IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

We're working with different versions of this solution. We have different versions deployed for multiple clients. The latest version is 8.1.11. We have a mixture of legacy environments and new environments.

Our client's use cases are mainly to protect heterogeneous workloads, virtualized workloads, physical workloads, databases, SAP solutions, and ERP solutions. It's great for large, heterogeneous environments. Spectrum Protect has a lot of different agents and components that allow you to completely backup your entire environment.

I am a technical team leader for this solution. I have an implementation team who work side by side with me. From the customer-side, there is a team of roughly six people working with it. There are administrators, backup operators, and technical managers that work with us and this solution. In total, the organization has roughly 6,000 employees. It's a large organization by Colombian standards. 

IBM Spectrum Protect provides us with the scalability and growth that we need. It is suitable for very large environments. It's very robust and has been on the market for a long time.

Here's an example of how this solution has improved our client's organization: There is a customer in the banking sector here in Colombia — the private banking sector. They had two terabytes of information backed up daily, in incremental backups from a different number of file servers. Those file servers were being backed up daily. At the end of the month, the customer backed up the data completely. In short, they made a full backup of all the data  on a monthly basis. It was roughly 20 terabytes of data. To cope with this situation we implemented retention sets. Thanks to these retention sets, the customer doesn't need to back up that 20 terabytes of information monthly. They can just resort to the incremental backups that they made before, daily, to have a snapshot and an accurate picture of the end of the month. They only have to do another incremental backup for the last day of the month, and that's it; they have a complete, very robust picture for the monthly data. 

This has reduced our customers' backup time by a considerable amount. They have also reduced the amount of storage space needed as they are not repeating backups every month. The data is 90% the same, month to month, which has optimized both speed and storage capacity.

One of the more recent features that we value the most, being an influencer myself, there is feature we call retention sets. These retention sets are snapshots of previously backed-up data. This data no longer needs to be backed up again so there's no need to re-back up that information, to reinject that data. It allows us to offer, improve, and optimize the use of storage resources for our customers. We implemented this solution for a number of clients here in Colombia and throughout Latin America.

Also, Spectrum Protect has what is one of the greatest ecosystems of experts, users, forums and in general learning resources in the data protection realm.

The reporting could be better. There's not a complete solution for reporting; however, there is a solution that allows you to write SQL queries. This way, you can explore the databases with metadata and get the reports that you want. Still, that's not an out-of-the-box solution, it's just a tool that allows you to write queries as you need. There is a steep learning curve for that.

I would also love to see more agents and solutions devoted to backing up other workloads, especially in regard to non-traditional databases.

The licensing can be a pain to manage. There is a tool that can provide you with automated reports regarding how much licensing you're using, but sometimes it's not accurate. You need to contact an IBM representative in order to get the correct information. 

Traditionally, there has been a Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments module that allows you to protect virtualized environments; however, it's not easy to use. It's very complex. In this case, my advice is to leverage Spectrum Protect Plus, which is the newest addition to the portfolio to back up both virtualized and modern workloads and works very well.

I've been working with Spectrum Protect for the last 10 years.

I think that it's the most scalable solution in the market. That's the reason why the largest enterprises in Colombia use it. Speaking as an expert on these types of solutions, there is no other solution that can support the size of workloads, components, and servers required for very large environments. I don't think it's just a matter of scalability, but also performance, too.

IBM technical support has been pretty good so far. We were given a technical point of contact for every inquiry that we had during the implementation process. My team has a lot of expertise now, but every now and again, we require some support from IBM. Their support has helped us get this solution working precisely as we need. Overall, regarding IBM Spectrum Protect, IBM support has been great. 

The initial setup might be complex. There are a lot of different nuances that need to be taken into account; however, with the help from an experienced team, the product can be deployed seamlessly.

Years ago, it took us roughly three to four months to implement this solution — mainly due to the amount of maintenance and the number of components that also need to be deployed. Security concerns also need to be addressed and resolved from the client-side. All of this made it quite difficult.  Now that we leverage IBM Spectrum Protect blueprints that are available publicly, to reduce implementation time down to a couple of weeks, sometimes even a couple of days. This has allowed us to stay competitive in what is a very competitive market.

Spectrum Protect Plus, a complementary solution to Spectrum Protect, comes bundles in some licensing schemes together with Spectrum Protect. This has allowed us to reach all sorts of customers. It allows our clients to get a hold of virtualization technology, including backup and recovery, and instant restore. These are features are needed in today's rapidly changing environments.

When Spectrum Protect is not suitable for a customer's environment, we always recommend backup replication solutions. Backup replication solutions are much easier to manage as they don't require a steep learning curve. Backup replication solutions are a great fit for small to medium-sized businesses, but for large corporations, large enterprises, or large companies, my choice is Spectrum Protect.

My advice to potential users would be to follow the IBM Spectrum Protect blueprints. These documents are very valuable and informative. They'll provide you with a lot of needed advice. They'll also provide you with a forewarning regarding situations that can occur during the implementation process. Sometimes people completely skip over these blueprints and go ahead with the implementation — my take is: don't .

