BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access Reviews

Improvement-wise, I would like to look at the assessment results. Some of the capabilities in the solution were not as available or not as outstanding as CyberArk. We had to manage whatever little was available for us, especially its recording capabilities, logs, and a number of things.

I have experience with BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access. I am a customer of the solution.

It's a stable product. Based on the demos and interaction with it, it was stable.

I think the solution can be scaled, and it can be enhanced. I think that the thought process did include some feature scenarios that were not present in the solution at the moment. It is good in terms of scalability, considering some of the issues that may arise in the future.

The setup was done by somebody else in my company. The solution is deployed on the cloud.

Though the solution was a bit expensive, the overall pricing was average.

BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access was a great product. A consultant was assigned to us. They helped us understand the product with the demo.

It does address setting and specific requirements for different clients. It is not a one-size fits all type of solution, but it does address a number of important requirements for specific clients to an extent.

I think BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access should expand its use cases, considering that customers may have ten use cases. The solution should include some of the recommended use cases by customers.

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

I work for a massive company. They have 6,000-plus servers integrated into the PRA solution. BeyondTrust is a remote solution for administrators and other privileged accounts across the organization. It controls access to critical servers, domain controllers, Active Directory, Exchange, or any client servers they'll be using. Right now, there are about 10 products on the market globally, and BeyondTrust is the market leader. Within BeyondTrust, there are multiple sub-products, including Password Safe, Privileged Remote Access (PRA), and Endpoint Protection. PRA is unique among BeyondTrust products and other solutions.

We use Password Safe to store all the passwords in a vault, indicating when a privileged user attempts to access a privileged account on a server. PRA doesn't provide direct access to the process. Instead, we'll provide PRA access to Password Safe through a connector. In other words, the user doesn't have access to the critical account via Password Safe. 

Whenever a user wants to initiate a session, they will log into Password Safe, which will inject the credentials. PRA limits access to Password Safe itself. Only a Password Safe engineer has access to that solution, and the engineer is responsible for onboarding the servers and end users. The user will initiate the session via PRA, which will retrieve the credentials. In addition to this core feature, it has reporting tools to record sessions, providing a list of clear logs. 

Right now, BeyondTrust is an on-premise solution. We have a cloud version, but we are not using it. Eventually, we plan to move it to the cloud. BeyondTrust is being used extensively in our organization. There are between 100 and 130 concurrent sessions daily. Our server can easily maintain that usage level, so we don't need to add another. 

Using BeyondTrust has made our end users happy because they have trouble logging into multiple sessions. Now, they only need to open the client to start a session. It has shortened and simplified various processes, like approval requests. They can do several sessions, with a session time of 15 minutes. 

From an administrative point of view, BeyondTrust has streamlined user onboarding, a never-ending process. Every day, we are onboarding and deactivating users on the server. It's easy, and I don't need to change passwords or worry about who has access. My users access the servers through PRA exclusively. It's enough to remove a user's access to the server from PRA. Later, I can clean up the password or access control.

I can remove user access with one click, then figure out the other offboarding activities later. It's convenient for an administrator and the end users. Every channel has been monitored and recorded, so it's highly secure.

After getting the password, a user can initiate a direct connection to the target server. Any user working on a server can log into Password Safe to pull the password and store it somewhere. Next time, they won't need to log in to Password Safe. After that, they will directly initiate the session. PRA has a connector that allows it to retrieve the password. 

PRA also doesn't require a VPN, which is a substantial cost saving for our organization. In the past, we needed a VPN license for every administrator operating from home to connect to the server. That's a massive expenditure. By implementing PRA, we could completely get rid of our VPN solution. It works like Microsoft but allows direct access, so I don't need to worry about a VPN. I log in to my PRA control and initiate the session. It's easy for any user. A domain name is more than enough. I can log into my PRA control, and I'll be able to access my server.

I like the enterprise credential manager. It's a connector that sits in PRA and tests the credentials for the end user with a process that will clean the password. This is one of PRA's primary features and simplifies user onboarding. There aren't many restrictions or complications. We can add the user while only opening one port, which is more than enough to access the PRA server. Every organization requires only four critical servers out of a hundred and some 50 production servers.

In PRA, it's easy to secure production and non-production environments. You can secure an organization's entire ecosystem. On a development server, we have privileged access and essential activities we will perform in production. The development server will be onboarded, and the consumed license will be less compact than other products.

Connecting to the target server takes at least 30 seconds with other tools. It is more straightforward in PRA, so the target connection takes five or ten seconds. Managing users, accounts, and services and upgrading the agents are all incredibly straightforward.

There are two methods of integration. We don't need to create accounts when it's onboarded to the PRA solution because the same server has already been onboarded to the process. You can initiate multiple sessions across the solution whenever your user wants. You can open the same server and various licenses. Users can unlock numerous servers and other products, features, and tasks. Users who don't want to access the server directly can initiate a connection without worrying about the desktop. 

Let's say I'm a user with access to the production server. I'll be using a privileged account with access to the development server. Usually, a PAM solution will try to secure one leader-created account so they don't need to worry about the development account. There is a single pane of glass so the user can be brought into the PRA solution in a fraction of a second. My area account will be given to the dynamic team to add some security groups, and the security group will be added to my PRA solution. If I'm in that security group, I'll be able to see all my servers easily.

Nobody can log in through my server without PRA access, so it maintains excellent access control. Even if I know the password, I cannot access the server because that is a restriction we can implement across the organization. We can ensure that any protocol—43, 00, SDP, 22, etc.—goes through PRA. This is a simple tool, and any access management person can easily handle it.

They can see the system information, including the voice operating system details. Everything will be flashed over there. There are two methods of connecting to PRA: jump client and jumpoint. The jumpoint method is agentless. If there's a critical server where the owner doesn't allow you to install an agent, you can still onboard that server into the PRA solution with the agentless method. 

