IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Reviews

My clients are using IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for their virtual environments when using VMware.

The most valuable feature of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is the deduplication functionality. The clients moved to this solution originally because of this feature.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could improve the IBM Spectrum Protect environment. It can be difficult to administer. The initial configuration can be difficult for entry-level teams or deployment teams, and it might be difficult to integrate. There's just too much content involved in the solution. The documentation is way too large.

In a feature release, they should have some bare metal recovery features.

I have been a partner with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for 19 years.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very good.

I rate the stability of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a nine out of ten.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus can scale well because it is on the cloud.

When I compare the support from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus with most of the other vendors we work with, IBM is at the top of the chart. They are prompt, they give proper feedback, and they're willing to help as much as they can.

I rate the support from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is easy.

I rate the setup of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a seven out of ten.

We use two specialists and administrators for the support of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. Additionally, we sometimes need more help with the store side of the operation of the solution.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a good investment. I've seen over the years the integration and upgrades, work well with the current solutions on the market. You don't necessarily have to buy a totally new solution if you wanted to migrate to the next level. Everything has been integrated into the current environment.

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

I rate the licensing price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a six out of ten.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a good solution. It works well, but it requires a good budget for it and the training part. There most likely will be a huge CapEx involved.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a seven out of ten.

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

You can put single items back with a certain driver. It's useful for operators maybe who don't have much of a clue about the back end.

We've had some problems getting a full backup done. It's very slow and can take a number of hours, specifically when we use the exchange database. Most time it's a problem with the agent for exchange. Sometimes you have to try to restore things multiple times. It can sometimes take a whole day just to get a recovery up and running.

Working on the solution, even when it works, is quite difficult.  

You end up needing to do a lot of troubleshooting to get things to work effectively. 

It would be ideal if the solution allowed users to also pick up SharePoint, Teams, and Office 365 items. It should be able to do not just databases. That way, you can have everything, including software, both on-premises and in the cloud. At the moment, for Team, in particular, it's not possible to pick that up, potentially because it includes a lot of chats.

We've been using the solution for ten or more years at this point. It's been a long time.

The solution isn't exactly stable. Sometimes you need to attempt to restore the backup multiple times as it doesn't work. It's not a seamless, trouble-free experience.

We are customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

I would rate the solution at a six out of ten. We haven't been completely satisfied with it at this time. The time it takes to get a backup restored is too, too long. On top of that, if you are really unlucky, you'll have to try to restore the backup many times.

We are a solution provider and we implement IBM products, such as Spectrum Protect Plus for our clients.

The testing capability is good.

It can back up both VMware and Hyper-V in one console.

It can back up bare metals servers and doesn't need an agent. There is no specific limitation for backing up to either the cloud or on-premises.

The API is very good.

The duplication and compression features are included in one license.

Replication feature is available for off site backup. New generation data backup technologies are constantly being developed for multi-cloud environments.

The feedback that we have received is nice and we have heard no complaints of instability.

We can extend the customer's backup storage, add servers, or add new disaster recovery sites. 

We have been in contact with technical support, and whenever we have a problem we open a ticket to IBM. They have supported us well for any case we have had.

The implementation and installation will take 15 minutes at the maximum.

It can be deployed on-premises or as a cloud-based solution.

The price is lower than that of some competing products.

Some of our customers are planning to replace Veeam with the Spectrum Plus software. Veeam is a powerful tool and good for virtualization, but the price is lower for the IBM product.

This is a modern technology that supports not only data protection, but include HIPAA resources and virtualization. It is a product that I recommend.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are deploying SP+ for validating our database related backup and strategy requiring a lot of updates when in pilot phase. Thus we can adapt the backup and recovery strategy accordingly and then push it in production for the release it has been tested.
we can easily scratch the POC and restart straight a new set of validation

It gives DBA, vMware and application teams full control over their backup and restore responsibilities. It ensure that we set correct RPO/RTO and that we are aligned to our business strategy

The solution offers a quick self-deployment. Using TDP for HANA is also very valuable. They have good integration. And if sizing requiring it, it is straightforward to offload data to spectrum protect server.

It's difficult to discuss improvements in Spectrum Protect Plus itself because it has been implemented in Spectrum Protect, and I'm using both.

It could possibly use more reporting features.

Their first level of support can be improved. Often they are too junior to understand At that scale 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.

I've been using the solution for 6 years.

The solution is very stable. With both SPP and SPP Plus, you have a very powerful environment.

The scalability is very good. There's no competition that's comparable.

