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IBM Storage Protect

Score7.4 out of 10

42 Reviews and Ratings

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What is IBM Storage Protect?

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.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features IBM Storage Protect has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 42 ratings of IBM Storage Protect's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Encryption

    Data encryption to ensure that data is safe while being backed-up

    Category average: 9.4

  • Universal recovery

    Universal recovery is the ability to restore backups to any machine regardless of the platform

    Category average: 9

  • Instant recovery

    Instant recovery is the ability to restore operations very rapidly

    Category average: 8.4

Areas for Improvement

  • Management dashboard

    Web-based dashboard allowing configuration and monitoring of all backups

    Category average: 8.9

  • Platform support

    Product supports multiple operating systems and applications

    Category average: 8.7

  • Retention options

    Provision of best-practice and customizable retention policies with reporting

    Category average: 9.1

Reviews

What users are saying about IBM Storage Protect.
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IBM Spectrum Protect is a great option for enterprise customers who need to back up a lot of data daily

Alexandre CarvalhoView profile
Senior IT Specialist in Information Technology at IBM (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

To back up customers' environments, especially large enterprise ones (up to 130 TB per day of backups)

Pros

  • Backup and restore for enterprise customers
  • Incremental forever technology reduces storage needs (besides deduplication)
  • Can also protect virtual machines
  • Provides online backup for databases, mail servers, etc.

Cons

  • Deployment and configuration is not easy for an unexperienced IBM Spectrum Protect administrator
  • Operations center uses a lot of data and needs a lot of storage for larger environments
  • Have not seen a redbook about it in the past 10 years

Return on Investment

  • Incremental technology really helps reduce storage needs for long-term backup retention
  • New deduplication storage pools eliminate the need for virtual or physical tape libraries

Usability

IBM Storage Protect is a good fit for heterogenous backup needs

Incentivized
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Storage Protect is used as a generic backup solution for all the platforms we are running, including virtual machines with Windows, Linux and AIX, databases that include Oracle, Db2 and SAP HANA and virtualisation platforms like VMware.

We backup to several Storage Protect servers, which are replicated to another set of SP servers to maintain access to data that was backed-up in case the primary site becomes unavailable.

The second set of Storage Protect servers is connected to a tape library, allowing all data to be offloaded to tape. These tapes are exchanged daily, to be used in case of malware/ransomware attacks etc.

Pros

  • Continuing a failed backup/restore session, even if the Storage Protect server is temporarily unavailable.
  • The incremental-forever approach for regular files, just back them up once and only create a new backup when a file has changed.
  • Subfile backups, to only backup the changed portion of a (very) large file.
  • Deduplication and compression, both causing backed-up data to use a small portion of the original file size in space-consumption on disk or tape.
  • Extensive settings, policy-based, to govern how many copies of data to keep, for how long, where to store them etc.

Cons

  • Some administrators are trying to mimic daily, weekly and monthly backups. Or come from an environment where that schedule is the norm. It is hard to explain/understand that SP works completely different.
  • People fail to understand that policies govern the 'lifetime' of a backup, regardless whether on tape or on disk. Administrators of other backup tools feel that it should be possible to put a tape back into the tape library and restore from it, no matter how old the backups are. In reality SP 'expires' the data from its database, making the tape useless if it is too old. Massive deduplication and compression makes data on tape unusable if the corresponding data is no longer in the SP database.
  • New versions usually introduce new features, but often also new bugs. Things that used to work perfectly might go wrong after you install a new version. Also the new features do not always work as promised. Better beta-release testing seems appropriate.
  • Initial setup can be a hassle and requires good detailed knowledge about all the product options. It can do a lot, but you can/must tweak a lot. Also, when serious problems do occur, you need a skilled administrator (or call IBM) to fix it.

Return on Investment

  • We had to buy only one backup suite for a huge part of our organisation, all backup/restore needs could be fullfilled by the same product.
  • We do not need backup administrators for all kinds of backup-restore software.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Commvault Clumio

Other Software Used

IBM AIX

A good backup tool even if you need to learn it first

Incentivized
Cristian RacuView profile
Deputy CEO in Information Technology at Biroul de Credit (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBM Storage Protect is our key product to protect the data. It is an important tool that helps us to backup either database data either users laptop data. The tool allows to create a local backup and also a copy in the Cloud in order to have a secure backup of all our data.

Pros

  • Protects database data
  • Protects fileserver data
  • Copy data to the cloud storage
  • Protects users laptop data

Cons

  • User interface
  • Documentation

Return on Investment

  • Robust tool for enterprise backup
  • You need for sure trained people to admin the tool

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Veeam Data Platform

All-in-one backup solution

Incentivized
Gerardo Fernandez RuizView profile
Storage Specialist in Information Technology at Compañia Proveedora de Sistemas SA de CV (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In the company, we have a variety of Operating Systems, including AIX, Linux, and Windows. Spectrum Protect is able to back up all of them in a single environment, and not only the OS (the basic agent is for backing-up files) but it can also backup Databases, Emails, ERPs, and NAS devices. It is an all-in-one solution for your backup needs.

Pros

  • Single pane of glass for backups
  • Runs in most of the Operating Sistems
  • Can backup to disk and tape

Cons

  • Complexity is a problem since it runs in many different environments, and each has their own particular setup process
  • There is room for improvement in the "Operations Center" console
  • Some of the tasks must be done in CLI

Return on Investment

  • 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

Usability

Tivoli (TSM) Backup Solution for Mid- or Large-Size Organizations

Naveen Sharma
Consultant in Information Technology at DCM Infotech Ltd (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Tivoli (TSM) backup software as backup and recovery solution in our environment. We use this product to take all types of backups at OS and database level, like filesystem level backup, OS backup (AIX mksysb), etc. We use this software for daily purpose of backup and recovery for virtual and physical environment.

Pros

  • Tivoli (TSM) takes backup by using progressive incremental backup, which means that once it takes the full backup, it only takes the backup of changed data. By using this technique, it provides lots of benefits, like using less network bandwidth and taking less storage space.
  • Tivoli basically provides an archive and retrieval service for data at a cheaper cost that needs to be stored for long period due to compliance.
  • Tivoli (TSM) backup software provides the feature of migration and recall service for space management on client systems or servers.

Cons

  • Tivoli is not manageable from the GUI console and I believe it needs a dedicated resource to manage the software.
  • Tivoli (TSM) configuration is complex, granular, and scalable with customizable configuration features, but it requires a good administrator that has a strong knowledge of the product.
  • It needs additional agents or plugins for administration; for example, I have to use an MMC plug-in on the servers.

Most Important Features

  • The best feature of Tivoli is deduplication functionality of source and destination data, which helps us to save costs.
  • Tivoli does well in running file-level backups in our organization, so I can say this is the best solution for file-level backups.
  • This product allows us to customize the configuration up to an extreme level.

Return on Investment

  • Tivoli backup solution is good for file-level backups in mid or large-type organizations.
  • Tivoli provides deduplication functionality of source and destination data, which helps to save resources.
  • The administration of Tivoli is complex, which means you need good skills to manage this product.

Alternatives Considered

Commvault Complete Data Protection (Complete Backup & Recovery)

Other Software Used

IBM AIX, VMware ESXi, Red Hat Cluster Suite

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