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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs IDERA SQL Compliance Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IDERA SQL Compliance Manager
Ranking in Database Security
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 32.0%, up from 31.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA SQL Compliance Manager is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmer Faisel Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers mature agents, compliance reporting and reliable database security
The solution should allow the data to shift to a centralized repository with elastic servers and big data infrastructure. If a customer searches for old logs for retention purposes, there are limitations on appliances once they are set with specific hardware, so they can only be changed by uninstalling or reinstalling the hardware. The solution's aggregator feature allows data aggregation, but for instance, if a customer wants a project ready in two years, having an Elasticsearch in DB or the capacity to store huge amounts of data would be beneficial in data investigation or evaluation at an affordable cost. Some AI features should be added to IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. For example, the AI features implemented in the solution can be anomaly detection or suspicious activity identification.
Database5b8b - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to track changes to databases and tables, but the dashboard doesn't always work as expected
What would really be nice is if it were a bit more flexible, in several ways. The assistant for creating rules is nice, as it looks like Microsoft Outlook, but it's not flexible enough. What would really a good thing is if you could refer to an external list or table for filtering on, say, certain applications, IP addresses, or host names; or perhaps even combinations of host name and application name. Because in our environment, we're suffering from the fact that we have a huge amount of login events. A really huge amount of login events. We have gigabytes of login and logout from the same application; sometimes, several thousand times within one second. These are very badly coded applications for sure, but we have a lot of that. We didn't code them ourselves. It's bought software. We need filter rules for certain combinations as I mentioned above. These rules have to be maintained and have to be audited by the people that take care of the applications that cause the login events. It's difficult for us because we don't want to give them access to Compliance Manager. What would very much easier for us is to give them some kind of self-service to take care of a list of a combination of host, account, and application name, because only they know whether this combination is valid or not. They know how their application service is named and what services they're using. They have to maintain this list. It would be much easier if there was a table that we would maintain, or they would maintain via self-service, and we could use this table to establish these filter rules. At the moment, we have to check all the rules after this table is maintained by our colleagues who maintain or run the applications. After that, I wrote a stored procedure that creates, depending on the table, new rules in Compliance Manager, but that's a workaround. It's not a really nice solution, so it would be much better if Compliance Manager would have functionality like that built in. That's one thing. Another nice feature would be concerning GDPR: some kind of base-lining of database access or some kind of inventory for tables or certain columns or types of columns. IDERA already has several other tools, free tools, to search for certain criteria of columns holding things like credit card numbers, for example. It would be nice if that would be a feature within Compliance Manager, as it's very a very similar thing, it goes hand in hand.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"From the perspective of analysis and prevention, this product is pretty accurate."
"We have integrated IBM Guardium​ with IBM Watson Curator. They access Curator to identify and correlate other actions the user is doing to determine if this is a legitimate action or not."
"Database logging and audit functions are the most valuable features."
"We also use IBM Guardium to support security initiatives and compliance policies. For example, our audit area can verify if someone has access to information that they shouldn't have, for their regular job functions."
"The most valuable features have been how easy it is to deploy and use, as well as the comprehensive monitoring options. These are a few things that customers like most about this product."
"I think it scales pretty well. It can run on most of the database platforms currently out there. That is something we really like as a feature, because we try to hit everything in our environment to make sure we're meeting those regulations."
"I rate Guardium 10 out of 10 for data activity monitoring and nine for vulnerability assessment. It's easy to implement and does its job. But I would rate it seven out of 10 in terms of advanced features."
"We use IBM Guardium to support security initiatives and combine policies within the organization."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The ability to track activity including the SQL statements is definitely valuable. I really like how the database is laid out. It's straightforward. I can query the back-end tables. I've made a few of my own email alerts based on the data and the tables. It's accessible."
"The tool can track logins and login failures. I made my own alert so that if there is a certain number of login failures for a server, it emails me. That is really useful. If I want logins to automatically lock out after a certain number of failed attempts, I can know when that happens."
