IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

As an IBM business partner, we are interested in helping our clients get the most out of their technology. 

For our clients using on-premise infrastructure, they usually have a mixture of workloads and a lot of databases with a lot of different operating systems. Therefore, they need a backup platform which helps them to get the most out of every piece of software that they have, not different pieces of software to back up different technologies. Spectrum Protect enables us to do that for them.

A mixture of technologies comprise their backup, as they are using incremental technology. They are using snapshot for backups, and also using CBT Tracking, which is one of the technologies that VMware has in its APIs and that Spectrum Protect leverages to do virtual machine backups. Therefore, there is a mixture of things. 

Many customers that we have are in the banking system of Columbia. For example. I estimate that 70% to 80% of the banks in Columbia, including eBanks, are using Spectrum Protect.

We now have 20 Clients with Spectrum Protect. We have a very special one with four instances of Spectrum Protect on the same Client. This is a very big bank in Columbia. They have instances in production, instances for developing environments, and instances for coverage throughout all their infrastructure. This is the biggest environment that we have, and it takes approximately 30,000 backups a month. So, it is a large environment.

We see that solution is now getting a new breath. The solution is helping new customers with sending workloads to the cloud, which helps us a lot, because they are uploading their internal and on-premise systems.

About 20 to 30% of my clients are now using cloud to upload their backups. This is very important to us, because Spectrum Protect now helps them to achieve this result.

One of the features which is most interesting in Spectrum Protect is the ability to scale out to great environments. This is something that not many vendors have on the market. 

It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives. 

I would like to see monitoring within the platform: monitoring for storage pools and monitoring for the server's health (e.g., CPU and memory). This has been somewhat lost from previous releases because we had IBM Tivoli Monitoring for these purposes, but now we do not have anything, and it is important to cover this. 

Also, I would like to advance reporting and analytics for the platform to see how much data is coming into the platform. how much data is expiring everyday, and what tape savings we are getting through reclamation. These are important things to know, as we are lacking a bit in this area.

We have a very long road to walk. We can make a lot of improvements taking into account all the participants in the ecosystem: The developers with the business partners and the clients who help us to improve the product.

The solution is very stable. It is one of the most important features that we look for in a product before putting it into the market and when establishing a strategy with our customers. 

There are a lot of clients who are using the product for 10 years or more. We began working with them long time ago. We have been seeing the product progress and the evolution of it through time. They clients have seen that this special feature, which is stability, has not being lost with the product's evolution. We are maintaining the quality of the product, and at the same time, advancing new features. This is very important for us.

The technical support for Spectrum Protect is very mature. It is very committed to giving a top-notch support experience. I have no complaints about them. We are working mainly with the Argentina team, which is a Level 2 team who helps us in Latin America. They are very considerate and help us to get our issues resolved or questions resolved.

In recent years, there has been improvement regarding the product's setup. Now, we have an installation manager, which helps us a lot. There is no customized research. It is the same installation manager that all other IBM products use. This is great for us, as it is very simple to install patches. That was difficult previously, but now we have a streamline method to install the product. 

With initiatives like Spectrum Protect Plus, which is new, we are advancing even more with our technology initiatives.

I am involved in the whole lifecycle. I am involved in design, setup, and also the post-sales report.

Our customers always evaluate other vendors. Customers are sometimes using Veeam Backup for their virtual workloads. They may also be using some other tools from EMC. However, Spectrum Protect is the only tool that can work throughout all their technology and platforms. Therefore, they do not need separate tools for separate technologies. Spectrum Protect is the only tool which helps them do this.

IBM is most compared to Veeam Backup because there are a lot of virtualized workloads in our Clients. It is also compared with HPE Data Protector and Veritas. These are the solutions that our customers evaluate. 

The powerful reason IBM technology is good for to our customers is they already have IBM technology present. For example, they have IBM Power in their infrastructure for core business. They also have IBM applications, like IBM cloud applications and IBM monitoring applications. They want to form a stack of applications and solutions from the same vendor. It is much easier to take another solution and incorporate it into their existing solutions that they already have.

