IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

We have a very small footprint. We only use it to back up a couple of servers that we could not move over at this time. I only use it to back up two servers and very large academic systems and number cruncher systems, which isn't the best way to do that, but we do use MN backup with it. Previously, we used to use Spectrum Protect for disaster recovery (DR), but we don't use it for disaster recovery anymore.

The MN backup for a cluster is most valuable because it has made backing up the GSF as a zero-file system easier.

I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it.

It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great.

At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement.

It probably has been 20 years since I have been using it. I started using it when it was ADSM. Now it is Spectrum Protect, which I have been using for a couple of years.

I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it.

It was very stable when it was on an AIX server. AIX servers are not as common now. It is on a Linux server now, and it is definitely not as stable on a Linux server as it was on an AIX server.

Its scalability is decent. In terms of usage, we used to be exclusively all Spectrum Protect, but now we're not. We just have one department that is using it, and they don't do any restores or anything like that. I do everything. Because it has a small footprint now, I am the main person who works on it, and if needed, I have a couple of other people to help out.

I would rate them as average. It totally depends on who you get. I love getting one of their support staff members named Helen. You lucked out when you get Helen. She is awesome. There is another person with whom I've worked great, but the last couple of times, I've opened a case, and I didn't even get a callback. I ended up fixing it on my own. 

I've always used it. It started as ADSM and then became TSM and then Spectrum Protect. When we were TSM, we migrated from TSM to another product, but there were just a couple of systems that couldn't be migrated. For very large academic systems and number cruncher systems, we use MN backup. We have a very small footprint of Spectrum Protect left.

It is complex. We have a complicated environment, and it took a week. We had to use the encryption key manager, which is also an IBM product called SKLM, and that had to be upgraded. It was definitely a full week, and it was not easy.

We had a consultant, and our experience was positive.

I don't have an idea about the pricing. They send that over to someone else, but I know that one of the issues they had was the licensing costs. I don't think they were happy with how they were charged.

You would really have to implement it. It is very stable, but it is complicated. You really need to get a staff member or a good consultant who knows it fairly well.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of ten for functionality. I am biased because I know it so well. Over the years, we did really well with disaster recovery with it, but that was the old way of sending tapes down to Iron Mountain and the Sterling Forest site in New York. I always made it work, but that was stressful.

The primary use case for the solution is mainly backing up Oracle databases and critical workload AIX servers, and so on.

The Oracle database backup is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The solution is scalable.

We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good.

Technical support has been helpful overall.

Generally, the implementation of virtualization could be improved. The workflow service and so on are not working properly. They have another solution, Spectrum Protect Plus, however, for me, that is a new product. They invented a new product for virtual environments as they didn't succeed in integrating it into the former solution. For me, Spectrum Protect Plus, and Spectrum Protect are not the same product. It's not a new feature for Spectrum Protect, it is just a new thing. Therefore, we assessed IBM was not able to provide a good solution for virtual environments. Therefore, we decided to use Veeam for that.

The initial setup is quite complex.

I've been using the solution for at least these last 12 months.

The stability of the solution is perfect. It's reliable and offers good performance. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's good.

The solution can scale well. If a company needs to expand things, it can do so with ease.

We just count the servers in terms of usage. In terms of the servers, I would assume we have more or less, about 400 servers with 1.5 petabytes of storage.

In terms of scaling, we'll remain the same more or less, however, as the databases grow, we tend to increase the amount. We don't have new features and functions that we want to integrate, however, we have new services. We are growing and likely expanding.

We've contacted technical support several times. They are always helpful and responsive. We're satisfied with their level of support.

We're using Veeam for virtualization, as that aspect is not covered under IBM Spectrum Protect.

At the moment, we're happy with the features available. I can't recall feeling that there was something lacking. There aren't any new features we desperately need.

What we would like is integration between this solution and Spectrum Protect Plus. They should be one product and not two different solutions. 

The initial setup is not straightforward. It is quite complex. It's important to have the right people in place. You need good experts to manage upgrades, et cetera.

For the initial deployment, for running the system, for implementing new servers or new clients, et cetera, that is not a problem, however, the problem is really handling upgrades. That is kind of tricky.

It's a good idea to hire a consultant or integrator to assist your company in the process. It's not easy to do if you don't have the right knowledge base. 

We're just a customer and end-user.

We're using an older version, called Spectrum Protect. We are not using Spectrum Protect Plus.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've largely been happy with it. I'd give it a higher rating if Spectrum Protect and Spectrum Protect Plus could either be the same product or integrated together.