Another great feature is built-in remote support. If an administrator needs help from the vendor, a third-party provider, or someone else within their organization, they can invite the person from within the PRA console. We can restrict the person's access to only what's necessary to provide support. With other tools, I would need to set up a video conference on WebEx or Teams and share my screen with them, and everything is in the picture. 

PRA lets you invite somebody immediately from within the console. There is a small tab on the right side. I can put the email address in and send an invitation to the other person's mailbox. They only need to launch the URL to join my session quickly.

This works on mobile devices. They can use their mobile phone to log into my session and access me. If they want to do mouse control, I can allow them to work on my screen. I can minimize my session and do other work. I can also see a complete recording of the third-party support's troubleshooting steps.  

I can provide direct access to the vendor through a separate app, but I have to open that domain. For example, if you are from XYZ domain, I can just add the domain to PRA and provide access, but creating an AD account for the vendor is a better option. However, most organizations will never give direct access to any third party. Instead, we'll create a dummy account that will be set up using my ID, and that account will be shared with you. I must access that secure area through my account whenever you want to log in. It's convenient for the third-party vendor, and the session is monitored, so you don't need to worry about complaints.

Third parties shouldn't have direct access, but maybe some guy also can log into the domain using this password. We create an account in our environment that provides access to the PRA control. They can easily access the solution using their account in my domain.

The vault functionality is straightforward. I have an account managed by Password Safe, which holds the password. Every password change is tracked in the vault, so I don't need to worry about that. I log into PRA and launch a server. Then it will prompt me for my service or local account. It's my only account. I can keep the service account, and this PRA solution will pull the service account's password from the vault. It is going to this credential over here when I log into the PRA solution, which works in this space.

BeyondTrust has multiple products, including Password Safe and PRA, integrated natively. Providing direct access to Password Safe might cause some issues, which is why PRA exists. We want to restrict the direct access to Password Safe for anyone except the password administrator. A user could be an administrator or end-user when they are onboarded to our service area, and the administrator will be onboarded for the accounts in Password Safe.

That's why we keep passwords in the vault and only provide access to the PRA solution. PRA will retrieve the passwords. If there is a server on which other services are running, PRA doesn't consider anything like it for the account. You can initiate the session and open the session server. You can see what services are running from there or whether the password has changed. 

Password Safe performs every job, and PRA is only an intermediary that takes the password from the person and opens the session. It's like a proxy server or a jump server.

Multiple areas can be improved. We've seen lots of updates in the past year.  They have a portal where we can submit our ideas. BeyondTrust is immediately implementing user suggestions. The UI could be more informative. Initially, there were two or three connectors, and now we have five or six. It would be nice if they added a few more connectors for third-party integration. There are multiple tools, but the clients may require more for their convenience.

I have been using BeyondTrust for around 18 months.

We haven't faced any issues in the past 18 months.

PRA should be scalable, but it depends on the client. We've never had any issues. We have 400-plus admins on the accounts. The total number of end users is huge, but no end users log into the privileged server. There are more than 400 admins onboarding and 6,000 trust servers.

I rate BeyondTrust support an eight out of ten. We are still in the initial stage, so we are building servers and onboarding. We have frequent calls to ensure that we are fully utilizing the product's features.

Positive

In my previous company, I worked with BeyondTrust, but I didn't use PRA.

I was not part of the initial setup, but I came on board toward the end of the deployment. I was involved in onboarding our client data. Setting up BeyondTrust PRA is simpler than other products. You have three or four servers and a primary server. Based on your recommendations, you can set up a gem server across multiple server types. It takes three or four hours, and you need to have the prerequisites in place.

It all depends on the company's requirement or the access session that is happening daily. We can use only one server or several, and it's easy to attend to those servers. I don't think integration is the hardest part. It's lightweight in terms of maintenance, but while implementing the solution, we should be careful about how we are pointing the solution so the DCD should be working properly. If you want to bring other appliances in, it's plug-and-play. 

I rate BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access an eight out of ten. If you are using a BeyondTrust product and you want to secure that process, you should use PRA, which enables you to skip a step. You don't need to worry about users having direct access to the process. 

It is used for remote access for all our partners. We bought it to replace our VPN connection for all our third-party partners and providers.

All our sensitive services are required to be hosted on-premises. That is why we needed something that offered an on-premises solution.

It has almost removed all the burdens that we had due to partner interactions via the VPN. The portal is easy to use and the self-service is really well-designed. End users are able to work without a lot of intervention from our teams. Also, when there is an issue with a password or two-factor authentication, they can reset it using the self-service option. There is not much to do now when supporting external partners.

Privileged Remote Access has improved external access to our network, which has had a positive impact on our network security.

It is very important to us that, through use of PRA, there isn't a need to share passwords with users. One of the basic best practices for securities is to avoid sharing passwords. We try to enforce this in our organization, so this is something that is mandatory for us.

It is used 90% of the time by external vendors and partners. That is the main reason why we bought this product. In terms of an attack in the network, PRA limits the possibility of access into our internal networks. The only point where they have access is PRA. According to its design, you can only access what has been configured. At the end of the day, we don't worry about what the external vendor can access on our internal network. We are just working on making sure that we give them the highest access to PRA.

In terms of security, PRA offers SSO authentication, which is a plus. It is very important to limit the use of multiple passwords, then we can just help a user focus on their jobs, not handling data passwords. 

I like the ability to have locks on every session and connection that happens on our system from the outside. So, we can do a review or investigation if something happens.

The proxy mode allows us to reproduce our attack surface.

It is really secure for remote and privileged users. It has helped us to go into detail on what someone can or cannot do on each system.

We can find real information that we need in terms of auditing and access using the Vault feature. In terms of visibility, we have all the information that we need.

PRA stands on its own as a full solution. This is important because it reduces the need to maintain a lot of different services. Also, the integration between those services are sometimes not easy to maintain. So, having a solution like BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access reducing our workload gives us enough time to work on our other issues. The system just runs and does what it is supposed to do.

