IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities. It ensures the integrity and availability of databases through online communication and robust backup drivers.

There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups. IBM hasn't progressed much in enhancing its products, leaving users seeking alternative solutions for virtual backups, like Spectrum Protect Plus.

I have been working with IBM Spectrum Protect for 18 years.

IBM Spectrum Protect is very stable. We haven't had any stability issues so far.

IBM Spectrum Protect is highly scalable, ranging from small environments with just a few servers to large-scale deployments with up to 3,000 servers.

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of IBM Spectrum Protect is complex but flexible, suitable for various environments. Implementation typically takes around three to four months for a large environment with over 500 servers. It may require a team of one specialist and two analysts for deployment and one person for ongoing maintenance.

The incremental backup capability in IBM Spectrum Protect has streamlined daily operations by steadily backing up data over time. However, it is important to note that Spectrum Protect focuses on database and file/folder backups, not virtual environments. For virtual environment backups, Spectrum Protect Plus is required.

IBM Spectrum Protect primarily focuses on backing up databases, online databases, files, and folders, but it lacks native support for virtual machine backups. For virtual environment backups, you would need to use a specific tool called Spectrum Protect Plus.

The deduplication technology in IBM Spectrum Protect helps reduce storage needs but performs at a medium level of efficiency and performance.

I would recommend IBM Spectrum Protect based on your environment's backup strategy. If you primarily need to backup databases, it is a good choice. However, for large virtual environments, consider combining it with other technologies like Spectrum Protect Plus for comprehensive coverage.

Overall, I would rate IBM Spectrum Protect as a five out of ten.

The solution can back up every kind of workload in the environment. It is a very old and robust solution. The product evolves with technology. I have been working on it since it was just a physical server. If we are using tapes, we can ship them offsite. We can build our new server and recover the data. If we use the online application, we can start recovering from the disaster location.

The VM backups are very useful. Most companies use VMs. The solution also provides agents for databases like Oracle, SQL, and SAP HANA. It is also a useful feature. The deduplication and compression feature eliminates almost 80% of the data. We have been using the tool until now. It's working fine. We do not have any complaints. The technology is always evolving. I rate the product’s performance an eight out of ten.

There are new products in the market that might be more useful for various cyber threats like ransomware. IBM is not doing its best for such threats. The solution must protect against ransomware attacks better. It must let us know if something has gone wrong with the server. Cyber Recovery must be improved.

I have been using the solution for 17 years.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten. Almost everything in my organization is getting backed up by IBM Spectrum Protect. We have thousands of users. We need ten administrators for maintenance.

The technical support is not the best. The support team must improve its response time and competence. It must jump on the issues and resolve them.

Neutral

The implementation is difficult. It is not intuitive. It needs special skills. People must do their research before implementing the solution.

The product is not cheap. Other backup solutions like Commvault are in the same price range. There are no additional costs associated with the tool.

There are a lot of other tools that are better than IBM Spectrum Protect. These tools offer ease of use. Spectrum Protect is not easy to administer. Other solutions are UI-based.

We are using other IBM products. The solution is integrated with SAP. IBM Spectrum Protect is a good tool. However, it has to include Cyber Recovery features. It will be more useful if the features are integrated with the product. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

It builds confidence to recover from a variety of disasters. It really keeps our data safe and lets us manage what is important to us and our customers.

Flexibility and Scalability. Sturdy software for potentially large environments. Because of the flexible parameters, everything can be fine-tuned to the customers’ needs in their environment.

If customers have problems or requests and they file a PMR/ESF (Problem Management Record/Electronic Service Request) to IBM, they can present a weblist of when this problem/feature will be solved/released depending on the amount of other customers having the same request. (People can vote on how useful/problematic new features/items listed by other customers are and thus create a higher priority.)

A recent failure with the Spectrum Protect v8.1 client on windows 2016:
2017-05-25 23:28:30 ANS6718E: The path contains too many nested subdirectories. The maximum number of nested directories is 1400.
(This was never a problem on other windows versions and seems to be introduced in the client version on Win2k16) Will be fixed in the next client version v8.1.2.) (Will be released in a few weeks.)
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1IT18901

There were stability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released.

There were scalability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released.

I would rate technical support as follows based on these categories:

• Help in own language (Dutch): 7/10.
• Speed: 8/10
• Customer friendliness: 9/10
• Ability to solve problems: 9/10
• In-depth knowledge (Level-1 and Level-2): 10/10

Arcserve and Microsoft Backup.

The installation was straightforward, although having specific knowledge about the product can be helpful.

That depends on the environment per customer. Since there are different licensing models, it's helpful to check which best fits the customers' needs.

We evaluated Arcserve and CommVault.

Follow a basic course before you start using the product. As it is so flexible, it's helpful to cover the basics and know what needs to be done to get the most out of this environment.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a very good product. However, we need to understand its structure better. In Poland, customers are happy with IBM's solution, making it a wonderful protection tool.

