IBM Spectrum Protect Reviews

We are using it for backing up corporate data.

It helps you protect your data with various retention policies, as required by the business. It would help the company maintain a disaster recovery plan and be able to recover from a failure.

Its incremental forever approach is valuable, so we don't have to load tapes to do a restore.

It does what we need it to do, but it could be better with VM backups. It could be better integrated with virtual machines or VM backups, but that's why they have their Plus out now. Plus version is more geared toward VM backups. The regular version is more for endpoint clients. 

Its licensing and pricing could be improved. Its licensing is complicated, and it is an expensive solution.

I have been using this solution for over 20 years.

Its stability is pretty good.

It is very scalable.

They're decent. They're fine. I would rate them an eight out of 10.

Positive

I have only been with IBM. I'm a consultant, so that's basically what I've worked on.

Its initial setup can be complicated. You would need a certified deployment expert to configure it and install it properly upfront. It isn't for a novice to be able to set up.

The deployment duration depends on the environment, but it typically takes about a week or two. Its maintenance also depends on the size of the company. If it is a small-sized or a medium-sized company, you could get away with one admin, but if it is larger, you might have more than one Spectrum Protect server, so you'd have multiple admins.

I am a consultant, so I would be the one who does the implementation.

Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well.

I would advise others to do proper planning beforehand. You should know the retention policies that you want. You should know what policies you want to set before you go into it, and you should know how much data you're going to be backing up and then make sure it is sized properly.

I'll give it a nine out of 10. It is a good product.

We are using Spectrum as a backup solution. We use it to backup all of our data, which is different kinds of databases and software, with a virtualization environment. Also, we have more than a hundred remote sites. We are taking backups through Spectrum for all of those. 

The most valuable aspect is the fact that it combines all types of data. 

It's compatible with many other products, including Oracle, VMware, and Hyper V products.

The replication is great. 

The solution is robust and problem-free. We have not had any issues with Spectrum since we implemented it around 2012. 

The solution is very stable.

You can scale the product.

The management is pretty good and it covers all of our technical requirements. 

Technical support has been excellent. 

It's difficult in terms of the configuration at set up. In our case, it required another admin, one person dedicated to the backup.

Compared with others, the pricing is high.

There needs to be some sort of personalization within the environment. We cannot back up a shared storage desk through Spectrum.

I've used the solution since 2012 or 2014. I've used it for more than seven years at this point. It's been a while.

The solution is very stable and very reliable. We've had no issues with it. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Over the years we have not had any issues. 

The solution can scale, however, it's a matter of the license you have. That said, if you need to expand, you can.

We've had a very positive experience with technical support. We are satisfied with their level of service. 

I also have experience with Dell EMC. I use them both.

The initial setup can be a bit complex, specifically in terms of configuring everything. We had to bring on an extra admin to assist us.

The solution is a bit expensive, especially if you look at other competitors. They cost less. The licensing could be more competitive. 

We are partners with IBM.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We've been very happy with its capabilities. 

We use it in the retail banking environment because of regulations. For our databases, we have to back up the catalogs every 20 minutes.

We have a very complex environment, meaning from VM to PC arrays, with all the types of databases which are available on the market. In terms of volume, we have stored around five petabytes of data. We use tape on both cloud and on-premise environments, though we are going to discontinue tape because of its limitations.

We just started to backup cloud environments, so we are looking for solutions in order to backup the VM at the ESX level. On the other hand, because of our constraints, we have to have an agent in our VM for our database backup in order to meet regulation requirements.

Historically, we have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis.

I need to have more than two instances working together. I need a worldwide grid able to have replication between three, four, or five instances.

The problem with Spectrum Protect is you can do anything with it, so you can also do bad things. While it is a very good solution, you have to provide a good quality of care to your administrators. One other challenge of the bank is examination, meaning that most of our administrators now are not located in France, but in India or Bangalore. This causes a lot training time, but it is not useless time.

It is perhaps one of the best products on the market. It does a good job.

I have never had any scalability problems with it.

In retail and management, I manage around 30 Spectrum Protect instances at this time. The company is planning to grow and I expect the product to handle it.

Because we have experts inside our company, we have only contacted technical support a few times. We requested high-level support, because each time we have a problem, it is a real problem, like sometimes a feature problem of a product.

We are not so happy with the technical support because dealing with them is not easy. We have a very complicated environment, therefore I understand for a support person that it is not easy to troubleshoot it. Generally, our problems are with the product's designs and we cannot Google the answers/solutions.

I was not involved in the initial setup since it happened before I joined the company.

The primary use case is backup and disaster recovery.

It is fantastic. We have a number of clients using the product. Everybody who uses it is very happy with it. It is cross-platform, very flexible, and a great product.

One of my primary clients has a fairly hybrid solution where they use a TS4500 Tape Library as their offsite and primary data store. They are also using directory-container pools and replicating it to a near-site location which is on the same WAN.

It is something like: How does insurance make people happier? An insurance policy of sorts. You have to spend money to protect your assets. That is what this is. It does that job. That is why people like it. However, much like insurance, I am sure people dislike it for a lot of the same reasons.

There is a laundry list of valuable features: scalability, performance, mass platform coverage, etc. It is one of the few backup products on the market right now which an organization can bring in and it will serve all of their backup needs. It is a completely centralized solution and one of the three largest, market share wise, in the world (I believe).

It is a strong, mature product, which a lot of people are using, and there is a ton of support for it.

This is more something that I would have to go over with the IBM guys. There is probably a small laundry list. 

Ease of use. This has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers. It is a bit more difficult than it should be. What I find is that IBM has heard this issue, and they are responding with updated interfaces.

