IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

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

The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line. I think the management console could be improved.

The initial setup is very complex.

I've been using this solution for more than twenty years.

IBM Spectrum Protect is very stable.

The technical support is at a medium level; not bad and not good.

The initial setup was very complex.

When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect at eight on a scale from one to ten.

IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products. It has much third party integration, such as that involving databases, email and virtual machines. 

The solution is quite outdated compared with others and I feel IBM to be lagging a step or two behind other vendors. 

We have received user complaints about the user interface. There is a need to manage a monitor and it can sometimes be exceedingly difficult to manage the internal TSM Spectrum Protect database. 

As a general rule, things should be updated. I do not manage too many customers who still utilize IBM, perhaps only one or two. 

While the installation is, overall, pretty straightforward, we must make certain that the requirements are met before we begin the process. 

In respect of stability, while IBM is very good because of the maturity of its products, which function well for the current environment, there are certain features I find lacking. It is stable, but old. 

When it comes to technical support, we must occasionally collect the log and we find the process to be layered. This makes it problematic to get the support we need from level two, since level one support basically consists of a call center, something which is more useful for end users than integrators and which is time consuming, as well. 

The solution tends to be hard to monitor and control and the user interface should be addressed. So too, the environment and the queries are not user-friendly. 

The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface. The solution should have more features and a more powerful GUI, equal to the command-line, as we occasionally are unable to configure it through the GUI and must resort to command-line prompting. 

The solution is not geared toward one who lacks a dedicated manager of his backup infrastructure, usually involving the command-line interface. This can make it quite challenging. We occasionally have to configure our minutes or make a mass configuration using the command-line, as opposed to the GUI. 

IBM is pretty challenging when it comes to scalability, since the bigger the environment, the greater the TSM database, especially in respect of long term retention. Sometimes our customers require permanent backup retention and this increasingly enlarges the size of the solution's database, making things hard to manage. 

I have been working with IBM Spectrum Protect for eight or nine years. 

Though there are certain features missing when it comes to IBM, I consider it to be good, as we are talking about a mature product with good functioning in the current environment. The solution is stable, just outdated. 

IBM poses a challenge to the scalability, since a bigger environment requires an increased TSM database, primarily when it comes to long term retention. Our customers occasionally require permanent backup retention and this places an increasing burden on the size of the solution's database, which makes things challenging to manage. 

Technical support can be problematic, as we must occasionally collect logs and are required to first go through level one support before proceeding to level two. This process is time consuming and geared more towards the end user than the integrator. 

While the installation is mostly straightforward, there is an initial need to ensure that the requirements are fulfilled before proceeding with it. 

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect as a six out of ten. 

It is a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. My team and I are more comfortable with this solution. With this product, we are able to save a lot in costs and on expensive storage. It has reduced backup infrastructure costs for us.

The data archiving functionality. It is easier and less time-consuming.

It lacks reporting and an efficient alert mechanism. The GUI could also be improved.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

No issues with scalability.

Technical support is a 10 out of 10.

TSM. I liked its command-line interface. But now Spectrum is even easier for my team.

Setup was pretty good with the Blueprint design. We are trying to get more generic with these services.

We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective.

We can move straight to a disk-based solution with the container pools, which is working well. And we are looking into cloud.

It is a well-rounded solution. It provides everything any enterprise would need.

The archiving ability of Spectrum Protect is second to none. Our company archives millions of files and Spectrum Protect has been the only product we found that can handle the workload, let alone handle it in the time frame that we require.

Traditional archiving. One of our revenue streams involves maintaining archives of our customers' data for very long periods of time. Spectrum Protect has proven to be the most effective solution given our requirements.

The GUI has long been a problem for TSM/Spectrum Protect. IBM has improved it a great deal, but until you can do any administrative task necessary, it will always be its weakest point.

Stability is one of its strongest advantages. It’s not the easiest product to configure, but once it is set up, it rarely has issues.

Scalability for Spectrum Protect has been another strong point for it. When I took over the team, we had just three instances in production. As we have expanded worldwide, we have grown to more 14 instances. Scalability has not been an issue as we have grown.

