AlienVault USM vs. SolarWinds Threat Monitor

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.

Incentivized

Due to the high price that SolarWinds has, I do not recommend it for small companies. And if I recommend SolarWinds in large companies with complex infrastructures where constant monitoring and review of the network is required, this system is very complete and helps everyone in the technology team, both network administrators, database administrators, Security Administrators, and Server Administrators are all very happy with this system.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• monitoring
• notification systems
• virus attack monitoring
• ability to shut down systems when it senses an imminent threat

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Steep learning curve.
• Usually takes a bit to get the scans to run easily in a new environment.
• Could have more reporting options.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

SolarWinds offers live chat support for all its products built-in. So if you are working on something you can just reach out to someone at that time, and usually get an answer pretty quick. If you are trying to get something done it's a lot better than submitting a ticket and waiting for the email response.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Threat Monitor is very new on the scene. Its obviously not at the same level as some of the established vendors yet. We also deploy Alienvault for example and its nowhere near the same level as this, however the cost model between these two products reflects that. Alienvault however does have a physical footprint on the environment, whereas Threat Monitor doesnt. If you have the paitence to wait, Threat Monitor will surely only improve over time.

Incentivized

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?

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The positive impact that this system has on our company is that it has saved us a lot of expenses when it comes to investigating what the bank's network and systems are.
• This saving translates into administrators' time when it comes to finding the problem quickly, expeditiously, and effectively.
• It has helped us a lot and we have even required fewer hours from external providers when it comes to solving a problem.

Incentivized