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Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (1st), Disk Based Backup Systems (1st)
IBM Spectrum Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and IBM Spectrum Protect aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is designed for Deduplication Software and holds a mindshare of 29.3%, up 29.5% compared to last year.
IBM Spectrum Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 2.2% mindshare, down 2.5% since last year.
Deduplication Software
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 05, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

GopalSetia - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides backups, including long-term retention with increased uptime and compatibility
I was looking for a virtual edition, and that is now available. Many customers struggle to find a solution for ransomware protection, but we can set up an enterprise recovery vault for that purpose. These features are now part of Dell's overall offering. The solution has matured, and while I don't criticize technology, most of our technical and business requirements are met with the Data Domain storage solution. We can meet customer requirements easily with Data Domain. Some feedback has been received from our operations team. There’s always room for improvement. For instance, there may be suggestions regarding enhancements to the reporting dashboard
Rainer Kummerfeldt - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable security solution for data center protection
We have the requirements for cybersecurity. Spectrum Protect or other products do not have the technology. They need external products to meet this requirement. We utilize various storage solutions across different data centers, including tape and disk storage. It is immutable, preventing external changes. External tools may be required to verify backup integrity. Additionally, there's another product called IBM Spectrum Protect Defender, which aids in backup verification. However, other products can integrate with various tools depending on specific backup needs and at a lower cost. The service cost for IBM is very high. In the event of problems, we open a support call and discuss issues with the lab, which is crucial given the critical nature of some situations. Spectrum Protect's development trajectory differed from Veeam's as it initially didn't prioritize virtualization, resulting in later integration efforts. The first version of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus had shortcomings, though subsequent iterations like Plus may have improved. However, I need more direct experience with Plus to offer a comparison. Veeam holds a stronger market presence, particularly concerning cloud and virtualization, as it was developed with these trends in mind. The evolving landscape, including cloud services like Microsoft Office 365, demands versatile backup solutions with various storage and connectivity options, whether Amazon, Google, or others. This necessitates interfaces tailored to different cloud environments and storage types. Previously, our focus primarily revolved around IBM Protect, which centered on systems storage and tape libraries alongside platforms like AIX. However, the current landscape predominantly features Linux and Windows environments. Despite these shifts, AIX remains notably stable. Overall, I rate the solution an 8 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I have found most useful is its data duplication."
"We have never had any issues with Data Domain. It has been stable."
"The most valuable features of Dell PowerProtect DD are ease of use and deduplication."
"PowerProtect is a flexible solution that you can cover various cloud and on-premise environments."
"When utilizing Dell PowerProtect DD for backup systems, Data Domain offers fast performance with low latency, providing high throughput for quicker backups compared to other vendors."
"The most valuable features of Dell PowerProtect DD are reduplication and compression. It provides a lot of data savings for backups. Additionally, the Dell PowerProtect DD solution offers a bundled backup software and storage option. If desired, users can also connect to cloud technology to create an additional copy of their data in the cloud. This solution supports synchronization with various cloud vendors, including Azure and AWS."
"This solution has a feature called Domain Boost, which allows for source deduplication and compression."
"Its pricing is not overly expensive."
"It is an IBM product. With SAP, you are using IBM software to protect it. DB2 and AIX servers are both IBM. Therefore, it is a total IBM solution, which helps."
"We can scale. Today, we have an average backup volume of 100TB a day."
"Everyone wants a full backup. It gives them safety and peace of mind, like an insurance policy for that rainy day when they may need to restore a system."
"We optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup. The TDP software provides us many ways to protect our data, so we don't need to use monstrous scripts for doing backups now."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
"A robust tool which allows us to backup pretty much any environment, virtual or physical."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"The fact that we can take the backup straight onto tape is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with public cloud."
"The price of the product is high."
"I would like to see better integration and support for backing up to cloud providers such as Alibaba Cloud."
"It helps if you have in-depth knowledge in order to use it correctly."
"The Data Domain solution appliance is quite expensive. It is on the higher side, but technically or functionally, there is no issue."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"Dell EMC Data Domain needs to have better compatibility between NetWorker and the hardware. NetWorker is not as good as the other products which are currently on the market like Backup Exec."
"The product lacks some security features that would make it more stand-alone and integrated."
"Probably educating the virtual group who are not as used to the product. Most of our expertise is with AIX servers and virtual server backups."
"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"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."
"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier."
"The stability could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
"Although I am not a technical user, I would say the cloud integration features could be improved."
"This product should be more user-friendly for newcomers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is cost-effective for the solution"
"The price may be a bit higher than other products in the market, but you will receive ten out of ten support with next-business-day delivery on parts' availability."
"This is one of the more expensive backup solutions on the market."
"On a scale where one represents high price, and ten represents low price, I rate the solution a five, which means that the solution is of medium pricing."
"The price is on the high side."
"It is expensive, but the performance and deduplication cover for the cost."
"The price of the backup appliance is slightly expensive. Compared to other vendors, the pricing will be slightly higher."
"The yearly subscription is very affordable for our customers, but the price could be a little cheaper overall."
"The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."
"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."
"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."
"There may be an advantage to going with IBM in terms of pricing. They have a pay-as-you-grow policy, so there is no need to take one license for the entire datacenter. You can start with small licenses and then grow, and pay, as you use more."
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Answers from the Community

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020
The biggest difference is that Data Domain is an appliance storage system (SW + HW storage) but Spectrum is a software (licenses) solution only.
2 out of 10 answers
SG
Jan 20, 2020
The biggest difference is that Data Domain is an appliance storage system (SW + HW storage) but Spectrum is a software (licenses) solution only.
CR
Jan 20, 2020
I would look at the way they dedup. DataDomain uses variable-length deduplication so they are very effective. I do not know anything about the IBM product, but we have dealt with IBM and in my opinion, the difference that is going to make the biggest impact is the way they sell TCO. EMC almost negatively impacts themselves by giving a more realistic and often more expensive quote, where IBM gives a seemingly cheaper solution, but later on, it works out more.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
I use Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) for archiving and storage for the server. It is also used for daily backup purposes.
What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The product, a disk backup solution, improves our data application tasks. We used tape libraries with Dev drives in legacy architectures, resulting in slow backups compared to modern drives like NV...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
Pricing is sometimes reasonable depending on the discounts provided by the company.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?
For my company, the tool is affordable and reasonable, but most people don't know that. People only see one major price for the tool, which runs into millions, so they would always say that it is a...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
The technical team's service depends on where the support service is located. Some products are not included in IBM itself, but external companies are developing some solutions for IBM. I think the...
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
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 Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.