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CA 1 Tape Management vs IBM Spectrum Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CA 1 Tape Management
Ranking in Storage Management
7th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Spectrum Control
Ranking in Storage Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Storage Management category, the mindshare of CA 1 Tape Management is 5.4%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Control is 5.5%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Spectrum Control5.5%
CA 1 Tape Management5.4%
Other89.1%
Storage Management
 

Featured Reviews

Beyza Aksöz - PeerSpot reviewer
Mainframe System Programmer at Türkiye İş Bankası
An easy-to-use solution with good technical support services
We use the solution to manage virtual tape volumes The solution is easy to use. The solution's pricing could be better. We have been using the solution for eight years. I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. We have 20 solution users in our organization. Also, we plan to…
JY
System, Storage And Data Administrator at STET
Centralized capacity planning has improved insight into storage consumption for long term growth
Implementing IBM Spectrum Control is complex; we have had several calls to IBM to solve problems about DVM stack size, max memory size, and other issues such as buffer and cloud buffer size. Currently it is working, though we still have swap issues on our Linux Spectrum Protect server.We experience swap issues when we run a big retention set, and we have noticed that on the server we have memory available, but it seems that IBM Spectrum Control is using swap because the DBM max memory size is two gigabytes. This causes IBM Spectrum Control to use swap size instead of using memory, which is an issue we have opened a call to IBM about.We hope to ask why we have no report on the clone because on our storage we have an internal clone, but it is not reported. We will see with the support why it is not reported.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"To me, the CA 1 tool is the industry standard."
"It has become easy to backup and archive all our system data and financial data. It helps us mainly in managing the backup of our databases, and it is easy to retrieve that data and find it in a secure place."
"The Vault Management function keeps track of where a tape should be and tells the operators which tapes should be sent offsite, and which ones should return."
"Literally everything about the product is great!"
"package that manages all of your tapes. Create/write/catalog, retention, delete. There are queries and reports, which are needed to know when/where/length keeping, etc., in order to track them or find out current status."
"It has become easy to backup and archive all our system data and financial data, it helps us mainly in managing the backup of our databases, and it is easy to retrieve that data and find it in a secure place."
"The tapes are mounted automatically. You can read a tape automatically without waiting for someone to insert it."
"With this product, it all becomes automatic: locating the data, backing up the data, restoring the data. We can automate all that with it."
"Spectrum Control's scalability is fine - we can extend it for the backup requirement."
"In my opinion, it's the best monitoring and report creation tool for IBM storage devices."
"In my opinion, it's the best monitoring and report creation tool for IBM storage devices. You can do a lot of performance stats and reports with very nice tools for IBM storage devices."
"It has turned out to be just as good, if not better, than what we were paying thousands of dollars for."
"The installation was very easy. You just install an agent on a server, and you give that agent access to your storage device, then it just collects the data. It took five minutes to set up."
"We compared other vendors also, but Spectrum Control's price is lower than most."
"The benefits would be mostly the ability to diagnose a problem."
"The granularity of this solution has been most useful, as customers can click on a single item and get the information only for the single item they choose."
 

Cons

"The solution's cost needs improvement."
"The product itself is fairly complex so the install is as well."
"Sometimes it does not detect all chaining errors and the reporting on them could be improved as well."
"When we want to interface the CA 1 product with other vendors, IBM or others, it is difficult to interface it with them, because you need some exits, you need to compile some assemblers."
"The product itself is fairly complex so the install is as well."
"Installation and customization could be improved."
"When we want to interface the CA 1 product with other vendors, IBM or others, it is difficult to interface it with them, because you need some exits, you need to compile some assemblers."
"I would like to see is more information regarding the copy groups (the replication)."
"The solution must support multi-vendor storage."
"The pain points were, and may still continue to be, the fact that there are multiple components of the product which are installed, you might say, somewhat individually."
"The database could be improved so that the complexity of installation could be easier. We would also like to have more granularity in the profiles and products for users. We would like to link the users to the tool to managers or auditors."
"If we were to add VM level performance being able to monitor VMs on a VM level, then that would be good."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The pain points were, and may still continue to be, the fact that there are multiple components of the product which are installed, you might say, somewhat individually."
"It's very complicated and difficult for me, and it's easier with all these installations on one server."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"We were already licensing Spectrum Control. This was one reasons why we went to Control rather than using the other product."
"It is pay for the amount of storage that you are monitoring. The more that we use the tool and like the tool, we may want to extend it to other storage platforms. This is just a matter of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Insurance Company
11%
Hospitality Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Control?
Implementing IBM Spectrum Control is complex; we have had several calls to IBM to solve problems about DVM stack size, max memory size, and other issues such as buffer and cloud buffer size. Curren...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Control?
IBM Spectrum Control has been in use for more than ten years. It was installed for capacity planning because our manager wants to have insight into the capacity planning of the storage area. We ins...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Spectrum Control?
We are working with IBM products. IBM Spectrum Control is also installed now and we are using it.Currently, we are trying to implement a private cloud, specifically an Amazon S3 compatible cloud.We...
 

Also Known As

BrightStor Tape Management
Spectrum Control
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TravelPort, AlphaServe, Rogers Communication
Nuance
Find out what your peers are saying about CA 1 Tape Management vs. IBM Spectrum Control and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.