Technical support isn't too bad. Of course, there's always room for improvement. We do have a lot more issues with first level support. As we're already advanced User in using SPP, most of the time we need the second level or third level of support. So sometimes we struggle with first level support because they don't even understand the issues we have. They're too junior. 

I didn't previously use a different solution.

The solution offers a very straightforward deployment. You click, click, click and it's done. There's not much configuration to do. It took about one hour to implement the solution.

We deployed the solution fully in-house.

Visibility over 4 to 5 years with clear roadmap from IBM.

sP+ worth the investment in regards of capabilities, scalability vs cost. With the right understanding of the administrators, the possibilities given by this tool worth any penny invested.

And it totally support automation.

We mostly use the private cloud deployment model of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

I recommend the solution. You don't need to go to any other product. If you want to have a strong backup for recovery and restore, you need this solution. Resilience is optimum with Spectrum Protect suite from IBM.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

We're a bank and use the solution for backup and recovery, it's a disaster recovery enterprise solution. We're partners with IBM and I'm the Senior Technical Lead Consultant.

The most valuable features are the virtual snapshots that offer incremental backups forever. 

I don't think the solution is particularly user friendly, it requires expertise. Technical support could also be improved. Now that they're in the cloud I think they'll start enhancing with their backups. They weren't very good in the virtual world but they seem to be making more of an effort in the latest version and trying to align themselves with other backup solutions. IBM's an expensive solution so if you're enterprise you'll go with them, especially if you have other IBM products in the workplace. 

I've been using this solution for 15 years.

This is a very stable solution, but it requires a spectrum protect person working with it and not a regular admin person. In that respect, it's not very user friendly. 

It's a scalable solution but not like the products we have today. Scalability depends on setup and requires planning and architecture. If you have that then it's a scalable product.

Technical support is a bit problematic, I have good technical support within the company but if I need third level support there's nobody in Australia who can take a call for that. I wouldn't call support unless it's third level but it takes a while to get a response from them. I've been trying to solve an issue for six months. They keep sending different codes and commands that don't work. Maybe now that they've designed a private cloud it might be better. 

Initial setup of the solution requires expertise in configuration and installation, a person who has a connection to IBM or knows the product. This is not an out of the box solution. If it's not set up properly it's a nightmare to try and maintain down the line. Initial setup doesn't take a long time as long as the hardware specs are aligned but you have to know your environment and have a design. It requires planning.

Given that it's an expensive product I would suggest that if you're rich go with IBM, and if you're poor go with someone else. Most enterprise companies like to show off with these products. I've been lucky to have worked in enterprise companies. 

IBM doesn't work well on a middle-ware level when you're using solutions from different companies. I've been reading about their recent virtualisation. Once they master that, they'll probably be number one again and they seem to now be aligning themselves and starting to create a compatible product with all the clouds. 

What's caused part of the problem with IBM are their ongoing support costs. It looks like they're now changing their model and aligning themselves by creating a compatible product with all the clouds. Until now, Commvault has been the only compatible solution with all the clouds, whereas IBM has only been compatible with their own solutions. It's only now they're starting to integrate. There is an arrogance about them but lately I think they've realised that they need to be more public with their stuff and to compete with Commvault.

I would rate this product a nine out of 10. 

Our primary use for this is data protection and management using various features of the product.

Virtualization has helped us increase efficiency by working against data analysis almost immediately and without interrupting performance. We have experienced about an 80% savings in effort on our backups and satisfying data safety which makes us more efficient and improves our organization.

Certainly, the data protection is the most valuable feature for using the product but the secondary functions of replication, backup and recovery, are invaluable in helping to protect the validity of the data.

One of the places where the product can improve is in the interface. It is a little cumbersome to interact with and not very user-friendly. If the interface could be more simple it would make using the product better.

The only other improvement I can think of — and again this has something to do with the GUI interface — is to include other features for configuration and scheduling tasks to make using the product more simple.

We have never had a problem with the product and find it to be extremely stable. It handles loads very well and this is important for data security.

When it comes to scalability, we find that we are able to add new features and scale use of features fairly easily.

We have currently deployed the solution for nine clients and hope to continue to grow from there.

IBM generally has very good technical support if we require it, but also we are supposed to be experts, so we do not need to use their services often.

We actually concurrently serve customers using more than one option and the other option we work with is Veeam. Which we deploy depends on the customer need and their preferences.

Our experience with installations and deployment is that the installation is straightforward. It did not take more than an hour to install beside additional configurations and customizations required by the clients. The troubleshooting afterward may take more time, but usually, we can have everything in place in less than a day.

As we are the reseller or vendor we do the installations and configurations ourselves.

We only use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus with yearly licensing fees. It depends on which solutions or plan that you choose for exactly how much it will cost.

