IBM Spectrum Computing Reviews

The typical use case for IBM Spectrum Computing is that it's an all-rounder. It can be used in various scenarios, such as the retailer I work for that has batch processing. It's on-demand when performance is needed immediately.

The solution has been designed with that in mind, not specifically for capacity but for performance. The configuration we have today is performance-focused, and many features have been added to the configuration to achieve that. Additionally, it can run file servers, backups, database transactional online processing, Kubernetes, VMware, Oracle, and even mainframe.

The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products. The software is solid, meaning that the code is stable. They take business seriously, which is what IBM stands for - International Business Machines. They always maintain a business-oriented approach in their software development.

It's not simply clicking through interfaces; in IBM software, they consider their actions, process flows, and workflows around business processes. It requires understanding IBM and their methodology, as the software operates accordingly.

I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature. We use Insights, which is connected to the cloud. This provides AI capabilities for analyzing the configuration, offering smart recommendations on new code, warning about bugs in current code, and suggesting configuration improvements through its advisor tool.

The predictive analytics feature in IBM Spectrum Computing enables optimal software performance through Insights. However, being a storage administrator requires foundational knowledge and understanding beyond these tools. For troubleshooting, it's efficient in spotting bottlenecks, but understanding the terms and metrics is essential as it provides answers that need interpretation.

IBM Spectrum Computing had limitations with remote copy services between head office and disaster recovery sites. In the last year, IBM has improved the code by re-engineering it to policy-based replication versus legacy IP replication. This represents a major improvement and simplification. The technology has evolved from traditional, mainframe-type technology to meet current market demands.

There are additional areas where IBM Spectrum Computing can improve, particularly in system administration and management. The GUI has evolved from IBM's traditionally plain interface, but there's potential for further improvements to make it more Microsoft Windows friendly.

IBM Spectrum Computing's scalability is impressive, extending to petabytes. Modules can be added to expand it wide. It can scale up in capacity and scale wide or scale out on performance.

Technical support for IBM Spectrum Computing deserves a perfect rating. They consistently provide accurate information for support inquiries and problems. The quality of feedback has improved with familiarity. The experience can vary depending on which country handles the ticket and the engineer's native language, as some translations to English can be unclear. However, the technical quality remains consistently good.

The support rating stands at 9.9 out of 10.

Positive

The initial setup of IBM Spectrum Computing is complex, following an 80/20 principle with 80% planning. When planned correctly on paper first, execution comprises just 20% of the effort. The process typically takes about a week when done properly. After implementation, operations take over for day-to-day administration and management.

There has definitely been ROI from this solution. They could improve on cost savings as their deduplication software isn't keeping pace with the market. For example, NetApp has excellent deduplication software built into their storage systems. While IBM has great compression technology, specifically on their FlashCore modules, they lag behind in deduplication capabilities. Improving this aspect would significantly help with cost efficiency.

IBM Spectrum Computing consistently offers competitive pricing. When solutioning new implementations, IBM always presents the best solution and price. In a recent comparison with Pure Storage and NetApp storage, IBM's solution was approximately 4 million rand cheaper than NetApp for a full consolidated solution. Once established with IBM, their pricing structure makes it difficult to consider alternatives.

IBM Spectrum Computing's hybrid deployment capabilities allow for storage virtualization of other brands under their storage. This hybrid functionality enables management of non-IBM storage such as Dell, Pure Storage, or NetApp storage, virtualizing and managing it within the IBM configuration. Based on overall experience, this solution rates at 9.9 out of 10.

It is big on resilience and security. Their focus is on providing robust and secure solutions. Due to their high-end server models, IBM products are often more expensive than competitors. While IBM is not exactly a niche market player, it doesn't dominate the server market. IBM's share is relatively small, around 15 percent, compared to other server vendors.

IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations, but their approach seems overly complex. While some customers with demanding applications like SAP may need this high computing power, IBM's systems are quite complicated. 

IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging. To work on an IBM deal, you often need to involve multiple specialists, each knowledgeable about only part of the product, rather than having a single point of contact. This fragmentation complicates the sales process, especially for software and server solutions with numerous SKUs. Customers are frequently overwhelmed by the complexity of quotes and the large number of SKUs, which can detract from the perceived value.

IBM's hardware, particularly servers, tends to be complex and expensive. It often becomes unsupported within three to five years, leading to issues with obtaining replacement parts or compatible components. This lack of downward compatibility can frustrate customers, who may feel pressured to make additional purchases to stay current. As a result, some customers might consider switching to other options, especially if they encounter difficulties with support or compatibility.