I think this has a lot to do with the level of support you purchase as well as the level of expertise of the administrator. If you are new to the product, their support is fair. If you are experienced and are experiencing a serious issue, their support can be very lacking and tends to be quite slow to respond.

We have used Backup Exec and Commvault in our environment in the past. Backup Exec did not scale well as the company grew. Commvault was not scaling as well and could not meet our archiving needs.

Installation of the product is much more simplified than in the past. Configuring the server itself is not something I would recommend for an inexperienced administrator to try and do on his own.

Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment. Capacity based licensing is pretty straightforward. IBM provides tools to help evaluate how much capacity you are using. PVU licensing is more complex and generally is going to be more expensive unless you have massive amounts of data coming from just a few locations.

I have evaluated NetBackup, Commvault, Backup Exec, Legato, Avamar, and Rubrik.

Have a good understanding of what data you need to back up, how long and under what conditions it need to be retained, and how you can best organize it. This will help greatly when it comes time to configure storage pools, domains, polices, and copy groups.

Our primary use cases are for data protection and data backup.

The most valuable features are the stability and also how it's seamlessly integrated with other IBM offerings.

Their marketing needs improvement. I don't think it's market correct.

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. 

There are massive choices when it comes to data backup, in terms of products. VMware is known on the market, for example. But VMware only can market that. IBM on the other hand has 20,000 products and the Spectrum Protect does not get the same presence in the market, because of the vastness of the organization. But a competitor, VMware, only has to market that product offering that they have because that's all they have. IBM has to market their solution better.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for five years. 

It's very stable. 

It's highly scalable. 

Their support is excellent. 

The initial setup was complex.

The capability of the product now has been remarketed in IBM. So IBM Spectrum Protect is part of the Spectrum Suite. If you've got time, look at that. There are about 17 software-defined products that all interlink with each other. You'll get maximum usage out of the Spectrum Suite. I would recommend it.

The Spectrum that we know now was the old IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. Check up on Utility Storage Manager. IBM repackaged it as part of their fully software-defined offering. And one of the Spectrum Suite products is Spectrum Protect.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect an eight out of ten. 

I provide architecture consultation, mission expertise, installation, upgrade, migration and, sometimes, official Spectrum Protect education for IBM.

I have a lot of examples of how it has improved different clients' organizations, but the greatest value is with a dual-site infrastructure and container storage pools.

• Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs.
• The way it covers backup and archive needs. The flexibility of backup copy group always allows me to cover the customer's requests.
• Replication processes with container storage pools allow reduction of storage space and network bandwidth, using deduplication and compression.

The administration interface:

• should implement more functionalities that exist only in the command line
• needs improvement in how some reports are created.

Also, it needs agents that take into account more databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.).

It depends on the infrastructure and the requirements, but from an overall viewpoint, and in light of my experience of 15 years with TSM, I rate Spectrum Protect at eight out of 10.

Our customers have on-premise infrastructure mostly using tape libraries. We do have a company using a virtual tape library. Though, t customer does not have many benefits from their virtual tape library, as the infrastructure is majority over the AIX file of Spectrum.

In my country, we manage 25 solutions. In all countries, we manage 200.

Maintaining recovered data.

• Mainly backups
• Replication
• Exporting the data from another data center.

Any feature that is compliant with virtualizing the application should be improved. Also, the product should be improved to save more space.

It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable.

The product is scalable. However, the customer's infrastructure is usually not scalable. Therefore, the environment (server, tapes, etc.), not the product, limits the scalability of the customer.

Technical support is usually effective onsite. My work is with IBM systems.

I would rate offsite technical support as average. The PMRs should be faster.

I would recommend the product.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Price
• Easy tool management
• An operating systems which works
• Capacity of encryption. 

Scalability, it lets your company grow without losing confidence.

Significantly reduced recovery time.

All departments.

19 years.

No.

No.

Very good.

Yes, policy of growth and utilization of the structure.

The planning and its structure all went smoothly.

Use licensing "FRONT END".

No.

Have the right advice through and get a specialized partner.