Imperva Data Security Fabric Reviews

I'm the product manager for Imperva in Africa for a distributor. I manage it every day, but I don't personally use it. We sell Imperva to customers in 17 countries. 

Its deployment depends on the customer. Some customers have their databases in the cloud, and if they have them in the cloud, we give them the cloud database security of Imperva. If their database is on-premises, then we deploy it on-premises, and the reseller implements the solution on-premises.

There are three major main use cases of this solution. The first one is to fulfill compliance regulations. Customers—especially the banks, health sector, and manufacturing—need to comply with the regulations in different countries. They have to fulfill compliance regulations around the privacy of data. In order to fulfill those requirements, they're using Imperva. It helps them to fulfill these requirements, and they are not fined by the regulators. That is the first use case why people buy Imperva.

The second one is for security itself. They don't want a cybercriminal to have access to the data. Imperva is a security solution, and you can use it to block unauthorized access to your data. 

The third one is related to rightful access to the data. They want to know:

• Who has access to the data internally?
• What queries were being issued on the database?
• What time did they log in?
• What is going on within the environment?
• Who is touching the data?
• What are they doing with the data internally? 

Customers or organizations want to have access or have visibility into all these.

They can maybe look at its pricing model. Its pricing could be cheaper for the African countries or developing economies.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is very scalable. If a customer wants it for five database servers, he gets licenses for five database servers. Tomorrow, if they want licenses for two extra databases, they can just buy the extra two licenses. It is very scalable and very straightforward.

Their support is fantastic. It is 24/7. You raise a ticket, and you get someone assigned to you immediately.

I would rate them a five out of five. In a worst-case scenario, it would be a four, but it's always very straightforward. We get a very quick response.

It is very easy and very straightforward. There are no complications.

Its pricing could be cheaper for the African countries or developing economies. The British pound is valued way more than the currency of most African countries. A better or cheaper pricing model for Nigerian and African customers would be better.

It has a per-year subscription model. You pay exactly for what you need. That's all. You don't have to buy what you don't need.

It is very straightforward. It is probably the best solution out there in terms of data security. About 90% to 95% of the banks in Nigeria use Imperva. When you have such a success story in Nigeria, Ghana, and of course, many other African countries, you can be sure that you are getting a very good solution. 

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We use it for database activity monitoring. We use it to monitor all the traffic that comes to the database to know about the operations that are happening on the database. 

At the moment, it is on-premises, but we eventually would like to go to the cloud.

It serves as a way and means to see if any unauthorized person is trying to access the database. It helps to implement specific rules to ensure that only authenticated people have access to the database.

The beauty of it is that it provides segregation of duties. Typically, in the traditional environment, DBAs administer the database, and they have too much access. We are in the process of implementing other Oracle solutions, and it brings some kind of segregation. Just because someone is a DBA does not mean that he or she should have access to all of the data. Some of the data can be masked so that privacy and security are enhanced, especially when it is customer data for an institution like a bank.

It is quite expensive. I would prefer a lower price. 

In terms of features, I started using it this month. I need more time to explore it.

It has not been long. We implemented it this month. 

We are currently doing a PoC, and there are a few issues that we are trying to resolve. When all of those issues are sorted out, we can start measuring the stability of the solution.

We haven't scaled it yet.

We are working with their technical support. They have been good so far.

It is straightforward, but it depends on the organizational policies and rules in terms of the infrastructure. For example, when you deploy it in an environment like Oracle, it is probably fine, but in other environments like Cisco, there could be some issues that you have to troubleshoot. It is more of an infrastructural or environmental issue.

We started with the PoC. It was implemented within two days. We are now doing monitoring to ensure everything is still fine.

It is quite expensive. We wanted it in my former organization, but the price was very high. So, we couldn't purchase it. I moved to a different organization, and this organization has purchased it.

It is a fantastic solution. It is very good, but the only issue is that if you don't have enough money, you cannot use this solution.

I would rate it an eight out of 10 for now. After exploring it more, I might rate it higher.

We primarily use the solution for auditing purposes so collecting and archiving of logs.

The solution is very good for auditing purposes, including collecting and archiving logs. 

We appreciate that we can use it on the DB server without harming the performance of the database is fantastic. It doesn't feel like it's lagging.

The initial setup is very simple. 

Overall it's a solid product.

The pricing is okay.

The support could be improved.

The product needs to perform better in extremely busy databases. It does not do really well where the DB is extremely, extremely busy. 

The updates could be better.

The UI can be improved. 

The ability to narrow down to the right environment could be helpful. They need to allow users to find an easy way to drill down to what's important.

I've been using the solution for three years now. 

The solution is solid. The stability is good.

The scalability is okay. However, if you're going to set up a redundancy, it needs to be in the same data center, as the manager that manages the entire system needs to share the data, and therefore they need to basically work in the area where they have direct connectivity between the sites. In our case, we have multiple data centers, and we distribute the connectivity and we can't achieve that. 

The solution's scalability isn't based on users. Even if you have one person using it, you might have 300 databases. It's not about the number of users, it's the number of databases.

The support isn't as good as it could be. We are not quite satisfied with it.

We previously used Oracle.

The solution is very simple and straightforward. It's not too difficult or complex. 

The solution isn't crazy-expensive. It's reasonable. 

We pay for the solution on a monthly basis.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'd recommend the solution to others. It's a very solid product. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is used to store data for if there is an emergency we can restore it.