We use IBM Spectrum Protect with another product from IBM called IBM ESS. IBM ESS allows us to open up multiple screens of the backup box or the soapbox when doing backups or restores. 

The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well.

They can include more cloud-enriching features. I would like IBM Spectrum Protect to have the functionality for backing up a VM directly in Azure. I would like to back up a VM directly in Azure without spinning up a Hyper-V cluster and backing up the virtual server. 

I have been using this solution for over five years now.

It has always been stable. We never had any issues with it.

It is definitely scalable.

Their technical support has been excellent. You always get the support that you require.

I have worked with Veeam Backup and Replication, Backup Exec, NetBackup, and Commvault. We switched because we are an IBM partner, and we preferred IBM technology.

The initial setup was quite complex. 

It was set up by IBM. We have six backup administrators. We have two backup administrators internally in our company, and we have four external backup administrators.

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

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect an eight out of ten. It is very robust, stable, and easy to administer. The backup related to the cloud is the only challenge that we have with this product. We're happy with everything else. It is a good product.

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.

Protecting infrastructures and applications. We have infrastructures and applications that must be online. Some has archiving requirements that need to store data using longer retention due to legal or other requirements. With Spectrum Protect, you can adjust this to your needs.

We use this to fine tune our business requirements for the data, where we can save shorter data retention data on a storage pool with faster performance and save archiving on a storage pool with tapes to keep cost lower.

With Spectrum Protect, we were able to lower the TCO thanks to it always being incremental by design (progressive incremental forever).

Why back up data again if the data has not been changed? It has faster backups, as only changed content is sent and has less storage use.

Why restore the same content many times if you can just restore one backup?

• Faster restores as only one full backup is needed to restore. With other competitors, you have to restore fully with all their incrementals.
• We successfully lowered data storage due to its progressive incremental-forever by design (always incremental), plus its advanced data reduction techniques using deduplication with compression.
• Backups are much faster, as only changed content is sent, especially if the journaling is added.
• Restores are much faster too, as it only restore the objects needed. Other competitors restore objects from full backup, later restoring a more recent version of the object.
  

Progressive incremental-forever (always incremental):

SPFS is a file system for Spectrum Protect. A way to mount a Spectrum Protect storage pool as a mount point on your server for easier usage. With this one can protect any data using the Spectrum Protect storage.
Eg
# mount -t spfs /backup
# mysqldump > /backup/mysqldump.bkp

SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. Take application consistent snapshots locally using, and sends snapshots data using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly, so that applications can be started before all data has been copied back to original place.

Replication services would be nice. If these could be enhanced to be always on so multiple storage backup services could be added as a cluster pool. This would provide a better availability service.

It would be great if the API could add functions to check storage pool details using the client-side API.

It would be great if there would be an API to add new licenses using the client-side API so the licenses can be reviewed using QUERY LICENSE. Then, new licenses could be added using the REGISTER LICENSE command.

More than 20 years.

the solution is stable and all the fixes and patches are well tested before rolled out. workarounds are being published if bugs exists early bug fixes can be shipped earlier for clients has emergent needs (eFix) change list is being published at each release

the solution scales frmo small setup to enterprise hosting many thousands of clients. Competitors need more resourses, as it has difficulty to host the inventories, of manage the amount of data If needed, one can add storage agents, which can be used to off load data transfer, so that the data goes over these agents, instead of being sent to a central server

support is great

We previously used Dell EMC NetWorker and switched because:

• More storage was needed to manage data protection.
• It was more difficult to manage traffics, as it uses RPC, and more ports needed to be opened in the firewall.
• The solutions sometimes does not respond on "push/pull requests".

being working with ADSM, TSM, Spectrum Protect for several years, and the setup becomes more easier nowadays

we used an in-house team

By changing to this solution, we saved not only a lot of license costs, but also 450% storage cost (without space reduction techniques) + 450% additional using space reduction techniques

IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement.

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.

NetBackup.

The perfect solution with a robust, scalable, open architecture.

Many additional plugins are available on the Global Solution Directory.

Our current primary use case for this solution is for file backup. I'm head of cloud systems and we are customers of IBM.

I believe the user interface is a good feature. The personnel who work with the product on a daily basis seem to be satisfied with what's possible.

This is quite an expensive solution so I'd like to see the cost reduced. Technical support could be improved. 

We've been using this solution for 20 years. 

The product is stable. We have one person involved with maintenance. 

This is a scalable solution. We have 25 users in the company. 

The technical support really needs to be improved. 

The initial setup was quite complex. It required experienced and skilled people with a lot of know-how. We used a consultant for the deployment. 

I'm not sure what the licensing fees are but I believe they are substantial. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We use this product to back up our VMs and files locally and then to the cloud.

