IBM Security Guardium Data Protection Reviews

The primary use case for most of our customers is for monitoring and compliance. It's mostly deployed on-premises and it's a database activity monitoring solution. 

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. 

The analysis part of this product could be improved. It's a very comprehensive product, so the features it has complement customer requirements. But I would like to see more emphasis on analytics, and it would be great if they added machine learning. They already have analysis insights, but a comprehensive analytical feature that's already incorporated into the solution would be very helpful. 

I have been working with IBM Guardium for the past 10 years. 

This solution is stable and reliable. 

This solution is scalable. That's one of the missions of this product—it can scale. 

I think technical support is generally helpful, but it depends on the situation and the complexity of the problem. Most of the time, we resolve customers' issues ourselves, but technical support is helpful whenever I do require their help. 

Most of the time, the deployment process is straightforward. There is a specific process which isn't too complicated or difficult. The amount of maintenance that will be required depends on the deployment. When we set up the solution, we usually try to optimize it so that it requires little maintenance. 

My company provides implementation services to customers. 

Guardium is most suitable for large scale enterprises because the pricing model is better if you are implementing a large number of databases. It may be suited to medium enterprises, but to a lesser extent. It depends on customer requirements, but it's best suited to large companies because of affordability. 

I have experience with Oracle Audit Vault and Imperva SecureSphere Database Security, which are the two main competitors. If you compare Guardium with Audit Vault, the main differences are in the deployment model, how they work, and the focus of each product with regard to monitoring. Audit Vault has a different deployment method. Imperva is more similar to Guardium. 

If you are looking to implement Guardium, you first need to understand your requirements. The objective of these database and security monitoring solutions is for compliance and auditing. You want a solution that will monitor everything, but the main objective is to monitor the right areas or the key parts of the area that should be monitored. This is the one thing customers should consider before choosing any database or similar solution. 

We have good relationships with our customers, so whenever they're looking for a solution, we try to partner with them and align them with a product that will meet their needs. Usually when we go with this product, we go with SQL first, then go for integration deployment. Our recommendations are based on customer requirements. Even if it's a good product, it may not be a good fit for the customer. 

I would rate this product an eight out of ten, just because there's always room for improvement. 

Our primary use case of this product is for privileged database activity monitoring. We are customers of IBM and I'm the DBA.

We use the GBDI feature which is very helpful for our needs. The centralization of data is probably the most valuable feature because we span multiple database technologies. 

In general, I find the solution a little complicated to use. Another problem is that we have  encrypted traffic on Oracle and it requires a database outage. That's creates problems because you're monitoring critical systems and they don't like outages.

The solution has been pretty stable for us. 

Our environment is pretty small for scalability purposes, so scalability is not relevant. In terms of the collectors agency, you can always add them. From that perspective, it's scalable, but it introduces more complexity because the more collectors you have, the more management is required. We don't allow people to connect and use self-service. We produce reports for the application teams from the tool ourselves, which is why we only have around 15 users involved in deployment, maintenance and reporting.

The professional services we initially received were really good. Technical support has been okay; it's not outstanding, but it hasn't been too bad either.

The initial setup is quite complex so we used IBM professional services for implementation. We're still in the process of deploying, it's taking a while. That doesn't reflect on the solution; we're very lean with staff and I think that's probably the issue.

If I were choosing a solution now, I would probably look at Imperva and Insights, and go the agentless route, rather than deal with collectors. They still have them with the new system, but they're a little lighter weight. From a manageability perspective, from a scalability perspective, in terms of supporting model databases, they seem to be more viable solutions moving forward.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

We use the product to permanently protect data from unauthorized user access, malware, and external threats.

The platform provides data protection from internal and external threats. It has good features for reporting and integration with other products.

There could be a feature to integrate and protect multiple databases. The local support services need improvements as well.

We have IBM Security Guardium Data Protection implementation since 2013.

The platform has good stability.

We have almost 10,000 IBM Security Guardium Data Protection in our organization. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

The technical support team responds quickly. However, there could be a local team to reach out instead of contacting the headquarters.

The initial setup process is straightforward. It can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud. It takes an hour to complete deployment.

We implement the process in-house.

It is not an expensive product. We purchase its yearly license.

I recommend IBM Security Guardium Data Protection and rate it a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for managing and monitoring the database in real time.

The most valuable feature I have found is the performance of client monitoring. The other competitors are unable to do this.

I would like to see AI and machine learning added in the future.

I have been working with IBM Security Guardium Data Protection for two years. 

We have found the stability is very good.

All that is necessary for scaling IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is to purchase a license. We have a lot of customers since we are in the finance industry in Vietnam.

We have excellent technical support in-country and out of the country.

The initial setup is straightforward and takes a short time to install.

The price is good for the quality of the solution.

I would rate IBM Security Guardium Data Protection an eight out of ten.

