Alation Data Catalog vs. Varonis Data Security Platform

Alation is pretty easy to implement. We were able to do it ourselves with Alation's help, no 3rd party needed. We are currently migrating to Snowflake, and it has been helpful with prioritizing what gets migrated. It's great for searching for tables and views. I even use it when I'm trying to find fields in a large table. If I'm not sure if the field is called first_name, firstname, or fname, I can use Alation's table page, filter for fields with "name", and easily find it.

Incentivized

The most highlighted feature of Varonis Data Security Platform is the data analyzing mechanism. It analyzes your data all the time with some special algorithms to detect any unusual activities so that it can identify any unusual behavior or users and
take necessary action to save your sensitive data. They also offer a complete dashboard solution for their customers to control across different data stores, see their current state, and any security breaches to be addressed manually.

Incentivized

• Ability to link objects using the @ symbol. It allows us to easily provide a way to get more information or context. So if the business concept is part of a hierarchy, we can link to the other terms in that hierarchy.
• The customization is really helpful. Most object types have robust customization options. Others are less so, but it is improving. We've created multiple custom fields to support our data governance framework.
• The search feature with filtering is helpful in narrowing down what you're looking for.

Incentivized

• Varonis logging is very robust and captures all audit events being sent from the file servers.
• The ability to report and alert on Active Directory account events works very well with file activity monitoring. It can show the complete picture of what an account did while being used.
• Have a customizable dashboard is great for being able to show upper management information that only pertains to them.

• The lineage UI is not ready for primetime. I would not recommend this feature for my users at this time because it's too complex to understand and is visually difficult to track down specific paths.
• The underlying infrastructure of the on-premise version of the software is fragile and unnecessarily complicated, using too many modules and technologies.
• The license model of the on-premise version contains too many add-ons. I would like to pay one price and get all of the features.

Incentivized

• Implementation can be challenging in some areas and can only be executed by the vendor
• Implementation can only be executed by the vendor and additional work can be chargeable
• Licensing can be improved upon
• Agent based so implementation can be longer than expected

Incentivized

It's a great tool in terms of user experience.

Incentivized

I wish the cost was a little bit lower and increase functionality and features would give it 10/10.

Incentivized

From the RightStart Program to the Customer Success team to technical support, Alation has it all covered. They respond quickly and expertly to answer my questions and fix my problems.

Incentivized

Support has always been very responsive and addressed any issues we may have had in the past. Some local engineers are willing to come onsite or work over a web session to discuss creating a new rule set or look at some issues. Getting issues address has never been a problem. There was one feature we had trouble getting to function correctly, but support and local engineers were willing to work with us as much as needed to get it working correctly for our organization.

Incentivized

Alation provided the right balance of connection with systems in use, trusted reputation and affordability. The product integrates with current ways of working and does not require reorganisation within other lines of business.

Incentivized

Actually, we didn't expend much time evaluating other file auditing platforms. We chose Varonis just after a serious incident and we had already heard about Varonis at a Netapp event. So it was an easy choice. We called Varonis and asked them for a PoC, that's it. The PoC became a production and it is running until this day.

Incentivized

• Provides a place where people can go to find things
• When we first implemented, someone was concerned that people would now see what a mess our data environment was. I consider that a feature. We can't clean up if we can't see what we have.

Incentivized

• We have identified data classifications issues that our organization was not aware of prior to the implementation.
• The tool does take a dedicated resource for it to be effective.
• Varonis has improved the speed with which we can fulfill audit requests, leaving us more time for other tasks.

Incentivized