We try to help our customers, not only to be the seller, but also be an adviser to them and help them chose the best technology around

We have a lot of happy customers when we sorted our files. We had someone in admissions, and they have a file which everyone shares. There are users who have deleted or trashed files and will need to restore them, sometimes even overwrite it with a new one. They will need the old file from a particular date and the Spectrum Protect system lets you retrieve a specific date file, which leads to a lot of happy campers.

We have an on-premise infrastructure. We use Iron Mountain, then we have a tape library. We have tapes that go off-site, so we can restore for our disaster recovery solution if the premise goes down. Though, we have not had to use it yet.

The VMware/virtual people take more of the snapshots, though not too much with the main AIX boxes.

Recovering files which have been lost. You can't place a value on it. If someone loses a day's work, or they had this file that they had been keeping for years on end and now all of a sudden the data is gone, they can recover it with Spectrum Protect.

The backup feature. Everyone wants a full backup. It gives them safety and peace of mind, like an insurance policy for that rainy day when they may need to restore a system. It is not necessarily as good for migrating to a new release, then putting back a D-drive. However, for daily operations and disaster recovery, it is a big use case.

Probably educating the virtual group who are not as used to the product. Most of our expertise is with AIX servers and virtual server backups. I am doing more work these days with Identity and Oracle, why would I use the pump and dump on Oracle or would it be better if I am able to send it off-site using something like Spectrum?

It has been very reliable. 

The biggest issue is educating users. The compatibility if you put out a newer server can take backups from old Clients, but you want to keep Clients up-to-date. Some users are more proactive than others, so they won't all come and ask for the Client. It is a job that we should be educating users more about regarding when they should download it. With Spectrum Protect, you can push things from the hubs to the spokes and keep the Clients up-to-date.

I have not seen any big issues. I sometimes handle the tape library, unloading and loading tapes. and it is very predictable. 

We recently had a situation where we quickly got code, and the number of tapes exceeded the library capacity so we were waiting a while to change. We got a fix for this right away.

We only have a couple servers, but loads of nodes and Clients (hundreds of them). We have some domains, active directories, backups, and shared drives. The shared drives are big. Since driving the recovery scenario, where someone deletes something off of their shared drive, it is not just that person's data but it's a whole department's data.

The technical support has very good turnover for problem solving. They have been spot on as we received a response within a few days.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

Spectrum Protect would free up backup space that could be used from files in our databases to grow. It allows for growth of the database, so it is a good use case. However, I might use Oracle pump and dump because I am in test mode (and cheap), but if I were to put it into production, I would really have to use something like Spectrum to do that.

Main criteria for choosing Spectrum Protect: disaster recovery. It is something you seldom use, but it is big if it happens, so it is the security and insurance policy.

We have been using it for quite some time and see the product is developing into something that we have been asking for. Some of the functions the product used to lack have been included and are now useful.

We use the on-premise version. Our infrastructure consists of an operating system and a mainframe. The Spectrum product is more for the operating system, data productions, and our data center.

The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR).

Product features were previously not great, but they eventually evolved. There have been a lot of good improvement, so now the features are quite impressive.

We would like to see cloud integration.

The solution is evolving, so it has to be evolved to fit all new types of software requirements too.

Stability is very good.

It use to scale to IBM systems only. Now, it scales to non-IBM systems or other industry servers, like Intel. So now, scalability is quite good.

We used silo our Spectrum Protect servers, but now we are consolidating them into fewer servers because they can handle more loads.

Technical support is okay. We have IBM direct support, which has a team of resources for us to utilize.

In the beginning, it was not an easy setup. Now, the product has developed to be quite flexible and easy in its setup with some lesser ticks.

We evaluated other data protection products like Veritas.

We chose IBM because we had IBM in-house. This was the main reason, and also because Spectrum Protect would integrate with the IBM products better.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Cost
• Scalability
• Product features.

It serves as a backup solution, and although its user interface may not be perceived as unique, its administration process is reported to be smooth. The community project aspect ensures reliable backup communication, especially when dealing with lost backup features. It simplifies tasks such as fixing the entire system and storing data on platforms like Gmail or Hyper-V.

It has expanded its capabilities and is now part of the Storage Defender suite. This suite is designed to enhance cybersecurity, particularly in safeguarding against ransomware attacks. In addition to disaster recovery, the Storage Defender suite aims to protect against cyber threats by providing measures to recover data in the event of encryption by malicious actors.