The most valuable feature is the backup speed.

The interface could be more user-friendly.

In the future, I would like to see more features regarding file backup, as well as multiple cloud integration.

We have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for about two years.

The stability is good.

Spectrum Protect is used to back up our infrastructure on the backend and is not directly related to the number of people in the company.

We are using both Veeam and Spectrum Protect.

The initial setup was a little bit complex. Our deployment took a couple of months to complete.

A consultant assisted us with our deployment.

The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is to implement the newest version, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

This is a good product, although it would be better if it were easier to use and manage.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We have two data centers, we have two Spectrum Protect servers, and we do cross replicating between them.

The main use case is AIX. Because AIX is an IBM product, they have their backup software for it, for SysBack and things of that nature that most other companies don't get into because there are not a lot of companies that use AIX. Bigger federal government companies use AIX  but AIX is a big one that always hampers us. That's why the business, over the last several years, we've been trying to encourage them to go into the VMware arena. We're using a lot of different products in VMware that are able to recover things very quickly, versus Spectrum Protect and AIX, you have to drop down the OS, then you have to restore the database, and then you have to roll the logs forward.

All of that takes time, whereas in VMware you can take snapshots, or you can use products like Zerto. We have Zerto in-house where we're doing asynchronous replication from our primary site to our DR site. Our VMware systems that are being protected by Zerto are seconds behind the production world. We're running anywhere from four seconds to 11 seconds behind, whereas in AIX, you have from that last backup. You may be eight hours behind. It's challenges like that, that we run into, that I'm always on the lookout for. I've been using Spectrum Protect since it was TSM for 17 years, but I'm not tied to it. There are other products out there that make your life a lot easier. As far as the data protection admin or business continuity, whatever you want to call the title they have out there, but those are challenges that we run into. And so that's where we're going, but it's just going to take some time to get there.

In the past, we've always been uploading our stuff to tape. We now have disc-based solutions, and those disc-based solutions, one of the neat features of them is when you use what they call TSM for VE, Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environment, you're able to crack those snapshots open and are able to do file-level recoveries out of them. It gives you the ability to get rid of some file-level backups that you're using and gives you the ability to get rid of some SQL data protection backups. 

Instead of taking three different backups of your systems, you're taking only one. You're able to crack that open and get what you need. The incident recovery, where it creates the VM and then you're running it, technically you're running it on Spectrum Protect. But then in the background, it's doing the storage motion and moving it off the Spectrum Protect back to your VMware environment. The users don't know the difference. 

Those are nice really features that we really use. And it's really been helpful since we've gone to an all disc-based solution.

Their support is lacking. I've talked to their developers and stuff in the last couple of weeks and they reassure me that some people have retired, and they're working on getting that bumped back up. But the support lacks a lot to be desired at this point.

Their backups are once a day, they're not doing asynchronous replication. They're doing a one time a night backup. So whereas products like Zerto, every time there's a change in a block, it's immediately written across. They're not doing replication instantaneous, they're doing it once a day. There is a lot to be desired there.

At the company that I'm at now, they've had it since 2004. I've been here since 2010. I used it at my prior company, and I've been using it for 17 years in total.

My impression currently is that stability is not very good. I'm constantly babysitting it. I'm working with IBM right now to do an assessment to hopefully pinpoint if our systems are truly undersized. And if they are, then that's not a reflection on the application. That's a reflection on us purchasing undersized equipment. If it's not, then that's a reflection on the application not performing correctly.

I'll give them a seven out of 10. They've got their niche. The two shops I've worked at have been big AIX shops, and that kept them in there.

It's definitely scalable. 

Support is retiring, they move on, and they just don't have the expertise. I've spoken to some duty managers and they've even told me that they lost a lot of people and that they are trying to rebuild that up, and it takes time. I understand it takes time, but as a customer, I don't have the luxury of saying, "Hey, I'm going to leave my system down for a couple of months because support's working on beefing back up."

I would rate the initial setup on the medium side. It's not totally complex, but there are a lot of moving parts to it. I would give it a medium.

I would say partner up with a business partner, someone who does it day in and day out because installing the application or the server is not something you do every day as a customer. As a customer, you do that once in a blue moon. A business partner is constantly doing these installations over and over so they've got it down fairly well.

I would say partner up with someone who can help you through it. Support's not going to do a whole lot with you as far as installing it. That's not really what they're there for. They're there to troubleshoot issues. A business partner's there to hold your hand and walk you through getting it installed and set up and running.

In the next release, I would like to see better protect storage pool and node replication.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect as a whole a seven out of ten.