IBM Spectrum Protect vs NetApp SnapCenter comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Protect and NetApp SnapCenter based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Backup and Recovery solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 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
"It seems very scalable and robust. It can do what we require it to do.""From a tech perspective, utilizing deduplication is one of the most valuable features.""It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements.""It's very robust and has been on the market for a long time.""The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well.""We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups.""We have better, faster backup times, and it has improved efficiency in the backups.""The solution can back up every kind of workload in the environment."

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"Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.""The most valuable feature is the RBAC, the Role-Based Access Control. In our managed service, we can have different layers of security.""The central pane view is the most valuable feature. You have one console where you can monitor all your jobs, as opposed to going to different vCenters.""The reporting feature has been particularly beneficial to upper management... When you do manual backups, you do not get the benefit of seeing successes and failures and how often you have to do restores. With SnapCenter, you get all of that.""It allows us to easily take a Snapshot and use it with any backup tools. We can also take Snapshots on the application side. We can also take Snapshots on the application side. If we want to restore an SAP or an Oracle machine, a normal Snapshot won't do it, but we can do so with SnapCenter.""Being able to add everything in as resource groups is a valuable feature... Having all the SQL servers put into specific buckets, based on their year of release - 2008, 2012, 2014 - allows us to get almost immediate backups that are easily seen and reported on.""It has greatly improved our DR activity.""It's integrated with VMware vCenter. You can also see the backups there and you can do a restore completely out of vCenter."

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Cons
"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier.""It does what we need it to do, but it could be better with VM backups. It could be better integrated with virtual machines or VM backups, but that's why they have their Plus out now. Plus version is more geared toward VM backups. The regular version is more for endpoint clients.""There could be various client systems and process integration included in the product.""I would like to see integration with Copy Data Management, which is an IBM product. Right now, these two products are siloed, so if these two become integrated, the product would become a bit of a powerhouse.""We recently had a situation where we quickly got code, and the number of tapes exceeded the library capacity so we were waiting a while to change. We got a fix for this right away.""There is room for improvement in the service aspect.""It might be seen as leaning towards the legacy side, missing some features of newer solutions. The main drawbacks would be its complexity and high pricing.""The software is very complicated. You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore."

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"Groups might be helpful for each site or data center so that we know a given data center has these resources while another data center has those resources. It's not always easy to group hosts by type.""I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up... The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed.""My major issue is when I upgrade. I have to touch every last client that I have in SnapCenter, and right now I have 60... They said that in another release that will get better, but right now it's not better and I've had to do this three times.""The replication feature needs improvement in future releases.""If it was possible to create backups on non-NetApp storage, that would be helpful.""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.""What I did witness lately are issues with some Microsoft KBs, the updates. But it happened only once, and not on a major platform, it was on a small one.""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)."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
  • "Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
  • "At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
  • "Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
  • "We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective.​"
  • "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."
  • "Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
  • "It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
  • More IBM Spectrum Protect Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."
  • "We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."
  • "We have a site license, so it comes with the product."
  • "The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."
  • "It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."
  • "Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."
  • "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."
  • "The product is inexpensive."
  • More NetApp SnapCenter Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to verify the recoverability of backups.
    Top Answer:The platform is neither highly priced nor inexpensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
    Top Answer:The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement. There could be an agent-less backup and recovery mechanism. In the next release, I would recommend the inclusion of a… more »
    Top Answer:Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.
    Top Answer:Since the solution's initial setup is complex, it should make training documents available in the public space.
    Ranking
    17th
    out of 131 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    7,719
    Comparisons
    5,477
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    522
    Rating
    7.3
    40th
    out of 131 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    2,181
    Comparisons
    1,230
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    277
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
    SnapCenter
    Learn More
    Overview
    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.

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

    Sample Customers
    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
    All for One Steeb AG, Accenture
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company13%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Insurance Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Retailer8%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Healthcare Company20%
    Pharma/Biotech Company13%
    Retailer13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Manufacturing Company17%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews while NetApp SnapCenter is ranked 40th in Backup and Recovery with 24 reviews. IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0, while NetApp SnapCenter is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp SnapCenter writes "A stable solution that is mostly used by banks and financial institutions". IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Cohesity DataProtect and Rubrik, whereas NetApp SnapCenter is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, NetApp Cloud Backup, Commvault Cloud and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. See our IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter 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.