IBM is a valuable security component for our customers. Given the increasing threat of cyber attacks and ransomware, IBM provides excellent support to combat these kinds of attacks.

The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive.

The stability could be improved.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for ten years.

The solution is very stable.

We have one customer whose data becomes corrupt very quickly. IBM Spectrum Protect has configurations and administrative tools that are extremely useful for scaling up and managing the system with best practices to address these issues. All our other customers' systems are very stable. The environment was well-sized from the start, ensuring that the solution was set up with optimal access, and it has always worked exceptionally well.

Customer support is very good.

Positive

The technical people are comfortable with the interface and setup. The setup is quite easy, and we haven't encountered any issues. It is straightforward and problem-free.

Three months ago, one of the customers experienced a network outage. However, with the solution from IBM Spectrum Protect, they could return to production quickly. They highly value this solution. Additionally, they have not encountered any pricing issues, as they prioritize finding the right solution for their needs.

I rate the solution's ROI an eight out of ten.

Customers don't check the price because they buy the solution's value. 

IBM offers the right price. My customers choose it because they know it is a very good solution from IBM. Some previously used HP, but they switched to IBM after seeing the superior performance of IBM Spectrum Protect in the field.

We have two technical people to maintain the solution. 

Support is key if people need secure access to their data in the event of a disaster recovery or to restore data to a previous point in time. Sometimes, when people look for something on the web, finding the information is difficult. So, they help each other, work together, and resolve issues or find the necessary information.

Sometimes, we only use it to manage the number of activities related to the hardware. In our company, we go to the center, download, apply, and test the updates.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company was using IBM Spectrum Protect to back up the environment. It helped my company implement a backup policy. My company needed different versioning and types of backup, but in the last two years, the license cost for the solution got out of hand.

What I found most valuable in IBM Spectrum Protect is that it allows you to back up physical machines, and its proxy feature lets you back up virtual machines.

Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well, but I heard that the issue had been resolved on IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, though I didn't get a chance to test that feature.

The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect.

Another con in the solution is the Microsoft Office 365 backup, which needed to be handled better by IBM Spectrum Protect, and could have some improvements.

My company switched from IBM Spectrum Protect to Veeam, but I had hands-on experience with IBM Spectrum Protect within the last twelve months.

My company has been using IBM Spectrum Protect for the last ten years.

IBM Spectrum Protect is a very stable solution, so I'm rating it eight out of ten in terms of stability.

Scalability-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect is a seven out of ten for me.

I'm rating the technical support for IBM Spectrum Protect a nine out of ten.

Positive

We stepped away from IBM Spectrum Protect and have started using Veeam, primarily because of the higher license cost of IBM Spectrum Protect.

Before using IBM Spectrum Protect, we used Omniback from HP, and we switched to IBM Spectrum Protect because Omniback didn't keep up with the trend, was still working with OTA backup, and didn't support our backup needs, for example, versioning.

Regarding the initial setup for IBM Spectrum Protect, it's a four out of ten for me. It's complex.

Complete deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect took two weeks.

Initially, the team had some problems with the setup because there was an error in the assessment, and my company ran out of capacity within two months of implementing IBM Spectrum Protect. It was garbage in, garbage out. The evaluation by the administrators was not done correctly, so that IBM couldn't supply an adequate solution.

We hired a consultant from IBM to deploy IBM Spectrum Protect ten years ago. The consultant assessed the environment and implemented the solution.

I don't have the metrics on ROI from IBM Spectrum Protect, but mostly, my company switched over to the product because Omniback was no longer adequate.

Using IBM Spectrum Protect meant using fewer tapes versus Omniback because IBM Spectrum Protect could handle bigger tape sizes, while Omniback held three or five-millimeter tape sizes. IBM Spectrum Protect required less storage, so it was mostly good enough to support my company's new backup policy through versioning, encryption, and security.

ROI-wise, I'm scoring IBM Spectrum Protect as seven out of ten.

IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD.

My company was on a PPU license for IBM Spectrum Protect, which was okay initially. After two or three years, IBM called to switch the license to terabyte licensing, and it seemed OK to change at the time, but in the last three or four years, it became expensive.

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.

I evaluated a solution from Quantum, though I can't recall its name.

I have experience with IBM Spectrum Protect, formerly Tivoli Storage Manager.

My company was an IBM customer but has stepped away and moved to Veeam.

The company had three different sites where the solution had on-premise deployments.

Regarding the implementation, there was an IBM consultant on site and two backup administrations learning the IBM Spectrum Protect installation process along the way. My company also had a team of five or six system and network administrators who helped with client-related concerns because my company had more than one hundred fifty clients for separate sites. The two backup administrators handled the maintenance for IBM Spectrum Protect.

One thousand two hundred people use the solution.