Usually, after the initial rollout, there are a few kinks to iron out, and from then on it's almost a self-maintaining system. It's generally very stable. Only when you introduce new features, options, or massive changes in your workload do you really find a major problem with the backup infrastructure. It tends to be very stable.

It scales infinitely. I have customers that are protecting less than 100 terabytes of data versus customers that are protecting petabytes of data. Provided you size your hardware solution properly, it will work with any organization.

IBM support is great. It is world-class support. They have a great system in place and they generally get the problem solved. It can take some time. If a problem requires it, we escalate it. They have to dive a bit deeper than you normally would, reading through logs, but they are always there with the next step to fix a problem.

If I'm being completely honest, setup is not easy. It's a more complex setup, but with great flexibility comes great complexity. If you want something to do things which are very complex, you have to be mindful of that in the setup process. It is not trivial, but it is very workable and the documentation is out there to get it done.

The competitors are Commvault, Veeam, or any of the other major backup players who are out there right now. It is a zero sum market. Everybody is bidding for the same customers.

In terms of why my customers go with Spectrum Protect, it is usually cost. The second most common is platform readiness. It can support multiple types of clients. It can back up your Exchange database for your email, at the same time that it can back up your user's file shares, and at the same time you can back up your virtual machines. It meets everybody's needs and that is often why IBM wins out when there is a competitive bid process.

I recommend a conversation where we sit down and spec out what the requirements are. I will always recommend Spectrum Protect. From my perspective, it is the best one on the market. That is the reason I have gone in this direction. I am fully onboard.

The main benefit is the protection.

You can protect your data and keep it for long durations, without it spending too much time on the local disk. You can send the data to an outside location. I think the main feature is that you can protect your data from disasters.

We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem. We have a system that is in petabytes. We have five frames of the tape drives and we have more than 2,000 slots. If we could compress that space in the data center, that would be good.

I was looking for what is already in the market. Everyone is getting a cloud. The product has already given us some solutions which we can use in the cloud. I think that's fine for the moment.

I think we are running the product on AIX at the moment. I think that is the most stable platform for any product.

In terms of scalability, we have been using it for the last five years and the scalability is very good. I like that.

In terms of technical support, we had some troubles when we reached out to them, especially with IBM Europe. For the last two years, we had some issues when we were trying to reach out to IBM, even in the US. This is especially the case when the call is for Level 1 technical support.

We have been working for eight years with the product. I open a call when I have exhausted Google knowledge and my personal knowledge.

The call goes to IBM and they just ask me some silly questions. That's where you have the problem. You lose maybe two or three days just to get the right person.

I have been using this product since I joined my company.

I was involved in the setup. It was straightforward.

They should go for it. The most important thing I look for when selecting a vendor is after sales support.

I found the restore operations feature the most valuable.

• A legacy backup (daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly) would be good, this means a backup plan (native in TSM Server) that would include the following points:

One incremental daily backup with a retention of 15 days, one full weekly backup (Sunday?) with a 5 week retention, one monthly backup (the last day of each month?) with a 13-month retention), one annual backup with a 10 year retention (every January 1st? or last day of each year?).

This backup plan would be integrated into TSM Server, and it would then suffice to associate the nodes with the start times.

• A Hardware Security Module (HSM) --

Have multiple predefined queries for HSM activity, such as migrate, recall, pre-migrate activity, and performances of these activities.

In its various forms, I have used it for over twenty years.

I did not encounter any deployment issues.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

I would give local customer service a rating of 4/10.

I would give central customer service a rating of 9/10.

I would give local technical support a rating of 4/10.

I would give central technical support a rating of 9/10.

We used NetBackup and eVault because of the stability, the possible evolutions, and the available capacities.

Setup has always been straightforward. We always start with a simple and solid installation. We then extend the functions when the base is very stable and meets our expectations.

Implementation was always performed by an internal team. The team has knowledge of configuration and local operation and is not dependent on external entities.

We think we are seeing an ROI after 24 months.

The product has always been too expensive and not very easy to negotiate.

We previously evaluated NetBackup , eVault, and ArcServe.

Follow all the documentation and do the simple things initially. Do not define complex processes. During periods of crisis, it will be necessary to be simple and fast.

An area for improvement would be the ease of use - the GUI is not up to the mark compared to other products in the market. IBM should also move on from the mainframe mindset and evolve so that configuration does not need to be done via the command line.

I have been using this solution for eight to nine years.

I've had no problems with the stability of this solution.

Technical support for this product is pathetic - whenever we tried to raise support, it took a long time, so we had to resolve the problems on our own, especially in the production environment. 

The initial setup was complex due to the lack of a proper GUI.

This product is very versatile. However, we have now switched to EMC NetWorker as it is much easier to use and does better with data domain. I would rate this solution as five out of ten.

Our primary use case is using it for protecting the physical environment.

The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best.

In terms of what could be improved, the integration with Cloud and a simplified, unified GUI. They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration.

I have been using IBM Spectrum Protect for almost 15 years.

It is very stable.

Yes, it is scalable. It is scalable with Db2 and it can be scalable with the metatext.

Their technical support is good.

The initial setup can be a little bit complex.

It could be simplified.

The pricing is costly.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give IBM Spectrum Protect around a 7.

To raise that score, I would like to see Cloud integration and full Cloud support.

Additionally, they have much less support in terms of backing up the SQL databases than other applications.

There are many modernized applications out there in the market. If someone has a full legacy with tape in front or if they have purely tape and they want to use tapes, then for them I would say it is a very good solution. But if they want to move towards Cloud and modernize more, then I think there are better solutions to look into than IBM, such as Veeam or Cohesity or Rubrik.