Make sure to leverage all of the new features that this product offers. For example, many people don't bother using the retention feature; however, this feature is great for reducing storage and also improves the backup speed regarding operations. Don't be intimidated by these features. Contact and experienced team that can help you out to get the most out of the solution.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give his solution a rating of eight — it's a proven solution.

Our primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect is backup. 

The IBM Spectrum Protect feature I find the most valuable is how fast it is. 

They should introduce more features for virtualization platforms and backing up IBMs. Backup speeds should also be improved. 

I have been using this solution for about a decade. 

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable. 

IBM Spectrum Protect is scalable. 

Technical support is okay. We have not had many issues with them. 

The initial setup at a new sight is straightforward. It takes about a week. 

IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. 

We primarily use the solution in order to back up VMware, Hyper V, SQL, and Oracle. We also do Linux, AIX, and solutions that Cisco has as well.

We also do voice logging.

The solution has excellent performance overall. 

The product's initial setup is pretty straightforward. They offer good documentation that helps with the process.

The stability of the solution is very good.

In general, the solution is quite user-friendly. The GUI is very nice.

The solution requires organizations to purchase an extra license to go to the cloud. I've got a limitation of going to the cloud. I don't want to pay more. It gets expensive.

There needs to be a bit more automation.

We've been using the solution for the last five years or so. It's been a while at this point.

The solution is quite stable. We're actually in the process of doing a POC for a sister company to make sure the stability holds and it's doing very well. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's good.

We had to look at the scalability as we wanted to expand. You need to purchases extra licenses if you want to expand. 

I'd rate the technical support at a nine out of ten. Every time they change some aspect of the product, we need to call them to get clarity and they are always very helpful. We're extremely satisfied with the level of support they provide to our organiztion.

The initial setup is not complex. It's pretty straightforward overall. They have very helpful documentation and assistance from the engineers. It's a smooth process. A company shouldn't have any issues with the implementation.

The solution does have engineers that can help with the initial setup.

The solution can get pretty expensive. They also charge an extra license if you would like to go to the cloud.

The solution charges companies a licensing fee on a yearly basis on the front-end. You pay at the beginning of the year.

We are customers and end-users.

Our contract is coming to an end and the way that the budget is going, we've decided that we going with peer storage at this stage. We're going to change the way we are doing things, both on-premises and in the cloud.

Whether this solution makes sense for a company depends on their environment and their overall goals.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We were mostly happy with the product, however, there were some limitations around the licensing that's making us rethink our commitment to it.

Overall the solution is fairly complete.

The installation process could be simplified. However, the tool is comprehensive and if the installation is too easy, then the tool itself will be too simple as well. I do not see any pain points. The only issue I see is the pricing, it is expensive.

We have been using the solution with the last 12 months.

It is a really capable tool. It is the best solutions on the market regarding recovering and the way it functions.

The scalability is really good. It is very capable, it has high availability, multiple backup servers, many posts, and workloads.

The installation is complex. It is a comprehensive solution as IBM has evolved from the TSM and Tivoli Storage Manager. It has multiple integrators, allowing it to communicate with most of the kinds of workloads. It is not easy to deploy.

We usually had three people doing the deployment. The solution uses multiple integrators, for example, they integrated with Oracle, SAP HANA, Microsoft, and Bare Metal. You will normally need one senior deployer, and a senior analyst to deploy it. If the individual that is going to do the deployment is a high-level senior person, he can do it by himself depending on experience. If there is not a senior person, you are going to need more than one to assist.

The solution is expensive.

The solution is capable of connecting to the cloud, public or private, but we are currently using it on-premises on this particular project.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect a nine out of ten.

We use it for backup.

Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features.

It has a lot of areas for improvement. Its reporting for job completion or incompletion can be improved. It should also provide a granular recovery, ease of operation, data life cycle management, and media management. 

It should support a backup in such a format that in case of a disaster, one can start the virtual machine out of the backup itself. Its reliability can also be better. It is also expensive, and their support is also poor. 

I have been using this solution for the past five to six years.

From a security point of view, there are fewer concerns about the backup as long as you encrypt the data.

It is scalable. The scalability also depends on your network architecture, etc.

Their technical support is very poor. We are not very happy with them.

Its initial setup is complex. It took three to four days.

My team members handle the deployment. The number of people required depends on the number of IT assets that we are trying to protect.

It is expensive.

I would recommend it depending on the use cases, but it is better to avoid IBM now. It is a new era of other solutions. IBM should catch up or allow itself to become extinct.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect a five out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for security purposes. We implement this solution for many of our clients.

Due to the rapidly provision new server in my organization, the backup resource needs to add more also. But IBM Spectrum Protect can help me to optimize the backup resource. 

The backup aspect of the solution is very good. The solution allows for incremental backups forever. It saves your backup files while also saving space.

The product is quite stable.

The API is simple to integrate into a custom application.

You need to use command line rather than the console. It would be better if users didn't have to use command line in order to use the solution.

