IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

The diversity and flexibility of the application. No matter what the problem is, I can solve the problem any number of ways based on the customers’ requirements.

It scales.

In terms of room for improvement, I would like to see better interfaces.

I'm not allowed to talk about features I want to see in the future. I have an NDA with them. The things that I've asked for are already on record.

It's one of the most stable backup applications I've ever used.

They continue to make enhancements that allow it to scale even larger and higher. They also added additional capabilities to the software that allow it to grow within the industry.

We have used technical support and they are excellent.

We used NetWorker.

I was involved in the installation. I've set it up hundreds of times. It is a complex setup. You have to do your planning for your environment. Once you have the plan, the setup is easy. But the planning is the hardest piece.

We looked at NetBackup, Backup Exec, and there were a couple of other ones that we looked at.

My advice is to hire me and I’ll install it for you. We knew it was time to invest in a new solution because backups are crucial for our environment.

When looking for a vendor, we look for service, scalability, and stability.

The main benefit is the protection.

You can protect your data and keep it for long durations, without it spending too much time on the local disk. You can send the data to an outside location. I think the main feature is that you can protect your data from disasters.

We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem. We have a system that is in petabytes. We have five frames of the tape drives and we have more than 2,000 slots. If we could compress that space in the data center, that would be good.

I was looking for what is already in the market. Everyone is getting a cloud. The product has already given us some solutions which we can use in the cloud. I think that's fine for the moment.

I think we are running the product on AIX at the moment. I think that is the most stable platform for any product.

In terms of scalability, we have been using it for the last five years and the scalability is very good. I like that.

In terms of technical support, we had some troubles when we reached out to them, especially with IBM Europe. For the last two years, we had some issues when we were trying to reach out to IBM, even in the US. This is especially the case when the call is for Level 1 technical support.

We have been working for eight years with the product. I open a call when I have exhausted Google knowledge and my personal knowledge.

The call goes to IBM and they just ask me some silly questions. That's where you have the problem. You lose maybe two or three days just to get the right person.

I have been using this product since I joined my company.

I was involved in the setup. It was straightforward.

They should go for it. The most important thing I look for when selecting a vendor is after sales support.

I found the restore operations feature the most valuable.

• A legacy backup (daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly) would be good, this means a backup plan (native in TSM Server) that would include the following points:

One incremental daily backup with a retention of 15 days, one full weekly backup (Sunday?) with a 5 week retention, one monthly backup (the last day of each month?) with a 13-month retention), one annual backup with a 10 year retention (every January 1st? or last day of each year?).

This backup plan would be integrated into TSM Server, and it would then suffice to associate the nodes with the start times.

• A Hardware Security Module (HSM) --

Have multiple predefined queries for HSM activity, such as migrate, recall, pre-migrate activity, and performances of these activities.

In its various forms, I have used it for over twenty years.

I did not encounter any deployment issues.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

I would give local customer service a rating of 4/10.

I would give central customer service a rating of 9/10.

I would give local technical support a rating of 4/10.

I would give central technical support a rating of 9/10.

We used NetBackup and eVault because of the stability, the possible evolutions, and the available capacities.

Setup has always been straightforward. We always start with a simple and solid installation. We then extend the functions when the base is very stable and meets our expectations.

Implementation was always performed by an internal team. The team has knowledge of configuration and local operation and is not dependent on external entities.

We think we are seeing an ROI after 24 months.

The product has always been too expensive and not very easy to negotiate.

We previously evaluated NetBackup , eVault, and ArcServe.

Follow all the documentation and do the simple things initially. Do not define complex processes. During periods of crisis, it will be necessary to be simple and fast.

• Incremental-forever backup: one-time full backup; then, incremental forever.
• Data replication: removes the need for tape off-siting by replicating data from one management server to another (off-site). No need for storage replication as the replication is application-based.
• Deduplication
• Disaster recovery management: can provide assistance in managing DR media (tapes); also provides a DR plan based on current configuration.
• Macros: can automate actions using scripts, native or via OS. Spectrum Protect can be configured/managed via the command line.
• Library management: works very well with tape libraries.
• Tape management: Tape management is excellent as well. It can create multiple copies in a single process (e.g., one primary tape, one copy tape at local site, one copy for vaulting). It can also recover damaged tapes.

• Less backup/archive media
• RPO/RTO

The GUI needs improvement; it is not the best in the market.

The default GUI, Operations Center, does not provide much information to a
Spectrum Protect Administrator.

Such as:

• Volume (tape) errors
• Volume content
• DR Media Status
• Volume operations - check-in, checkout, label

To name a few.