We use Guardium for large and medium-sized clients in the banking sector for things like monitoring, protecting sensitive data, and logins.

Guardium lets you centrally manage aggregators and collectors.

The documentation could be better. 

I have used Guardium for two or three years.

Guardium is stable.

Guardium is scalable.

IBM support is perfect. 

The initial setup isn't complex, and it takes about four or five days depending on your environment.

We pay for a yearly license, and the price is reasonable. 

I rate IBM Guardium Data Protection 10 out of 10. Anyone can understand this product.

We primarily use the solution for database access management where they are using DML commands. We use it for compliance and validation. If there's any change in the record, this solution will notify us.

It provide real time alerts and report for the review with senior management.  

The solution is very good at marking.

The initial setup is quite easy.

The solution offers trouble-free access.

The reporting on the solution is weak. It needs to be improved and enhanced. From a management point of view, it's really important to have reports. They should be offering easily extractable reports that we, as users, can benefit from.

The technical support is very poor.

Integrations are difficult to configure upon the initial setup.

The solution needs to offer data encryption.

We've been using the solution for the last three and a half years.

The solution is very stable. We don't seem to experience bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The product's scalability is fine, however, the requirements for scalability make it somewhat limited, as you will need to add hardware resources in order to expand it. Other than that, yes, the scalability is there, and you can use it, but you need to keep in mind that there is hardware that you have to have in place.

We haven't been happy with the support. We're always facing issues with integration with one database and we don't get a detailed response. Their help just hasn't been adequate. Our team is now basically working with a local partner for support, however, it's an aspect of the product I'm very unhappy with.

Neutral

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup is quite easy. It's not an issue and is very straightforward. That said, teamwork becomes an issue due to the fact that the troubleshooting part is a little bit difficult. We need to have some more insights from IBM to help us along. 

If you are new to the product, you need to have a more qualified person to assist you with the process, and ultimately we have to engage with technical support. The response is not fast, however. The product is a critical part of our environment, so we need a rapid response from the site to sort out the issue, whatever it might be.

We have two people currently managing the product.

You only need one person to deploy the product.

We had one person from the vendor come and help us deploy the solution.

We definitely needed more assistance and have tried to get the help of technical support for some integration issues, however, the response hasn't been fast enough.

I'm not sure of the exact cost of the solution, however, I believe the features have separate costs. We have a data protection license and on top of that, we need to buy however many databases we need to monitor everything effectively.

In the current environment that I'm working in, I did not evaluate other products. However, in the past, I have had to utilize other products.  don't recall what it was exactly, though. The other solution was from McAfee.

In terms of the ease of access and ease of deployment, IBM Guardium was much easier to deploy. However, in terms of maturity, then definitely that the other product that I used in the past was more mature than the IBM Guardium Products. 

We're looking to upgrade the solution soon. I'm not sure which version we are currently using.

I would recommend others considering the solution to make sure they get local partners who can basically deploy the product. They need to have someone with sound experience. I have found a partner who applies the product often just simply deploys it and they don't have a use case available. They don't have the right experience. You need to choose your partner carefully or be ready to work hard yourself to deploy the product in the best possible way. 

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

We use IBM Guardium Data Protection mostly for data masking and firewalling. We restrict the administrators and other users from altering or deleting anything from the databases.

There are different modules but the most valuable ones are firewalling and masking. Additionally, the auditing of the entire database is helpful, which includes all the activity of the database users and administrators. We can monitor everything and log as well.

If IBM Guardium Data Protection could find a way to not have a lot of coding and development required to get the solution up and running it would be an advantage. The information of the agent could improve, which is necessary for us to monitor the databases would be a great benefit.

I have used IBM Guardium Data Protection within the last 12 months.

The solution is quite stable compared to the other solutions that we have worked with. However, it requires a lot of development, or it requires a lot of effort to make it deployable in a customer location, which makes it very difficult.

IBM Guardium Data Protection is scalable.

The solution is good and stable but you need some manual efforts in terms of development and programming or coding to get the solution up and running, which does make it a bit challenging if you don't have a large team.

I rate IBM Guardium Data Protection a seven out of ten.

My primary use of this solution is for database activity monitoring.

The most valuable features of this product are activity monitoring on the database servers, discovery capabilities, and vulnerability scanning.

An area for improvement would be the user interface - currently, it takes around two to three months to become comfortable using it. In the next release, I would like to see more integration with other vault vendors.

I've been using this solution for five years.

The product is stable - during my time using it, I have not had any crash problems with the servers, and I haven't needed to do any restarts.

I haven't had any problems with the global and local support for this product.

The initial setup was basic and easy and didn't take much time.

The cost of this product is reasonable but could be lowered to a more competitive level.

Guardiam's accountability is good - by design, it doesn't give any root privilege to customers, which means we don't have highly important privilege for access to Guardiam. They use only a user level, so kernel-level users are prohibited, which means there aren't any accidental effects from the customer side. I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.