IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

The compared IBM and NVIDIA solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #20 in SDS , and holds a 1.8% mindshare in the category. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NVIDIA users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Read 35 IBM Spectrum Virtualize reviews

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317 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SwiftStack [EOL]

Read 8 SwiftStack [EOL] reviews

100% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

SwiftStack [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Virtualize and SwiftStack [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL] Report (Updated: September 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

September 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Average Rating

8.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (20th)

SwiftStack [EOL]

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Nicolae Chirea

System and Solutions Architect at Seidor

Sep 19, 2022

Robust, stable, with good performance, and easy to implement

The primary use case with IBM Spectrum Virtualize for us is in relationship to databases I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers. I enjoy the performance, replication, and compression. I value all of the features. I would like to see three-side support. When we do…

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Scientif48eb

Scientific Information Officer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Jul 10, 2019

It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers

* You can bring your own drives, which don't have to be certified. This usually means that they cost significantly more to insert a certified drive with the manufacturer who is selling you your solution. * It is platform independent, so you bring your own hardware. It doesn't matter if you get a Dell EMC, HPE, IBM, etc. Its hardware agnostic capabilities are great. Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo are obviously big players, but sometimes they don't have the best prices. You are not tied to any one particular vendor, and it gives you great flexibility as far as pricing is concerned. You can go out, and say, "Give me the most capacity in the smallest number of use spaces." Sometimes that's not the big vendors, it's the small vendors who provide this. * The forward thinking in their cloud solution creates a global namespace across the major public clouds. It allows you to go from on-premise to the cloud seamlessly. They have made it easier to move data between the different cloud vendors and move those flows from on-premise to the cloud, then from the cloud back to on-premise. That freedom that they facilitate is hard to put a price on, because it gives you flexibility. * The metadata search capabilities are something that we look forward to being able to use, though we haven't fully had a chance to get into them. However, in the life sciences area, it could be tremendously beneficial. * Ease of operation: We got it up and running, and it's been solid. We can upgrade the capacity of our drives at any point in time. * The flexibility that the solution provides, both for hardware and on-premise, then to the cloud. That flexibility is great.

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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

"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."

"We acquire companies (and things), so we end up with odd hardware. We bring it behind the SVC and it allows us to migrate stuff off of it seamlessly. SVC can also cover up a host of defects of the underlying storage."

"The ability to add the virtual machine on the Spectrum environment to sort out the data movers(DMs) and their schedules is a valuable feature. You are able to have, for example, four data movers to balance them so you do not have too much work on one data mover."

"The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it."

"It provides transparency, because of its advanced copy features."

"The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays."

"Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience."

"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"The biggest feature, the biggest reason we went with SwiftStack, rather than deploying our own model with OpenStack Swift, was their deployment model. That was really the primary point in our purchase decision, back when we initially deployed. It took my installation time from days to hours, for deployment in our environment, versus deploying OpenStack Swift ourselves, manually."

"SwiftStack is also quite flexible when it comes to hardware. It depends, of course, on the use case and the kind of hardware you want to buy. But you have quite a bit of choice in hardware. The SwiftStack software itself does not impose anything on you."

"The most valuable feature is its versatility. We use 1space and we can use it for almost anything: for our cloud service, for backups of VMs."

"The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."

"It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers. As part of our DR strategy, we have nodes automatically replicating data from one data center to the other. This makes it easier for us to not have to shift tapes around."

"The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."

"In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."

"The graphs are most valuable. They have a lot of graphs and reports that you can run to see what's happening in the background to configure OpenStack Swift."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pros

Cons

"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."

"I already discussed possible improvements with some of the guys from Hearnsley. One of our frustrations is when you go to expand volumes in a global mirror environment, you have to stop everything in order to expand. So that's one of the things."

"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."

"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."

"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."

"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."

"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."

"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."

"They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."

"At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."

"I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."

"On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."

"[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."

"It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."

"The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."

"I think it is a good value for the price."

"Generally the bundled licensing is more cost effective and gives flexibility to the solution. Linking into the Spectrum Suite can also be advantageous, but depends on the scale of the enterprise."

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."

"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

"All in, with hardware and everything else - and I hate to say a dollar amount because it's been awhile since I computed it - I know I'm under the $300 to $500 per terabyte mark. I call that my "all in" price, which has replications built in and protections built in."

"The pricing model is great and makes sense. We have talked about how to get into more of a frequent billing cycle than once a year. That would be an interesting concept to add into the product, having the ability to have monthly billing instead of having to do a one-year licensing renewal. However, the way the license works by charging for storage consumed is definitely what makes them the most competitive."

"We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

"We find the pricing rather steep. Of course, you get quality for your money, that's absolutely true... [But] when you look at the prices of the licensing and the prices of your hardware, it's quite substantial."

"COST_SAVING; We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

"We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."

"It's pricey for us because we're a nonprofit. I'm not privy to any amount or cost, but I have been told that it is pricey. There are no costs in addition to the licensing fees, and it seems to come with the support."

"Dollar per gigabyte, it costs us more because we are storing more. However, if you look at it from a cost per gigabyte perspective, we have dropped our costs significantly."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

Real Estate/Law Firm

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 13% of the time

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MinIO vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 60% of the time

Dell ECS vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 21% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 20% of the time

More SwiftStack [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

November 2024

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Buyer's Guide

SwiftStack [EOL]

October 2024

Download SwiftStack [EOL] product report

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IBM

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Overview

IBM Spectrum Virtualize is a dependable solution that improves data value, security, and simplicity for new and existing storage infrastructure. Proven over 12 years in thousands of deployments, its innovative virtualization capabilities help organizations achieve better data economics by supporting new workloads that are critical to their success. IBM Spectrum Virtualize software helps make new and existing storage more effective and standardizes functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

SwiftStack focuses on handling large-scale unstructured data, providing software-defined storage, and boosting data scalability and durability.

SwiftStack is known for its proficiency in object storage, seamless workflow integration, and robust support for multi-cloud environments. Its architecture ensures high-performance data access, making it ideal for big data analytics, media asset management, and backup tasks. Users value its flexibility, ease of integration, and strong performance. The solution's high availability and efficient storage capabilities contribute to its strengths. However, areas needing improvement include customer support response time, initial setup guidance, and enhanced scalability during high-demand periods.

What are SwiftStack's Most Important Features?

Robust Scalability: Easily manages growing data volumes
Multi-cloud Support: Seamless integration across cloud environments
Seamless Data Management: Efficiently handles large datasets
High Availability: Ensures data is accessible whenever needed
Open-Source: Customizable and flexible with extensive API support

What Benefits Should Users Look For?

Enhanced Performance: Handles demanding workloads efficiently
Easy Integration: Adapts well with existing systems and workflows
High Durability: Ensures long-term data storage and protection
Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces overall storage costs
Scalability: Grows with organizational needs

In industries like media management and big data analytics, SwiftStack’s capabilities in high-performance data access and multi-cloud support facilitate efficient data handling. Backup and archival solutions also benefit from its robust storage and high availability features.

Sample Customers

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

September 2024

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL] and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.

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