IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

I have found that the most valuable feature is useful documentation and troubleshooting.

I want a better user interface, support, and integrations.

I have been working with IBM Spectrum Protect for four or five years.

The stability of IBM Spectrum Protect is excellent.

We definitely are experiencing scalability.

I would rate technical support with high marks for their service.

Positive

The initial setup had some complexities.

We have found that the pricing is high in our country.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect an eight out of ten.

The feature I have found the most valuable is load replication.

We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems.

There are some drawbacks to load replication as well. On their site, you only have the option to restore a backup. You cannot download it. That is a limitation.

I have been working on IBM Spectrum Protect since 2006.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a stable solution.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution.

How good the technical support is depends on the severity level of your problem. We solve most issues ourselves. But, when we have to escalate an issue and contact IMB's tech support, it can take a long time to get in touch with them because you have to go through Passport Advantage Online.

Prior to 2006, I worked with the 7TECH backup system. However, I did not work on a large scale. We had it deployed on a single machine on a single server.

The initial setup was easy but it does require focus. You have to have experience with IBM Spectrum Protect to deploy. However, if you do have the experience, it is easy.

The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is a bit higher than other products.

We have customers and retailers who have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for many, many years, so all our sales over the last five years have been renewable sales. I'm a reseller and partner, so I provide this solution. This solution is deployed on-premises. 

In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape. 

IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved by making the installation easier. Once it's implemented, it's okay. 

IBM started lagging behind when things started moving to storage and cloud-based solutions. Even though they've recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, personally, I still believe they are not up to par with the likes of Rubrik. 

The entire product is a little bit clumsy because they have co-joined two different products, so it's complex. Even from a sales/explaining to people what it does point of view, it's complex. Whereas, if you take more current products, it's a single box solution. You reel it in, you fire it up, you do a couple of points and clicks, and off you go, whereas the IBM system is seriously complex. There's a lot of training involved and it's a massively difficult product to sell at this point in time. 

I have been working with IBM Spectrum Protect for over 20 years. 

This solution is stable. 

This solution is scalable. 

IBM support has always been reasonably good. They've got a worldwide network and they've been doing it for many, many years, so I can't fault them from a support point of view. Whenever there had been a problem, we had various people working on resolving it. 

IBM Spectrum Protect is very complex to install—it's not a simple installation at all, which is why there's always professional services attached to a Spectrum Protect sale. 

The amount of technical people you will need depends on the size of the environment, but in an environment with about 800 VMs and a couple of Unix machines, you need at least two administrators. 

We implement this solution for customers. 

Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another. 

Currently, we have moved away from Spectrum Protect, and towards Rubrik. Rubrik has been my product of choice over the last two years, at least. Even with the recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, I still don't believe IBM Spectrum Protect is up to par with the likes of Rubrik. Of the customers who still use IBM Spectrum Protect, we only have three left—there used to be a lot more. 

I currently rate IBM Spectrum Protect a six out of ten. 

The advice I would give to anyone considering starting to use IBM Spectrum Protect is to use Rubrik instead. I've always been a very big proponent of Spectrum Protect—years back, I used to be a trainer for IBM as well, so I really like the product—but at the moment, I just think there are other solutions that work better. 

I think Spectrum Protect's interface is not so user-friendly, but the interface is not so friendly. Some of the functions are too complicated. I prefer a simpler solution.

I've been using IBM Spectrum Protect for about one and a half years.

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem.

It's pretty hard to install IBM Spectrum Protect, and the whole procedure is not that simple. It takes maybe eight hours or a whole working day, and one person can handle the deployment. Right now, we have three or four users working with it, and there are one or two technical staff who take care of the maintenance.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect six out of 10. Maybe I would recommend it to others.

It is a very good and mature enterprise product. Once it is set up and everything is put in, you don't have to manage it. It actually runs automatically by itself.

In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business. 

I have been using this solution for more than 15 years.

If you want to get the maximum benefit out of it, you should be a big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small organization. 

It depends on the experience that you have. Instead of Windows, we've mostly implemented it on a UNIX-based platform, such as AIX, or Linux. So, you need someone who has the skills to manage these platforms. Apart from that, Spectrum Protect itself is a great product.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. 

I am using it for standard data protection, backup recovery, and disaster recovery.

I am using its most recent version.

The customization and the ability to backup across all platforms are the most valuable features.

Their support is not as strong as most of the products.

It should have the ability to break down the data that's being backed up. It should have better reporting.

I have been using this solution for a little bit over a year.

It is quite stable. It is pretty much set-and-forget.

It is scalable.

It can be fairly complex depending on what is being set up.

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.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of 10.

The solution is mainly used for backup of data and customers' infrastructure, such as, for example, backup of databases, Oracle, SQL, a backup of the self server, a backup of SharePoint et cetera.

It's very hard to say which feature is most valuable. It's a complex product. It's not possible to say what is most valuable.

The solution is mostly stable.

The product scales well.

The solution offers good cloud extensions.

The technical support on offer is pretty good.

The user interface could be better. It could be more intuitive or more user-friendly.

The initial setup is complex.

It's not a good option for smaller companies. It can be a bit expensive.

I've been using Spectrum Protect for maybe seven or eight years. It's been a while.

There are some troubles, however, definitively it's a very stable product. There aren't too many issues with bugs or glitches. It's pretty reliable.

This solution is more suitable for medium and large infrastructures, in my experience.

While it does depend on the environment, for the most part, the solution scales easily. The operating system, hardware, et cetera, make it compatible with all the vendors.

I've been in touch with technical support on four to seven occasions. It was very valuable, speaking IT IBM support. It was okay. They helped me. I'd say we are satisfied with the level of service that has been provided to us.

We also concurrently use Veeam and HP Data Protector.

If I compared it to, for example, Veeam, Veeam is more valuable for a cloud environment and it's not suitable for the physical environment. Spectrum Protect is a complex product and it's suitable for both the cloud and physical environments. Veeam, however, has a better user interface. There's no perfect product. Basically, some products have more advantages in one area and others in other areas.

The ease of the setup depends on the infrastructure, however, mostly it's a complex process as it's not so easy to deploy Spectrum Protect when you compare it to the other products.

You have to know the customer infrastructure and you have to know what they need, and what they want to do. It's important that their requirements are clear. Even when you deploy according to these requirements, it's very complex. 

The solution does have automatic maintenance services, however, it needs an administrator on the system engineering corrections. It's not required not every day, however, from time to time, you'll have to check the logs and everything.

For small customers, it can be a very expensive product. It's much more suited to larger organizations. It's expensive in comparison to other solutions, and it doesn't make sense, cost-wise when you are a small company.

We are a service provider and a business partner with IBM. We have just come out with the latest update and other customers with the specific version. It depends. We have various customers.

It's a good product overall.

I'd are it at a nine out of ten. We've mostly been very pleased with its capabilities.

It is a very stable product. The cost is similar to that of other enterprise solutions.

The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line. I think the management console could be improved.

The initial setup is very complex.

I've been using this solution for more than twenty years.

IBM Spectrum Protect is very stable.

The technical support is at a medium level; not bad and not good.

The initial setup was very complex.

When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect at eight on a scale from one to ten.