I would suggest to others looking into implementing IBM Spectrum Protect to research terabyte licensing and be clear on how much data your company has, including your expected data growth, so you can assess where you'll stand regarding license costs. If you're moving to big data or you'll be storing big data, PPU licensing could be a more suitable option.

My rating for IBM Spectrum Protect is seven out of ten because it's one of the two best backup software currently available. It also has excellent support if you have a maintenance contract, but I live in a small country, so this could be why IBM provided better support.

I'm an IBM Spectrum Protect customer.

The product has helped our organization recover and restore data faster.

The most valuable features of the product are data deduplication and disaster recovery.

The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure. There should be proactive monitoring to provide early warning. The solution should also improve its dashboard.

The next release should include automated DR.

I have been using the solution for almost two years.

I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. Almost 20 employees in our organization use the solution, including IT specialists, backup engineers, and senior backup engineers. We will most probably increase the number of users in the future. However, it depends on our customers’ feedback.

We have used Veritas NetBackup and HP Data Protector. We switched to IBM Spectrum Protect because we wanted a more stable solution, and our customers liked IBM Spectrum Protect.

I rate the ease of initial setup an eight out of ten.

The deployment did not take long. We deployed the product in-house in one month.

The solution is not cheap. We do not have to pay additional costs apart from the licensing fee. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.

IBM is a good option for any organization seeking a stable and steady solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for our data protection.

We deployed the solution on-premises because the majority of our applications are also on-premises.

The file-restoring feature is the most valuable.

The Operations Center requires improvement. We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I give the stability a ten out of ten.

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support team is always prompt in their response.

Positive

I previously used, NetApp Backup and Atempo Time Navigator but in the financial industry IBM Spectrum Protect is the most popular solution.

I have more than ten years of experience with the solution, so setting it up is easy for me. The deployment took less than one hour.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We have seen a return on investment with IBM Spectrum Protect because we are guaranteed to have our data when we need it.

We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We have two engineers responsible for the maintenance.

I recommend the solution to others.

There are various use cases. We have managed services, and we have customers on-prem or backing up to our TSM servers. There are different ways.

I work with various versions. I work for a service provider. We manage the service of various customers. So, we have from 8.1.9 to 8.1.14.

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.

They are behind on many things, especially security. They are catching up a little bit now, but the competitors are doing better security-wise. There should be malware detection and prevention and higher security.

The ease of use also needs improvement. There are many products that are easier to use than Spectrum Protect. It is quite complex to manage, and you need an experienced administrator to manage it, whereas other products are easier to get into. You can have somebody with less experience managing them.

I have been working with this solution for about 15 years.

It is very stable. Especially over the last five years or so, it has been extremely stable. I've had very few crashes or very few downtimes. They are almost nonexistent.

It is very scalable. It scales very high as well. It is an enterprise-class solution. It is one of the most scalable ones.

We have 10 to 15 customers who have their own TSM server and products, and then we have about 18 customers who back up to our servers.

It depends. The TSM server is pretty straightforward. Some other parts are pretty complex. The VMware solution is very complex, especially compared to competitors.

Deployment depends on the size and the customer requirements. If you want to set up a small company server, it takes one or two hours. If you have to set up a large enterprise with various wishes and custom demands, it can take days or maybe a week. For a basic customer with VMware, it is set up within a day with a few databases and a few things.

For deployment, one person is enough. A qualified and certified engineer has to do that because otherwise, we won't give the warranty. So, that person has to be a certified engineer.

We have customers who manage their own TSM servers, and we just come in to install it, or if there are any serious problems. We resell it as well as sell our managed services. They can back up to our servers. We have customers who have their own TSM servers, but we manage those for them. We manage the clients and servers. For some customers, we only manage servers, and they manage the clients.

We do A to Z for TSM basically. We are IBM's only business partner in our country. To our customers, we are basically IBM.

We are a managed service provider. Backup makes us money. So, the ROI is always there.

That's no longer my department, but I have some past experience with licensing. It is not cheap. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of licensing.

In terms of additional costs, there is management overhead. It is a complex solution and a lot of work goes into managing clients. It has gotten better over the years, but compared to its competitor, it is still heavy on management overhead. That comes with flexibility, and that's the price you pay when you want a solution that can do everything and not just a few things. It is not a simple solution. It is a complex solution, and that requires some management overhead. However, you can automate it pretty easily because it has a SQL interface. If you have a person who can script or knows SQL, you can automate a lot with it. It has a command line interface, and there is also an API. The command line is very much like Linux or Unix. It is really highly automatable.

Even though TSM is a great product, it is a great product for a classic backup solution and not for the future. It is a legacy solution. The newest product is IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but we haven't adopted it. The legacy TSM server is great. It was the best product around, but now, it is not. For a new solution, it is not the best product. If I am looking to buy a new product, I would look elsewhere. I would look to the competition that is more modern and more up-to-date. 

I would rate it an 8 out of 10. It is still very good. It is good for what it can be used for, but if you need a more modern solution, it is not the perfect solution anymore.