Cohesity DataProtect vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 20, 2023

We compared Cohesity DataProtect 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: Cohesity DataProtect offers instant recovery and built-in integration with Office 365 and Active Directory. 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. Cohesity DataProtect users have suggested enhancements to its user interface, rollback methodology, and cloud data recovery. Other pain points include file server capacity and legacy platform support. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.

  • Service and Support: The customer service experiences for Cohesity DataProtect have been mostly positive, but some say the quality of Cohesity's support may differ depending on the region. 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: Most users consider the setup process for Cohesity DataProtect to be easy, although a few found it more complex than other products. 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: Cohesity's pricing is higher than its competitors, although some customers consider it affordable. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.

  • ROI: Cohesity DataProtect provides security against ransomware and efficient file retrieval. 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: Cohesity is regarded as an affordable solution that offers instant recovery and superior ransomware protection. However, users say its customer service is inconsistent across regions, and its rollback methodology has room for improvement. 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.

To learn more, read our detailed Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: September 2023).
733,828 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
"Cohesity DataProtect is user-friendly and straightforward. The setup process was effortless, and both the backup and restore operations are speedy.""The initial setup is easy.""The most valuable features of Cohesity DataProtect are SpanFS and the handling of hybrid workloads.""I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud.""Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the solution handles instant recovery and file-level recovery from a VMware image backup seamlessly.""The dashboard is very rich and provides details needed for a moderator.""I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser.""By using their Helios Cloud service, you have all your clusters, no matter where they are located, in one web portal."

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"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution.""IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products.""It's a very stable product, and we've never had any downtime with it.""It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.""You can scale the product.""IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem.""The deduplication and compression features are the most valuable features.""In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."

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Cons
"I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud.""Cohesity DataProtect can improve in the area of databases. We have had some challenges with both Cohesity and Rubrik being able to effectively back up in a timely manner the SQL Oracle workloads.""The platform has certain limitations, mostly stemming from the restrictions imposed by the VMware API and some other factors. One area where there is room for improvement is the tracking of replicated copies, especially in the context of remote archive duplication.""We have had our share of minor bugs over the past two years and a few bigger ones.""Their UI requires a manual refresh. It doesn't seem like it updates itself sometimes when you're moving from screens or waiting for a change to take effect, so you have to manually refresh.""Quality testing of upgrades should be somewhat improved.""In terms of what could be improved, it just needs some maturity.""I would like to see the management of multiple nodes inside a tenant. If you want to manage a Cohesity environment, you either go on a per-node base, and you can hop from one node to the other, or you need to implement their SaaS capability but it always needs an internet connection. We would really like to have some kind of local management entity so that we can see all the Cohesity nodes in a customer environment and manage those nodes centrally. That's something that we would really like, and they are really working on it."

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"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.""They are behind on many things, especially security. They are catching up a little bit now, but the competitors are doing better security-wise. There should be malware detection and prevention and higher security.""In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business.""The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure.""The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface.""We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack.""In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center.""We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It has reasonable pricing, and we know they can give discounts. If you look at the primary pricing or the list pricing, it conforms to the market pricing, but you have to have a discount on it. Otherwise, it is way too expensive."
  • "The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik."
  • "The pricing model is impressive and very effective."
  • "From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more advanced security features than Cohesity DataProtect currently, Cohesity DataProtect is releasing a new solution in the near future that will compete directly with Rubrik."
  • More Cohesity DataProtect Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."
  • "Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
  • "It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."
  • "The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity."
  • "Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another."
  • "The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
  • "The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."
  • "Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
  • More IBM Spectrum Protect Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the… more »
    Top Answer:From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more… more »
    Top Answer:weaknesses: You don't have legacy support as you can expect from Commvault or Netbackup
    Top Answer:The deduplication and compression features are the most valuable features.
    Top Answer:License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication. There are additional costs if you want that as a managed service, there's a management fee… more »
    Top Answer:If IBM could provide a partial module, that would be great.
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cohesity
    IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
    Learn More
    Overview

    What is Cohesity DataProtect?

