IBM Spectrum Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus comparison

IBM Spectrum Protect and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.1, while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM Spectrum Protect holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM Spectrum Protect users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

4,841 Views
3,695 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Read 29 IBM Spectrum Protect Plus reviews

2,229 Views
1,594 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus compete in the enterprise backup and recovery solutions category, with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus having the upper hand due to its ease of use and simplified management.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive coverage, scalability, and robust enterprise-grade backup capabilities with broad platform support, valuable for extensive data protection needs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is known for its modern backup solutions, simplified management, and comprehensive reporting tools, particularly suitable for virtual environments. Both products have their strengths, but IBM Spectrum Protect Plus’s advanced features and user-friendly interface give it an edge.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest IBM Spectrum Protect needs a more intuitive configuration process, faster performance during large-scale backups, and improved user interface design. For IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, users recommend expanded integration options, enhanced deduplication efficiency, and better error reporting mechanisms. Even with these areas noted, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus remains favored for its streamlined interface and quicker deployment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect is noted for its complexity during initial setup, often requiring specialized knowledge, with responsive but occasionally slow customer service. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is commended for its straightforward deployment, reducing time and effort, with generally perceived efficient and supportive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Users perceive IBM Spectrum Protect’s pricing as higher compared to IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. However, the extensive feature set often justifies the cost. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is seen as more cost-effective, with a quicker return on investment due to lower setup costs and simplified management, making it an attractive choice for those balancing budget with comprehensive backup needs.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

January 2025

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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

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

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

23rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

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.

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Atif Najam

Chief Information Officer and Program Lead at Gatron Industries Ltd

Has very good integration features and can quickly backup data and optimize storage

I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery. I would like them to add global deduplication. With deduplicate backups, deduplication will work only with the data of a certain machine or a certain backup set. Usually, the data is repeated across the data of the backup sets. However, if IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides a global deduplication option it will ultimately result in better storage savings.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The file-restoring feature is the most valuable."

"Our customers have come to trust IBM."

"It scales well. We have grown here in the last year or two, and it has been relatively easy."

"One of the main things that I like about IBM is the versioning of the data - meaning that we can have multiple versions of a file or directory of a server."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is application-aware backups."

"It seems very scalable and robust. It can do what we require it to do."

"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."

"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"We used to use the solution with tapes a few years ago. We've switched to discs, and it has gotten much faster."

"The solution integrates well with other tools."

"If the system were to go down, we needed to make sure that the system could be recovered and available as soon as possible. Spectrum Protect provides you access to directly bind the backup volume to the server and make the system available instead of restoring it and copying the system."

"A full-featured data protection solution that is reliable and stable."

"The solution is scalable."

"The initial setup of IBM Protect Plus is simple and not complex."

"The feature I find most valuable is the offload to Spectrum Protect for long-term retention. I think the deduplication and replication are quite nice on Plus."

"The solution's stability is high because it is derived from Spectrum Protect."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pros

Cons

"We have run into some periods where we have found some tape issues which were causing us problems, but we resolved them. For some reason, we had a bunch of drives go offline on our disk storage (our virtual library)."

"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."

"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."

"Their support is lacking. I've talked to their developers and stuff in the last couple of weeks and they reassure me that some people have retired, and they're working on getting that bumped back up. But the support lacks a lot to be desired at this point."

"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."

"We need everything cloud. Strong support for cloud services. S3 connectivity, which is mandatory for us in the future along with this integration of Spectrum Copy Data Management or Spectrum Protect services together with these Spectrum Protect Plus functionalities, e.g., hardware, snapshots, and Copy Data Management. They should come together in one solution."

"The GUI has long been a problem for TSM/Spectrum Protect."

"The stability could be improved."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot."

"The security must be improved."

"The replication feature is not available."

"The tool needs to increase the number of threats."

"I would like more integration with security. We need to show the value of the product in regards to handling security. For example, how it handles current malware or viruses. IBM should be more proactive in this direction."

"I think the graphical reports are a shortcoming of the tool since it fails to provide my company with what we want in terms of reporting. Due to the product's inability to take care of its reporting part, we have to use third-party software."

"Their first level of support can be improved. Often they are too junior to understand the issues we are having, and it takes too much time to get from them to the next level of support, which is what we actually need."

"Not particularly user friendly."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not cheap."

"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."

"We have found that the pricing is high in our country."

"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."

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

"It can be perceived as expensive since it is designed for enterprise use."

"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."

"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"I rate the price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a one on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap."

"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."

"The price is perpetual, but the maintenance cost is annual. That is, we pay once for the product and pay annually for the maintenance and support. The price was much cheaper than what we would have had to pay for EMC or Veritas. The pricing is competitive, and I would rate it at four out of five."

"The price is lower than that of some competing products."

"The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original."

"Depends on the licensing options that you choose."

"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."

"We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?

The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?

We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise. We pay a fixed fee per year for support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?

The security must be improved. We face a lot of cyber threats like ransomware. It impacts data availability and protection. The tool must provide a mechanism to make resilient backups. The tool mus...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 6% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 4% of the time

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Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Mine Integrated Backup vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 8% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 6% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

January 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

January 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect Plus product report

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

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IBM

Overview

IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection and availability solution for virtual environments that can be deployed in minutes and protect your environment within an hour. It simplifies data protection, whether data is hosted in physical, virtual, software-defined or cloud environments. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or integrate with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to off-load copies for long term storage and data governance with scale and efficiency.

Sample Customers

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

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

January 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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