IBM Spectrum Protect vs Oracle Data Guard comparison

"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 a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."

"The best part of this solution is that it just works."

"It is a very stable solution."

"For initial setup, we started with the blueprints, which were great. The blueprints allowed us to be able to decide if we needed to use small, medium,k or large. Because we are a large environment, we used a large blueprint. Once we followed everything in the blueprint, it was a smooth transition from there."

"Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs."

"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."

"The scalability of IBM Spectrum Protect is good."

"The most valuable features are the backup and restore. With this in place along with the clustering, the database is safe from hacking, hardware failure, power failures, and system crashes."

"Backup and application continuity are most valuable."

"The solution can scale as needed."

"We use Data Guard for online replication from data center, to data center for high availability. This is the most important feature."

"The solution is really very stable. One good thing about it, compared to other products, is that you can just run it and forget about it. Unless you come across some interruptions in the network, it works like a charm."

"Data Guard also improved because customers with an active Data Guard license want to reduce the I/O in a production environment. Some application complaints to it for Oracle reporting purposes. It has a production environment that needs to be enhanced."

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

"We have found the replication feature the most useful. We use this feature the most. The ability to recover a database with less effort and the use of Oracle Data Guard Broker to administer the complete environment are also very useful features."

"The software is complex; setup is complex."

"In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center."

"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."

"Integration with some applications in the healthcare field could be added, as that is a big part of our business."

"I would like to see the operations center be a lot more functional. It was nowhere near as functional as the admin center, and I'm doing a lot of command line with it."

"Restoring massive files is a very time-consuming process."

"It is not easy to manage like other products in the market. It is okay only if you are command-line driven. Even though the operation center is there, it doesn't provide a single view of everything. You have to, for example, use TSMManager on top of it, which gives you a far better management capability, but it is a third-party product. Its management needs to be improved. There should be an HTML or graphical interface. It is a very difficult product. For example, you have a backup policy where you want a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly policy standard. It is an old kind of system where you have to keep retention for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backups, which is very difficult in IBM Spectrum Protect. In other products, in a matter of five minutes, you can configure such a policy. In TSM, it takes you one, two, or three days because you need to configure a node for each of them. If you have 250 nodes, you have to configure each node for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention. If you have 1,000 nodes, it is going to take you ages just to configure and register the nodes. You need to configure the schedule and the CAD daemons or services, depending on whether it is a Unix or Windows OS. Unfortunately, it is a very long and drawn-out process. You have to stop and start the services for changes to take effect. This is a very difficult part of TSM in IBM Spectrum Protect. To configure a backup policy, I should be able to select the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly options in one screen and finish it. After that, everything should happen in the background. All the backup products in the market already do that, and they are very simple to manage. This particular part of this solution has really been a major pain area for us, and unfortunately, we could not find a workaround. There is nobody at IBM who can give us a way to configure all this easily through a GUI or even scripts."

"It should have the ability to break down the data that's being backed up. It should have better reporting."

"The product could improve its pricing."

"The pricing of the solution is quite high. They should do what they can to bring it down so that it is more reasonable for customers like us."

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

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

"The initial setup is complex."

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

"The predominant issue lies in the communication link between the secondary and primary databases."

"When the data replicates into the standby database there is a possibility of having a microsecond amount of data loss. The data loss occurs when there is a network disconnection between the primary and secondary standby database located in the data centers or if there is a crash in the primary database."

"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity."

"The solution is not cheap."

"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."

"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."

"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."

"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."

"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."

"The product is not cheap."

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

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

"It's a cost-effective solution."

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

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

"The cost is expensive."

"The licensing cost is significantly high."

"The pricing is on the higher side."