As far as advice for people who are thinking about using the product, the product is excellent and it works. I can recommend using it and that you can be satisfied.

On a scale of one to ten where one is worst and ten is best, I give the product an eight. The biggest reason why this is an eight and not a ten is the same issues with the GUI interface and that it could be easier to use.

I was using this solution at my previous job, about six months ago. The company that I am with now is planning to purchase it, although, at this time, we do not have any of these products.

I have experience with the on-premises deployment model, and it was our backup solution.

This solution allows you to create a backup using any storage, and then take another one for disaster recovery. This is something that is very important for us.

This is a multi-platform backup solution where you can take a backup from AIX, Windows, or Linux servers and restore from CD, disk, or tape. It will restore exactly, from whatever you have. It's really comfortable.

This product has no limitations.

The user experience is very bad and the interface needs to be improved. It is not user-friendly. This is not my complaint, alone, but everybody I know who has worked with this solution. In order to perform a backup, professionally, you need to use the command-line interface. By comparison, Veritas has a backup solution with a very nice user interface that is easy to use.

This solution is difficult to troubleshoot when an error occurs. It gives you an error number that you can search for in the manual, or on the internet, to find an answer, but details are not given within the user interface. Again, it is just not user-friendly.

This solution is stable.

This is a scalable solution.

We have three backup managers who work together. I am with the Linux team, and we installed this solution, but we will be handing it over to the maintenance team. As both teams work with this solution, there are five people in total.

We are backing up approximately one hundred servers. We currently don't have any plans to expand this location, so our usage here will not increase. However, we do have branches in other cities, so in the future, we expect to use this solution in each of the branches.

I have a lot of experience with IBM Spectrum Protect, and the Plus version has extra features. It includes, for example, cloud features. After we upgraded to the plus version, I did not use many of the additional features. From my perspective, I did not really notice any difference between the two versions. We made the switch because our consultants suggested the Plus version, and our research told us that it is a really good solution to upgrade to.

We actually used multiple backup solutions, but I am unable to name them.

We did not initially install and configure the Plus version. The initial setup was for IBM Spectrum Protect, and then we performed an upgrade to the Plus version.

The initial setup is complex, for a new installation, when somebody does it for the first time. It is not too hard when you have experience with it. Our deployment took approximately one day.

I and my colleague performed the implementation in-house, with some assistance from IBM.

This solution is worth the investment.

This solution is expensive, but compared to other backup solutions, it is fair.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features.

This is a really strong application that I find really useful and reliable for backup, but it needs to be more user-friendly.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case would be for all our VMs. We are currently using Spectrum Protect but we're actually planning on moving everything onto Spectrum Protect Plus.

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 only thing that I would like to see improved is the actual schedule that you get on the policies. It does not allow for being flexible, like for weekly, just day one to five, and leave day six and seven. Especially if we're running multiple policies, like if we want to do a basic weekly incremental and then later do a monthly. 

In the next release, I want to see updates on the scheduling so that we can have more options on how you schedule stuff, like allowing you to use your everyday requirement.

So far it looks quite stable and I haven't had issues yet. It looks quite fine.

I think it is scalable because you can scale upwards as much as you want to provide for your infrastructure. We are currently running it on a POC basis, so we are probably still in a pilot phase. The workload is not heavy yet due to the infrastructure. We're actually working on procurement of storage and our usage will increase. I'm currently only running three VMs, which in fact is quite big. And our immediate goal is to move 100 large VMs across. From there, we'll continue growing. We have about 700 or 800 VMs in our environment. 

We plan to upgrade to Spectrum Protect and for us it's moving forward. Firstly, backing up something on an archival level that is running on the same archival level is better. Secondly, the cost of Spectrum Protect Plus versus Spectrum Protect is much better, because I think you get around 10 VMs per terabyte licensing that you use. That will definitely be a huge gain for us.

The plugin on VMware of Spectrum Protect is totally different. So, with Spectrum Protect Plus you don't see the actual backup within the vCenter. The only thing that you see is that it creates a snap and then the backup runs totally outside of it.

The initial setup was quite straightforward and it was easy to actually set it up and start using it. The architecture is totally different from Spectrum Protect. I would like to see the commands and what's happening in the background, so it would nice to see a view of that.

The deployment was subject to the availability on the VMware side. We needed to go seek approvals and changes and things like that but the environment that I am currently using, I could deploy in a day.

Because we've got Spectrum Protect, we're going to use some of that licensing and convert it to Plus. One additional cost is obviously going to be the infrastructure that we need to buy for the solution.

The sooner you can do it and get going, the better. I rate this solution an eight out of ten.