IBM Spectrum Protect vs Oracle Data Guard comparison

IBM and Oracle are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.4, while Oracle is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.3. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to Oracle’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 150 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,616 Views
2,660 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Oracle Data Guard

Read 31 Oracle Data Guard reviews

1,718 Views
838 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

Oracle Data Guard

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Oracle Data Guard are leading products in data protection and disaster recovery. IBM Spectrum Protect has an edge in pricing, while Oracle Data Guard stands out for its advanced features, making it worth its higher cost for some users.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive data backup, recovery capabilities, and strong pricing. Oracle Data Guard provides high availability, data replication, and advanced features for maintaining data continuity.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect could benefit from a simpler installation process, more cloud service integrations, and better documentation. Oracle Data Guard could improve with a less complex management interface, more user-friendly documentation, and simplified deployment procedures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect is noted for its straightforward deployment and strong customer service. Oracle Data Guard has a steeper learning curve during deployment but is backed by quality support, compensating for its deployment challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect is valued for its cost-effectiveness and provides a faster ROI. Oracle Data Guard, while more expensive, offers significant ROI through its robust feature set for enterprises needing high-availability solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

June 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 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

Oracle Data Guard

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Data Guard is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

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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Azhagupandi Parthiban

Vice President Of Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers near-real-time replication for data consistency and continuously introducing new features through upgrades

There are various advantages. First of all, easy to deploy. The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. In other ways, the implementation is very, very important. Like, we have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product. Once you configure it, it goes through the rollback, and then Data Guard introduces this snapshot thing. So once the restoration happens, we can go back to the original thing, and we make that a standard. It's a pretty decent and key function for Oracle. So, enterprise organizations go for Oracle only for features like these.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is pretty easy to use and maintain."

"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."

"It is a very stable product. The cost is similar to that of other enterprise solutions."

"It is a very good and mature enterprise product. Once it is set up and everything is put in, you don't have to manage it. It actually runs automatically by itself."

"It is scalable beyond anything my customers ever aspire to."

"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."

"IBM Spectrum Protect is stable."

"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"The solution is quite stable. We haven't experienced any bugs, glitches, or crashes. We find it to be quite reliable."

"The most valuable feature is the flashback standby, which allows us to test without scrapping the database."

"Snapshot and Data Guard Manager are awesome features."

"We chose this solution for the availability of the databases. We can't afford Oracle Grid, this is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive."

"One of the most valuable features is real-time replication. The version we're using is reliable and easy to deploy."

"We have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product."

"Oracle Data Guard has a nice feature called the DataGuard snapshot to open the solution in the read-write mode and make some changes to the database."

"You can see how the logs are applied, check the apply time, and how far behind the standby is at any given time."

More Oracle Data Guard pros

Cons

"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."

"This product comes up against other products available that are marketed better but the other products that it's in competition with are a single product and this is one of IBM products. If it could be marketed as more for competitors I think that's where it comes short."

"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."

"Technical support could be improved."

"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."

"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."

"I would not recommend the tool to others because it is a really complex product."

"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"I think it would be great to have a graphical interface assistant (like DBCA, ASMCA, NETCA, etc.) for initial configuration, monitoring, configuring Oracle Data Guard Broker and all the Data Guard Broker commands, without needing Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control installed."

"We would like to be able to see the date time stamp when you execute DGMGRL commands."

"The deployment cost is expensive."

"Oracle Data Guard is stable, but you need to keep monitoring the system all the time. You need to keep monitoring the archives."

"The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. Another area of improvement is support."

"The implementation is complex for anyone who's jumping into it without any experience. It's all command-line driven implementations. For some, that's a turn-off."

"For every standby server you have, you must pay a licensing fee, which is the main disadvantage."

"The product could improve its pricing."

More Oracle Data Guard cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."

"The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."

"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."

"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."

"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."

"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"The cost of the Oracle license will depend on the negotiations with Oracle."

"The licensing cost is significantly high."

"This is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive than Oracle Grid."

"It is not a cheap product, but if you look at the price, features, availability, scalability, and maturity, it is a very good product."

"If you want to have everything automated and done smoothly, you have to add additional licenses."

"The pricing is on the higher side."

"Oracle Data Guard is a feature available only in Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and is available for extra cost."

"It's a cost-effective solution."

More Oracle Data Guard pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

See all answers

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

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

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

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What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...

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What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs. I strongly recommend Data Guard. I've been using it for eight years and I would strongly recommend it. I'd rate Oracle Data Guard a se...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

We're Oracle partners. We've worked with databases 11G and 12C. If a company is planning to implement Oracle solutions, I would suggest they also implement Data Guard. I'd rate the solution nine ou...

See all answers

Comparisons

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 12% 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

Veeam Data Platform vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 26% of the time

AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 14% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 14% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 9% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 9% of the time

More Oracle Data Guard Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Data Guard

May 2025

Download Oracle Data Guard product report

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Active Data Guard

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.

IBM

Oracle Data Guard ensures high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data. Data Guard provides a comprehensive set of services that create, maintain, manage, and monitor one or more standby databases to enable production Oracle databases to survive disasters and data corruptions. Data Guard can be used with traditional backup, restoration, and cluster techniques to provide a high level of data protection and data availability.

Oracle

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

Athenahealth, Discover Financial Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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