We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Protect and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Users are split on which solution is best. Both perform well and function appropriately. Spectrum Protect is mature, stable, and robust. Spectrum Protect Plus is moving toward a next-generation product that offers more flexibility, improved features, better scalability, and ultimately provides more of what enterprise organizations desire for the future.
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"It helps our customers protect their data, keep it long-term, and feel pretty secure about it, basically sleeping well at night."
"When I have to do disaster recoveries, I can do it with this tool."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is application-aware backups."
"The solution can back up every kind of workload in the environment."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"The most valuable features are the API features because it allows you to integrate with your Microsoft SQL, your Oracle, and your IBM Db2."
"The tool has enough documentation; you don't need to contact the support team."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something."
"The initial setup of IBM Protect Plus is simple and not complex."
"The support from IBM is very good."
"The most valuable feature is how we can easily power speed up the VM even though the VM resides in remote storage."
"The most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are you have many possibilities on how to use it. We use it for backups and to create secondary and third copies. It is possible to pick up Kubernetes containers and use a different cloud provider if you need to start backups on the cloud."
"Some of the features we find very valuable and use a lot, are retention sets."
"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."
"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 are having a balance issue between the reclamation and the backup function. It has to take the space back from the tapes before it can record to those tapes, but sometimes those two processes are overlapping."
"Integration with some applications in the healthcare field could be added, as that is a big part of our business."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved by making the installation easier. Once it's implemented, it's okay. IBM started lagging behind when things started moving to storage and cloud-based solutions. Even though they've recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, personally, I still believe they are not up to par with the likes of Rubrik. The entire product is a little bit clumsy because they have co-joined two different products, so it's complex. Even from a sales/explaining to people what it does point of view, it's complex. Whereas, if you take more current products, it's a single box solution. You reel it in, you fire it up, you do a couple of points and clicks, and off you go, whereas the IBM system is seriously complex. There's a lot of training involved and it's a massively difficult product to sell at this point in time."
"I need two separate solutions for virtual and physical systems. I need IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for virtual systems and Spectrum Protect for physical systems and that's a pain. It would be an improvement if they were combined."
"The software is complex; setup is complex."
"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."
"The security must be improved."
"It requires much more automation features."
"An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot."
"The software's technical support could improve its response time for different time zones."
"The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use."
"Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas. In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting."
"I would like integration into where the VMware guys can do their own restores."
IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is ranked 19th in Backup and Recovery with 29 reviews. IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0, while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus writes "Has very good integration features and can quickly backup data and optimize storage". IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Commvault Cloud, Rubrik, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Cohesity DataProtect, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Nutanix Mine Integrated Backup, Veritas NetBackup and Rubrik. See our IBM Spectrum Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report.
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