 

Cons

"I would like to see streamlining of some of the agent features, some of the patches; make it a little bit more user-friendly on the documentation."
"Guardium could be improved in the area of data encryption."
"Needs easier integration with custom applications."
"Since we are resellers we do not have enough information about the technical aspects and the areas of improvement. However, one consistent report that we receive from our customers is that IBM does not offer timely support due to the size of the organisation. It would be great if they could improve their response time."
"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"I'd like to see a smoother GUI interface for the CAS agent - CAS does configurations on the database - to interface better with the vulnerability assessments."
"I would like to see a lot of additional reporting and analytics features. They have basic outlier detection, but I would love to see that go further, and model it after analytics tools like Splunk."
"Right now, we're in the development phase for IBM Guardium Data Protection, so I don't have any recommendations about additional features and room for improvement in the solution. We're very excited to work on IBM Guardium Data Protection because we are new to the solution, and we're still exploring product features. We're very excited about integrations and use case creation, and it's only after six to eight months that I'll be able to share my recommendations in terms of additional features the solution should have. We did find some difficulty in deploying IBM Guardium Data Protection here in Pakistan because of the lack of resources."
"Its filtration and navigation are not the best."
"The set up is kind of clunky, in my opinion. It's not really intuitive. If they had either a smoother install or better instructions, that would be nice."
"What would really a good thing is if you could refer to an external list or table for filtering on, say, certain applications, IP addresses, or host names; or perhaps even combinations of host name and application name."
"There is an agent that collects the data on SQL Server. Sometimes it will stop collecting. I'm not exactly sure what's happening but I have to go in and manually restart the agent. It would be nice if the central collection server could send a request to the agent to restart."
"I submitted a ticket (last year) about archiving/grooming of old records because the GUI functionality was not working. Per their recommendation, I ended up using a command line to do it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Guardium won mostly because of our scope and scale. It was able to perform at the scale that we wanted to use it. ​"
"The cost depends on the number of databases. You can purchase advanced licenses, but the standard license is calculated based on the number of databases you have to onboard."
"Its cost is good. With the new metric of licensing, such as PDO not being available now, customers are expecting a good price for the solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is very high price, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price of Guardium is higher than the main competitor, Imperva. In addition, it's complex as the calculation of the licensing is done by Processor Value Unit (PVU). However, before purchasing a DAP solution, it is important to analyze specific points to evaluate the cost-benefit of each tool. For example: Does the environment to be monitored have mainframes? If so, it's a point for Guardium. If not, a point for Imperva. Note: IBM is looking into a new licensing policy and reducing the price of Guardium."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"My company purchased IBM Guardium Data Protection in a package, so I'm unable to give its exact licensing cost, but for the package of three IBM solutions, it wasn't very expensive. I'd rate the pricing for all three solutions three out of five. When my team deployed IBM Guardium Data Protection, all features were included."
"For IBM Guardium, licensing is very simple and straightforward. There are no issues I can speak of."
"It's a good price value... The other tools weren't cheaper."
"The product is cheaper than other products I checked but it is still a good idea to check again and compare."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"The pricing is pretty good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Guardium Data Protection?
The pricing is good, and I have no problem with it. Although there is no flexibility to compete with other products, it generally costs between one hundred and three hundred thousand per year depen...
What do you like most about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
The features I like are the robust policies, which allow us to create customized monitoring based on specific activities.
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Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
IDERA SQL CM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hanger; AmerisourceBergen; CMS Energy; Manulife Financial; Patterson Companies; Pfizer; Rockwell Automation; TrialCard; Unum; Verizon Communications; Skygen USA; Calpine Energy Solutions; Standard Chartered PLC; TrialCard, Inc.; Raffles Hospital; Houston Methodist; Community America Credit Union; Noble Americas Energy Solutions LLC; QuikTrip Corporation; HUK COBURG; OneBeacon Insurance Group, Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs. IDERA SQL Compliance Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.