IBM Spectrum Protect vs Oracle Data Guard comparison

IBM and Oracle are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.4, while Oracle is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.3. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to Oracle’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,978 Views
3,421 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Oracle Data Guard

Read 31 Oracle Data Guard reviews

1,704 Views
1,636 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

Oracle Data Guard

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Oracle Data Guard are leading products in data protection and disaster recovery. IBM Spectrum Protect has an edge in pricing, while Oracle Data Guard stands out for its advanced features, making it worth its higher cost for some users.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive data backup, recovery capabilities, and strong pricing. Oracle Data Guard provides high availability, data replication, and advanced features for maintaining data continuity.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect could benefit from a simpler installation process, more cloud service integrations, and better documentation. Oracle Data Guard could improve with a less complex management interface, more user-friendly documentation, and simplified deployment procedures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect is noted for its straightforward deployment and strong customer service. Oracle Data Guard has a steeper learning curve during deployment but is backed by quality support, compensating for its deployment challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect is valued for its cost-effectiveness and provides a faster ROI. Oracle Data Guard, while more expensive, offers significant ROI through its robust feature set for enterprises needing high-availability solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

July 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

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

149

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Data Guard

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

15th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Data Guard is 0.8%, down from 0.9% 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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Azhagupandi Parthiban

Vice President Of Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers near-real-time replication for data consistency and continuously introducing new features through upgrades

There are various advantages. First of all, easy to deploy. The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. In other ways, the implementation is very, very important. Like, we have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product. Once you configure it, it goes through the rollback, and then Data Guard introduces this snapshot thing. So once the restoration happens, we can go back to the original thing, and we make that a standard. It's a pretty decent and key function for Oracle. So, enterprise organizations go for Oracle only for features like these.

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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

"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."

"The best functional system I utilize is integrated with the data domain and DIGS backup solution, which makes it easily manageable and comprehensive."

"You can do restores very quickly. You can mount a drive and restore it right from the drive."

"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."

"Our customers have come to trust IBM."

"The addition of the retention set feature provides a reduction in storage costs. It also reduces RTO and RPO so that you can respond quickly to your clients and services in case of data loss."

"The MN backup for a cluster is most valuable because it has made backing up the GSF as a zero-file system easier. I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it."

"It's a very stable product, and we've never had any downtime with it."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"The most valuable features are the backup and restore. With this in place along with the clustering, the database is safe from hacking, hardware failure, power failures, and system crashes."

"Technical support is very good. If at any time we write a ticket, we get the appropriate answer on time."

"The solution is really very stable. One good thing about it, compared to other products, is that you can just run it and forget about it. Unless you come across some interruptions in the network, it works like a charm."

"If you have a problem with your primary site and can't access your primary database, you can continue working with the database that you have as standby on the other site, by changing its role to primary."

"The most valuable aspect for me is undoubtedly the failover capability and the assurance of data safety provided by Oracle Data Guard."

"We use Data Guard for online replication from data center, to data center for high availability. This is the most important feature."

"It is a top-notch product, super stable, making it our go-to for internal operations."

"We chose this solution for the availability of the databases. We can't afford Oracle Grid, this is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive."

More Oracle Data Guard pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"I find the solution somewhat difficult to use with virtual environments or VMware."

"The features should be a little bit closer together."

"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."

"The software is very complicated. You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore."

"It lacks reporting and an efficient alert mechanism. The GUI could also be improved."

"The initial setup is complex."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"Overall, there are some operational issues that need to be dealt with."

"We would like to be able to see the date time stamp when you execute DGMGRL commands."

"The usage of block storage devices in the cloud or migration of a type of storage from one site to another site can be improved. Currently, we have to use multi-node to single node because of the lack of storage support on the Azure side. It did not really work. Our DBA had to spend a lot of time tweaking the Data Guard tools, or the underlying Oracle VMs, to make sure that Data Guard would run on top of different types of storage. So, if it can support transporting or getting from one type of storage to another type of storage in a different site or a different technology, it would be very helpful."

"Sometimes, the technical support team takes time to respond."

"The implementation is complex for anyone who's jumping into it without any experience. It's all command-line driven implementations. For some, that's a turn-off."

"The initial setup is complex."

"For every standby server you have, you must pay a licensing fee, which is the main disadvantage."

"It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs."

More Oracle Data Guard cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not cheap."

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

"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."

"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"This is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive than Oracle Grid."

"The pricing is on the higher side."

"Oracle Data Guard is a feature available only in Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and is available for extra cost."

"If you want to have everything automated and done smoothly, you have to add additional licenses."

"The licensing cost is significantly high."

"The cost is expensive."

"It is not a cheap product, but if you look at the price, features, availability, scalability, and maturity, it is a very good product."

"The cost of the Oracle license will depend on the negotiations with Oracle."

More Oracle Data Guard pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Computer Software 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?

It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...

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What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...

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What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs. I strongly recommend Data Guard. I've been using it for eight years and I would strongly recommend it. I'd rate Oracle Data Guard a se...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

We're Oracle partners. We've worked with databases 11G and 12C. If a company is planning to implement Oracle solutions, I would suggest they also implement Data Guard. I'd rate the solution nine ou...

See all answers

Comparisons

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 25% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 14% of the time

AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 13% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 9% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Oracle Data Guard

Compared 9% of the time

More Oracle Data Guard Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

July 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Data Guard

July 2025

Download Oracle Data Guard product report

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Active Data Guard

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

Oracle Data Guard ensures high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data. Data Guard provides a comprehensive set of services that create, maintain, manage, and monitor one or more standby databases to enable production Oracle databases to survive disasters and data corruptions. Data Guard can be used with traditional backup, restoration, and cluster techniques to provide a high level of data protection and data availability.

Oracle

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

Athenahealth, Discover Financial Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Oracle Data Guard and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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