BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management Reviews

We are a technical services company and this is one of the solutions that we provide for our clients. It is used to manage privileged access for our customers and their server resources.

One of our customers had administrators that shared credentials to access some of their enterprise applications. We needed to remove those credentials because they were compromised at some point, leaving other people to access them and the organization was not able to keep track of who was logging in, or what they were doing at any particular point in time. Implementing this solution has allowed us to remove most of the credentials from those applications move them into a proper management facility.

The most valuable feature is the asset discovery, which makes it very easy to locate and identify assets and pull them into the manager.

The help system should be improved to provide a quick help guide with each tab within the solution, which explains what each particular function does. This would help because sometimes, you can get lost and you find yourself going back to see what the functions do. Have at least a very small hint for some of the key functions would go a long way to help with deploying and using the system.

Better pricing would help this solution to grow in the Nigerian market.

I have been using BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management for just less than three years.

This is a stable solution.

Our customers have been relying on what they have, and thus there has been no reason to scale.

We have been in touch with technical support and we are satisfied with them.

We offer a variety of competing solutions to our clients, such as CyberArk. In general, the competitors are cheaper in price. I have not personally used other solutions because it was BeyondTrust that brought me into the privileged access management realm.

The initial setup is a bit complex and not particularly straightforward. Deploying this solution for the first time took about a month.

Our in-house team handled the deployment.

This solution is expensive compared to its competitors.

This is a good solution that I would recommend, but in the Nigerian market, the price of this solution is challenging. Many companies are choosing competing solutions like CyberArk because the cost is lower. If the price were more friendly then it would have a better share of the market.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

At one point, our users shared credentials to access some enterprise applications within our environment. We had to take off user credentials because those credentials were getting compromised at one point. We also had trouble keeping track of who logged in or when people were doing work at any given period of time. With this solution, we're able to log the credentials from those applications and then move it into the facility for proper credential management.

The asset discovery feature is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very easy to pull assets into the database of the solution manager.

The deployment process should be clarified or made simpler. It would be helpful if the solution had in-app tutorials for users to look at as they progress through the system. Sometimes we get lost and need to go back to check what exactly the function was. There should be small hints around major key functions. It would go a long way in speeding up the deployment process.

I've been using the solution for less than three years.

The solution is stable.

I can't say how scalable the solution is because I don't have too much experience in the matter. For how we are currently using it, we haven't had a reason to scale the solution. Our customers would know better, but it's my sense that BeyondTrust offers much more access compared to a competitor like CyberArk.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial process is not straightforward. It's a bit complex. Deployment took about a month for us.

We handled the deployment in-house with the help of our own team.

The pricing is quite high.

We didn't evaluate other options. We were already using BeyondTrust and it seemed a natural extension to add this solution as well.

We're a BeyondTrust reseller.

I'd recommend the solution. However, the pricing is not competitive and I find in the Nigerian market we're losing ground to CyberArk because the pricing is so unfriendly for the region. They need to try and match their competitors here in order to stay competitive overall in the market.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is data access management. When you have a complex infrastructure you obviously need a solution that can monitor the activities that are going on in the infrastructure. The usernames, passwords, and activities have to be monitored, and this program helps you with that.

So it is nothing but a monitoring and security tool that will monitor all the infrastructure activities and help you to manage the passwords of the infrastructure so that the passwords are not being exposed to the third parties or your users. These passwords will be secure in your infrastructure and be rotated as part of the compliance policies.

There are a few points that are lagging in the technology and I think updated versions should be available more frequently.

So the program updates are very rare and the frequency is too far apart to take care of bug fixes and adding the latest features. 

I have been working on BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management for about three years now.

BeyondTrust is lagging on stability because it is a merger with Bomgar and so there are three, four technologies included in that. So the stability is still not how it should be.

The program is scalable. It is reliable and to be deployed in a complex infrastructure, will be no problem. It can handle the load. Almost all our clients are enterprise level. So we have good partners and clients with enterprise architecture and complex infrastructure.

