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Dell Avamar vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
IBM Spectrum Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Graphically, it's very user interactive. It's got a very nice interface."
"The data reduction feature and the ease of enabling a server in a DR location are the most valuable."
"Avamar has long been the best in its class, but that's changing as new solutions emerge. However, Dell has traditionally been a leader in deduplication and compression. Avamar enabled us to shift data from on-premise local appliances to data centers and multi-tenant infrastructure. That's a powerful feature. because customers can back up to the cloud without upgrading o high-capacity links or congesting their backups."
"The most valuable feature of Avamar would have to be the way it works over needing very little bandwidth to move data across a WAN or LAN."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The backup is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very reliable."
"They are extremely reliable and scalable — they provide the best de-duplication on the market."
"We have a lot of backups, and this tool helps us with the RMAN Backup."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"Our performance is better."
"The way it covers backup and archive needs. The flexibility of backup copy group always allows me to cover the customer's requests."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"The screen design is a bit back-dated."
"It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
"There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be improved."
"The solution could improve by having better integration and more flexibility."
"The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."
"If there is a need to move the data from one backup solution to another, it might be difficult since there is no option for a straightforward migration."
"The solution, in the future, should offer support for mobile."
"The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement"
"I want a better user interface, support, and integrations."
"No one can fix every solution for backup and restore."
"The reporting could be better."
"They need to reduce the complexity and make the learning curve easier."
"RTO is a huge gap for us. If we had a disaster scenario and had to recover a bunch of stuff from tape, the RTO would be too long for us."
"We are having a balance issue between the reclamation and the backup function. It has to take the space back from the tapes before it can record to those tapes, but sometimes those two processes are overlapping."
"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing was generally on a per VM or terabyte basis. They changed their licensing model a couple of times and turned it into socket-based licensing, which is an improvement in their licensing model."
"I rate the pricing a seven out of ten because it is expensive."
"It's an expensive tool"
"Dell EMC needs to lower Avamar's price and add more features to stay competitive."
"Regarding pricing, I would say Avamar is slightly expensive compared to its functionalities. It's not high-priced or low-priced but somewhere in between."
"There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually."
"The price is fair."
"It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity."
"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"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."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dash...
 

Also Known As

Avamar
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.