What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Bitdefender Security for AWS is the protection of EC2 instances. There is nothing else regarding this use case.
What is most valuable?
Bitdefender Security for AWS offers fantastic integration with the AWS inventory, an extremely lightweight agent, and modules that detect behavioral anomalies and provide extremely fast and accurate detections.
The integration with the AWS inventory makes my day-to-day work easier as it speeds up daily processes, simplifies those processes, saves time for the analysts in their daily work, and standardizes how we operate.
I believe the features are very good, as we have not had any type of malware issues or issues with intrusions into our machines. The performance impact was extremely low, and Bitdefender is an extremely lightweight agent that does not affect our CPU and memory consumption. Additionally, the unified GravityZone portal centralizes the information, allowing the team to manage everything in an extremely simplified, easy way.
Bitdefender Security for AWS has had a positive impact on my organization, mostly coming from the security it provides. Bitdefender is recognized as one of the best endpoints in the market and offers excellent cost-benefit, especially since we used some AWS credits, leading to a final cost that was within expectations.
What needs improvement?
I believe that one of the points that could be improved in Bitdefender Security for AWS is the integration with Fargate and Lambda functions, as we felt a lack of deeper and unified coverage for containers and serverless within the same standard licensing.
There is a learning curve for configuring exception policies in GravityZone that analysts go through, along with a need to adjust some whitelisting rules which requires good granularity to avoid opening gaps.
The implementation process and tuning of policies could be simplified and improved over time. There is room to optimize and maximize this process to reduce the complexity for implementation in a faster and more automated way.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Bitdefender Security for AWS is extremely stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Bitdefender Security for AWS is great as we do not have problems with it. Since it is automated, we encounter no issues with scalability.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support can be considered from two angles. The knowledge base is excellent and can solve many of the problems we have, especially with tuning policies and permissions. While Level 1 support requires a lot of information which takes time to compile, once that is overcome, the service is fast, attentive, and solves the problem.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the past, we were not using any specific solution as we looked for alternatives in the market, so there was nothing else installed.
How was the initial setup?
We use Amazon Web Services as our cloud provider.
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, the experience has been very good as we were able to unify billing with AWS. I believe the prices are aligned with what the tool delivers. There was a learning curve for configuration but we managed to get through that phase. The overall experience was good.
What was our ROI?
We have achieved return on investment as Bitdefender Security for AWS blocked a preventive attempt to execute a cryptocurrency mining script that tried to exploit a vulnerability in our application. We also saved team hours with automated deployment on the instances, reducing the man-hour cost for maintaining the tool after its implementation and parameterization.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I purchased Bitdefender Security for AWS through the AWS Marketplace.
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, the experience has been very good as we were able to unify billing with AWS. I believe the prices are aligned with what the tool delivers. There was a learning curve for configuration but we managed to get through that phase. The overall experience was good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Bitdefender Security for AWS, we evaluated Trend Micro and CrowdStrike Falcon. While CrowdStrike is very good, the price is more prohibitive. Trend Micro is also a strong competitor; however, we identified more with the GravityZone interface as it is more inviting and simpler. Bitdefender Security for AWS is in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, was better positioned, and presented more innovations to us.
What other advice do I have?
I strongly recommend Bitdefender Security for AWS for companies that need to ensure security in IaaS without compromising performance or budget, especially if they already have an established automation culture and adopt best practices, making it one of the best cost-benefit solutions. I would rate this product nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.