Dell NetWorker is an enterprise-level data protection software product that unifies and automates backup to tape, disk-based, and flash-based storage media across physical and virtual environments for granular and disaster recovery.
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IBM Storage Protect
Score 7.4 out of 10
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IBM Storage Protect (formerly IBM Spectrum Protect, or Tivoli Storage Manager) provides data resilience for physical file servers, virtual environments, and applications. Organizations can scale up to manage billions of objects per backup server.
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Pricing
Dell Networker
IBM Storage Protect
Editions & Modules
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No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell Networker
IBM Storage Protect
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell Networker
IBM Storage Protect
Considered Both Products
Dell Networker
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Dell Networker
EMC and Unitrends are equal at the file level and SQL backups. What makes Unitrends the better product is the ability to backup VMs as a whole. They both have the ability to email reports about failures and hardware issues. Unitrends has superior support and knowledge base and …
Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Data Protection SME
Chose Dell Networker
Our trust in DataDomain as a premier deduplication technology naturally leads to [Dell EMC] Networker being the appropriate backup application to integrate with. Networker provides the most favorable dedup with DataDomain when compared to other backup technologies, and provides …
We've been actively looking at other products such as Rubrik or Cohesity in order to get a better experience as well as lower our overall time invested in running backups. Dell EMC Networker fails to stand up to these products in most ways. In our evaluations it was both …
I've used many DR platforms over the years: HP Data Protector, Veritas (formerly Symantec) Backup Exec, Acronis Backup Advanced, AppAssure (another Dell product), CommVault, and a few others. We selected Networker based on its integration with the Data Domain hardware we wanted …
Networker appears to be decent against NetBackup and Backup Exec as far as policy-based backup solutions are concerned and for stability. But it isn't as close to the virtualization layer as Veeam is and is not as feature rich as Commvault is, especially as it relates to …
Previously I have used MS DPM and Symantec Backup Exec. I think they all have similar strengths and drawbacks actually. In general, BE/DPN have slightly better interfaces and terminology but slightly worse backup and recovery reliability. I would recommend Networker over them …
NetWorker and CommVault are both rated in the top quadrant of Gartner's assessment of backup/recovery applications. We have used both for a number of years, and CommVault was the winner without any significant opposition technically from NetWorker. We moved from CommVault to …
At the time when we choose Storage Protect Veeam Data Platform was not an option on the market. Later we took the opportunity to evaluate it, but we kept Storage Protect because we already had in place the configuration for it.
Tivoli is the best software backup solution for medium and large-sized companies that need a backup and disaster
recovery system that is customizable with a
very high level of reliability. I really like the way we can customize the software according to the environment. It …
Tivoli no longer has a SharePoint agent, others do. We are looking at a product that is agentless (runs in VMWare) to relieve our staff from installing and maintaining agents on 300 servers.
IBM Spectrum protect is related to the other IBM Spectrum products listed because it is part of the suite and is also the main backup product for backup and restoration of information. With Veeam it is related as they present competence in different lines of technology, often …
Tivoli sits right in the middle of these two products, all things considered. Each has its own strengths (Cohesity has bells and whistles, CommVault works well with Microsoft). Tivoli is a nice blend and rock-solid once implemented.
We have been using TSM (former ADSM), rebranded Spectrum Protect and now rebranded Storage Protect a long time already. The product served us well. Last time we compared it to competitors we found they all had something lacking. And switching backup suites is no small task if …
For users with a basic backup system that does not provide advanced data protection this is a life saver in the age we live in where hackers are looking to encrypt and ruin your important backups. I would recommend [Dell EMC Networker] based on its features, price, and ease of use. If you have a similar product already it does not offer many unique features however.
Tivoli does well running file-level backups, but Exchange is clunky and restores are really hard. With no SharePoint agent, if you use SharePoint you will need another product like AvePoint DocAve. The web-based GUI console is MUCH improved over earlier versions, but you will still need to be a command-line guru to make Tivoli do everything, and local (node) config files still rule. This product was originally ported from Unix and retains may of its 'nix roots.
Tight integration with Db2. As an IBM product, it works seamlessly with Db2. You can query what is stored in TSM via Db2 itself. You can also use DB scripts to maintain the items being stored there.
