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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs Oracle Audit Vault 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
Oracle Audit Vault
Ranking in Database Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
28
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 Oracle Audit Vault is 16.0%, up from 14.0% 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.
Yves Moro - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good security, and is helpful for auditing the data and seeing what's happening
Currently, you need two servers: one for Audit Vault and one for the firewall. If they can combine them into one server, it will be great because it is costly to have two servers. It will also make its installation easier. I have heard that in the new version, there will be only one server for both. I use it only for security purposes, and they can continue to improve it with more security tools and features. It should be powerful like FortiGate. When it becomes powerful like FortiGate, people will only go for this solution for their infrastructure. Their support could be faster.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the accelerator. It has a predefined report for PCI SOX compliance and other compliances."
"Efficiency is key and IBM Guardium provides information in a heartbeat, but protects the data with military grade encryption."
"Ease of deployment is a valuable feature."
"The possible number of databases and database servers which can be monitored by Guardium is high. For me, this is a differentiator of IBM."
"The most valuable feature is the GUI, the interface. It also interfaces well with REST API, if you want to automate some of the commands."
"The vulnerability assessment is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the reporting and data-level access control."
"It's one of the first to encrypt DB2 databases."
"The critical event alerts and reporting features have greatly reduced loss of man hours that would have been spent on going through the whole audit event logs."
"A powerful, flexible solution for database traffic monitoring."
"It is a good product for controlling all databases. It is helpful for auditing the data. When people are doing any actions on the databases, they are recorded automatically in the vault. You can work on the collected data to find out exactly what is happening on a database. You can implement database encryption on the databases to control people's access to the database content, such as rows and tables."
"Our clients can see all of their past actions or the wrong activity done on the network. We can load the diagnostics for the business."
"Our client was scheduled to take a year and a half to set up compliance, but by deploying this product they were able to do the compliance reports within three months."
"Out-of-the-box policies ensure our compliance with standards like SOX, ISO 27001, and so on."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that it can help us secure our databases."
"The solution is very stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"The technical support is very poor."
"The solution could be improved for NoSQL databases."
"I would like them to support cloud services."
"Flexibility could be improved."
"Sometimes the performance is not good, and also sometimes we have sudden bugs causing difficulties."
"The one thing that I would like to see improved, but I don't think it's going to be in the next release, is its reporting capabilities. I think that's been offloaded to another third-party product that I think IBM actually endorses for that."
"We have had some issues with patches breaking things unexpectedly in our environments."
"Guardium Data Protection is far better in terms of external integration. But in terms of firewall features, like when you're blocking activities, it's as if Oracle AVDF simply has superior features. This is just from third-party observations, but the users of Oracle AVDF are saying that when it comes to the firewall and protection functionality, they're much more inclined to AVDF."
"Stability could be improved, we have had some challenges"
"I hear from many people that say IBM Guardian is better than Oracle Audit Vault when it comes to performance. IBM Guardian works transparently in the database, but Oracle Audit Vault consumes some ratios on the server."
"One feature that is missing is the ability to have a secret server that is always encrypted."
"The product monitors only the database and not the operating systems."
"This solution doesn't audit the network."
"Some of our customers were asking about latency when the application wants to get to the database."
"Currently, you need two servers: one for Audit Vault and one for the firewall. If they can combine them into one server, it will be great because it is costly to have two servers. It will also make its installation easier. I have heard that in the new version, there will be only one server for both."
"We would like to see the ability to administer and manage the solution through Enterprise Manager 13c, and development of the dashboards that are generally missing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Guardium's pricing is quite high, but it gives good value for money for all sizes of enterprises, especially for partners."
"For IBM Guardium, licensing is very simple and straightforward. There are no issues I can speak of."
"IBM solutions have fair price strategy, and operates on a yearly basis. If it's a SaaS solution, then you can opt for yearly basis."
"The tool is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"I would suggest to review the type of data, need for security, and if the organizational structure needs the options IBM Guardium provides."
"The price is good for the quality of the solution."
"It's an expensive solution"
"We haven't talked much about pricing and licencing. But it is not cheap for sure"
"For the bank, the license was $48,000 last time. That was the licensing for the bank on just one license."
"This solution is definitely not expensive, and it is a small fraction of the overall database licensing costs."
"Oracle can be an expensive solution depending on the options and user needs."
"The licensing cost is about $360,000, annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about Oracle Audit Vault?
Oracle Audit Vault has a lot of great features, but what I find most valuable is the database firewall.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Audit Vault?
I would rate the costliness of Oracle Audit Vault as a seven out of ten. It is a bit expensive.
What needs improvement with Oracle Audit Vault?
The performance of Oracle Audit Vault could be improved, especially in handling large data collections and generating reports on time. Additionally, the efficiency of queries for retrieving informa...
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
Audit Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Abu Dhabi Department of Finance, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health, Educational Testing Service, Ryohin Keikaku Co. Ltd., SPC Brasil, REDISA, Qatar Olympic Committee, Seneca College, Hunan Social Insurance Management and Service Bureau,
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs. Oracle Audit Vault and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.