The solution's Vault is a nice feature. It helps to securely share a security password in teams, but it is not at the level of a password management solution. So, it is just really a vault. We were expecting to have more features to better manage passwords, but that is something that you can work around if you also have a password safe solution. I would like them to have features like password rotation or password auditing, e.g., old passwords.

I would like to improve access to the web application, simplifying the web jumps. I would also like them to improve the Vault, which should have features closer to a light password management solution.

I have been using it for two and a half years.

The system is stable. Updates don't require a lot of work to implement. I haven't had to do a callback after a deployment or upgrade.

Two people from our team are needed for deployment and maintenance.

It is scalable, though we haven't utilized that yet.

We have around 50 users utilizing the system. Four of those are admins.

We are using the solution extensively for 100% of our needs. We are not looking to add more users to the solution at this time. If we extend our partnership to more vendors, then we might consider extending our use of the solution.

The technical support is good. Their knowledge base is well-documented. I would rate the support as nine out of 10.

Positive

We were using a VPN solution that allowed external parties to have more access and capabilities on our network. Whereas, with PRA, all access is handled by the server, though there isn't a direct connection to the end server. This limits the access and capabilities of external checks on our Internet networks. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

It took about a week to have all our systems up and running on PRA as well as have our vendors connected to the system.

We went from training to the initial deployment with BeyondTrust's Professional Services. Then, our teams handled the next step of the deployment, which was onboarding all our systems. After that, we started the migration from all our VPN solutions to PRA with our end users. We did a few parallel runs between PRA and the old solution, then we went full-on into production.

PRA was one of the cheapest solutions that we evaluated.

We did tests before purchasing the solution. We tested three other solutions. PRA's auditing was the best. It provides a lot of information. It even lets you search through video logs, which was something that we really liked.

I recommend testing some other solutions then trying Privileged Remote Access. You will notice the difference. It is robust and easy to use with many good features, like the SSO.

I would rate the solution between eight and a half and nine (out of 10).

Initially, we had a different VPN set up for our external vendors, and working for a pharmaceutical company, we had a lot of equipment vendors telecommuting in to do maintenance on the equipment. Using BeyondTrust PRA streamlined this process; it made it easy for us to manage and distribute the proper certificates and assign privileges to all external users. If one of the remote parties got a new employee, we would set up an access account using their name, providing the same permissions as their coworkers to manage parts of our infrastructure. This was an excellent addition to our company and alleviated a lot of pressure from our support staff.

We signed a contract with a new IT management firm that took over our IT support. That's 300 new employees that needed access to the right groups, et cetera. It took just one day to create the 300 accounts and assign them to the proper teams. PRA streamlines the onboarding process, even for large groups of new remote helpers, setting up the correct templates, having the Discovery in place, and assigning and revoking access.

We like the integration with Active Directory. It allows us to discover the endpoints and user accounts that need protection. It's a good way of securing our privileged access.

Another feature I like is the approach to jump points. Jump points are the external-facing proxies, which use the same outbound HTTPS connection method as the jump client but allow the initiation of RDP connections, et cetera, into the downstream networks. This feature was the key selling point for us in choosing BeyondTrust PRA. 

The security provided by the solution regarding remote and privileged access is about as good as we can get without completely locking down permissions. Going with PRA is the best step if a client is looking to lock down administrative access with a remote solution while applying the principle of least privilege. 

We used the solution's Vault to add not just service accounts but also the users' main administrative accounts discovered through Active Directory. We limited permissions, so users couldn't even review their account passwords. This was managed in the Vault and injected into each session. 

Compared to other products, PRA is one of the better ones. We need to start the discovery manually, but it's comprehensive and clear. It allows us to select what to import and has the automation behind it to manage endpoints and accounts, which is a valuable feature for any enterprise business.

The physical solution wasn't as important to us; our architecture strategy was SaaS first, virtual later. If BeyondTrust didn't have a SaaS offering, we would look at availability to install it in one of the public cloud offerings on the market. Having the SaaS option available, especially for medium-sized businesses, is very much something that gives BeyondTrust an edge in the market. 

The solution improved our network security. Especially regarding remote vendors, it allowed us to complete our network segregation goals. We could close down all external access to that network and leverage PRA as the single entry point. 

Not needing to share passwords is essential to us. We have peace of mind knowing nobody can view passwords, share credentials, and operate outside their defined context within the network unless they have explicit permissions. That helps us sleep at night.  

Previously, third parties had VPN access, and it was important for us to shut that down. Now that the entry point is closed, there is only one dimension for us to consider; which vendor has access to what. This makes management and the general security picture clearer.  

SSO authentication was one of our main requirements, so that integration was crucial. It allows us to provide quick access to the tool itself using the same credentials. 

The solution stands above its competitors in this regard. Using the team functionality allows us to create groups of users with a team leader who can monitor those sessions. This functionality works great, and PRA is at the top of the spectrum here. Having somebody at a physical station and someone remotely accessing the station works very well, especially for training purposes. The recording functionality is another nice feature; the video view is small but can be expanded to a larger view. 

The integration client, backup solution, and SSO setup and provisioning could be improved. There isn't any documented or supported user provisioning currently, which slows down the processes of onboarding and assigning permissions. I would like to see this improved soon.

The Vault could use some attention, specifically in managing named administrative accounts. I have to assign permissions to my named admin account during sessions manually, but I think that should be the default. Admin account permissions could use some more automation and be adjusted to be more user-centric.

BeyondTrust could improve text-based auditing; it's not very readable. I can get the details through the jump client and other tools, but if I run a simple PowerShell command, the solution generates multiple lines for that specific session in the text audit, which doesn't make sense.

I was the lead implementer for the solution for one of my clients, a global pharmaceutical company. The project took over a year, and I used the product for another six months as both an end user and an admin before leaving that job. I used the solution for almost two years in total.

