IBM ProtectTIER vs NetApp SnapCenter comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #82, while NetApp is ranked #51 with an average rating of 7.7. IBM holds a 0.1% mindshare in BRS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 60% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM ProtectTIER

Read 7 IBM ProtectTIER reviews

210 Views
167 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

NetApp SnapCenter

Read 27 NetApp SnapCenter reviews

1,230 Views
801 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM ProtectTIER

NetApp SnapCenter

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM ProtectTIER and NetApp SnapCenter are two robust data protection solutions. Users seem to favor NetApp SnapCenter for its extensive features more than IBM ProtectTIER, even though IBM ProtectTIER is competitively priced.

Features: Users value IBM ProtectTIER for efficient data deduplication, high backup speed, and reliable performance. NetApp SnapCenter is praised for its seamless integration with various environments, centralized management, and broad feature set supporting different storage infrastructures.

Room for Improvement: IBM ProtectTIER could improve scalability, enhance technical documentation, and provide more user-friendly interfaces. NetApp SnapCenter users suggest better stability, simplified configuration processes, and quicker updates to address bugs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM ProtectTIER offers a straightforward deployment process but has mixed feedback on customer service responsiveness. NetApp SnapCenter is more complex to deploy but generally receives better customer service support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ProtectTIER is seen as cost-effective with satisfactory ROI. NetApp SnapCenter, though more expensive, justifies its cost with advanced features and comprehensive support, giving users a higher perceived ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp SnapCenter Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp SnapCenter

April 2025

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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

IBM ProtectTIER

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

82nd

Average Rating

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (13th)

NetApp SnapCenter

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

51st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 0.1%, down from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

ValereFEUGWANG

Information System Consultant at CFAO Technologies

Protects data in hybrid infrastructures, but it is an expensive product with poor support

The main challenge for our customers is to replicate the virtual environment upon restart, without using any additional solutions such as VMware SLM. I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM. It would be much better for us. This solution can be made easier to use. Technical support is very frustrating and we are considering other solutions because of it. Stability is something that should be improved. The product is expensive and the licensing should be changed.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command

It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

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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 command-line interface is good."

"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."

"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."

"The solution is highly stable."

"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."

"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."

"It has very fast backup and can handle a huge amount of data. It also enables really fast recovery."

"The support from NetApp is very good, and I would rate it as ten points."

"Most banks and financial institutions use the solution."

"The main advantage is its fast backup and restore."

"It's integrated with VMware vCenter. You can also see the backups there and you can do a restore completely out of vCenter."

"A feature that stands out is cloning databases. If you have a SQL database and it's huge, like one terabyte, the classical SQL way would be to do a backup-restore to create a clone of your database for test purposes. With SnapCenter now, we can clone a database but through the Snapshot technology, which means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly."

"It's all together managing both storage and backup, which makes it easier for troubleshooting issues and the automation part of it"

"The simplicity of backup and restore directly with VMware is an advantage and the time to backup and restore is reduced."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

Cons

"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."

"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."

"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."

"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."

"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."

"SnapCenter could improve its integration with other backup solutions, such as Veeam."

"The Dashboard view needs to be more compressed with better ease of access and drill-down features. They should also reinstate Linux filesystem backups of storage volumes (which existed in the prior version)."

"We would like to see more granular repording and reporting in bigger sets available in SnapCenter."

"The replication feature needs improvement in future releases."

"There is one area that needs improvement and that's in the alerting. When you set up your SMTP alerts, it only has - and I don't understand why - the ability to send an anonymous SMTP. It doesn't do basic authentication, which frustrated me for a while until I figured out that I'm not missing something. It's just not there."

"I'm waiting for SnapCenter for hybrid solutions. Right now, we only have SnapManager for hybrid. I need agents for that. People are looking to install SnapCenter in a SQL environment, but where they're running SQL on Hyper-V and using virtual files. Currently, we don't have support for hybrid."

"I would like to see replication support between systems. Right now, it's kind of limited. We manage them separately from the storage system interface, not from SnapCenter. It would be nice if it was integrated into SnapCenter."

"The Microsoft environment is its biggest disadvantage due to the central management of all the actions. Because the SnapCenter server is where we deploy everything, it also affects the Microsoft environment, which can cause many difficulties when resolving issues like Windows update problems."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."

"This solution is very expensive."

"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."

"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."

"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."

"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."

"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."

"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."

"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."

"The product is inexpensive."

"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."

"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

24%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

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What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?

Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?

The product should be free because it is just software to administrate systems purchased from NetApp, which are already expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?

The interface usability needs improvement. It should be more user-friendly and easier for customers to use.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM ProtectTIER Competitors

Synology DSM vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 27% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 18% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 16% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 9% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp SnapCenter Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Deduplication Software

March 2025

Download IBM ProtectTIER product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp SnapCenter

April 2025

Download NetApp SnapCenter product report

Also Known As

No data available

SnapCenter

Overview

IBM TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway is designed to meet the disk-based data protection needs of the enterprise data center while enabling significant infrastructure cost reductions. The solution offers industry-leading inline deduplication performance and scalability up to 1 petabyte (PB) of physical storage capacity per system, and can provide up to 25 PB or more backup storage capacity. Combined with IBM or third-party storage, TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway provides a powerful disk-based repository to improve the performance, retention and availability of backup and archive data in a small footprint for energy and cost efficiency.

IBM

Unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture

Buyer's Guide

IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp SnapCenter

April 2025

Free Report: IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp SnapCenter

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ProtectTIER vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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