But all this information can be attained using SP's command line interface, query or select statements.

And hey, I didn't acquire this product to watch it all day. Configured properly, it can remove backup/archive operations from the admin's daily tasks. Not a big deal for me.

I have used it for 16 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is excellent.

I previously used CA Arcserve and Veritas NetBackup.

It was easy to set up.

Compare between capacity and PVUs.

Before choosing this product, I evaluated CA Arcserve, Veritas NetBackup, and HP Data Protector.

Forget about traditional backup strategies; focus on recovery.

1. Disaster Recovery module
2. Incremental backup
3. Flahcopy manager
4. VTL support
5. IBM Spectrum Protect Operation Center
6. Deduplication
7. Node replication

Using LTO6 technology you can store up to 10TB of compressed data.

Very good performance with Virtual Tape Library technology

Reporting via Operation Center.

5 years.

No problems.

No problems.

No problems.

Excellent.

Very good.

No.

A little bit complex.

Through a vendor team and the level was not very high.

No.

Go ahead because this solution is very good.

Incremental Forever backups, Enterprise management, Journal Based backups, policy based, copy storage pools, deduplication and node replication. Also the extreme flexibility and scalability the product offers – most of it done without interrupting production at all. The smallest entry level sized installation can easily grow to large enterprise usages and be migrated across platforms.The product is very client-oriented which supports a lot of different platforms and products, and only have to be upgraded approx. every five years to maintain support.

The incremental forever, TSM for Virtual Environments, deduplication and node replication, has opened up further advantages and solutions for users and customers.

There is always room for improvement. In the fast paced time we live in, unfortunately many products are released before they are complete and mature in every corner.

10 years.

Deployment is easy and simple when few rules are followed and respected. If there is difficulties, it is often caused by lack of resources like short of requirements, willingness or insight.

No, not really - as long as it is designed properly. TSM is very stable and is based on the DB2 database.

When there’s too many clients connecting at the same time, or the platform does not meet requirements.

It is easy to get support from IBM through phone or web-based support portal.

The technical support is great, and they know the product very well.

No, I did not. I have worked other places with other systems. They were all procedure oriented and still are, even though they might have improved since.

If you want a high performing flexible solution, you need some skills with the product. Name standards, design of database, policies and storage needs some decision making.

I guess I don’t qualify for this; we are consultants ourself and are experts. :)

No, none.

Consult experts, listen and follow their advices and meet the requirements.

Client scheduling, deduplication, parallel processing of restores, disaster recovery manager.

Very reliable backup and recovery system. If you have SAN on the back-end housing TSM’s storage pools, you can achieve blazing fast restore times.

DB2 at the back-end database has some bugs in version 6; however, I have not yet worked with version 7 of TSM, so perhaps IBM has improved this, but don’t know for sure.

Since 2005.

Yes, with deduplication turned on, you need to be careful about how you scale server ratio to clients. Dedup takes more DB space and processing time. We overloaded our first v. 6 server when we moved from 5.3 and this was a major headache.

For some reason on 6.2, when DB2 does a reorg, dsmserv will hang. Have not been able to troubleshoot deep enough due to lack of time.

No. You just need to have the servers and backend SAN storage with which to scale. $$$

IBM has been pretty good so far and you get people who know the product with great expertise.

5/5.

No, I have used TSM since I started managing backup/recovery.

I would say its fairly complex and would be best done with a consultant. It is a product designed to scale to immense proportions and takes a team to put it together right.

Implemented through a vendor team. The consultant we had was an expert.

Not sure. But it has saved us from data loss many times.

Not sure.

No.

Definitely recommend it.

The valuable features for me are Disaster Recovery Manager, Replication and and File Device Class for ease of recovery.

I’m a consultant. I provide installation and technical support and help to customers. TSM provides ease of use for customers to recover from any type of data disaster.

Once the product is installed and configured correctly, it’s easy to use. But for the average user, the product is extremely difficult when compared to other products.

15+ years

I’ve been doing this for 15 years. Deployment and installation for me is fairly easy.

Unless run on Windows or an undersized machine, the product is fairly stable.

This scales quite large.

Depends on the type of support the customer purchases. But overall IBM’s first line of support is pretty bad. Not very knowledgeable and take forever to return a call and ask for the same information over and over.

Poor at the first level.

No other products used.

The set up is complex unless you know the product.

It usually takes a week of consulting to implement. That can cost 10-15k plus the cost of the product.

No other options have been considered.

Hire an expert to install and configure it and get some training to make it run.