The implementation is quite easy because the documents are always online. So you can do the installation yourself. But it is always better to have certified engineers to do the implementation so that you can design the infrastructure in a more secure way. When you have certified engineers, they have their own strategies to do the implementation, which is good in the long run. The deployment, however, is easy and very straightforward.

For a program like this, you want your infrastructure to be stable for more than five years or 10 years. So when you do the deployment with the help of certified engineers, they will have their own strategy of doing the installation and implementation so that managing the operations of such solutions will be easy for you. Yes, you can do the installation on your own, but it is always better to have some certified engineers.

This program has a good reputation in the market and it is more required for the security of your infrastructure. It is a product that you can trust. The only thing I'm looking for in the next version is that the bug fixes have to be more frequent and the solution has to be more reliable and more flexible. On a scale from one to 10, I'll give it a six.

In terms of meeting compliance objectives of securing endpoints, this product is very useful. It works for things like ISO, PCI, DSS, and the CIA. BeyondTrust meets all of the technical requirements from the compliance perspective. The vault, remote access management, and VP enlisted VPNs will become very useful in terms of being able to manage and maintain infrastructure security without having the complexities of changing passwords all of the time. It also helps to maintain all of the compliance objectives with password complexity changes. All of those things get managed under one product tree.

The privileged access management into sensitive systems is very valuable. That includes control from the endpoint all the way through to the managing of passwords and credentials that are used by the person to access the sensitive information. It's very useful because nobody ever really maintains passwords for those endpoint systems. It's maintained in the Dropbox password file.

This depends on the client. Some clients find the granular approach a lot better than the simplified approach and some clients prefer the simplified approach better than the granular approach. Depending on the type of organization and type of information that must be protected, there are obviously different requirements.

I actually haven't been using this solution. Customers of mine have been using it for about three years to provide me with evidence for audit purposes. They retrieved this evidence from BeyondTrust. When I ask them about endpoint management, all the information that I ask for they pull out of BeyondTrust. 

At this point in time, I haven't had any complaints from clients that it let them down, so I would assume it's stable.

It is definitely scalable. I've worked with clients that have a 75,000-device network and it's working fine. Our clients have anywhere from about 15,000 users up to about 40,000 users.

The initial setup is complex.

We use a vendor team to implement.

Approach it slowly. Don't rush in and drop things down there. Do it carefully, because you might end up breaking access to systems, which is complicated when you're running a production environment. Make sure you go through the testing process vigorously before you deploy.

I would give BeyondTrust a seven out of ten. There are some features in CyberArk that are better, cheaper, or easier to implement. Some of those running in CyberArk don't have the conflicts that BeyondTrust has, as there are many products in the suite. You've got to compare apples with apples.

The primary use case for BeyondTrust is for when one needs to control the administrative accesses on their critical assets, whether that be Windows, Linux, or UNIX servers, databases, and application servers.

I would say session management on the go is the most valuable feature. When the session is going on, you can stop the session without terminating it for justification. You can cancel it. The recording takes very little space. Those are some things that the customers are worried about when they talk about session recording.

The other valuable feature is out-of-box connectors. BeyondTrust has partnered with many well-known companies. Other PAM products are not there yet. The number of out-of-box connectors BeyondTrust has is really good.

One issue, especially when you deploy HA actively and passively, is the synchronization. Usually, there is a large delay between the sync. The biggest problem is that it takes at least 14 minutes to detect that the primary is down. That is 14 minutes of downtime, which is a huge amount of time, especially for our enterprise customers. That delay should be reduced.

The other area to improve is that they rely on MS SQL servers only. You cannot have any other database behind them. They have to be on MS SQL. If they can do something about these issues, this would be a better alternative for some customers.

In terms of software, BeyondTrust should work on other operating systems other than Windows and support non-Windows operating systems also.

I haven't faced any issues with stability. Others might have, but I personally haven't faced any stability issues, because the system is very solid. The processes behind them are very well defined, as well. I haven't seen any instability yet, but perhaps there might be in the future.

