IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Reviews

We use this solution to back up our client's nodes on a schedule. Our deployment is in an on-premises environment that includes an IBM server and the Lenovo TS3200 Tape Library.

This solution is very stable and has good support available online.

The virtual tape library needs to be improved.

We have trouble with the administration of this solution. We need to update the volumes in the tape, but it first has to be transferred from tape to disk. The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use.

The time required for backup should be optimized.

The verification process needs to be performed daily, so this should be more automated.

The volume of the database grows every day.

In the next release of this solution, I would like support for replication between the primary and secondary data centers. The duplicate backup date should be automatically eliminated.

This solution is very stable.

We have two users for this solution. One is a backup administrator and the other is the operator.

We have not used technical support for this solution. When we receive an error code, we search online and find the answer immediately.

We have been using this solution since it was named the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (IBM TSM) and did not use another solution prior.

With my experience, I don't have a problem with the installation of this solution. However, it is very difficult to install, configure, and administer with the AIX system and virtual environments.

We pay a monthly licensing fee.

At this time, I do not recommend using this solution and suggest that people choose another one. It is difficult to install, configure, and administer.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for backup within the customer's environment.

Currently, we are doing all of the PDP for VMware environments, and it seems to have been assisting us in a great way and making our backup more efficient.

The most valuable features are the API features because it allows you to integrate with your Microsoft SQL, your Oracle, and your IBM Db2.

The new functionality with the retention policy, where you can push it down from H2 Plus down to the Normal Spectrum Protect needs improvement.

There is an individual file-level restore. I would like integration into where the VMware guys can do their own restores.

At the moment, the stability of this solution seems to be extremely good. We just have to start putting more data on it and see what is going to happen with our VMware environment.

This is a scalable solution. I am aware that there are other users in South Africa using this solution. We currently only have one customer but we do plan to increase usage.

We have not used any technical support yet.

We used the original Spectrum Protect with TDP for VMware. 

We changed to the Spectrum Protect Plus because of the licensing.

The initial setup is straightforward if you follow the book. It only needs one person to deploy it and maintain it, with a maximum of two. Should one get sick, the other could take over.  We have a back-up team.

Our deployment was internally cloud-connected. At the moment, we are not using it as a public or private cloud. The deployment took less than a day because we had to wait on the VMware guys to build the OVA for us.

We started to deploy it more into existing VMware environments in our environment. We have deployed it in only two of our environments and we have another six to do.

We implemented this solution ourselves.

At the moment we have not seen a return on our investment.

The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original. It is much more efficient because of the cost. There are no additional set up costs that I am aware of.

They charge you for every terabyte of licensing that you can back up. We have a contract with IBM that includes maintenance for three or five years.

If they are using the existing System Protect they should convert to Spectrum Protect Plus. It will save them a lot of money from a cost perspective.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My primary use case for this solution is for virtual machine backup.  I have multiple environments including public-cloud, private-cloud, and an internal infrastructure.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration with Oracle.

The backup support for IBM Power Virtualization needs to be added. This would be a pretty good plus for this solution because no product at this moment, as I know, offers this feature.

It seems stable. I don't have much experience with this solution in a production environment, but it seems pretty stable.

I did not use this solution extensively during the trial period.

The solution can be scaled easily.

I was the only person using this solution during our trial period.

I did not contact technical support during the trial period.

I know their other product, IBM Spectrum Protect Server, very well. I tried this solution, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, to see what is different. I wanted to know what the advantages were to using this version.

Given that we are an integrator, our environment is one such that we will not be switching, at least for the moment.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. The deployment took approximately one day.

I took care of the deployment myself.

Our primary use case for this solution is for backup and recovery.

The first advantage of using this solution is that it saves us money. Because with this product, we basically use this solution for data management or the backup management we are using. It reduces our multiple copies of data. If you do a daily backup on Spectrum Protect, you will get a longer retention feature.

I also like the speed of the duplication copy of the storage pool under IBM TSM libraries that this solution offers. You can make multiple copies of the same storage for and across multiple tape libraries, while in other solutions it's not easy to do.

Some of the features we find very valuable and use a lot are retention sets. There is a lot of content validation of the data that we use, and that is very helpful. Apart from this data retention technology, Spectrum Protect duplicates things which is useful.
We have an environment that is not only the raw file system, but the databases also. Different Exchange, SQL and all these kind of different applications are integrated with the Spectrum Protect. So it's a free functional kind of environment. Other features like centralization, data retention technologies, and retention sets are the very useful in our environment.

An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot.

There is no doubt that the solution is really stable. When I was working for IBM a few years ago, I have been involved in implementing it at a couple of places. Once implemented, you don't need to worry about it. Other solutions have to be updated regularly, but that is not the case here. 