IBM also works on new initiatives like PowerBS for virtual systems and cloud integration. While this may address some of the existing challenges, IBM still has room for improvement in simplifying its offerings and support.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Computing for four years.

IBM's products are impressive and scalable, offering high performance and reliability. However, they come with a high price tag and complexity that can be daunting for those unfamiliar. 

If you compare IBM servers to others, such as Dell or HPE, IBM's servers stand out in performance and capability. IBM servers are in a different category from lower-end or mid-range options, positioning them as high-end solutions that are not easily compared to more mainstream servers.

The installations can be quite challenging. Few third-party vendors are available to install IBM systems, and IBM's installation team only provides remote support, which can be costly and slow. If you purchase IBM equipment, you must plan for professional support, as scheduling can take several months due to limited availability.

During the sales process, IBM requires you to involve their personnel, which is understandable, but not all IBM representatives are as knowledgeable about the products. These distributor experts can effectively address questions about compatibility and interchangeability that the IBM reps struggle with.

In meetings, I frequently rely on the distributor rather than the IBM representative because the distributor understands the products' specifics more deeply. Even when IBM personnel are present, they often defer to the distributor for detailed technical questions. The distributor's expertise in product compatibility and requirements nuances proves invaluable.

Somebody has to come in and remotely configure it.

It is expensive.

IBM equipment is designed with an embedded microcode that restricts the use of third-party components. For example, purchasing an 18-terabyte drive from a vendor like CDW won't work in IBM systems because the microcode validation prevents its use unless it comes directly from IBM. This limitation means you can't easily buy refurbished or third-party parts for IBM gear; they must be sourced from IBM itself. This can be a significant issue for those using non-IBM components with their systems.

Since I sell IBM Spectrum Computing, I always recommend it for high-end users with substantial budgets and demanding applications. For such users, IBM offers top-tier solutions. However, for smaller data centers, IBM might not be the most suitable choice. While IBM storage solutions are excellent, providing strong resilience and advanced ransomware protection at competitive prices.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I mainly used Spectrum Computing for data management, governance, quality, and ETL activity.

Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis. 

Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud. If IBM shifts it, it will be one of the best tools available. 

I've been using Spectrum Computing for twelve to thirteen years.

Spectrum Computing is stable.

Spectrum Computing is easy to scale.

The initial setup is a bit of a learning experience, especially for novices. Deployment takes around half an hour.

Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market.

Spectrum Computing is one of the best tools in the data management and services area. It can process huge amounts of data with standardized data management and provides a great data governance capability. I would give Spectrum Computing a rating of nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for data.

The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers.

The product can expand and scale.

The solution is reliable and stable.

Technical support is responsive. 

We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning.

We have been working with IBM for 25 years. We've worked with Spectrum Computing for three to four years.

The stability is pretty good. We don't have many problems here.

While the solution is scalable, here, in our market, it's not big as the USA. The clusters are, for example, two or three servers tops. However, it is constantly growing.

We do not really deal with technical support. Sometimes we do, however, mostly we like to train our people. Here in Paraguay, we don't have IBM. We depend on experts from, for example, Uruguay or Argentina. That's why we try to train our people - so that we can self-support our problem. That said, if we have bigger problems or something, we'll escalate to IBM for technical support.

When it's about hardware, usually they have a good response time. Software sometimes is a little slower. It takes two or three days sometimes.

We are IBM partners. We are a platinum partner.

I'd advise potential users to go for it. We are constantly growing in the AI model training and inference market. It will be great if some customers go down that road and start to implement that solution in their infrastructure.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We use this product to back up our data.

The most valuable feature is the backup capability.

We are not fully satisfied with this product at the moment because we are having issues with reliability.

We have not been able to use deduplication.

I cannot use any protocol other than VTL. We have VTL hardware that has some additional functions there are not supported by the VTL protocol. Also, VTL is a little bit slow. For example, we use a VTL from EMC and they use another protocol for the copying. At this moment, TSM will not use a protocol that is different from IBM.

We have been using IBM Spectrum Computing for approximately 15 years.

We did not work with a similar solution before this one. However, we are switching away from this product and going to use EMC Data Protect because, from our point of view, it is more functional than TSM. We also use EMC products in our infrastructure.

EMC Data Protect uses a faster protocol and it is simpler to use.

