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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

"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."
"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."
"Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis."
"I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature through Insights, which is connected to the cloud."
"The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers."
"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"
"The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products."
"Easy to operate and use."
"It helps ensure security across our cloud environments."
"The product allows us to add or remove features."
"Good features of extensibility, which allows integration of other services."
"The tool has a self-provisioning feature, which helps us manage projects easily. The solution is easy to use, secure, and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director is its ability to host customers on their own cloud."
"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms."
"It optimizes the process for cloud structure."
"vCloud Director requires less knowledge to get into in the first place. Therefore, when we bring in new members of staff, we can always give them the customer experience straightaway, and they can pick it up quite easily."
 

Cons

"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."
"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."
"We have not been able to use deduplication."
"We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning."
"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."
"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."
"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."
"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."
"Database services need to go beyond what they are currently doing."
"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."
"The initial setup is not straightforward; it can be complicated. The deployment can take one to two weeks."
"The solution's pricing is high, and VMware should consider lowering it."
"Lacking additional services reduces the level of cloud integration companies just love with Amazon and Azure."
"Cloud Director has room for improvement in many areas. One critical thing that comes to mind is the hyperscalers. They could be more seamlessly integrated into the hybrid cloud."
"We use vCloud Director along with Terraform, and it's difficult to make them work together. It takes a long time to deploy virtual machines with Terraform in vCloud Director. For example, it can take about one or two hours to create 10 machines. It takes up a lot of our DevOps' and engineers' time in comparison to that with other solutions. This is an area that they should work on and improve."
"Improvements could be made in the building feature since there isn't a real building feature associated with the product. We require a building feature to integrate with other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."
"This solution is expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The licensing costs are pretty high, but it might depend on the size of the company."
"The solution is costly, efficient, and robust versus alternative solutions."
"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."
"It runs our company in the millions of rand every month."
"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."
"It enables us to provision new clients more quickly."
"It's a costly product. The licenses may not be costly, but with every new development in their product, we need to purchase deployment services, and the deployment services are quite costly."
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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.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.