Scalability is very simple. I mean you can just add a greater number of nodes or sessions. They can be behind a load balancer, so it's very easily scalable. They do need to have a license for the scalability that they wish to reach, so they can keep upgrading their hardware as much as they want.

There are chances some customer might give very negative feedback. Firstly, we think that they are extremely good in terms of ability. Next, they give you a slot for the support. If you give a ticket they respond quickly and give you a slot. However, the customer needs to make sure that they are available for that slot. Otherwise, they can view which slots will be available soon. If they miss a slot, the technical support will get busy with other tasks. This is one reason we have had negative feedback. It comes from the customer's end. 

As an implementer who has submitted tickets, we have gotten responses that resolve the issue. I have found that the way they communicate to resolve the issue was really good. I work with other vendors' products as well, although not for PAM. I thought that BeyondTrust support was really good.

The initial setup was very straightforward and simple.

The deployment time depends upon the size of deployment. If it's a single company with DC and DR, where you have an HA in DC and DR, the maximum time if they have 500 assets, for example, would be two weeks. If everything is smooth, it should be a maximum of two weeks. It could also be shorter.

We do demonstrations for implementations only because we are partners for BeyondTrust in this region. We deploy the solution.

I've actually looked at ARCON and BeyondTrust. Now I'm working with BeyondTrust implementation.

Features-wise, BeyondTrust is a lot better than ARCON. ARCON, even with limited features, is still good, but the number of features and scope of its privilege control is limited.

BeyondTrust Password Safe works for critical assets and servers. For endpoints, it offers PowerBroker and Bomgar, which is for privilege remote access and control. I think that the suite of BeyondTrust covers a good landscape. ARCON is limited.

Don't start the implementation until you get the prerequisite sheet confirmed from the customer. If not, you may waste a lot of time at the customer's site.

I have learned a couple of things from this product. First, if the organization doesn't have a structured hierarchy of the work or the segregation of duties properly implemented, no matter what kind of security there is, it tends to fail. Operationally, it tends to fail. The tasks never get finished. BeyondTrust helps define those duties properly.

That was one major thing. The other thing I learned is that PAM is not for an inexperienced person. Don't give a PAM solution to a company that is employing inexperienced people, because they will never understand the concept of security and why identity security is important.

I would rate this solution as eight and a half or nine out of ten. I am not saying ten, only because of the limited choice of Windows. If it had alternate options available, I would give it a ten.

There are multiple use cases for this solution. There is the auto-discovery option for PowerBroker Password Safe, which can discover all the local accounts on any of Windows, Linux, or Unix. It can work with Active Directory and onboard Active Directory accounts automatically, if the correct credentials have been provided for AD. When it comes to databases, it also governs and controls all of them. It can integrate with Oracle Database, SQL, Oracle Linux, or other database environments.

I'm a BeyondTrust partner and I have multiple deployments, four or five banks right now. The features that give us quite an edge compared to what our competitors are offering - like IBM or Thycotic - are the Session Management, that is quite a big one; also the recording of keystrokes. In addition, there is the password vaulting and state-of-the-art Password Management, which I haven't seen in other products.

It also provides a granular approach through the Management Console and manages all the operations "from the inside out". It is easy to explain and easy to manage.

If you are specifically dedicated to Privileged Access Management, the definitions are a bit unclear throughout the world. I have been in contact with engineers around the world, in Canada, the U.S, and the U.K as well. Everyone has quite a different definition for Privileged Access Management or Identity Access Management or Identity Management.

Because of the definition of PAM, I don't think they can provide anything in addition to what has been defined. If you want to include anything else in this product, it will deviate from the boundaries of PAM.

I have not encountered issues with the stability.

There are slight hiccups but they are based on the configuration details of the appliances, as done by the clients. If you are talking about the application or the features it provides, I don't think there are any hiccups with BeyondTrust.

I have worked on competitive products as well. IBM and Thycotic are lightweight applications utilizing limited resources and providing proportionate results. I don't think anyone can compete with BeyondTrust.

The response time and the responsiveness, the level of support that they provide, is tremendous.