    Cohesity DataProtect is a top-level, sophisticated, software-defined backup and recovery solution created for cloud environments. Cohesity DataProtect is made to hyperscale and is one the most thorough policy-based protection solutions available on the market today.

    Cohesity DataProtect melds multiple-point products into a single software that is able to be deployed as on-premise or consumed as a service.

    Top Features:

    Hyperscale made easy: Cohesity DataProtect improves data protection by doing away with the need for backup silos and administers backup and recovery with a single user-friendly, easy-to-understand interface. Cohesity DataProtect provides extensive 24/7 enterprise-class protection for a large, varying set of sources, including virtual and physical servers, NAS and SaaS workloads, relational and distributed databases, and traditional and containerized applications.

    Super fast recovery: Cohesity DataProtect offers near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) and near-instant recovery time objectives (RTOs) to satisfy your business service-level agreements (SLAs). Using Cohesity Helios’ unified data plane and control plane you can immediately search and recover data on any Cohesity cluster, located anywhere. DataProtect distinctively minimizes downtime by immediately mass restoring any amount of virtual machines (VMs) to any point in time, and lowers data protection costs by as much as 70% or more.

    Backup as a Service: Feel free to take advantage of the elasticity of the public cloud and the cost-effective value of Cohesity DataProtect when delivered as a service. When you choose an OPEX option, you can eliminate the need for on-premises hardware. There is a SaaS option that will allow you to very simply configure your backup workloads and immediately begin protecting your vital all-important data and applications.

     It’s as easy as: sign-up, connect, and protect!

    Ransomware protection: Cohesity DataProtect offers stellar recovery at scale. The solution is so intuitive, it has machine learning-based anomaly detection to stop incidents before they happen. Cohesity DataProtection can provide immutable backups, Datalock write once, read many (WORM), encryption, and role-based access control (RBAC).

    Cohesity DataProtect integrates well with many of today’s top solutions, including, but not limited to: 

    • Hypervisors: VMware vSphere (5.5 and later), Microsoft Hyper-V (2019, 2016, 2012 R2), Nutanix AHV and RHeV 
    • Kubernetes-based data and application state
    • Cloud: AWS EC2, Amazon RDS, Azure VM, and Google Compute
    • Physical: Windows, Linux(RHEL, CentOS, OEL, Debian, Ubuntu), AIX (7.x), and Solaris
    • Databases: Oracle (11g R2, 12c), Oracle RAC and SQL (2008 or later)
    • Distributed Databases (NoSQL and Hadoop): MongoDB, CouchbaseDB, Apache, Cassandra, Cloudera, and Hortonworks. 
    • Bare Machine Recovery: Windows and Linux 
    • Applications: MS Exchange (2010 SP3 or later), MSFT Active Directory, Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, Groups), SalesForce (SFDC), and SAP HANA 
    • Primary storage: Pure FlashArray, HPE Nimble, and Cisco Hyperflex 
    • NAS: Pure FlashBlade, NetApp, Isilon, IBM GPFS, Google EFS, Elastifile, and generic solutions*

    Reviews from Real Users

    One reviewer, who is head of IT infrastructure at Kampmann says, “Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software,” and goes on to indicate that Cohesity “works flawlessly with easy replication of backups and numerous supported backup sources.”

    Another user, who is a senior network engineer at a legal firm, relates that "Cohesity is a robust and feature-rich solution"





    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.
    Offer
    Learn more about Cohesity DataProtect
    Learn more about IBM Spectrum Protect
    Sample Customers
    Tribune Media
    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
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Construction Company9%
    Media Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization30%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company15%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Retailer8%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise51%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise38%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise54%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    733,828 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cohesity DataProtect is ranked 6th in Backup and Recovery with 16 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 12th in Backup and Recovery with 28 reviews. Cohesity DataProtect is rated 8.6, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Cohesity DataProtect writes "Robust and feature-rich solution". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "High stability and availability for reliable data backup and retrieval". Cohesity DataProtect is most compared with Rubrik, Veeam Backup & Replication, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), Commvault Complete Data Protection and Veritas NetBackup, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Complete Data Protection, Rubrik and Veritas NetBackup. See our Cohesity DataProtect 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.