Excellent product but difficult to set up for non IT
September 20, 2019
Excellent product but difficult to set up for non IT
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Bitdefender GravityZone
Our agency operates Supportive In-Home services for children and adults with developmental disabilities. As such, our networks must comply with HIPAA securities. Our administrative workforce has Bitdefender installed on on each computer. Additionally, it is installed on our lab computers used by staff to complete sensitive transactions online and general use.
Most of our workforce are field users (the persons providing the direct care). These employees are provided tablets to access our Electronic Health Record system. It did not seem practical or necessary to install a mobile version given the limited use we have deployed on the tablets.
Business problems are generally minimal. However, unless the administrator knows how to access and configure policy assignments and monitor activities, it is difficult to know how to set up and deploy. It happens that I have used, deployed and implemented polices when I worked for an IT company. It was because of this experience that I chose this option for my company.
The other business problem is that while I made a purchase though Bit Defender web site, the license increases and renewals needed to go through an independent vendor. The parten company does not do a good job explaining this.
Pros
- The Gravity Zone console is quite easy to use, particularly if the person assigned to implement and deploy have a good understanding of how to make it work to get at the information needed.
- The Dashboard is customizable to get at the information needed in one location.
- Pushing tasks across the network is quite easy.
- Having said the what is available in gravity zone, it is easy to see what devices have activity that frequently result in quarantines. This allows us to address "misuse" of our devices. Which brings me to my final point...
- The policies can be set up to lock devices down with very strict rules (such as device locking) or with relaxed policies.
Cons
- Who do I ask? This is my chief complaint is once the initial licenses were purchased through Bit Defender, there was no one to contact that could help navigate some of the initial questions I had with regard to specific policies to implement for our file server. The parent web site is, well, hard to navigate when one is trying to "learn" the system.
- The second issue is in increasing the licenses. It took several days for the parent company (by contact and phone) to inform me that they could not increase the licenses and I would have to go through a private vendor. There was no intent to connect me to a vendor or provide a vendor list until I asked specifically. YET I continue to get email from the parent company reminding me to pay an annual fee for the licenses purchase through the private vendor. The parent company can see the number of licenses yet did not sell them to me.
- Gravity Zone Dashboard, while excellent for those who have experience, is not particularly intuitive for those who have never used it. There does not seem to be a lot of documentation for those responsible for implementation.
- The return of investment has been better than cost neutral in that the policies we have set up has to date has resulted in 0 security incidents. Becuase out company has only been in business 18 months and the only AV we have used is Bitdefender. This is reason that the return on our investment is at least cost neutral
- The outcome we intend to achieve is have 0 instances of infected or compromised computers on our network. This outcome has been achieved. This is an area of our annual security risk assessment and we are pleased we have not had to take any action due to Bitdefender missing anything.
- We have successfully implemented policies to limit certain web sites and block usb devise on our lab (essentially public) computers. Another area address in our security risk assessment.
In previous employment in IT Business Management, VIPRE was the go to security protection for our companies. It was largely due to the ability to manage a number of companies through a single (internally hosted) portal. The security controls and policies. the down side is that VIPRE was rather intrusive to the end user unless one knows how to prevent pop-ups for constantly asking for permission. This is especially problematic for home users.
Bitdefender run much more seamless behind the scenes and the cloud hosted service has more functionality in terms of deployment, redeployment and overall policy implementation.
Do you think Bitdefender GravityZone delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Bitdefender GravityZone's feature set?
Yes
Did Bitdefender GravityZone live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Bitdefender GravityZone go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Bitdefender GravityZone again?
Yes
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