I have worked on the scene, I have worked on firewalls as well as on multiple security products, but the support from BeyondTrust is highly efficient, from a highly experienced technical staff. The level at which they provide support, the dedication as well as the expertise they have, is among the best I have seen.

I have utilized OpenAM SSO, as a single sign-on. That was a Canadian product. It was an open-source solution. But I am happier with BeyondTrust. About 95 percent of use cases are handled by BeyondTrust. Whether you're talking about a bank or a telco, whatever their requirements are, they can be met by the PAM. When it comes to the PAM, I don't think that any application can compete with BeyondTrust, except for the financial issue that has been recently affected by the change in the licensing model.

The initial setup is straightforward; the way that they provide the UVMs, and the whole package when it comes to deployment. What they do is provide you a complete setup package. Everything in there is preconfigured, so all you have to do is to provide the basic IP addresses and other stuff and that's it.

What BeyondTrust was providing was user-based licensing which was a great benefit from the client point of view. Recently, I don't know why, the licensing model has been changed, and that is the reason that they have lost a bit of their edge when it comes to the PAM, against our competition.

The asset-based licensing, from the user's point of view, is not beneficial. The licensing should be based on the users. The greater the number of users, the greater will be the load and the greater the scalability problems. I presume that is why the licensing model has changed.

My company first chose the IBM Identity Manager suite. Later on, we surveyed the market and the needs and requirements of the clients. We thought the IBM solution was utilizing too many resources to achieve a very limited goal. The requirements are related to PAM, but they were employing IM.

I would rate BeyondTrust at eight out of 10. It's not a 10 because the scalability and licensing have impacted us a lot. Of the two points that I have deducted: One is the non-flexibility on the pricing and one is the licensing model. When you launch a product in several markets like the European market, the Asian market, or the Russian market, you have to be very flexible when it comes to the pricing.

We use it for the password management (of privileged password management).

Privileged password management.

It should support XWindows Remote Desktop Access Protocol for Linux/Unix.

I would like more connectors for other security software/systems. A password is needed to access their security systems.

No stability issues.

It scales easily.

I would rate their technical support as a nine out of 10. I have a technical support contact in Singapore.

We did not previously use another solution.

The initial setup was easy.

For a Windows/Linux/Unix mixed environment, it is a good product to management privilege account passwords to prevent security breaches.

We use it to limit user privileges.

It reduces major vulnerabilities by removing local administrator privileges.

I like that I can remove local admin privileges from developers.

It only has limited support for Mac.

In version 7.3 there were driver compatibility issues with other security applications, but they were resolved very quickly by support.

The BeyondInsight appliance environment is not as flexible as it should be in some designs. But overall, it’s a well-designed product.

I would rate support at six out of 10. They need more people in the Pacific time zone.

The setup was straightforward. The appliance build was very simple and was completed with minimal effort.

PowerBroker for a Mac client is three times the price of the Windows version.

• Avecto
• Thycotic
• Viewfinity

Implementation is simple, but privileged application support may need a lot of testing. Support may not be able to help due to a lack of understanding of your environment.

Simplifies server access without password distribution.

Password management, as it is a core function; passwords are a frequent hacking point.

All products have room to improve. I would like to see support for many more systems, such as AS400.

No issues with stability.

I have not had a chance to scale out.

My support has come from the sales engineering team, not the support team, and I would rate the support at nine out of 10.

For a production environment, the setup is easy. For a PoC it is a different scenario.

Take care regarding the SQL database.

The features related to application elevate is amazing. It helped the company to remove almost all admin local users.

There are severals application that all users needed to have local admin configured to work. After the powerbroker implementation, all users with this privilege were removed, it improved the security and helped to change the IT vision, from Security to SAFETY.

Reports to the end user.

1 year

Not at all.

Not at all

No.

Very good.

Very good

No.

Easy.

Vendor team. Very good.

N/A

I'm sure everyone should have the cluster environment, which means more expensive, anyway, cheaper than the other solutions.

Yes, CyberArk, CA.

No.