Symantec Privileged Access Manager Reviews

When you look at the whole PAM itself, session manager is very important. It records what happens. Access manager and credential manager are very important as well. Those are the key things. Session manager, access manager, and credential manager.

On the access management side, our system administrators, under privileged management, don't have to use their local tools to log on to the production servers.

They basically will log on, but they need access controls. They log on to a web interface, so that they will have access to the servers. From there, they can make the sessions.

What I'm saying is that on 443, with an extra cell connection, you log on to a web server and that web server will basically initiate the sessions from the web server to the production server. At that point, my session is secure because all that is happening inside that subnet or inside that network. All my end user is seeing is training the HTML-file interface.

That makes the access more secure. Even on the session side, the sessions are really between the production servers and the IA PAM. The sessions are not between the endpoint and the production server. So that makes it more secure by using a PAM.

When we look at CA PAM, the multi-tenant deployment is definitely an improvement that we want to see. They don't offer multi-tenancy.

If I have an enterprise, or if I am an MSP and I would like use an instantiation of CA PAM for multiple tenants, I can't do that.

I have to deploy a CA PAM for each tenant, which basically increases the cost and the management side of it. That's a very essential thing.

CyberArk does the multi-tenancy, but CA PAM doesn't have this.

We have used it for two years.

Stability-wise, there were no issues. It met our SLAs. For the most part, it's really stable. There were no significant outages or issues with the stability of the product. We didn't have any of that experience with the solution.

There were some scalability issues. Along with access manager, there's something called a credential manager. The way the CA PAM solution is designed, a credential manager is local to each of these boxes.

If you want to scale to multiple data centers and multiple end points, the credential manager is not centralized anymore. We need to have a way to synchronize that. That seems to be one of the biggest issues of scalability.

It has AD integration, but the way they do it is an issue, because it's not scalable. For every active directory identity, it basically creates a local user. It defeats the whole purpose of using a single identity store. That's not a scalable solution to manage identities itself. That's a big issue.

We did submit an enhancement request to CA on multi-tenancy and the active directory implementation, and we don't think they have released any updates. That's a big issue with this product.

I would give tech support a rating of 7/10. They're not the best, because the product was acquired from a small company. Just updating the portal with the knowledge base and the support took a long time. We had a bad experience with that.

Once they got all the stuff integrated into the CA support structure, the responsiveness was there, but the relevant information of the tech staff to solve the problem was not there.

There were no previous solutions. CA PAM is the new evolution of Privileged Management. We haven't used a PAM solution in the past, and this was our first generation PAM that we used. We didn't move from an existing solution.

Once you have a network, then the reach-out is added. They have something called Outer Discovery, which discovers all the accounts and all the servers’ end points and groups.

I'm not going to say it's very easy, but on the flipside, I'm not going to say it's terribly hard to do it.

The reason it was not easy, was that the end points of the system administrators that have access to PAM needed a version of Java and some Java libraries on the end point.

With logged-on systems in the DOD space, or with the federal space, it's really tough to get those versions installed. The federal government, the central IT, update the Java versions and we don't have control over that. Every time we have an upgrade, it breaks the accessibility of the software.

Even though they say it's a web based tool, they still need a Java version that is compatible and libraries have to be on your client to do it. The Java competence has been a nightmare.

The product installation by itself is fairly easy, but the accessibility is very difficult.

We did reach out to CA and submitted a ticket with them, saying, "Okay, you need to get out of this Java thing, and then have something like HTML-file-based access, so that we don't have to have any of these Java things."

They said, "Great," but nothing has happened so far.

We did evaluate other solutions.

• We did a market research of Xceedium, before CA bought Xceedium Xsuite
• CyberArk
• Dell had a tool to do privileged identity management
• There's another company also, that starts with Cyber, but I don't remember the name

We evaluated these solutions, and Xceedium, which is now CA PAM, stood out.

If you are going for a multi-tenant deployment as an MSP, I would work with CA to see when that feature will be available.

If the local end points are logged down with the Java versions, I would really tell them to pull out the HTML-file-based solution. The accessibility of this tool from the desktops is very, very difficult. Those are two big things for a use case.

I would recommend them to make sure they validate that these things are rolled out and then use it. Other than those two issues, everything else is good.

Asking me to rate the solution is a tough question, because the market research came out well. It stood out. The usability was good.

The accessibility and other issues were big blockers for our customer:

• The local accounts with AD integration
• Multi-tenant deployment
• Java installation on the local machines

Those three elements were the biggest blockers. I would have rated it higher, but because of those three blockers, I'll had to rate it lower. They were very significant blockers for our project when we used it, and we were always putting out fires to do that.

Some of the valuable features are safe access to company resources, quick, comprehensible, and intuitive management interface, and good integration capabilities. Control on targets could be extended through CA PAM Server Control component. It now includes an optional risk evaluation engine (CA Threat Analytics for Privileged Access Manager).

• Quick setup
• Support for different types of existing user stores
• Management automation through REST interface
• Integration with Identity Management solutions easily for automatic user provisioning.

I would like it to support more types of integration.

We have used this solution since CA acquired Xceedium.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of an eight out of 10.

Many customers switched to CA PAM, because the list of useful features quickly expands.

The deployment was very fast, as it is commonly deployed as a virtual appliance.

Contact the sales department.

We evaluated Hitachi ID PAM and IBM PIM.

Proceed!

Access control and Password Management, because almost every customer wants to protect and audit their server(s), as well as their credentials.