The solution never let me down during the entire implementation; though the integration client was the opposite, I was never satisfied with it. I recall some stability issues stemming from significant database actions that slowed down the system. There was also a bug that took both our team and the BeyondTrust team three business days to resolve, which didn't help with our impression of the tool.

I would say the SaaS offering isn't particularly scalable. The more endpoints we added, the more sluggish the tool became. However, BeyondTrust's high availability approach offers much better scalability on the backend side, and endpoints with added jump points can be clustered for higher availability. The sky is the limit by improving the database size and storage at the backend.

We had over 600 total users; mostly IT support and admin teams. There were also 10 to 20 vendors each with three to ten users that used the tool to remotely manage equipment. 

The product is used daily by a large number of users simultaneously. Before I left the company, the highest number of concurrent sessions I saw was 25. If I had to estimate, I would say PRA is used for over 300 sessions daily with the same number of users.

I would like to differentiate the implementation team and the technical support as they are two separate entities. The implementation team could improve how they guide the customer through the process. The technical support staff are knowledgeable and do everything they can to help, but they aren't the easiest to reach. They don't do user-to-user sessions, and the only way to reach them is through tickets. There is a chat function, but that's more for gleaning more details of the issue; I often just wanted to pick up the phone and ask someone a question or explain my problem to them. BeyondTrust's documentation appears to be aimed more toward executives than technicians, and that doesn't help the situation either.

This may have been specific to how we wanted to implement the solution, but a lot of technical information was missing. It took some back and forth through the ticket system to finally get that information via a member of support staff doing a screen-sharing session. Screen sharing is much more effective than only having a text chat, but it took too long for us to get there.

I would still give them a seven out of ten because they're very knowledgeable and do everything they can to help. The support system is impersonal; especially when we were starting out, that personal touch makes all the difference. Ultimately, this is about the security of our organization; we don't want to go back and forth with bots and tickets before finally reaching a member of staff who can help us.

Neutral

The initial setup was complex because we didn't know precisely what we wanted to achieve and neither did BeyondTrust, and the communication between us wasn't the best. It took a while for us to realize what we wanted to achieve, how the solution could deliver that, and in what configuration, and they could have helped us out more with that. It isn't easy to fill out the integration sheet; it requires a fair amount of product knowledge.

It took us six months to understand the basics and set up the tool according to our requirements. It took another six months to get the implementation going. That is partly because the pharmaceutical company required the solution to be qualified. That process took time because BeyondTrust didn't have much relevant documentation; we had to write much of it ourselves.

Deployment can be completed with one engineer and one server admin, with the latter deploying the clients and jump points. Once we understood the basic principles of the product, it became straightforward to implement. BeyondTrust could better convey that to new customers unfamiliar with their solution. A dedicated team of three to four staff is sufficient for deploying and maintaining the solution for an enterprise business.

I wasn't directly involved in the licensing and pricing, but I can say that PRA is licensed per endpoint added to the Vault. I would advise users to take frequent exports of their license usage package; it's a simple feature that provides a spreadsheet of every machine in the Vault. This helps to cut down on duplicate licenses, which can happen by adding the same endpoint using an IP address and a fully qualified domain name, for instance.

The implementation is an additional cost, and they offer several tiers, so the price varies. There are also some optional add-ons, so I would advise people to research the product well and find out precisely what they need regarding features. The Advanced Web Access add-on provides some required functionality when interfacing with websites; that's one to consider.

We reviewed two other vendors: CyberArk and Devolutions, but we eventually went with BeyondTrust for several reasons. Devolutions fell off quickly because it's too small, which is a risk. We liked the approach of operating over an outbound HTTPS connection to the SaaS appliance, which was more of a security benefit for us than the CyberArk solution, so we went with PRA.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

I would advise potential customers to have an excellent understanding of their requirements and what their landscape will look like five years down the line. Consider if the SaaS offering is appropriate, as I understand switching to a self-hosted instance isn't a straightforward process, so it's essential to plan.

If I need a privileged remote access solution in my future endeavors, BeyondTrust's offering will be my go-to, and I recommend it for any size of business.

We went with the SaaS version of the solution and had some regrets about that. Pharmaceutical companies must comply with a host of rules and regulations, and one of the requirements was to keep recordings of every session for over 90 days. The SaaS solution's storage did not meet our needs in a large enterprise environment. We had to use a third-party backup tool provided by BeyondTrust to download sessions to our local storage, but it was a poor tool; the error handling and logging functions were sub-standard.

The ability to operate without a VPN wasn't particularly a requirement. Our project aimed to secure administrative access, so our focus was more on user accounts than endpoints and connections. During our market research, we discovered that few solutions focus on privileged identity management; they're usually integrated with PAM tools like BeyondTrust PRA.

As a technician, I can vouch for both ends of that spectrum. The benefit of PRA being a standalone solution in our case is the ability to quickly and definitively sever that tie into our network. That being said, the solution currently doesn't solve all of our privileged access difficulties; we still have to manage roles and privileges in cloud solutions. I don't think there is a product on the market that allows for efficient management of both worlds; the cloud SaaS product and on-premises remote access.

Regarding leveraging service accounts as a password manager, there are better solutions, including BeyondTrust's own Password Safe, which integrates well. In terms of managing remote access accounts, PRA does an excellent job and provides relatively fine-grain policy permissions customization. We can have users operating accounts where they cannot view the password, and other users can access the password if needed to access some legacy applications, for example.

We have two use cases. We have it for the PAM, Privileged Identity (PI), the Vault solution, and Password List. We also have it on the desktop side of the house for our admin accounts.

Our network requires that Privileged Remote Access (PRA) does not require a VPN.

We are extensively using Privileged Identity, but not PRA.

We are one version back from the latest.

PRA only works in our Windows environment. It has helped us with not being able to see the password for our security reasons, but only in a subset of our environment. We only use it for password injection. We wanted it for all platforms, but it doesn't work. So, it is only used in our Windows environment.

