IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

Our primary use case is using it for protecting the physical environment.

The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best.

In terms of what could be improved, the integration with Cloud and a simplified, unified GUI. They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for almost 15 years.

It is very stable.

Yes, it is scalable. It is scalable with Db2 and it can be scalable with the metatext.

Their technical support is good.

The initial setup can be a little bit complex.

It could be simplified.

The pricing is costly.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give IBM Spectrum Protect around a 7.

To raise that score, I would like to see Cloud integration and full Cloud support.

Additionally, they have much less support in terms of backing up the SQL databases than other applications.

There are many modernized applications out there in the market. If someone has a full legacy with tape in front or if they have purely tape and they want to use tapes, then for them I would say it is a very good solution. But if they want to move towards Cloud and modernize more, then I think there are better solutions to look into than IBM, such as Veeam or Cohesity or Rubrik.

We use IBM Spectrum Protect for all the organization backups. When there is loss of data, we can restore it from the backup.

We have found the building, compression, backup, and the tool to save point-in-time backups to be valuable features.

The backup is very good. In other backup systems, you need a lot of storage to gain the same backup policy.

There aren't too many bugs, and it is good for storage and backup.

The high availability of the backup servers can be improved because we can replicate nodes, but the software is very complicated. It's very complicated to do backups in several clusters.

You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore.

To go to new hardware, it's a project because you would need to do tests of the backup and restoration of the  DB2 database. A lot of time would need to be spent.

There are lots of configuration issues.

I think it would be good if they could improve the self service of the users.

We've been using this solution for about 20 years.

It is a stable solution.

It's not a scalable solution. For example, if I need to move to a better host or if I need to move my database that gives them the metadata, then I would need to move the IBM Spectrum Protect database to another storage spot. So, I would need to do a backup and restoration of the database. There is no scalability in the backup server.

I can't move it to another host without downtime. I would need a minimum of one day of downtime to move the database to another storage spot or to move the server to another server. I can't build another host and then switch.

We do plan to increase usage because there are more backup needs.

The technical support is okay. Sometimes, they give the answer but not immediately. At other times, we have to handle a case for a very long time.

The initial setup for IBM Spectrum Protect was complex. It's not a software that you can install and do a little bit of configuration and be done. You have to know very well what you're doing with it.

It works with DB2, and you have to know what the sizing, the log sizing, and so forth are. This is the difficulty with this software.

I did the deployment myself, but it would be very difficult to do it alone. I did it because I had enough time as a new employee 20 years ago; I took it on as a project.

However, in most organizations there won't be enough time to learn about IBM Spectrum Protect yourself. It would be better to do it with a deployment company that has more experience.

I think that overall it's a good software for backup. There aren't a lot of bugs, and it's very good for storage. However, you have to be a specialist; it's not plug and play.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect at nine.

Our clients use it for consolidated backup and mostly for guests on the VM.

The solution significantly improves a client's restoration times. They also do complete backups now. Some of the things clients used before couldn't really provide complete backups. In that sense, it's been great for organizations.

The solution actually does a lot. It's really powerful. The value of Spectrum Protect is it does everything. It does tape and it does disk. It's easy to migrate. You don't need any other software. It's basically an all-in-one solution, which is its most valuable aspect.

Their GUI has improved quite a bit. It's made the solution a lot simpler and less complex.

The solution has a Spectrum Protect Plus product, which is more for Windows-only VM. However, it doesn't really do tape. It requires IBM to do things to the Cloud, which adds costs. They're starting to integrate the products together. That said, right now, it's like two implementations, it's not one product.

We've tried to sell Protect Plus from time to time, however, then you need Protect if you want to do tape. It's kind of clunky. Once they integrate the products, it will be pretty powerful.

Spectrum Protect is still an industry-leading product across multiple operating systems. It still runs best on an AIX server and does remember Windows or Linux. The install base is more AIX as far as hosts because the AIX server is more powerful.

They should be able to integrate the products so that you don't have to do two system installs.

The solution should have a better way to deal with the system state files in Windows. They should do that better where it doesn't try to walk the file system and you have to use in image mode.

The experienced people still use the CLI. You shouldn't have to use a CLI to use this product.

They took some of the funding off of it for a while. Therefore, instead of being a market leader, they took their position for granted. Then some competitors developed new bells and whistles that they advertise, and due to that lag a few years ago, there are not the resources to explain the differences.

