We performed a comparison between IBM Guardium Data Protection and Imperva SecureSphere Database Security based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: IBM Guardium Data Protection and Imperva SecureSphere Database Security have a similar user rating regarding ease of deployment, pricing, and service and support. In terms of features, IBM Guardium Data Protection reviewers felt the software wasn’t user-friendly. In contrast, Imperva SecureSphere Database Security reviewers felt the reporting feature needed improvement.
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for the customers is the monitoring and full log of the database activity of privileged users."
"It supports our audit compliance."
"It has been very difficult to analyze all the network traffic with something else. Guardium provides that feature, it's heuristic. So we have rule-based algorithms in place to take care of that."
"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."
"Accelerators is one of the big functions they have out there. It gives you canned reports that you don't have to make yourself, they're out there by being part of the patch. You just have to fill your information in to some of the already built groups, for your environment, and it automates a lot of that. That has definitely helped improve things."
"The front-end works very well."
"Easy to set up data activity monitoring solution that provides competent technical support. Scalable, stable, and has good performance."
"The integration with CounterBreach is great."
"Ability to send event monitoring and administrative activities."
"The discovery module provides good visibility."
"The solution is very stable."
"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."
"The cyber intelligence feature is the most valuable."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The performance of the solution is good."
"I have already mentioned to IBM that a primary need is to improve the number of records in the reports above 65,535."
"The most important requirements for us are integration with new database solutions and the ability to manage things like Jailbreak or something like that. Its reduction feature can also be improved. It has a functionality called reduction, which is like masking data, but it is just a replacement of characters. Sometimes the customer needs more than this. It would be good if it was more advanced or complete. We also have a problem with this solution because the IBM aggregator isn't working very well. IBM has created big data intelligence for Guardium, and occasionally, customers need three or four months of data, but they can't run it from the collectors. It can have a better dashboard and more pre-defined use cases for those customers who don't have any idea about data protection or don't have expert personnel in this area. For example, they can include five use cases for banks and five use cases for retail."
"An improvement would be to make the pricing relative in terms of regions."
"More automation, user guides, and tips would make this solution better."
"It would be helpful, and convenient to improve the Chat support."
"An area for improvement would be the user interface - currently, it takes around two to three months to become comfortable using it."
"Initially it did not have support external applications like, say, Tableau, ServiceNow, Remedy, and the like. They have started growing into it, but I would like to have more and more integration with outside applications."
"The technical support is very poor."
"Its reporting can be improved. The reporting feature is currently not good enough for our clients."
"I have worked with IBM before, and I prefer its ease of deployment and management. Imperva SecureSphere Database Security has tricky deployment, whereas IBM's deployment is straightforward because of the UI."
"Some cloud versions are not supported by the agent."
"Imperva SecureSphere Database Security could improve the database defense feature called camouflage. This feature was responsible for the data mask but now it does not work well and we need another solution. All our banks have teams that are regarded with care and they need to mask sensitive data in order to provide testing to developers."
"Overall, it's a very good product but they could do with some modifications log-wise."
"The GUI for this solution could use some improvement."
"It is quite expensive. I would prefer a lower price."
"Sometimes the reports are cumbersome, and you have to drill down to get more information."
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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is ranked 1st in Database Security with 70 reviews while Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is ranked 2nd in Database Security with 52 reviews. IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is rated 8.2, while Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection writes "Provides visibility, has a single console that shows all information, and collector-aggregator capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Imperva SecureSphere Database Security writes "The fine-grained auditing available on the platform makes life easier and helps explain anything happening in your database". IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is most compared with Oracle Audit Vault, Oracle Advanced Security, DataSunrise Database Security, Vormetric Application Crypto Suite and IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Privacy, whereas Imperva SecureSphere Database Security is most compared with Oracle Audit Vault, DataSunrise Database Security, Trustwave DbProtect, jSonar and Imperva DDoS. See our IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs. Imperva SecureSphere Database Security report.
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