It met a NIS control in which we needed to not have passwords visible to users because of malicious activity that happened to our company. That is the only positive effect that it has had so far. We have been able to go to the Windows platform and inject the passwords without people viewing passwords. It is not helping us with our Linux or cloud environments.

For the most part, it has been meeting our requirements for safe controls and just-in-time access.

It has been semi-easy to configure.

The visibility of the solution's Vault works as it is supposed to: out-of-the-box for domain accounts, endpoints, and local accounts associated with discovery jobs.

It is important to us that PRA offers SSO authentication. Our strategic requirements for NIS control, CCMC, and other regulations want us to do multifactor and single sign-on. 

We have been having some problems as of late.

One of our gaps or pain points is having multi-factor authentication at the endpoint and using the PRA password injection from BeyondTrust, which does not work in our environment. We can only have MFA at the login of BeyondTrust to check out the password. Therefore, we can't meet our security requirements of having it on the endpoint.

The solution's Vault seems to do what we need. It has some gaps when it is trying to process the password through multiple applications. If it fails, it doesn't notify us that it has failed. So, we only find that failure when we have an escalation or have to go back through to see what has happened, e.g., why the password didn't reset accurately. While it has some gaps, it works for the scenario that we need for the most part.

When we decided on this solution, it was extremely important to us that PRA was available in multiple formats, such as a physical and virtual appliance or as SaaS. Unfortunately, we can't use PRA because of our environment, which was disheartening. When we were sold the tool, they said that we could, but we can't because our environment is highly customized. We have so many use cases that it is not a feature that can be used across platforms for us.

We use PI and PRA together. If someone has checked out an account in PI, the session is open, and PI closed or checked back that account. Then, someone else checks out an account that is still active in a session, which causes multiple lockouts.

10 years.

The stability is not good. It has been taking over a year to get our platform. BeyondTrust hasn't been able to figure out what's wrong or why. We have been notified just recently, as of Friday, of two additional bugs in PRA. I don't consider this tool stable if there are bugs.

I have an internal team who manages all maintenance, batching, and fixing.

I don't have a good impression of scalability because we can't get past having a Windows platform.

We have over 130,000 people in our company. Only 100 people are able to use it because that is the amount of servers that we can deploy.

We have a dedicated TAM. We have a dedicated technical manager who helps us with any questions or deployment issues. We create tickets, working through him, and he goes to Level 3 if needed.

We have about 10 tickets open. 

We started with PI when it was Bomgar and Lieberman. We have also been using the Vault solution. Last year, we purchased PRA to help with our mitigation of malicious findings from a major outage from the malicious findings.

The initial setup was a bit confusing. We had to have our TAM help. We had problems right out of the box. It was not a smooth setup for us.

We have been trying for over a year. We only have 8,000 out of 26,000 servers deployed. It is not fully deployed because we don't have all our platforms working with PRA. 

We wanted all servers in our environment on all our platforms to have password injection, helping with the malicious activity and stopping people from seeing passwords. We were trying to meet some findings, but we didn't meet those findings.

We have a dedicated TAM from BeyondTrust, whom we pay for through an annual contract, and they help us.

We have not seen ROI when it comes to PRA.

Be cautious about:

• The number of licenses.
• What you consider a license does.
• Who your members are. 

Don't get into a situation where you are licensing per desktop or per person until you fully understand the licensing.

We pay an additional fee for a TAM.

After the PRA situation that we have been having for a year, we have been looking at other tools that can meet our requirements better than BeyondTrust. We are trying to move to other different modules.

We would like to use PRA, but it is not meeting our requirements for our different platforms. So, we are moving the password protection possibly to EPM because PRA cannot meet our requirements.

Know the requirements that you are trying to meet. This way, you purchase the correct module for the requirements that you are trying to meet. PRA is not always the correct module for certain requirements that you need if your environment isn't straightforward with only one operating system. If you are only in Azure and Windows, it probably works very well. However, if you have a hybrid or multiple platforms, then it is not the best tool.

For PRA specifically, our requirements weren't understood from point one. Our TAM said it would work, and once we got into it, it did not work. 

I would rate PRA as five out of 10.

It is used for server access. I am using the latest version. Initially, I started with 10.6, and now, I am on the latest version.

It is currently on-premises, and down the line, we will be moving to the cloud. As of now, we have physical appliances for PRA. We do have plans to move the cloud. We've added two more servers at our end, and they will be moved to the cloud. 

Our client was using a different product, and they were not able to manage some critical parts. So, they started looking for a replacement, and they found BeyondTrust. As soon as they brought in this product, it was a very easy configuration. Implementing this product was very easy. It doesn't require much. It is very simple, and we can implement it in a week or two, which is what I like about BeyondTrust. It takes much longer to bring in other products. It is also very easy to bring privileged accounts into the product. It is much easier to do management and operational tasks as compared to other solutions.

It is very simple. You just open the URL, and you'll be able to see all your servers. Previously, it was a very tough task. There was either direct access or a VPN. There were a lot of restrictions for connecting to the VPN. There were also some other restrictions to access other products, such as if they want to go for SSO and other things. BeyondTrust is very easy. The users can open a URL, and they will be able to see all their servers. It is very easy for the users, and we are getting very good feedback from the users as well. Previously, there were multiple steps to connect, and now, there is only one step to connect to the servers remotely.

It is a very secure product, which is very important for us. For example, there are 5 to 10 users of an application, and everybody has access to a different machine. With this product, we can easily do segregation of duties and segregation of the server connectivity. Everybody is able to see the servers, but only those people who have access will be able to log into a server with a single click. It is a great tool, and everything has improved over here. Until now, we haven't faced any issues with this product. It is very simple and secure.

