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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs IDERA SQL Compliance Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

IBM Security Guardium Data ...
Ranking in Database Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IDERA SQL Compliance Manager
Ranking in Database Security
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Database Security category, the mindshare of IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is 32.1%, up from 30.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IDERA SQL Compliance Manager is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Security
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmer Faisel Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers mature agents, compliance reporting and reliable database security
The solution should allow the data to shift to a centralized repository with elastic servers and big data infrastructure. If a customer searches for old logs for retention purposes, there are limitations on appliances once they are set with specific hardware, so they can only be changed by uninstalling or reinstalling the hardware. The solution's aggregator feature allows data aggregation, but for instance, if a customer wants a project ready in two years, having an Elasticsearch in DB or the capacity to store huge amounts of data would be beneficial in data investigation or evaluation at an affordable cost. Some AI features should be added to IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. For example, the AI features implemented in the solution can be anomaly detection or suspicious activity identification.
Database5b8b - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to track changes to databases and tables, but the dashboard doesn't always work as expected
What would really be nice is if it were a bit more flexible, in several ways. The assistant for creating rules is nice, as it looks like Microsoft Outlook, but it's not flexible enough. What would really a good thing is if you could refer to an external list or table for filtering on, say, certain applications, IP addresses, or host names; or perhaps even combinations of host name and application name. Because in our environment, we're suffering from the fact that we have a huge amount of login events. A really huge amount of login events. We have gigabytes of login and logout from the same application; sometimes, several thousand times within one second. These are very badly coded applications for sure, but we have a lot of that. We didn't code them ourselves. It's bought software. We need filter rules for certain combinations as I mentioned above. These rules have to be maintained and have to be audited by the people that take care of the applications that cause the login events. It's difficult for us because we don't want to give them access to Compliance Manager. What would very much easier for us is to give them some kind of self-service to take care of a list of a combination of host, account, and application name, because only they know whether this combination is valid or not. They know how their application service is named and what services they're using. They have to maintain this list. It would be much easier if there was a table that we would maintain, or they would maintain via self-service, and we could use this table to establish these filter rules. At the moment, we have to check all the rules after this table is maintained by our colleagues who maintain or run the applications. After that, I wrote a stored procedure that creates, depending on the table, new rules in Compliance Manager, but that's a workaround. It's not a really nice solution, so it would be much better if Compliance Manager would have functionality like that built in. That's one thing. Another nice feature would be concerning GDPR: some kind of base-lining of database access or some kind of inventory for tables or certain columns or types of columns. IDERA already has several other tools, free tools, to search for certain criteria of columns holding things like credit card numbers, for example. It would be nice if that would be a feature within Compliance Manager, as it's very a very similar thing, it goes hand in hand.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our main focus for IBM Guardium is to support security initiatives and compliance policies within our organization. We use the DPD product for monitoring, especially for GDPR, SOX regulations and, of course, the vulnerability assessment that we use to make sure we're keeping up with our patches, making sure things are configured, making sure we're following the best practices."
"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."
"Our internal audit is keeping an eye out, and making sure that we're in compliance. Having the Guardium solution and its reporting helps us get through that process a lot more quickly and efficiently."
"Security policy enforcement of policy-based encryption and centralized encryption key management allows us to maintain data in a secure environment."
"Compliance Quick Start – Quick, GUI, step-by-step guide to automate compliance and give the customer a quick ROI."
"IBM Guardium Data Protection is very good at keeping your database secure."
"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."
"It's made database monitoring more visible to the business, creating more conversations about how we should do it better."
"The ability to track activity including the SQL statements is definitely valuable. I really like how the database is laid out. It's straightforward. I can query the back-end tables. I've made a few of my own email alerts based on the data and the tables. It's accessible."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The tool can track logins and login failures. I made my own alert so that if there is a certain number of login failures for a server, it emails me. That is really useful. If I want logins to automatically lock out after a certain number of failed attempts, I can know when that happens."
 

Cons

"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."
"Needs easier integration with custom applications."
"Could be more user friendly; deployment is a little complex."
"They could enable the out-of-the-box feature to track application user activity."
"The solution could be improved for NoSQL databases."
"The solution lacks control over database security."
"An area for improvement would be the user interface - currently, it takes around two to three months to become comfortable using it."
"The backup and recovery is very resource-hungry and requires a huge amount of storage capacity."
"What would really a good thing is if you could refer to an external list or table for filtering on, say, certain applications, IP addresses, or host names; or perhaps even combinations of host name and application name."
"There is an agent that collects the data on SQL Server. Sometimes it will stop collecting. I'm not exactly sure what's happening but I have to go in and manually restart the agent. It would be nice if the central collection server could send a request to the agent to restart."
"Its filtration and navigation are not the best."
"The set up is kind of clunky, in my opinion. It's not really intuitive. If they had either a smoother install or better instructions, that would be nice."
"I submitted a ticket (last year) about archiving/grooming of old records because the GUI functionality was not working. Per their recommendation, I ended up using a command line to do it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would suggest to review the type of data, need for security, and if the organizational structure needs the options IBM Guardium provides."
"Reasonable cost but could be lower."
"IBM solutions have fair price strategy, and operates on a yearly basis. If it's a SaaS solution, then you can opt for yearly basis."
"It is a very costly product."
"IBM Guardium Data Protection charges you based on the number of users, e.g. based on the number of licenses, and it's either on a per-license or a per-data basis."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"For IBM Guardium, licensing is very simple and straightforward. There are no issues I can speak of."
"The cost depends on the number of databases. You can purchase advanced licenses, but the standard license is calculated based on the number of databases you have to onboard."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"It's a good price value... The other tools weren't cheaper."
"The pricing is pretty good."
"The product is cheaper than other products I checked but it is still a good idea to check again and compare."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?
IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Guardium Data Protection?
The pricing is good, and I have no problem with it. Although there is no flexibility to compete with other products, it generally costs between one hundred and three hundred thousand per year depen...
What do you like most about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection?
The features I like are the robust policies, which allow us to create customized monitoring based on specific activities.
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Also Known As

InfoSphere Guardium, Guardium, IBM Guardium
IDERA SQL CM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hanger; AmerisourceBergen; CMS Energy; Manulife Financial; Patterson Companies; Pfizer; Rockwell Automation; TrialCard; Unum; Verizon Communications; Skygen USA; Calpine Energy Solutions; Standard Chartered PLC; TrialCard, Inc.; Raffles Hospital; Houston Methodist; Community America Credit Union; Noble Americas Energy Solutions LLC; QuikTrip Corporation; HUK COBURG; OneBeacon Insurance Group, Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs. IDERA SQL Compliance Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.