AlienVault USM vs. RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AlienVault USM
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
AlienVault® Unified Security Management® (USM) delivers threat detection, incident response, and compliance management in one unified platform. It is designed to combine all the essential security capabilities needed for effective security monitoring across cloud and on-premises environments, including SIEM, intrusion detection, vulnerability management, as well as continuous threat intelligence updates. The vendor states that even for resource-limited IT security teams, AlienVault…
$1,075
per month
RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Score 1.4 out of 10
N/A
RackFoundry was a firewall solution with VPN, SIEM, automated vulnerability scanning and log management features scaled for SME’s. It has been discontinued and is no longer available.N/A
Pricing
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$1,075
per month
Standard
$1,695
per month
Premium
$2,595
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
AlienVault USM

No answer on this topic

RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Chose RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
There are a few reasons we chose Rack Foundry:

1. At the end of the day cost is a huge concern for a small company. With that being said we had a great sales person who walked us through all the offerings and basically worked with us to get us to be in a position where we can …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Comparison of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) features of Product A and Product B
AlienVault USM
8.0
8 Ratings
3% above category average
RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
1.0
3 Ratings
155% below category average
Centralized event and log data collection8.58 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Correlation8.58 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Event and log normalization/management8.08 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Deployment flexibility8.67 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Integration with Identity and Access Management Tools7.35 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Custom dashboards and workspaces7.08 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Host and network-based intrusion detection8.05 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

AlienVault USM
AlienVault USM
Score 8.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
Splunk Enterprise
Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(391 ratings)
1.0
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(18 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
6.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(25 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.4
(38 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AlienVault USMRackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
AT&T Cybersecurity
At this point I'm saying a 4. While the marketing material make it appear to be easy to use and it was relatively easy to set up, as previously mentioned, each event description is based upon the individual asset making it nearly impossible for the administrator to be a SME for each asset. For example, if one of the assets reporting is a router, the administrator monitoring alerts would need to know what the various events are that can be triggered as an event for the particular router; however, if the asset is a workstation, the administrator would need to know the various events that are triggered for workstations.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
RackFoundry Total Security Management (TSM) is suited for most companies that have the same challenge as my team had. If you are looking to purchase one security tool and spend most of your allocated budget then I would not recommend this for you. However, if you are looking for something close to a single pane of glass, (granted there is no such thing) this solution does come close as they have the main components built in such as their FW/IPS/IDS/SIEM. Before selecting RackFoundry we had two options which were: 1) Upgrade our current solution and spend an overbearing amount 2) Search for new vendors and maybe procure 1-3 devices and then manually integrate them. Because this was a unified console and integration between devices was simple, we were able to obtain 4-6 security functions and we even had some sense of security visibility via the SIEM. It's not as powerful as Splunk or LogRhythm, but it definitely does the job
Read full review
Pros
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • AlienVault USM is simple and easy to deploy. Sensors can be deployed in as little as 15 minutes through the setup wizard.
  • The USM UI is easy to understand. I've trained multiple analysts who are able to perform their duties on their first day, in part because of USM Anywhere's ease of use.
  • Top-notch built-in compliance templates and reporting features.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Making promises about a service and product.
  • Advertising a good price and offering great services.
  • Supposedly offer 24/7 365 level 1 threat triaging.
Read full review
Cons
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • Personally, I've wished I could purchase a service that would configure AV for my environment. I get a lot of traffic on a daily basis and I almost need to hire an analyst that just works on AV.
  • Some of the filters when looking for a specific alert aren't that easy to use.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • It has been my first year with Rack Foundry and at this point I have to say everything has been smooth, from implementation to support.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
AT&T Cybersecurity
The centralized logging and retention for PCI compliance was our main driver, and it is meeting that need. Otherwise there has been enough frustration with the lack of documentation and the need to customize through the CLI that I would be open to alternatives.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Usability
AT&T Cybersecurity
Once you are able to navigate the different panels, finding what you need is quite easily. Before getting used it it can be a bit of challenge . Each panel is quite well laid out and the filtering search capabilities are quite strong.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
AT&T Cybersecurity
We do have issues with maintenance on the AlienVault USM as the disk fills up from time to time with other data sources. Sources for scanning logs and net flow data isn't calculated in regular disk maintenance and can easily fill up our disk if we do not keep an eye on it with some custom Nagios plugins. The system does properly trim logging data from logging sources properly.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Performance
AT&T Cybersecurity
With the latest release of AlienVault USM overall performance has not been an issue. We have noticed single source events per second does not scale well with the overall system. 2,000eps on a vmware system with a single source produces delays of up to an hour for us. Pages, reporting and even raw log searches are rather quick though.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
AT&T Cybersecurity
The support we received from alienvault was excellent. They went above and beyond in making sure everything was working as it needed to be. They REALLY want their product implementation to be a success and our security goals be achieved. They are like a member of our security team.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
AT&T Cybersecurity
I did not have any experience with "in person" training directly. The free online classes offered for a half a day are based on the actual training offered. These little teasers are very good and well worth your time to learn a few quick and dirty ways of getting more information from your SIEM
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Online Training
AT&T Cybersecurity
It was very well organized and helpful in using the product to the fullest extent. The instructor allowed time for folks who were involved with managed services to receive tuning tips in order to better support their customers. In addition, the course materials were automatically updated when the new version came out.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
AT&T Cybersecurity
AlienVault USM was a very simple to implement and get up and running. We started with a trial version and had that up and going within an hour of receiving email instructions from the sales engineer. We never had to contact support to get the system up and going. It was extremely easy to convert over to a full license once we started with a paid version.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
AT&T Cybersecurity
Splunk's ES is a paid add-on on top of an already pricey product. Finding a MSSP that supports Splunk and isn't a 6 figure annual commitment seems unlikely. LogRhythm did not have a cloud-based solution when we were considering SIEMs. Fantastic product though and have a good MSSP base. Devo did not have a MSSP partner base when we looked. Their product is fantastic too. AlienVault USM has good partners to choose from as well as an affordable cloud model, that's why we chose it.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Well I have experience with the big names: SecureWorks, IBM and Splunk. Individually their logging tools are much better than RackFoundry's Total Security Management. This is great for large corporations and urban cities, however not so great for municipalities, mid size businesses and companies who fluctuate between 1-7 members on their IT staff. Why? Because it takes too much of their resources and integration with other products gets a little rough as you will need to configure your preferences to theirs. When a company has stability it is great to have a name brand product, however renewals and upgrade costs can be taxing to an organization.
Read full review
Scalability
AT&T Cybersecurity
The AlienVault USM is not very scalable. Some scalability can be achieved by installing additional sensors, but this only offers 500eps per sensor and is still overall limited by the installation type of VM or physical. We have also noticed the EPS (events per second) is rated overall and not towards a single source. A single source on a very healthy VMware partition tops out at 2,000eps for us, no matter how we configure it. Maybe this is a problem of the 5.2 release?
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
AT&T Cybersecurity
  • Once you hit the 150 asset mark, you have to jump to their unlimited license. There is no middle ground. We were only 10 or so assets above the 150 so we had to chose to either not monitor those assets or pay the price of the upgrade.
  • AlienVault brings all the information to one place which makes it much quicker to track down problems.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Overall the product has had a negative impact. Not necessarily on our environment but in the amount of time it has taken to deploy.
Read full review
ScreenShots

AlienVault USM Screenshots

Screenshot of USM Anywhere NIDS Dashboard