The most valuable is its versatility, allowing users to efficiently manage IBM V and Hyper-V in diverse environments. The flexibility extends to cloud transitions, enabling easy movement from one vendor to another. The tool proves invaluable in scenarios where systems need recovery, such as restoring damaged data. Users can leverage it to migrate data between different environments, making tasks like moving from on-premise to the cloud straightforward.

The administration tools for GI need improvement, as the current assessment suggests shortcomings in the back-end system. Dealing with administrative tasks from my perspective has not been straightforward. The user interface for administration lacks the ease that is found in other tools, especially when dealing with storage.

I have been using it for four years.

It is a very mature tool and it has been reliable and stable throughout our experience. I would rate it ten out of ten.

I didn't have any issues with scalability, it has been good.

My experience with customer service and support has been satisfactory. I would rate it ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward.

The deployment process takes one week.

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

I used IBM Spectrum Protect for backups and archiving.

I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features.

IBM could improve by decluttering its product lines. There are too many clients, too many names, and overall too many products. They have to decide for the virtual environments, are they going to stick with Spectrum Virtual Environment or Spectrum Protect Plus? They have to decide on this, a final decision. IMB is trying to catch up with Veeam but they have to declutter a lot of products or sub-products that they have.

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.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for approximately three years.

I have found IBM Spectrum Protect to be highly stable.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution.

IBM provides good support.

I have used other backup solutions, such as Veeam.

The installation of IBM Spectrum Protect has become easy for me but was not always. It's not as easy as others, such as Veeam. But nevertheless, I think it to be more robust than Veeam, and more realistic. The only option for a very small deployment is to use the Windows platform, but you cannot have a very small deployment as a blueprint on the Linux and on AIX. They have to create a very small deployment blueprint for the AIX and for the Linux.

The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity.

It's really difficult for you as a client to decide the exact size of how many kilos you have to purchase because it really depends on the after operational capacity and after the compression.

My advice to others wanting to implement this solution is if they have a critical enterprise application, then I would recommend TSM. If they have a small network of many workstations rather than servers, then maybe Veeam will be more suitable.

I rate IBM Spectrum Protect a seven out of ten.

The solution is primarily used for backup and restore and also for DR, for Data Recovery in case of a disaster. We are using replication from two servers, the Spectrum Servers, so they replicate on each other. We are using it for backing up remote sites also. Basically, all the machines are downloading their backup to the Spectrum Server and from then on we are moving that data to tape units so we can have outside data of the building.

IBM allows for the versioning of the data, allowing us to have multiple versions of a file or directory of a server. 

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. I could have 10 versions of one file and that file I could keep for as long as I want.

There is the archive for a version of the solution which gave us the opportunity to have, let's say, one full backup every month for a long period of time. Its archiving offers us good flexibility.

The solution is very stable.

We've found the scalability to be very good.

The initial implementation is straightforward for the most part.

The pricing is a bit high. It would be ideal if it was more affordable.

Generally, everything is changing so fast within the product, it's hard to pinpoint what needs to be changed or what is missing. The solution is constantly evolving.

It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection.

The only thing that I haven't tried yet is using it with VMware. I haven't done any tests on it. Let's say that I want to restore a VM, virtual machine, and I would like to access it in a short period of time. This is something that Veeam, for example, is doing. Veeam will permit you to start a VM and start working with it and restore only what is needed to do a prompt work. If it's possible to have the same functionality on this product, that would be ideal.

I've been using the solution since it was called under a different name. I've used it for about 20 or so years at this point. It's been two decades. It's been a while. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is excellent.

The scalability of the solution is very good. A company can expand the solution if it needs to.

IBM Spectrum is used in the data center and we don't have too many users that would use the backup facilities. Everything is centralized to enter the data center.

We are not fully using the solution to its full potential at this time. I'm not sure if there are plans to increase usage. We're looking into other options to see if we can get better user-friendly functionality and better pricing.

We've been in touch with technical support. They are very good. We haven't had any issues with them. They are helpful and responsive. Every time I've talked to them, they've solved our problems.

We also currently use Veeam.