Like most of its competitors, Tivoli handles deduplication well.
Provides a GUI for browsing and maintaining items stored there. I rarely use this feature, due to the next item I will post:
Command-line interface directly from my Db2 database servers.
Both client and server-side deduplication, compression and encryption are available.
If the requirements are zLinux and DB2 support then it's the most solid solution.
Can be complex to implement, but once up and running, it is rock-solid and immensely scalable.
Networker terminology is awful. My favorite example is that many required-to-function configuration changes need to occur with the advanced configuration enabled. To make this worse, the 'advanced configuration' I am speaking of is actually called 'Debug Mode'. That's right, you must use debug mode in order to have a functional administrator interface.
Errors are common and to resolve you often must go to support. You really need to be an expert to fix many errors, the steps usually involve being really knowledgeable in the CLI tools, which I am getting good at, but the public documentation is seriously lacking for troubleshooting these issues. That said, support (through emc) is really good at handling the common issues, friendly, generally knowledgeable, and quick to respond.
It runs on Java, and sometimes I need to clear java cache to fix interface bugs. Generally this isn't an issue, but it is additional software you must worry about.
There are three reasons for not renewing our use of NetWorker: 1) the rising and extremely high cost of support and proprietary hardware needed for deduplication, 2) the complete unreliability of the product (we couldn't recover from a true disaster if we wanted to), and 3) the horrible support from EMC for the product
NetWorker has the clunkiest interface and unfriendliest CLI with which I have ever had to work. I spent three years hating this application because it took ALL of my time just to keep it running. Even then, I had no confidence in our ability to recover from a disaster because of its unreliability.
It is suitable for a huge part of our organisation, supports many operating systems (including Windows, Linux and IBM AIX), supports many databases - also for online backups (like Oracle, Db2 and SAP HANA), has an Operational Center for control, command-line and GUI for backup/restore. It just works well, once setup correctly.
The support team has always been good, and there is never an issue that can't be resolved. The techs are competent and know the product. The slightly less than perfect rating I'm giving is because Support shouldn't carry the burden themselves. We hear from Dell sales people all the time, but they never call and ask about this product, nor do they offer to upsell it or make it better. That lack of sales support and coherence hurts the overall rating a bit. When I spend my company's money on your product, I expect you to at least ACT like you care, if not actually care for real. It influences my opinion and future purchasing habits.
How can anyone build a house without a blueprint? NetWorker was ramrodded into place here without a design or implementation plan. The result was a setup that was doomed from the start and never worked reliable over the full three years of our contract obligation.
Our trust in DataDomain as a premier deduplication technology naturally leads to [Dell EMC] Networker being the appropriate backup application to integrate with. Networker provides the most favorable dedup with DataDomain when compared to other backup technologies, and provides the highest combination of protection flexibility and performance that most other applications cannot provide. For example, Veeam provides excellent VM backup capability, but is unable to protect Meditech. If you go down the list of backup applications, you'll find that Networker is unique in what it is able to protect and in its backup performance.
We have been using TSM (former ADSM), rebranded Spectrum Protect and now rebranded Storage Protect a long time already. The product served us well. Last time we compared it to competitors we found they all had something lacking. And switching backup suites is no small task if there is data you need to keep 5, 7 or 10 years anyway. Commvault gets close, but doesn't match all features.
Now that it's been implemented and the many kinks worked out, we have far less exposure to downtime, but that's only because we didn't have an adequate backup solution in the target environment initially. We used native tools to protect SQL data and a few other tricks, but really didn't have anything proper. In other words, the bar was low.
We have reduced the load on some of our application servers through the use of Networker's agent for Microsoft. However, compare that with Veeam, which just has a checkbox and no agent required to properly back up a SQL box.
Agent-based backups require monitoring and periodic updates. This adds complexity and additional staff time to manage.
It can be used as a disaster recovery solution when you have the right configuration (either replication or tape copies in a safe location). This way it can be a lifesaver for any company.
It can bring back the information you need if you are hit by ransomeware.
It is also needed if you are accounting for user error, sometimes people delete the files they need by accident and without a backup solution they are out of luck
