what tabs are used most and make them more accessible, to cut the time it takes to get to that information. This solution can be complex and difficult to administer because it supports all of the many platforms, so it would help if they could simplify it. I think the one thing that could be improved is the customer experience. The interface should be more user friendly. | The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved. We cannot take VMware backups for our banking data center environment. In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support. The user interface needs to be improved. Sometimes we experience trouble with the backup transfer of the control files. This solution does not have good support for virtualization and a hyper-converged environment. The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies. A lot of my customers always ask for legal holds, especially on email. | Their first level of support can be improved. Often they are too junior to understand the issues we are having, and it takes too much time to get from them to the next level of support, which is what we actually need. The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy. The user experience is very bad and the interface needs to be improved. Instead of using the command prompt for troubleshooting and administering the backup, there should be an easy-to-use graphical user interface. The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use. I would like integration into where the VMware guys can do their own restores. The backup support for IBM Power Virtualization needs to be added. An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot. |
Pricing and Cost Advice | ||
There is a bit of cost involved with signing up the entire solution. It's not a cheap solution. Our cost is around $20,000 per month. The previous year, it was around $30,000 per month. It now costs less because Commvault changed the licensing type for providers. Our yearly cost is around €20,000... The cost is based on the number of users and the amount of data. They sell it per terabyte. The price could perhaps be lower as well. In my experience, compared to solutions like Veritas and Veeam, while they do have their technical pluses and minuses, Commvault can save you on average forty percent initially, and then twenty to twenty-five percent annually. Compared to other competitors and vendors the pricing is fair. | The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD). The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution. The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options. The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity. There may be an advantage to going with IBM in terms of pricing. They have a pay-as-you-grow policy, so there is no need to take one license for the entire datacenter. You can start with small licenses and then grow, and pay, as you use more. The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer. Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable. The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product. | Depends on the licensing options that you choose. Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features. In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training. The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original. If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive. The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product. |
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Top Comparisons | ||
 Compared 16% of the time.  Compared 16% of the time.  Compared 15% of the time. | Compared 21% of the time.  Compared 14% of the time.  Compared 12% of the time. | Compared 32% of the time. Compared 26% of the time. Compared 7% of the time. |
Also Known As | ||
| IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager | ||
Learn | ||
| CommVault | IBM | IBM |
Overview  | ||
Commvault can help you transform your data into a powerful strategic asset, with data protection and information management solutions that enable you to protect, access and use all of your data anywhere and anytime. | 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. | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection and availability solution for virtual environments that can be deployed in minutes and protect your environment within an hour. It simplifies data protection, whether data is hosted in physical, virtual, software-defined or cloud environments. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or integrate with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to off-load copies for long term storage and data governance with scale and efficiency. |
Offer | ||
Learn more about Commvault | Learn more about IBM Spectrum Protect | Learn more about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus |
Sample Customers | ||
| Aberdeenshire Council, Acxiom, BAM Group Ireland, Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, CI Investments, Clifford Chance, Alliant Credit Union, American Municipal Power, American Pacific Mortgage, AstraZeneca, Dongbu Steel, Denver Health, Dow Jones, Emirates Steel, Penn State Health, Prime Healthcare, Sonic Healthcare, Sony Network Communications, TiVO, UCONN Health, The Weitz Company | 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 | Information Not Available |
Top Industries | ||
Wholesaler/Distributor15% Comms Service Provider15% Government15% Financial Services Firm8% Software R&D Company36% Comms Service Provider13% Media Company6% Financial Services Firm6% | Financial Services Firm20% Healthcare Company20% University9% Insurance Company9% Software R&D Company34% Manufacturing Company13% Comms Service Provider9% Government6% | Software R&D Company39% Government10% Comms Service Provider10% Manufacturing Company9% |
Company Size | ||
Small Business24% Midsize Enterprise36% Large Enterprise40% Small Business8% Midsize Enterprise20% Large Enterprise72% | Small Business34% Midsize Enterprise12% Large Enterprise55% | Small Business20% Midsize Enterprise20% Large Enterprise60% |
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: January 2020.
399,230 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See also IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Reviews, and our list of Best Backup and Recovery Software Companies.
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