The installation is simple. You just click and follow the instruction. Where the complexity is coming up is when you decide how you want to do your backup and restore. Like any other software you have to decide how you want to do it and understand what's going on behind the scene. 

The deployment itself, with my experience, doesn't take long due to the fact that I know the product. That said, for someone that does not know the product, I would say, it will take, just to understand how it works about a week.

We have two or three people on staff that can handle any maintenance required. They are all systems administrators. 

In the beginning, we had a consultant as it was a very long time ago and we did not have the knowledge we have now. However, today I would not deal with anybody from IBM. We have the capabilities we need. 

In general, at the time, we had a good experience working with them.

While it's my understanding that the solution is expensive, I do not directly handle the licensing and therefore cannot speak to how much the company actually pays to use the solution.

We are customers and end-users.

We have the Enterprise version of IBM Protect. It's not the Plus version.

My advice is not specifically for IBM Spectrum, but for any product. I would say, sit down and think about it. Think about what you want to do. There are so many options in any software. It's like getting house insurance. What do you want to do, how do you want to insure your data? It's important to understand what you want so you can see if the solutions you are looking at actually have the required capabilities.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. It's a very good product. It's strong. It's stable. The company's good.

We use it for our backup and recovery services.

Our environment is on-premise. We also do tape. However, we do not have any cloud infrastructure at this point. We have a cloud strategy in the works.

We have six Spectrum Protect instances: Three of them are disaster recovery (DR) and three of them are in production. We have grown out the three in production and are looking to add two more in the future. Spectrum Protect should have no issues accommodating this growth.

With the new features that we have added, it has made a difference as far as faster recovery and speed.

• The server application - the features in it.
• The replication part of it.
• The dedupe piece of it, which is a huge help, especially in our environment.
  

I would like a little more ease with the virtual platforms, because it is a huge thing that is coming up. We have a huge virtual environment, but it seems like it is convoluted as far as the process of planning it, then integrating Spectrum Protect. There are a lot of moving pieces, so I am looking forward to Spectrum Protect Plus. There seems to be less moving parts to it, so hopefully it will be quicker.

It is a very solid product.

The scalability is solid, provided we setup the infrastructure as needed.

If I have an issue, I will call support. I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution. 

We do have really good support through our IBM rep, who will jump on it as soon as something is out there.

I was not part of the initial setup.

I have seen a lot of other backup products out there, and they are good. However, Spectrum Protect seems to encompass a broad range of things, and you can pretty much put it anywhere. You can tie it into your backup network or backup needs.

It is for enterprise backup and recovery. I support customers who use this product for their enterprise backup and recovery.

I have small customers with about 40 cartridge libraries, then I have others who have petabytes of data and using everything under the sun. This is another good feature of Spectrum Protect; it does it all.

I support a customer base of about 25 customers. So, I support probably 50 instances.

It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection. 

Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less.

Scalability: Our customers are able to grow the product without having to buy additional hardware, so it is very scalable.

For Spectrum Protect Plus, I would like to see more enhanced reporting features and integration with Spectrum Protect. 

In terms of Spectrum Protect, usually the IBM features are ahead of where the customers' demand is, so I generally do not even install the latest version for at least a year. Therefore, I think they are doing good with this product.

It really depends on the hardware that you are running it on. If you run it with the right resources, it can be up for years on end.

It scales from very small to very large. It is easily the most scalable product out there.

I use technical support quite often, calling in PMRs for customers. Support is really good, as I have never had to close a PMR with them having fixed the problem. Also, they are very responsive.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward and easy to implement.

Customers will look at other vendors in the enterprise backup space: Commvault, NetBackup, Veeam, and other similar solutions.

Most of my customers have already been Spectrum Protect customers. Therefore they are happy with the product. The new implementations that I have done, they have generally chosen Spectrum Protect for its scalability and reliability.

I would absolutely recommend Spectrum Protect.

It has a tried and true tested ability. It has been around for approximately 30 years. The roadmap is definitely aligned with where businesses are going, e.g., cloud support, virtual backup support, etc. In the eight years that I have been a business partner, I have lost one customer that switched off of the platform. This was not because they were unhappy with the product, but from an acquisition,