IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

We used the platform for data backup purposes.

The platform has valuable stability.

There could be various client systems and process integration included in the product.

We have used IBM Spectrum Protect for 20 years.

I rate the platform's stability a nine out of ten.

We had more than 1000 IBM Spectrum Protect users in our environment. The scalability is low for process integration. Apart from that, it provides good scalability.

There was a team of two to three administrators for deployment. Two administrators maintain it at present.

We implemented it in-house back then.

IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs.

We plan to switch to another tool as IBM Spectrum Protect doesn't meet our business requirements. I rate it a one out of ten.

It serves as a backup solution, and although its user interface may not be perceived as unique, its administration process is reported to be smooth. The community project aspect ensures reliable backup communication, especially when dealing with lost backup features. It simplifies tasks such as fixing the entire system and storing data on platforms like Gmail or Hyper-V.

It has expanded its capabilities and is now part of the Storage Defender suite. This suite is designed to enhance cybersecurity, particularly in safeguarding against ransomware attacks. In addition to disaster recovery, the Storage Defender suite aims to protect against cyber threats by providing measures to recover data in the event of encryption by malicious actors.

The most valuable is its versatility, allowing users to efficiently manage IBM V and Hyper-V in diverse environments. The flexibility extends to cloud transitions, enabling easy movement from one vendor to another. The tool proves invaluable in scenarios where systems need recovery, such as restoring damaged data. Users can leverage it to migrate data between different environments, making tasks like moving from on-premise to the cloud straightforward.

The administration tools for GI need improvement, as the current assessment suggests shortcomings in the back-end system. Dealing with administrative tasks from my perspective has not been straightforward. The user interface for administration lacks the ease that is found in other tools, especially when dealing with storage.

I have been using it for four years.

It is a very mature tool and it has been reliable and stable throughout our experience. I would rate it ten out of ten.

I didn't have any issues with scalability, it has been good.

My experience with customer service and support has been satisfactory. I would rate it ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

The deployment process takes one week.

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We use the solution for our data protection.

We deployed the solution on-premises because the majority of our applications are also on-premises.

The file-restoring feature is the most valuable.

The Operations Center requires improvement. We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I give the stability a ten out of ten.

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support team is always prompt in their response.

Positive

I previously used, NetApp Backup and Atempo Time Navigator but in the financial industry IBM Spectrum Protect is the most popular solution.

I have more than ten years of experience with the solution, so setting it up is easy for me. The deployment took less than one hour.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We have seen a return on investment with IBM Spectrum Protect because we are guaranteed to have our data when we need it.

We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We have two engineers responsible for the maintenance.

I recommend the solution to others.

We have a very small footprint. We only use it to back up a couple of servers that we could not move over at this time. I only use it to back up two servers and very large academic systems and number cruncher systems, which isn't the best way to do that, but we do use MN backup with it. Previously, we used to use Spectrum Protect for disaster recovery (DR), but we don't use it for disaster recovery anymore.

The MN backup for a cluster is most valuable because it has made backing up the GSF as a zero-file system easier.

I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it.

It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great.

At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement.

It probably has been 20 years since I have been using it. I started using it when it was ADSM. Now it is Spectrum Protect, which I have been using for a couple of years.

I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it.

It was very stable when it was on an AIX server. AIX servers are not as common now. It is on a Linux server now, and it is definitely not as stable on a Linux server as it was on an AIX server.

Its scalability is decent. In terms of usage, we used to be exclusively all Spectrum Protect, but now we're not. We just have one department that is using it, and they don't do any restores or anything like that. I do everything. Because it has a small footprint now, I am the main person who works on it, and if needed, I have a couple of other people to help out.

I would rate them as average. It totally depends on who you get. I love getting one of their support staff members named Helen. You lucked out when you get Helen. She is awesome. There is another person with whom I've worked great, but the last couple of times, I've opened a case, and I didn't even get a callback. I ended up fixing it on my own. 

I've always used it. It started as ADSM and then became TSM and then Spectrum Protect. When we were TSM, we migrated from TSM to another product, but there were just a couple of systems that couldn't be migrated. For very large academic systems and number cruncher systems, we use MN backup. We have a very small footprint of Spectrum Protect left.

It is complex. We have a complicated environment, and it took a week. We had to use the encryption key manager, which is also an IBM product called SKLM, and that had to be upgraded. It was definitely a full week, and it was not easy.

We had a consultant, and our experience was positive.

I don't have an idea about the pricing. They send that over to someone else, but I know that one of the issues they had was the licensing costs. I don't think they were happy with how they were charged.

You would really have to implement it. It is very stable, but it is complicated. You really need to get a staff member or a good consultant who knows it fairly well.

I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of ten for functionality. I am biased because I know it so well. Over the years, we did really well with disaster recovery with it, but that was the old way of sending tapes down to Iron Mountain and the Sterling Forest site in New York. I always made it work, but that was stressful.

We have been using it for quite some time and see the product is developing into something that we have been asking for. Some of the functions the product used to lack have been included and are now useful.

