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Dell Data Protection Advisor 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 Data Protection Advisor
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
25th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Data Protection Advisor is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with predictive insights and seamless integration
As a system engineer, I am deploying Dell Data Protection Advisor solutions, especially in the areas of protection like Avamar, NetWorker, and Data Domain. Our team has deployed these solutions for three organizations in Africa and India Dell Data Protection Advisor provides proactive support by…
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

"It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible and has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality. You can configure the dashboards or you can use a script. However, to fully utilize its capabilities you will want to use a lot of scripts which you will need advanced training. The reports can be customized for many things, such as chargeback billing."
"This is a stable solution."
"The product's ability to give predictions and advice on how to protect data is incredible."
"It supports our chargeback process by identifying resource users, which helps ensure that departments are billed accurately for data protection services rather than receiving them for free."
"The reporting feature and the Dell's continuous improvement of the solution are the most valuable features. The solution not only supports Dell Power Products but also other products."
"The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention."
"The deduplication is probably the most valuable feature of that requirement."
"The ability to migrate between media over a long period of time. My customers are long-time users, and they have benefited from being able to move between tiers. They have been able to do this within the product."
"I've had no problems with the stability of this solution."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to verify the recoverability of backups."
"The D2D2T archive of my PACS data improved after I put Spectrum Protect 8.1.4 into production."
"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."
"One of the features which is most interesting in Spectrum Protect is the ability to scale out to great environments. This is something that not many vendors have on the market."
"In general, the solution is quite user-friendly. The GUI is very nice."
"It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements."
 

Cons

"The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users."
"Some minor adjustments could be made regarding the graphical interface and customization options."
"There is a steep learning curve to use the interface and to create new reports, this could be made easier. If the solution could provide more drag and drop functionality to build more advanced reports that would be very helpful."
"The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy."
"It's a bit difficult for first-time users."
"Dell Data Protection Advisor's feature for data domain protection needs enhancement."
"We have encountered issues where we were unable to pull data from the database server. It should also improve the backward compatibility."
"They should empower their customers with the ability to upgrade this solution as long as it's in the same major release."
"Generally, the implementation of virtualization could be improved. The workflow service and so on are not working properly."
"Although I am not a technical user, I would say the cloud integration features could be improved."
"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 is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"The solution must protect against ransomware attacks better."
"I would love to see something which allows us to do an auto restart of backup jobs."
"I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately."
"The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement."
"If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing."
"For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable."
"The product is affordable."
"It's not very expensive — I think the price is fair."
"You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."
"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer."
"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement.
What needs improvement with Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy. Additionally, enhancing bulk update capabilities for items like cost centers would be...
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

DPA
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Trek Bicycle, Cal-Israel Credit Cards
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 Data Protection Advisor vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.