We use the vault for service account management. All the passwords and all the credentials get vaulted. In the PRA console, users can select the correct credential and log in. They don't have to know or see the actual password. Whenever a privileged account is managed by a PAM solution, there is a connector between the PRA solution and the PAM solution. This connector gets the credentials and injects them without any manual intervention. Other solutions also have this feature, but in BeyondTrust, it is very simple and different. The connector does all the work in the background.

It does good discovery. When we are trying to pull the local accounts, every local account is visible in the scanned report, and we can easily identify that this is a local account. We'll also be able to get a list of the domain accounts parallelly. There is a clear set of data indicating whether an account is a domain account or a local account. For cross verification, we also check with the application team whether these accounts are domain accounts or local accounts. The scanner works very well for us.

We can bring all kinds of accounts into the solution. Most products target privileged accounts or the accounts with privileged access. With this product, you can segregate a privileged account, a local account, and a normal account or a user account with the least privilege. All these accounts can be brought into the solution.

Through the use of PRA, there is no need to share passwords with users. There is no password sharing. Everything is vaulted. There are two types of integration in PRA. One is with the privileged accounts that are already managed by the PAM solution. The other one is with the least privileged accounts, such as a local account or a test account. Those accounts will be managed by the end-users. If I have the access to the privileged account, my password will be injected from the other solution by using the connector from PAM to PRA. If I have a local account on a test server or a development environment, the connection will be initiated from the PRA solution, and it'll be encrypted and monitored. All other features will also be there. I only have to key in the password.

We use the solution to provide access to third-party vendors. We can't create an AD account or some other account for the vendors in my organization because of some security and violation concerns. With the PRA solution, it is very easy. I can just add or create an account, and I can map this account only for the PRA solution. Whenever they log in, all the sessions are recorded. In case of any violation or issue, I have the recorded session. I can go and check what happened to the server. This way, it helps the vendors a lot, and a vendor doesn't need my intervention whenever they want to log in, even if he is in a different timezone. Previously, I had to be available for the session. I used to share the session via some other third-party platform, such as Teams or Skype, and my availability was very important. If I close the session, the session would get closed for them too.

It offers SSO authentication. We have multi-factor authentication, and we have RADIUS and other authentications. Multi-factor authentication is mandatory across any application or any URL.

In terms of session auditing and monitoring of third-party and remote work access, I have worked with another solution that was only for privileged accounts or privileged servers. PRA can be used for both privileged accounts and non-privileged accounts in the development environment. All transactions or accesses get checked and recorded. So, it is very easy for an administrator to manage the solution across the organization.

When it comes to the Privileged Remote Access (PRA) solution, instead of depending on a VPN client, from Cisco or any other vendor, we can directly use this product from the internet. It is very easy to do the implementation, and it is easy for every user to access the server from outside of their organization. They can open the URL and put their name and password, and it'll do the multi-factor authentication. They can easily access the server. Prior to this solution, the users had to log into the VPN, which is not required with BeyondTrust. Now, they can use their computer over the internet. In Privileged Access Management (PAM), the AD bridging feature where you can bring all your Linux boxes into the tool is an important feature.

I have been using this solution for close to three years.

Its stability is good.

Its scalability is very good. It makes things easier for the end-users.

I am an administrator of the PRA here. All the users in my organization are using this. There are more than 900 users, and there are some 4,000 or 5,000 servers. It is being used on a daily basis. We are in the process of increasing its usage.

Their support is very good. As soon as we log a case, their support engineers respond and help us out. The response time depends on the severity of the case. For a severity C case, they get back in a day or two. For a severity B case, they get back within 24 hours, and for severity A case, they get back immediately. They respond and resolve the issue within defined SLAs. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have worked on another solution previously, which is a market leader. I wanted to get into a product that was booming in the market. I was very focused on this solution because I knew this is going to be a market leader in the coming days. I was going through some articles on the internet, and suddenly, I got the opportunity in my company to work with BeyondTrust. I was very happy to get into this. It is working very well.

I was not a part of the complete deployment. When I joined this organization, deployment was already done. Some fine-tuning was happening, and I was part of that. It took about two weeks to fine-tune it based on the requirements, and that's all.

Overall, its setup is very simple. It would take us a week or two to bring other solutions into the organization, but we can bring in this solution within a week. We can easily bring 10 to 20 servers into the product.

For its implementation, probably there was someone who helped us remotely.

I have got a very good impression of BeyondTrust. It is a very good and booming product across the globe. I have been using this solution for close to three years, and I am still learning about its full capability. There is a lot to be explored.

They provide a lot of updates, and I am able to see a lot of fine-tuning happening. We can bring our own tool, and if we have an RDP tool, that can also be integrated. They are adding many features related to reporting, connectivity, and stabilization of connectivity. They are improving their product in every aspect.

BeyondTrust has many products such as PAM and PRA. AD bridging is also there. Specifically, with the PRA, you can ignore VPN. You don't have to pay for a license for the VPN. You can use this product.

All servers, with privileged activities as well as those without privileged activities, are assets of the organization. They all also should be monitored and should be in the control of the organization. PRA is helpful there because you can also onboard the least privileged servers. This helps a lot because everything is recorded and monitored. The management will have a crystal clear report about who accessed them and for what. Everything will be very clear.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. It makes the life of end-users easier.

The help desk utilizes it for basic end-user support to make sure they can get something installed or just walk through an issue with an end-user. I use it a lot for helping other admins to fix servers.

Our RPA team also uses it. They basically have virtual desktops that have a script running on them constantly to move data from one location to another manually. They get in, and they use it to manage 50 different desktops for that team. So, three team members manage those 50 clients just to make sure that they're processing all the data correctly throughout the day.

We have a cloud solution. The virtual server is in the cloud, and then it installs the client down to all of our desktops. From there, the ones that utilize it install the admin client on their machines.

We have 20 accounts in there that are utilizing the solution, but not all of them are active at the same time. Throughout the day, all 20 of those may go in. They do what they need to do and then drop out of it to free up a license.