They're outsold. IBM is outsold because people do not understand the product and it had a reputation of being complex.  That said, with the new GUIs and other improvements, it's really pretty easy. The problem is they've got to deal with their old reputation of being difficult and complex. Still the GUI could still be more robust.

I've been using the solution for 20 years now. It's been two decades.

The solution is extremely stable. There are no issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or fail. It's reliable.

We work with all sizes of businesses from Fortune 100 insurance companies to small colleges and universities. We have all sorts of customers.

The scaling potential of the solution is huge. This is an enterprise solution compared to some of the smaller options. It also scales down when you do less than 100 terabytes. It has very favorable pricing. It's competitive with other products.

Technical support is not as good as it could be. It's not as good as some of the competitors. IBM has put more resources into it recently. However, they had a stage about two years ago where they kind-of stopped spending as much money on Protect due to the fact that they had so many other IBM products. 

Overall, I'd rate their technical services at seven out of ten. It's not too bad, however, it could be better. They are quite responsive. Now that IBM is more focused on improving the product it may improve as well.

I have some experience with Veeam as well. I really like it compared to Veeam. You don't have to have media servers. It's nice compared to Veeam that ­clients don't have to do a media server.

We've had customers who have used other solutions, however, they've been weak and not as scalable as IBM.

The initial setup is not complex. It's straightforward. It's easy.

The pricing is quite good and very competitive in the market.

I'm a reseller and a system architect. I'm not really a user. I'm a project manager and architect. However, we have people on our team that use and install it.

We're using the current version of the solution.

I'd advise other companies to not forget tape. With ransomware and everything else, it's hard. People forget tape is cheap. Tape gives you an air-gap, and, if you properly use it, you get a good hybrid solution.

Many people think it's disk only, and that's just for yesterday's restore, however, for a long-term solution, tape is so much more cost-effective.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's a full-feature product. It's hard to be perfect with full-featured products. There are compromises due to the fact that they do so much.

Our primary use case is for database backups. It is performing okay. 

We are probably moving to NetWorker, because we want to use one platform for all of our backups. Right now, we use Avamar for virtualized environments and Spectrum Protect for databases. We want to get to one platform.

We have two main campuses with three petabytes of storage. We use virtualized tape, IBM product TS7700 Hydra. Those are all replicating, and we also have our Spectrum Connect and Spectrum Protect databases being replicated using Remote Mirror between sites (about 130 kilometers apart). Right now, the database (300 to 400 gigs) is sitting on some flash on a EMC VNX behind an SVC.

It is just a backup. It has not changed anything.

It allows us to have one interface. Our database administrators can schedule backups themselves. We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups. Also, we can have different schedules for whatever they need, whenever they want.

We would like to see bare-metal restorers.

There are some things that it is not doing too well for us. It does not do too well in our virtual environment. We have had to move away from it because of this.

Stability is good. We have some trouble with Clients, but I think all backup products have problems. They just have different problems.

It is pretty scalable. It will scale to anything. There have been no problems. 

Technical support has been good. Except sometimes, there will be some performance problems and no one knows what is happening. We end up spinning our wheels. With a couple of performance problems, we have ended up having to rebuild the database because everyone will eventually give up. 

Everything is normally good. If we have had a problem with our Client, they respond right away.

I do not know who else was evaluated when we were looking for a solution.

Now, we have NetWorker, Avamar, and Spectrum Protect. So, we have two and a half too many backup products.

What it does, it does excellent. I would recommend the product.

We chose Spectrum Protect because everything we had was IBM. At the time, it could do everything; all the environment. Everything that we had could go into Spectrum Connect: There were some P7s, Windows, and that was it.

The primary use case is to provide backup and archive our data, onsite and offsite. It is performing very well. 

Our infrastructure is on-premise; nothing is in the cloud. We are utilizing things like spinning disks, flash storage, tape, snapshots, etc. We are still sending tapes outside. 

It has a lot more capabilities and functions than a lot of other products. Even though it is more complex, the reason is because it gives you a lot more features. This is what I  prefer, especially for a long retention.

I have not implemented the most important feature yet: node replication. I can have a hot Spectrum Protect server under the DR site instead of having to build one up like I would have had to before.

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. I grew up doing command line, so it is fine for me. For people that are younger, they want to do everything on their smart phone, and running hundreds of commands is not the answer. Therefore, more functionality for things like creating tape drives and tape libraries, as the functionality is not at the operations center yet. If the operations center had been fully functional, I would have probably given it a rating of a 10.

