Dell Data Protection Advisor vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

Dell Data Protection Advisor vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Dell Data Protection Advisor

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

25th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Spectrum Protect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

150

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Data Protection Advisor is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

AnkurGupta1

Lead Consultan at HCL Technologies

Offers seamless integration with robust data privacy features

I am currently working with other companies on data center solutions. In our data center, we work with HP, Dell, and Nutanix on data center build-up and migrations. I work with Dell Data Protection Advisor for cloud, though not extensively, and we provided that solution to one customer and are awaiting their approval. I am a reseller and service provider. We implemented Dell Data Protection Advisor for data privacy, and another team handles data protection and related issues. I did not work extensively on specific features, so nothing particularly stands out. From my reseller and end customer perspective, I would rate Dell Data Protection Advisor an eight out of ten as it is a good solution.

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Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking

It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention."

"It generates very detailed reports, which makes things easier when it comes to IT auditing."

"I have never found any glitch in any Dell solution to date."

"The solution is easy to use, flexible and has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality. You can configure the dashboards or you can use a script. However, to fully utilize its capabilities you will want to use a lot of scripts which you will need advanced training. The reports can be customized for many things, such as chargeback billing."

"It supports our chargeback process by identifying resource users, which helps ensure that departments are billed accurately for data protection services rather than receiving them for free."

"It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the compression and the duplication."

"I can increase the tool's licensing as per my requirement with no conditions applied."

More Dell Data Protection Advisor pros

"The solution offers very good flexibility."

"It covers all the different operating systems. If you need backup, it can pretty much do everything."

"With the new features that we have added, it has made a difference as far as faster recovery and speed."

"It protects our data. That is what it is there for."

"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."

"Its flexibility is valuable. It is a very flexible solution. There are always more ways than one to do something. It is a software solution, which means you can buy your own hardware and expand it whenever you want. You are not boxed in or locked into something you've bought and outgrown. You can always expand it."

"Because of the flexible parameters, everything can be fine-tuned to the customers’ needs in their environment."

"With Spectrum Protect, you can use any type of disk to back-end the repositories. It gave us flexibility to use whatever storage we wanted at our secondary site."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

Cons

"The functionality of the Data Protection Advisor is limited and is something that is lacking in this solution. Other solutions like CloudIQ and DDMC provide a much better outlook on how data protection should be done."

"The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy."

"Dell Data Protection Advisor's feature for data domain protection needs enhancement."

"It's a bit difficult for first-time users."

"It is difficult to manage the solution with the available tools. You need to know exactly what are you are doing."

"From a service perspective, improvements are needed at Dell because when customers call, it takes a long time to get a response for calls or emails. Response time is the main problem that needs addressing."

"There is a steep learning curve to use the interface and to create new reports, this could be made easier. If the solution could provide more drag and drop functionality to build more advanced reports that would be very helpful."

"The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users."

More Dell Data Protection Advisor cons

"Sometimes we experience trouble with the backup transfer of the control files."

"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."

"The initial setup is complex."

"Needs more support for non-mainstream databases, in particular PostgreSQL, SQL, and MySQL."

"Better integration with other tools and databases is needed."

"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."

"One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past."

"The solution should have better integration with VMware and with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."

"For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable."

"It's not very expensive — I think the price is fair."

"You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately."

"The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement."

"If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing."

"The product is affordable."

"IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."

"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."

"It can be perceived as expensive since it is designed for enterprise use."

"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell Data Protection Advisor?

The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell Data Protection Advisor?

The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement.

What needs improvement with Dell Data Protection Advisor?

The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy. Additionally, enhancing bulk update capabilities for items like cost centers would be...

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?

It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Data Protection Advisor

Comparisons

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Data Protection Advisor

Compared 21% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Data Protection Advisor

Compared 15% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Dell Data Protection Advisor

Compared 15% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Data Protection Advisor

Compared 13% of the time

More Dell Data Protection Advisor Competitors

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 17% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Dell Data Protection Advisor

Download Dell Data Protection Advisor product report

IBM Spectrum Protect

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Also Known As

DPA

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Overview

Effectively managing your data protection environment can be labor intensive and complex. It requires knowledge of backup applications, replication technologies, and the entire supporting infrastructure, yet it is critical in keeping your data secure.

With Dell Data Protection Advisor, you can automate and centralize the collection, monitoring and reporting of this data and get a single, comprehensive view of your environment, no matter where your data resides. This includes monitoring data on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

With clear visibility, you can gain actionable insight and effectively manage service levels while reducing costs and complexity. You can also collect and report on that data to help other stakeholders make the best decisions for your organization.

Data Protection Advisor is available as part of Dell Data Protection Suite.

Dell Technologies

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

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Trek Bicycle, Cal-Israel Credit Cards

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

Dell Data Protection Advisor vs. IBM Spectrum Protect