When a customer uses CA PAM, they can control who can access their server and what they do. So they feel more comfortable when using outsourced engineers to manage their assets.

Reporting, Logging, and support recording for Web App using Java.

Now, the reporting feature on CA PAM only shows the basic information in white-black table format. If I’m a customer, I like to see the reports with colorful charts and pictures.

About the Web App using Java:

Currently, CA PAM only can record and work with a Web Console that doesn't use Java. If a Web Console uses Java and has a pop-up, CA PAM can’t do a recording.

Over three years. I used it before CA acquired Xceedium.

The CA PAM appliance works stably. I didn’t see many errors related to stability.

Not yet.

I appreciate CA technical support. They respond quickly.

No, I didn’t.

Simple for me.

No, I didn’t.

The CA PAM product can help companies/organizations who looking are for Privilege Access Management. CA PAM is an industry leader; a powerful, easy to use solution.

Manager user/admin’s password, so it’s more secure and password will be changed on time.

When there’s new patches or upgrades, please test the new release well, so it won’t break the functional parts.

It’s very stable, unless we do some patches or upgrade, then it’ll break some functional parts.

So far, no.

So far, it's fair. Because sometimes, it takes me a few days/weeks to get attention.

No.

I didn’t get involved in the initial setup.

I don’t handle that.

I didn't get involved in that evaluation, either.

Have a test environment for testing any upgrades/patches first, before pushing it to production.

Transparent login and cluster synchronization. This is quite stable compared with other products. It is easy to manage for the administrator.

After the CA acquisition of Xceedium, I was able to see a lot of improvement in technical support.

There are a lot of gaps in the documentation. The documentation has to improve like anything else. There are a lot of things which are not covered in the documentation, and there are a few things which are covered in the documentation, but are not clear.

To mention the features which are not covered and which are not clear would require a separate document. Here are some examples:

• Authentication methods: PAM does support a few authentication mechanisms to login to PAM. But the documentation does not have the details of how to integrate TACACS+ in PAM. The documentation explains it at a very high level.
• Application Connectors: PAM does support different application connectors. But for CISCO devices, the details are not clear.
• Roles and Privileges: There are almost 200 privileges in Credential Management. There is not a document which has the details for the privileges and their functionality.
• Segregation of Duties: There is not a document for PAM roles. For example, if the user has “Standard User” as a role, he cannot have “Approver Role” from CM. It is a limitation in PAM. This limitation might be due to security or operational functionality. But it should be documented if it is limitation of PAM.

We have been using this solution for two and a half years.

I faced stability issues in the past, but I have not faced any stability issues lately.

I have not faced any scalability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 6/10.

We did not use a previous solution.

The setup was straightforward.

There are currently other tools on the market which are much cheaper than PAM. They can do almost all of what PAM does, and even do it better. CA can think of reducing the pricing for PAM.

We did not evaluate other solutions.

The tool helps us manage local, domain, and service accounts. It helps us meet compliance standards.

The fact the password is changed after each checkout beats changing passwords manually every few months.

I would definitely like to see improvements in the documentation. It is very plain and doesn't provide details. They are no screenshots either.

We owned this product for about three years. I took over the project about six months ago.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Few people I've dealt with know the product well. They are not very helpful. Some technical support team members don't have much knowledge.

I don't think DSS used any other solution prior to this.

I didn't do the initial setup, so I can't answer this question.

I'm the admin and do not know anything about pricing and licensing.

I personally have used RPM and think it is more user-friendly.

Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless.

So far, we’re using the RDP-gateway and the “published application” features.

• The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access.
• The “published applications” feature: To minimize the exposure of sensitive usernames and passwords.

The exposure of sensitive usernames and passwords has been limited in a massive way. This allows us to give much needed access to LDAP servers and databases without the operator knowing the username and/or password. They just have a link to click on after logging into the PAM virtual appliance.

I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using. Have nothing further right now due to limited exposure to the more technical parts of the product.

We’ve had it running for approximately six months so far.

No issues so far, except the typical Java/web-browser problems that all Java-based products have.

Do not know as of right now, as we only have one instance in production at the moment.

So far, I would rate it high. I have gotten fast and accurate answers to my questions and any issues have been resolved in a timely manner.

We used the now discontinued Shared Account Management component of CA Privileged Identity Manager.

The initial setup is really easy. The only thing to worry about is to add all needed networks to your virtual appliance prior to the initial boot. This is a pain and should be fixed in my opinion.

I do not know as I only work with the technical parts of the product, I do not worry about pricing and licensing.

Make sure you have all your network needs mapped out prior to installation, as you have to add all needed networks to the virtual appliance prior to the first boot.

It is great for identity governance or identity PAM, CAPAM.

It is simple to integrate. For other solutions, we have to install a component that can directly deploy from the OVA in this system.

We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features. The initial phase is simple, but it is difficult to configure our requirements. In addition, the integration between Symantec Privileged Access Manager and identity governance has to be better.

We have been using this solution for about three years, and it is deployed on-premises. We are planning to deploy on cloud this year.

It is a stable solution for PAM. We sometimes have issues with stability and identity governance.

It is scalable because we can add and remove all the models. We have onboarded around 500 users, and actual users are around 100 to 500.

The technical support is not satisfactory. I rate the technical support a four out of ten. Most of the time, they are not accessible, and we can't directly contact Symantec. There is a middle partner we can use to contact dot com support. We are waiting for a solution to the long wait times.

Neutral

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. I recommend this solution because it is suitable for the initial phase and the small business plan.