So far, so good. I am looking to find out, in the future, what the stability is going to be and the best way to architect what we are designing to do.

Everything so far has been really good. It is very scalable.

I am managing two instances of Spectrum Protect.

The technical support has been really good for both Spectrum Protect and IBM Storage. The support team has very responsive. I want to be talking to somebody who can help me and knows more than me, which is the case with IBM technical support. So, their support has been very good.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward because it was really old school. Now, with the whole new design of where we are going, I am involved from ground floor up.

The product is more complex and can be pricey, but you are paying for one copy of the data as opposed to other vendors. For example, if I have five copies of the data, I will be spending a lot more money. Switching to one vendor, it will cost over a million dollars to give us less functionality, which is why we did not do it.

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

We evaluated Commvault, NetBackup, and Axiom (until they were purchased by a competitor). We also looked at Rubrik. We prefer Spectrum Protect, and even though we have looked at its competitors, we have never switched.

I would recommend going with Spectrum Protect. That is what I would tell them now, and I have, I have former coworkers using other products that ask me about designing a hot site, because their product does not do it.

Main criteria when selecting a vendor: Something that would allow us to be able to have it onsite. For the other vendors who we looked at, you would still have to build up a new server or new environment, and hopefully have a backup of your database. In this case, I can switch from a primary to a secondary, back and forth, instead of spending weeks, maybe months, producing a tape library. Now, I do not have to do that.

We used the platform for data backup purposes.

The platform has valuable stability.

There could be various client systems and process integration included in the product.

We have used IBM Spectrum Protect for 20 years.

I rate the platform's stability a nine out of ten.

We had more than 1000 IBM Spectrum Protect users in our environment. The scalability is low for process integration. Apart from that, it provides good scalability.

There was a team of two to three administrators for deployment. Two administrators maintain it at present.

We implemented it in-house back then.

IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs.

We plan to switch to another tool as IBM Spectrum Protect doesn't meet our business requirements. I rate it a one out of ten.

We are a technology provider and IBM Spectrum Protect is one of the solutions that we are certified in. Our customers are using it for databases and applications.

The interface is easy to use.

Better integration with other tools and databases is needed. Some examples of this are Oracle RMAN and Veeam.

I have been working with Spectrum Protect for three years.

The stability is ok. We are working with different databases and different clients, and we haven't had any issues.

Scalability is good.

The technical support is good but it isn't easy to convince somebody to use it more often because of the cost.

I have used similar products by several different vendors and I feel that many of them are better than IBM Spectrum Protect. For example, Veeam is better because it provides better protection for a physical server. They offer both an on-premises and a virtual edition.

I think that the initial setup is simple, although the solution overall is somewhat complex in terms of detail. Our deployment took one month to complete because it took time to identify the full workload.

We were able to deploy it for databases on four or five systems, some of which are not Windows-based. We have different technologies in use.

This is a product that I recommend, although I think it depends on the sizing of your IT systems. That said, there is a need to have a solution that is recognized by most companies.

Overall, I feel that this is an average product. In my opinion, there are many competing products that are better than Spectrum Protect.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

Besides the compression, the new feature of data replication has helped us. Based on the feature, we were able to decommission our tape media infrastructure.

The most valuable features of Spectrum Protect would be the compression and the deduplication.

I am looking forward to new features in the next release.

One of the main features is the cloud storage integration, which was one of my main required features. I've had more difficult experiences with other platforms than with this one.

It's a very stable application. It was challenging at the beginning of the implementation of the replication and deduplication, but once it was completely deployed, it has been very stable.

The scalability has been great. We were able to introduce and scale from the storage pools, as well as from all the backup infrastructures.

I have used technical support. I've been fully engaged with IBM support and they've been very, very helpful.

I've been using the same product for the last 15 years. I know it's been very reliable, so I've stayed with it.

The setup was challenging in certain areas. For the most part, based on the experience I had, I was able to accomplish it OK.

I would highly recommend the proof of concept which is one thing that IBM provides with their lab services and other types of support. Especially with the new features and the cloud integration, that will be a great opportunity to introduce the new platform.

The most important criteria is scalability and support. Support to me is key, since at the end of the day, we're providing service to the company. So far, the experience has been very good.

I have been working with it for a few years now and I've touched other types of data protection platforms. So far, Spectrum Protector has been the best.