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IBM Spectrum Computing vs VMware Cloud Director comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Spectrum Computing
Ranking in Cloud Management
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (6th)
VMware Cloud Director
Ranking in Cloud Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Computing is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Director is 6.3%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Specialist appreciates intelligent workload management, strong support, and scalability
The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products. The software is solid, meaning that the code is stable. They take business seriously, which is what IBM stands for - International Business Machines. They always maintain a business-oriented approach in their software development. It's not simply clicking through interfaces; in IBM software, they consider their actions, process flows, and workflows around business processes. It requires understanding IBM and their methodology, as the software operates accordingly. I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature. We use Insights, which is connected to the cloud. This provides AI capabilities for analyzing the configuration, offering smart recommendations on new code, warning about bugs in current code, and suggesting configuration improvements through its advisor tool. The predictive analytics feature in IBM Spectrum Computing enables optimal software performance through Insights. However, being a storage administrator requires foundational knowledge and understanding beyond these tools. For troubleshooting, it's efficient in spotting bottlenecks, but understanding the terms and metrics is essential as it provides answers that need interpretation.
NiteshKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides crystal clear dashboarding and allows you to manage and monitor your infrastructure
The overall dashboarding is very crystal clear. The ability to switch from one infrastructure to another infrastructure and get into detailed information, whether it is compute, storage network, or whatever. That helps you get a holistic view of the overall infrastructure running in your landscape. This also helps the leadership and management be aware of the right potential investment strategy by looking at the potential utilization. vCloud Director also provides ways and means through which you can make a prediction or a forecast of the infrastructure that would be needed in the future, depending on what you are currently running. That does not take away the fact that we have to be completely aware of our pipeline projects in our schedule so that you can plan your infrastructure requirements accordingly. vCloud Director provides multifold features that have been beneficial to the end users.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature through Insights, which is connected to the cloud."
"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."
"The comparison was challenging, but the IBM Spectrum Scale offered a balanced solution. Our engineers rated itsanalytics capabilities equally high as Pure Storage. For workload management, Spectrum Computing provided effective solutions that met our needs. Workload management is part of a complete solution that uses different tools. There were the cloud and HPC parts; within HPC, there were parts like liquid cooling, simple computing, storage, and orchestration. The orchestration team handled the workload management."
"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"
"Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis."
"The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products."
"Easy to operate and use."
"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."
"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director is its ability to host customers on their own cloud."
"It has helped us with user segmentation and QA."
"This is the go-to tool for anyone looking for standard out-of-the-box capabilities in a fully multitenant public cloud software that they can leverage to offer services to their customers."
"The initial setup was complex. There's a lot of things you have to factor in, like security, backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and how to maintain the platform. It's something we still struggle with, but it's getting better."
"So far, we have had no problems at all, as it has been very stable. It is working well."
"vCloud Director is a stable solution."
"vCloud Director has improved our organization in so far as it is an easy solution to sell. I believe this is the case due to the fact that it is an easy tool to manage and to configure."
"It optimizes the process for cloud structure."
 

Cons

"We have not been able to use deduplication."
"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market."
"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market. While IBM has excellent compression technology, specifically on their FlashCore modules, they lag behind competitors such as NetApp in deduplication capabilities."
"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."
"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."
"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."
"We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning."
"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."
"If you have a deployed environment and lose it, you can't easily deploy it back with vCloud Director. Because of this reason, we don't have the data protection, disaster recovery, and container features."
"Database services need to go beyond what they are currently doing."
"It would be beneficial to have enhanced integration capabilities with third-party solutions within vCloud Director, especially in networking and data security."
"Initially, the setup was complex."
"It could be more stable. We have had issues with multiple different versions."
"This solution could improve by adding root cause analysis."
"In the next release, we would like to see improvements with the pricing. It could be reduced."
"VMware should simplify the whole solution as it comprises many different components, making management hard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."
"This solution is expensive."
"The licensing costs are pretty high, but it might depend on the size of the company."
"The product is inexpensive compared to other vendors."
"My company has no problems with the pricing of the product as we got good discounts from VMware."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing eight and a half to nine out of ten."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost is high for vCloud Director. It is mostly a perpetual license."
"We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers."
"I believe the pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Transportation Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Computing?
IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging. To work on an IBM deal, you often need to involve multiple specialists, each knowledgeable about only part of the product, rather than having a...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Computing?
It is big on resilience and security. Their focus is on providing robust and secure solutions. Due to their high-end server models, IBM products are often more expensive than competitors. While IBM...
Would you change anything about VMware vCloud Director if you could?
VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In...
What is the biggest improvement you saw at your company after you started using VMware vCloud Director?
For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched...
Is vCloud Director convenient for building applications?
When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example: Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services w...
 

Also Known As

IBM Platform Computing
vCloud Director
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic
MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Computing vs. VMware Cloud Director and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.