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is fully scalable. Whenever I interact with a customer I tell him that this is not only a backup solution, it is a total data management solution where you get protection, data protection, plus archiving and many other things. This is quite a huge portfolio so I do believe it is a scalable product.

The technical support is very good. A customer can just raise a support ticket online and IBM will be available and check in to give support - either by getting in contact or by sending a solution email. When I used their technical support a while back, a technical engineer came back to me within a day. 

I worked with a net backup solution (EMC) at the previous organization where I worked. They offered specific benefits in terms of a user interface that was easy to use. They also have a very good graphical interface and users could easily perform tasks, do backups and do data retention. That was easy in those products.

At that time IBM Spectrum Protect was not that easy to use. It was only in 2014 that IBM Spectrum Protect mad their user interface easier and then this product became more popular. Today IBM Spectrum Protect is easier to use than other products. Other products are still at the same level of use as they were 7 or 8 years ago.

IBM Spectrum is also fully integrated with IBM products and that is why we went for the IBM Spectrum Protect. We liked that they were integrated with existing middle-ware and other products they are using. 

Five or six years ago it would have been complex. But now it's no trouble and not that much complex at all. It is user-friendly - from the interface point and from the intelligence point of view. So now it's not that much difficult.

I would recommend this solution for others who are looking at buying a data recovery and backup solution. But this product is not just for backup and recovery. This is far bigger than that. Backup and recovery is only one component of this product, as it also offers data to life-cycle management. I rate this a nine out of ten.

It is a new product coming out from IBM to compete mainly against Veeam and Backup Exec software. It is mostly for the virtual environment, which is either VMware or Hyper-V.  

Our starting customers have approximately 30 to 40 VM machines. This is our target per customer, which may grow in the future, but cost-wise, it should be less for them.

Mostly, in our region, they are implemented on-premise with a mix of disk or tape. Some of them are looking for cloud, and this product is fully integrated with all cloud vendors, like IBM Cloud or Amazon Cloud. Therefore, there is no problem if the customer would like to have type of of cloud backup to keep his data.

I would like more integration with security. We need to show the value of the product in regards to handling security. For example, how it handles current malware or viruses. IBM should be more proactive in this direction.

The solution's stability is high because it is derived from Spectrum Protect.

It is scalable. It starts from a small customer and grows with them as they develop and build up their business in the future.

Our company is managing small customer to large enterprise customers. This is because Spectrum Protect or Spectrum Protect Plus database can support very large enterprise customers with more than 4 billion objects. Thus, the solution is scalable and can be fitted for any customer.

We use them to support customer problems. The customer can open a ticket with a PMR with IBM for support. The customer can open it directly or we have our support line on GBM, so it will help the customer at a first stage or step before getting to IBM support. However, in a lot of cases, IBM is already supporting the customer, and the support is very good. The total fix time is recognized, and they can help our customers very well.

I sell the product, but we have client engagement with the customer during the project planning. This explains to the customer the scope of work and how much it will take. So, our implementation guy already creates this scope after discussing the customer requirements and understanding the customer infrastructure, or customer components, then they decide the scope of work. We have to execute the project plan to be ensure that the product is delivered and installed correctly.

If the customer is new, maybe the older version of Spectrum Protect was little bit complex because it did not have full gateway interface interaction. However, the newer version of Spectrum Protect is easier, and the customer is likely to see the gateway interface. It is much more user friendly.

The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product. The product can be extended again on for a short-term retention on disk if you are going only on a virtual environment, only on VM base licensing. However, if you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive.

Our customers do evaluate other vendors, especially Commvault. We also cannot ignore Veritas and EMC NetWorker Solutions. These solutions sometimes evaluate our base on pricing or function. It depends on the customer situation. It is different from customer to customer, as it is a bit difficult to change the backup software on the customer side. This is because it requires a lot of migration.

The primary use of this solution is for VMware integration.

Because of the licensing structure it was possible to use Spectrum Protect Plus without to much financial impact.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use.

There could be better integration with Spectrum Protect and Spectrum Protect Plus, it should be one solution.

I have been using this solution for a few years.

I have found the solution stable.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution in my organization.

The solution is scalable.

The installation is straightforward.

We used a consultant for the implementation of the solution.

We have four administrators for the maintenance of the solution.

I have evaluated Rubrik and Veeam.

I would not recommend this solution to others because there are far better solutions on the market.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a seven out of ten.

We use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for our customers, specifically for backups.

What I like about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is its integration, plus it has very good technical support.

Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas.

In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting.

I've been working with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for two to three years now.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a stable product.

The technical support for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very good.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a product that's difficult to install.

Four to six customers use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

My company doesn't have plans of increasing the usage of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

My advice to people looking into implementing the product is to check the prerequisites and manuals and ask for assistance from technical support before implementing IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

My rating for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is seven out of ten.

My company is a partner of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.