VTL is an emulation of tape but for us, at this moment, it is not so useful because we have hardware that supports another, faster protocol.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is to backup everything in our data center. This includes VMware environments, Microsoft Hyper-V, Unix machines including HP UNIX, and AIX, as well as normal machines for Windows.

The deployment model we used was on-premises.

The most valuable feature is the backup, which we use for backing up Oracle SQL databases.

Hyper-convergence can be improved. IBM Spectrum is not supported or compatible with Nutanix with hyper-convergence. SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing.

The GUI could be more user-friendly for the administrator. In the GUI you cannot do all of the administration tasks, you have to go to the Command-Line.

In VM the GUI can handle everything, Spectrum should be like this.

Also, I would like to have the Hyper-converged solution Nutanix with IBM Spectrum, it's a very good product.

This solution is stable.

We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues.

The initial setup was complex.

The deployment took three to four days. 

The implementation took two days and the configuration took three days because we have a large virtual environment.

We had a vendor to deploy this solution for us.

This solution is expensive.

I would prefer to go to EMC Data Domain, also VM supported by VMware is good.

We are partners with IBM, and we renew our partnership yearly.

I tell everyone that they should go with IBM Spectrum Computing.

The cost is high but I like this solution.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The primary case use of this solution is data backup and storage for our customers.

The deployment model we are using is on-premises.

This solution is working for both VTL and tape.

This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly.

I had to script another one to make the software use fewer tapes.

Normally, you would have backup software tuned for speed or capacity and here, it was tuned for speed, which could be the reason for so many bad tapes.

This solution worked as expected and it is reliable.

We are operating an IBM shop, everything is IBM. Our customers are here for IBM.

For now, I am pleased with this solution. I have been using this solution for twelve years and I know how it works. At this time I don't have any suggestions for additional features to be added, except for the bad managing of tapes.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

I'm using it in a high-performance computing solution on a specific cloud project requiring HPC to be provisioned through private and public cloud services.

The project has been in execution for five years, and Spectrum Computing has been used exclusively for high-performance computing solutions. One notable feature of IBM was its ability to handle OpenStack and closed-box software, unlike Huawei, which had limitations. Although very open, Pure Storage was limited to all-flash, making it more expensive as we don't always need all-flash storage.

The comparison was challenging, but the IBM Spectrum Scale offered a balanced solution. Our engineers rated its analytics capabilities equally high as Pure Storage. For workload management, Spectrum Computing provided effective solutions that met our needs. Workload management is part of a complete solution that uses different tools. There were the cloud and HPC parts; within HPC, there were parts like liquid cooling, simple computing, storage, and orchestration. The orchestration team handled the workload management.

IBM operates in my market, particularly in Pakistan, UAE, and other regions. In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence. While there are many on-ground technical support and hands-on resources, the absence of direct OEM involvement is a significant drawback. Our team chose IBM independently due to the long-term financial advantages and scalability. Without IBM's marketing or guidance, we decided on IBM based on our specific HPC needs, which favored IBM. However, other storage options like Huawei might have been more advantageous for different solutions.

I have worked with IBM Spectrum Computing for the past six years.

IBM Spectrum Computing is highly scalable and provides excellent integration capabilities.

Deployment took about three to four months due to some import parts, but the deployment time was just a few days. Any challenges we faced were manageable due to our team of IBM-certified engineers. We have backend support through our partnerships if there are issues, and problems are typically resolved quickly.

Although we recently deployed it and are currently assessing ROI, initial impressions are positive. We deployed it in the education sector to test costs and benefits, and within a year, we expect to have precise analytics on ROI.

We needed a parallel file system, so we compared IBM with Huawei, Pure Storage, and NetApp. We chose IBM due to its pricing and technical capabilities, which met our specific requirements for parallel file computing on the cloud.

Despite this, integrating AI and ML features with IBM Spectrum Computing has succeeded. Overall, I would rate IBM Spectrum Computing an eight.

The primary use case is for PowerVAC. The use case is mainly for ETL activity. I'm working in the commercial department of the company. We have a partnership with IBM. 

Most of our customers like the ECUs and how easy it is to operate and use. There is a basic level of confidence when it comes to IBM products. 

The biggest problem is the lack of documentation in general, and documentation in Spanish, in particular. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

The support takes too long to respond and too long to resolve any issues we may have. 

Neutral

I'm not involved with the initial setup but I believe it's somewhat complex and it takes time. We have system administrators who deal with the maintenance. 

This solution is too expensive for a lot of our customers. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10.