It provides us the ability to get an end-user back up and running and keep them running efficiently. We can fix something usually within hours, instead of a half a day to three days. They don't have to pack their stuff up, come into the office, and hand it to us to work on it. We're able to truly just sit there with them and help them get their issues resolved. It keeps our business moving.

It saves time. Without it, the RPA team would need all of those desktops in a physical format sitting in their office, and they would have to be on them 100%. Their time savings alone probably is man-days. They are not just saving hours per week. For the RPA team, I can't even begin to give the time and the amount of work this product saves. For the help desk and the rest of the tier-two support, it probably saves 2 hours a day for each member. There are roughly 10 of us, which is 20 hours a day of time savings of workload.

It is important for us that it does not require a VPN. Now that half of our people are remote, our data lives on OneDrive or Microsoft SharePoint. They don't need to be remoted into us through a VPN to be able to get everything. When we remote in, it is nice to not have to worry about whether they are on a VPN because for any number of reasons, they might not be able to get into the VPN, such as our VPN is down or the Dallas office is messing up. So, this flexibility gives us more options, and we like that.

Its security is very tight. I'm the one who manages who can use the software to remote into other machines. In my opinion, it is more powerful than what we need, and I am glad that it is because it gives me room to grow our teams to allow them to do more if they need to or restrict some to only do certain things if they don't need as many privileges whenever they go in.

It is available in multiple formats: as a physical and virtual appliance, or as SaaS. It is very important to have it accessible in multiple ways, whether it be on-prem or SaaS. It allows me to know that if my solution goes down, in a short period of time, I can get somebody to help me get something back up and running.

We can truly elevate our admin rights while we're in there to fully take control of a system and manage it as if it was sitting right here on our desk. Most of the organization has gone to remote work or work from home. With that being the case, this solution allows us to be able to still work with our end-users, even though they're not always sitting on our network.

Its management is through two different portals, and you can't get from one portal to the other. I have to literally open up another website and go into it a different way. There are no inner links between the two. They should interlink the actual virtual server and the appliance. In general, there should be one interface for management for admins.

I have been using this solution for close to seven or eight years. I have used it in two different companies. In my current company, we've been using it for a good long time. I don't remember when they originally started using the product. It was before I came on board, but I have been using it here for four years, and I've been the admin on it for a year. The previous admin left the company. So, I took over because I had the most experience.

It doesn't go down. The only time it goes down is whenever I tell it to go down. When I need to do some updates, it requires scheduling and taking it down, but the updates are user-friendly. It is time-consuming, and I can't schedule it. The way it is set up currently, I'm not able to just say, "Hey, do this at this time," and know that it is going to get done. I have to actually be involved with it. I am not sure if it is because of our setup or BeyondTrust. I haven't had enough training to know for sure if that's possible or not.

I have used their support. Every time I've used it, they have been very useful and beneficial. It has not been one of those things where I've felt I needed to spend the resources to see if they could walk me through setting it up. I used their support only a handful of times in both companies. In the past four years, I've only used them three times because the product is solid. I would rate their support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

I have used another solution. There is a night and day difference. Whenever
BeyondTrust is installed, it works, whereas the other one didn't work half the time. The BeyondTrust solution is absolutely reliable. If anybody ever asks me for remote access software for corporate-wide usage, this is what I'd tell them to go with.

I have not been a part of its deployment. In both organizations, it had already been deployed, but I know it was pretty straightforward. I've talked to the admins for both companies because I've always enjoyed this product. I just always wanted to know more about it, and both of them said, "It was one of the easiest." Working with BeyondTrust or Bomgar was super intuitive, user-friendly, and streamlined whenever they were setting up the product.

I wish it was a little bit cheaper, but when a product is as solid as this, I understand what the cost does. It helps them to make sure it stays that way. If you want a reliable, solid product, you're going to pay more.

I am testing the Vault for service account management, but the problem with it is that the admin credentials on local machines are randomly generated on a randomly generated timeframe. So, the Vault password can't be saved. Every machine is different, and the only way to get that password is to go into another portal, which is frustrating. It is not Bomgar's or BeyondTrust's issue. It is the way we chose to manage that particular account. I'm one of the only ones who utilize it, and I utilize it mainly for testing. If we had a full PAM or our PAM was truly integrated and was BeyondTrust's PAM solution, it would elevate our use of the Vault more, but I am glad that it is there. It allows me to save some passwords that I don't utilize on a regular basis. I don't have to remember those, and I don't have to keep them at multiple different locations. I can just put them there, and I don't have to worry about it. They're safe. They're secure, and they're easy to just have. The system pushes them through. So, I don't even see them anymore. So, it is double secure in my opinion because I don't have to even see the password to remember to type that in somewhere. It just puts it in for me. I appreciate that from the security side.

It hasn't had an effect on our network security outside of we had to open a couple of ports when remote happened so that the software gets installed correctly. It wasn't something concerning. It is truly a benefit in the long run.

When compared with some competitive products that are add-ons to PAM solutions, it is important that PRA stands on its own as a full solution. It needs to be its own solution but also interlink with other solutions. 

We don't use the solution to provide access to third-party vendors. It also offers SSO authentication, but I wish it worked with our solution.

I know we can do session auditing and monitoring of third-party and remote-worker access, but we just haven't used the capability. We have also not used audio integration during a remote session.

I would rate it a 10 out of 10.

I am in the energy sector. The solution is primarily used for something called interactive remote access. We have a secure environment where we manage the energy grid. The BeyondTrust PRA solution helps us meet a compliance requirement since we need to establish a protocol break before we start working on the electrical grid. Therefore, we don't have to walk into the room where the stuff is. It can be remotely accessed for us internally for the most part.

Right now, it is in the NERC system, which is the compliance control. This has an electronic access control system that allows us to get to our stuff. It also allows our vendors to possibly get to our stuff.