We use the on-premise version. Our infrastructure consists of an operating system and a mainframe. The Spectrum product is more for the operating system, data productions, and our data center.

The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR).

Product features were previously not great, but they eventually evolved. There have been a lot of good improvement, so now the features are quite impressive.

We would like to see cloud integration.

The solution is evolving, so it has to be evolved to fit all new types of software requirements too.

Stability is very good.

It use to scale to IBM systems only. Now, it scales to non-IBM systems or other industry servers, like Intel. So now, scalability is quite good.

We used silo our Spectrum Protect servers, but now we are consolidating them into fewer servers because they can handle more loads.

Technical support is okay. We have IBM direct support, which has a team of resources for us to utilize.

In the beginning, it was not an easy setup. Now, the product has developed to be quite flexible and easy in its setup with some lesser ticks.

We evaluated other data protection products like Veritas.

We chose IBM because we had IBM in-house. This was the main reason, and also because Spectrum Protect would integrate with the IBM products better.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Cost
• Scalability
• Product features.

Besides the compression, the new feature of data replication has helped us. Based on the feature, we were able to decommission our tape media infrastructure.

The most valuable features of Spectrum Protect would be the compression and the deduplication.

I am looking forward to new features in the next release.

One of the main features is the cloud storage integration, which was one of my main required features. I've had more difficult experiences with other platforms than with this one.

It's a very stable application. It was challenging at the beginning of the implementation of the replication and deduplication, but once it was completely deployed, it has been very stable.

The scalability has been great. We were able to introduce and scale from the storage pools, as well as from all the backup infrastructures.

I have used technical support. I've been fully engaged with IBM support and they've been very, very helpful.

I've been using the same product for the last 15 years. I know it's been very reliable, so I've stayed with it.

The setup was challenging in certain areas. For the most part, based on the experience I had, I was able to accomplish it OK.

I would highly recommend the proof of concept which is one thing that IBM provides with their lab services and other types of support. Especially with the new features and the cloud integration, that will be a great opportunity to introduce the new platform.

The most important criteria is scalability and support. Support to me is key, since at the end of the day, we're providing service to the company. So far, the experience has been very good.

I have been working with it for a few years now and I've touched other types of data protection platforms. So far, Spectrum Protector has been the best.

The whole product is for doing backups, and it's a reliable tool. Everything stored can be retrieved. We have databases and virtual data storing systems we are covering, but the vast majority is what the backup guys call unstructured data. So we do direct backups from various flavors of file service.

The business value comes from the capability to overcome data losses.

There's no single feature. It's the overall product, the reliability, and the ability to work at the scale we are working at. It's that incremental forever approach, which we definitely need for the amount of data we are handling. It's more a philosophy of product, but a certain feature.

The software is complex.

I've been using the solution for about 20 years.

It is definitely stable.

It's very scalable from the data and the client's perspective. The scalability on the process integration side is not equally advanced.

Once you overcome the first level of IBM tech support, they are great.

ISP by now is our "previous" solution. We successfully switched to Commvault Backup.

It's a complex software, so it's a complex task, especially at the large scale and the software is accordingly complex. You won't set up this software or any competitor within a few clicks. So it is complex, but it's adequately complex. And on the client side, it depends on the documentation given by the central IT on the server side.

It was not a software deployment, but it went along with a strategic shift here. When we introduced Spectrum Protect, we introduced centralized backup service. So it was very little a matter of software deployment, but very much a matter of mentality and processes.

We used our own team to deploy, and have two staff to maintain the solution.

My advice would be to start with a use case analysis and what you want to achieve to determine if Spectrum Protect is the best solution. There's no absolute ranking without looking at the use case scenarios.

We recently reviewed our use case analysis, and as a result, we switched to Commvault Backup.

I used IBM Spectrum Protect for backups and archiving.

I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features.

IBM could improve by decluttering its product lines. There are too many clients, too many names, and overall too many products. They have to decide for the virtual environments, are they going to stick with Spectrum Virtual Environment or Spectrum Protect Plus? They have to decide on this, a final decision. IMB is trying to catch up with Veeam but they have to declutter a lot of products or sub-products that they have.

In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for approximately three years.

I have found IBM Spectrum Protect to be highly stable.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution.

IBM provides good support.

I have used other backup solutions, such as Veeam.

The installation of IBM Spectrum Protect has become easy for me but was not always. It's not as easy as others, such as Veeam. But nevertheless, I think it to be more robust than Veeam, and more realistic. The only option for a very small deployment is to use the Windows platform, but you cannot have a very small deployment as a blueprint on the Linux and on AIX. They have to create a very small deployment blueprint for the AIX and for the Linux.

The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity.

It's really difficult for you as a client to decide the exact size of how many kilos you have to purchase because it really depends on the after operational capacity and after the compression.

My advice to others wanting to implement this solution is if they have a critical enterprise application, then I would recommend TSM. If they have a small network of many workstations rather than servers, then maybe Veeam will be more suitable.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of ten.