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IBM Spectrum Protect vs IBM Storage 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

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 Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
47th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Maik Zutz - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable enterprise solution for backup and restore
New workloads are not good for storage protect like container or virtual machines. IBM acknowledges that users and partners with companies do it better and integrate it into the product. It takes too much time to implement it in old Storage Protect. It have features for big databases and big data environments. Although, the product seems to be old fashioned, but it is stable, robust and works for the most use cases where a lot of data is to be protected. It could be easier to manage client data. You have to use configuration. It is not on modern architecture. They should change it on the client area. You can achieve a better environment using Protect. IBM tapes serves as an air gap, consumes less energy, and provides a resilient, stable environment with fewer infrastructure and environmental costs. Intergrating it can help store large amounts of data more cheaper than on disk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Our customers have come to trust IBM."
"The solution is really scalable."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"The ability to do dedupe in the product is nice to have."
"The most valuable feature is the backup speed."
"Its flexibility is valuable. It is a very flexible solution. There are always more ways than one to do something. It is a software solution, which means you can buy your own hardware and expand it whenever you want. You are not boxed in or locked into something you've bought and outgrown. You can always expand it."
"It helps our customers protect their data, keep it long-term, and feel pretty secure about it, basically sleeping well at night."
"The tool's backup engine is very powerful. Previously, our client finished backup with HPE product in 48 hours. IBM Storage Protect completes backup in 8 hours."
"The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future."
 

Cons

"I need to have more than two instances working together. I need a worldwide grid able to have replication between three, four, or five instances."
"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)."
"The solution is evolving, so it has to be evolved to fit all new types of software requirements too."
"I find the solution somewhat difficult to use with virtual environments or VMware."
"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."
"The product should be improved to save more space."
"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"The product should improve its GUI. It should also support Windows clustering."
"The solution is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
"Its licensing is complex, and its price is not really reasonable. It is on the expensive side. IBM, in general, is slightly expensive, but with IBM Spectrum for the virtual environment, they are looking into the aspect of helping customers with the cost and providing a cost-effective solution."
"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."
"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high."
"IBM Storage Protect is not expensive and fits the needs of all business types. The licensing is based on a capacity-based model. You can take a license for one, two, or three terabytes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
The solution is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a three out of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
New workloads are not good for storage protect like container or virtual machines. IBM acknowledges that users and partners with companies do it better and integrate it into the product. It takes t...
 

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.