I use the tool everyday. I am logged into it right now. It allows me to do my job. I know that I am using the right thing, looking at who goes into what. If somebody needs help with a secure site, I can usually hop and help them, then it is done. It is very good and flexible. It allows me to do my job quite well.

Having a single point of getting anywhere running through its box is like another firewall. It is controlling all access to our secure network so nothing else can get through. Outside of the firewall, it is our network security. 

It is a real fortress. Its security is very strong. Multi-factor came as a feature out-of-the-box, which was big for us. That helps us meet another compliance requirement. It enforces encryption. Nobody can see what we are doing in our remote system if they happen to be listening for unencrypted traffic. That is its biggest strength.

Having a VPN just means maintenance. I have worked in the industry for around 10 years and have never enjoyed really working on anything requiring a VPN, either working over it or supporting it. As far as IT is concerned, it is no longer a great technology. We like how this solution uses a protocol that enforces encryption right away, like HTTPS. So, the solution is good to go and takes out one of the moving parts, since VPN can get quite complicated.

PRA is available in multiple formats: as a physical and virtual appliance, or as SaaS. We appreciate the flexibility, though we went with the physical in our deployment. We might go to the cloud or use a virtual appliance later. Therefore, I appreciate the flexibility. However, we went with the reliable physicals.

PRA offers SSO authentication, which adds to the encryption suite. You need to have it in order for the appliance to work. It makes compliance easier.

It is too much of a fortress. It is difficult for us to report on compliance when I need to check for that device. For instance, I need to monitor what version that device is on, and it is quite complicated for us to do that. You can't connect to it traditionally and that is by design. While they have made some improvements in their API connectivity, it is just not quite what I would really like. It requires me to kind of apply some aftermarket steps in order to get what I need.

There is no connectivity to the appliance side. There is no API, and it is just difficult for me to capture what version the device is on without going in and doing screenshots. It is a little too secure in that regard, where they don't even trust their product owner. Since a lot of hacks come from the inside, they are probably doing what they need to do out of necessity. It is just that I have to work pretty hard to produce compliance data on the box.

You can usually API into something and get whatever you need. Or, you can have an SSH saying, "Do whatever you need. Just do a Git version command." There is none of that with BeyondTrust. However, this is the least of my concerns compared to whatever it grants us in freedom for all our security compliance requirements that it helps us meet.

I have been using it for three years.

The physical appliances don't have dual-power supplies. Anytime our power goes out, like even for a second, it has a lot of trouble recovering, even though we have two of them in a cluster. It has trouble recovering after a power-related event on the physical side. We know that we don't really have a redundant BeyondTrust PRA, but they would probably tell me to use a cloud or virtual appliance.

Scaling is pretty simple. We can stretch it to different operating systems, devices, and command lines. We can use it in any way that we want, either on stuff or from stuff. I am confident we can work with it for whatever needs to be done.

The technical support has been okay. There have not been too many inquiries. I have asked questions from a developer on how to connect to it and gather the compliance data and was able to get an answer, which was nice.

Positive

Some people working remotely have used TeamViewer. However, we have migrated the privileged remote access since then for our security flexibility.

We looked into this solution for its ability to meet our compliance requirement. It is one of the leaders in Interactive Remote Access. When an auditor or whomever sees the solution, they say, "Okay, you are on BeyondTrust. This should be pretty simple." Out-of-the-box, it meets a lot of requirements. We don't need to go out of our way to prove requirements because they are in the manual of the solution saying, "There is encryption." 

When the world went remote, we also looked to get off TeamViewer rather quickly and enforce users getting onto a privileged remote access solution. We wanted more control of who could come into the network as well as not be subject to a hack of TeamViewer. Now, we have everything run through our internal network instead of bouncing off Germany.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. It is simple and elegant in its design. It is pretty clear how to get things configured. There are a few quirks with getting some policies in force for particular types of workers. Once you get that down and have it working, it is a set-and-forget solution. It is not nearly as complicated as some other implementations that we have done with different apps.

It took two weeks to implement.

Instantly, we were compliant with one of the SIP standards.

It doesn't allow for multiple monitors without some extra steps. TeamViewer allows you to open a monitor in one tab and another monitor in another, then you can drag that tab to your monitors at home. Therefore, you can have a dual monitor setup at home. BeyondTrust doesn't work like that, and our users hate it. It is possible to do this with RDP technology, but next to email, RDP is one of the least secure protocols in the world. We don't really want to use that, but we have been kind of forced to lately when trying to get away from TeamViewer. That is one thing that TeamViewer has, it can tab to multi-monitor support.

PRA stands on its own as a full solution. We appreciate their presence in that realm. You will get part of what you want from TeamViewer, but you are getting quite a bit more with a PRA. You can roll it out via on-prem, cloud, or virtual. You control a lot more of it, controlling what people do. Whereas, with TeamViewer, that is so much more difficult. 

I am considering a cheaper competitor since that is what we moved over from. However, I don't think that we have really looked at many other vendors for this since I have exactly what I need from BeyondTrust.

We are monitoring vendor sessions. We will probably start monitoring our own so we can use it to see what happens in regards to a security incident. We can also go back and use it for troubleshooting or see exactly what somebody did inside of their remote session. At some point, we look forward to turning on the session recording. We just hadn't done it yet, not for internal staff.

There is no unattended remote access for vendors that I am aware of, but we know that we can use the solution to do that. Some have done that in the past. We just don't do it all the time and probably not in the last year.

My usage of the solution is primarily in the secure network. I don't have any kinds of sounds that I really need to listen to.

It is hard for us to roll so much trust into one thing at a time, because what happens when that thing is gone? You need to have an adequate backup plan, and we have not quite gone that far yet.

We have an audit coming up this year, because of that it is hard to really decide to do anything new. We kind of have been told, "Hey, stop getting new stuff. You have to get through the audit first."

I would rate PRA as 10 out of 10.