The performance of the solution is good.

The solution could improve by having more integration.

I have been using Imperva SecureSphere Database Security for six months.

The solution is stable.

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is scalable.

We have three people in my organization using the solution.

I have not needed to use the support.

The installation is straightforward.

We have five engineers that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

The price of the solution is reasonable and it requires a license.

I rate Imperva SecureSphere Database Security a nine out of ten.

Our primary use for this product is as an application firewall.

The system reports vulnerabilities in my vulnerability assessment, but I need something to generate warning messages.

I would like to see integration such that there is support for different kinds of environments, such as on-premises versus cloud.

We have been using Imperva SecureSphere Database Security for more than five years.

This is a stable product.

We are not concerned with scalability because we do not have the need.

We don't speak directly with the vendor. We only call the managed solution provider.

We did not use another similar product prior to this one.

This is a managed service, so I did not handle the installation.

This is an expensive solution and the price should be reduced.

We may or may not continue using this product in the future, and I may recommend it to others, depending on their environment.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We use it to prevent threats to the database. It is like a firewall in front of the database servers.

The cyber intelligence feature is the most valuable. 

It is very expensive. Its price can be better.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale technically, but it is so expensive. 

We have about five administrators who use this solution.

Their technical support is very good. In a few situations, they took too long to respond. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

The initial setup is easy. It took us four weeks to deploy it.

It is very expensive.

I would advise others to use a professional service to certify for the latest implementations. I would rate Imperva SecureSphere Database Security a nine out of ten.

It has a very user-friendly interface that's very detailed. 

Overall, it's a very good product but they could do with some modifications log-wise — it should be more comprehensive. Otherwise, 95% of the product is very good.

The interface could be more user-friendly.

We have been using this solution for roughly two to three years.

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is both completely scalable and stable.

I don't have much experience with technical support, but when I have spoken with them, they have been helpful.

The initial setup was very straightforward; not complex at all.

Deployment time varies, but in terms of implementation, it's a very good product. There is no hectic environment during the implementation. It is a very straightforward implementation.

The price is very high but compared to the price of the overall solution, then I think it's a good deal because the solution itself is great.

I would highly recommend this solution. It's a very expensive solution, but if you have the budget for it, I would definitely recommend Imperva Database Security.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Imperva Database Security a rating of nine.

Most of our clients are banks and insurance and financial institutions that want to achieve compliance. They want to achieve auditing for their regulatory compliances as well. On the database side, that includes being able to monitor DBS and to block certain activities on the DVF. On the application side, it also has to be preventative and that's also part of compliance. This solution enables clients to achieve data security, whether on cloud or on prem. We offer support services and we are a service provider for database security through Imperva and also application security through Imperva to our clients. I'm a cyber security engineer and we are gold partners of SecureSphere DS. 

I would say the discovery module is the most valuable feature as it provides good visibility of the database environment to particular sites. It scans the entire front of the environment to detect any new databases found just to make sure there are not any malicious things going on. I think it's a very powerful tool in that sense. It also helps that the solution is able to block queries that are able to be run by given database administrators on databases and manages user rights. 

I've been part of various projects and also interact with clients because I do pre-sales. Most of the feedback I receive relates to clients wanting to see an improvement in the reporting. They like the ability and functionality of the solution but they feel the reporting is lacking. The general feeling is also that the GUI has been the same for a very long time and there is room for improvement there. It could look a little better and then if the reports are also improved that would make a big difference all round. 

From a basic implementation point of view, there are some features that are very technical, clients want everything very granular and they always say Imperva bundles everything. You do a signature, and ABC updates and you trust what the ABC is doing. I think if it were a little more granular and detailed in terms of how, for example, a query stream is being detected or something like that, rather than just blocking something, it would give the administrator a better view and understanding of what's happening. 

I've been using this solution for almost a year. 

The physical appliances are always very stable. In terms of CPU usage, things like the gateway load, payway load, they come with a little bit more capacity on that front. I think the issue always comes with the virtual appliances where you may run out of space, or maybe there are new versions of whichever hypervisor you are running that could change and maybe affect the virtual machines running on top. On the physical side, there's never an issue, it's stable. 

Database security is highly scalable because depending on the number of sites available, you're able to assume that you have the running agent. You can then access the IP for the gateway, you can log in your logs which are managed by the NX, so it's all fine. It's highly scalable for the database. I think even if you have branches all over the country, you can manage them centrally where you have agents monitoring whichever database is allocated to whichever site. We have deployed over 60 projects all over East Africa. I currently handle four, which are two application and two database.

Their technical support is good and the response is guaranteed until the problem is solved. I think when it comes to response time, it's always very quick. Maybe just one simple criticism would be that it's very hard to get a remote station with them and everything is always email and sending logs. I'd like to see more hands-on and direct contact with the environment. 

Complexity really depends on the client's environment, but I would say the initial set up for basic deployment of the components should take roughly six working days. It has to be integrated with everything. Installing links to all the other databases could take maybe another 10 work days, so around two weeks. I do the deployment. 

Customers are very, very satisfied with the licensing costs and there's not really anyone that competes with Imperva so the clients are very happy. Their requirements are covered. 

I would definitely recommend Imperva. I swear on it and try to pitch Imperva every time. I know its abilities, I know what you're going to get. I know how user friendly it is. It's easy to create policies. Reports are very okay. It's got various compatibilities, desk deployment, so Imperva is what I would recommend. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.