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IBM Storage Protect vs Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

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

IBM Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (13th)
Veeam Agent for Microsoft W...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.
Salman Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Habib Bank Ltd.
Functional application availability
There are not many options available for AIX backup. They provide the agent for AIX, but it could be more mature, and they should improve that option. They also provide the AIX agent, which is similar to the Windows and Linux agents. Since we use AIX machines, we need to take backups of those machines. However, the options available in that agent are limited. Therefore, the new version should have improvements in that area.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."
"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."
"The tool's backup engine is very powerful. Previously, our client finished backup with HPE product in 48 hours. IBM Storage Protect completes backup in 8 hours."
"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."
"The ability to do dedupe in the product is nice to have."
"It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."
"The most valuable feature is that it's a VMware environment."
"The user interface is good. It provides a lot of information."
"The most valuable features of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows are the backups, ease of use, and report manager."
"We found the initial setup to be quite simple."
"It's powerful and user-friendly."
"The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is easy to use and performing a recovery is easy to do."
"It is easy to deploy."
"The solution is meeting all of our client's requirements. It has good performance."
 

Cons

"If you take Spectrum Protect into account, and you have it along with restrictions to Spectrum Archive by means of LTFS, this is also something which should be made better within the overall product's program."
"Integration with Windows environments needs improvement. It should be more "assisted", both at the application and database level. It remains a product that fits better in Unix/Linux environments than in Windows environments, given its configuration procedures."
"It needs better connectivity with other non-IBM application hardware and non-IBM platforms."
"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."
"Scalability is poor. As you get to bigger environments, this is where our gaps have been introduced. As we have grown over the past couple of years, the gaps have become more apparent."
"Better integration with other tools and databases is needed."
"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."
"We have run into some periods where we have found some tape issues which were causing us problems, but we resolved them. For some reason, we had a bunch of drives go offline on our disk storage (our virtual library)."
"The predictability of the solution needs improvement. Sometimes, if it's doing something at the back end, it may go slow. Today, the backup completion took four hours, but sometimes it can do the backup in 30 minutes or an hour. With solutions like NetBackup, I can predict to a much higher degree of certainty how long something will take to complete."
"There should be an option to use the solution for physical machines."
"I would like to have a more automated installation process."
"It fulfills our needs in terms of features. In terms of improvements, they can maybe improve its documentation."
"Updating and configuration can sometimes be a little bit of a hassel, but once you know the product better it is easy to use."
"With the currency exchange, the solution ends up being quite expensive."
"The stability of this solution needs to be improved."
"I would like to see the capability for remote installation of third party applications added( Like installing WinRar MS Office etc..) , and Firewall for servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not cheap."
"It is expensive."
"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."
"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."
"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"The licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis, and the fees are much lower than what I pay for NetBackup."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"The cost for its licenses is reasonable and as per industry standards."
"We have a cloud provider agreement with Veeam. We are also paying for the agent."
"We have an annual license."
"The solution is free of cost for end users but for enterprise use, a license per user is required."
"We have the Community Edition and I believe we bought a license for 200 instances. Veeam Agent is mainly used for our branch offices. Those only have one or two Hyper-V servers, so it's covered with the Community Edition. Basically, it's free. I remember Veeam 7.0 or 8.0 wasn't free, but the Community Edition is."
"The solution is inexpensive, more so than other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Photography Company
24%
Performing Arts
21%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing model is not quite standard. We do not buy IBM Storage Protect direct from IBM. We ...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy ...
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Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
ContinuitySA, Landmark Information Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: January 2026.
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