Technical isn't so great. It's a bit slow in terms of response. They need to get back to their users a lot faster.

The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure.

More than 10 years

We have enjoyed very good stability while using this solution. It's reliable and seems to be free of bugs and glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We've been happy with it.

We have a pretty big setup. There are users across ten servers. I'm not sure exactly how many there are in total.

Technical support is a bit too slow. They really should be more responsive.

There is no remote support.

As long as you have a bit of experience, you shouldn't have any trouble with the initial setup. I didn't handle it directly, however. We had someone who did it and he was quite knowledgable. Due to that, the deployment was pretty quick. He had is up and running in three or four hours. 

We handled some aspects ourselves, however, we did enlist some outside help as well for the initial implementation.

The licensing process is very unclear and a bit complicated. Many of our clients have trouble figuring it out. They'll buy a license and then they find out the limits are wrong. 

We're an implementor.

Overall, we've had a good experience with the solution and I would easily recommend this product to other organizations.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at a seven.

We implement this product for our clients and customers. We configure this solution for the requirement of the customers. 

We have hybrid deployments. It is deployed in the cloud and on-premises, and we are using the latest version.

It is good in terms of functionality. My clients are very satisfied with this solution.

Its price can be better. It is very expensive. 

Its interface is very old and not user friendly. They can improve its interface.

Their support can also be better. My clients are not very satisfied with the support because they are not really quick. 

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for three years.

It has good stability.

It has medium scalability. Most of our clients are medium-sized companies.

My clients are not very satisfied with the support because they are not really quick. Sometimes, you get good support, and sometimes, you don't.

It has medium complexity. We have a lot of experience in implementing this solution, and that's why it is easy for us, but the other partners of IBM say that it is not easy to set up.

The deployment duration depends on the clients and their setup. Generally, it takes one to two months.

It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is a perfect solution for medium and big companies, but it is not a good solution for a small company because of its scalability, support, and prices. It is perfect for bigger industries and banks and financial institutions.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of ten. It is a good solution, but it is expensive.

We primarily provide this solution to our customers. They mostly use the solution for backup and recovery purposes.

The solution offers very good flexibility. 

It's huge. You can do almost everything with it. It's very programmable, customizable, and automatable. It supports a lot of operating systems and a lot of applications. It's very versatile. It's maybe the most versatile on the market.

The solution is used to support newer client types for backup for cloud-based software as a service, mail as a service, things like that, and hyper-converged systems. That's what they intended Spectrum Protect Plus for. They need to make sure it continues to cater to these clients.

The solution needs to work on disaster recovery integration. Basically, VMware applications to the cloud, for example. There needs to be integration with the storage, and integration with VMware. 

I've been using the solution since 2003. That's 17 years at this point.

The scalability is huge. It's maybe the most scalable backup of all products on the market. It's in the petabytes per server. They have the best tape libraries per square meter and capacity per square meter. You can scale in the exabytes with these solutions. You will have to have multiple servers, but most of the exabyte scale projects that we've looked at are IBM.

Technical support is always very good. I have never experienced any support as good as them. I'm very happy with IBM technical support.

The initial setup can be very simple. If you have a small environment, it can be extremely simple. It can be as complex as you want it to be or as you need it to be. That's the good thing about it. 

Some people get lost in it sometimes and the solution makes it too complex for their needs. I know there's criticism that it's too complex. Yes, it's true, it is complex, but it's only complex due to the fact that IBM shares the knowledge. If IBM wouldn't share the knowledge about how to solve things, or how to make things complex, then it wouldn't be complex as then you would have to call support if you have a problem with it.

That's what other vendors do. They don't share the knowledge, they don't allow you to dig into the deeper configuration of the product and you have to call support if you have a problem. That way, with IBM, you can solve it yourself basically. You can customize it to your wishes. 

However, on the other hand, the downside of that is if you have a problem and it's complex and you have to be able to solve it, or you can call support. You have the option. At least you have the option with IBM of making it as complex as you want it to be. With other vendors, you don't have that. That provides flexibility.

Deployment times vary. If you have a VMware environment, it's really fast. It can be a few hours to install the servers and install the data mover, and you're done. If you have a complex environment where you need to install a lot of clients on hardware machines or machines that need a specific backup plan, then it can take weeks.

The pricing is average. It's not expensive, it's not cheap. It's not the cheapest, it's not the most expensive. It's very good value for money I would say.

We're an IBM partner.

I would advise companies to use it for small environments that need a simple solution. I would also advise it for very large environments over a petabyte for flexibility. For the midsize company, I'm not sure if I would advise it as that's where you get into that sweat show. You need complex features, however, you don't really have the complex knowledge. For a mid-sized company, that's where the problems lie.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement. If they shift to a little more simplicity, it might help. There are other products out there that have more modern features, and IBM is not yet there. Therefore, they're not 10 out of 10. That doesn't mean that those other products are 10 out of 10 because they lack things that IBM has. There's no perfect 10 on the market.