Bitdefender GravityZone Enterprise Security Reviews

It is good to use for servers and endpoints. Because of the SME segment, they are not very keen to get into the enterprise segment. Hypervisors and virtual servers are there, but in the SME segment, there's not much focus on hypervisors. They prefer to have individual servers. That is working out fine so far.

Recently, it's not only Bitdefender, but our network design has also changed. We have revamped the network design into a multi-segment network design inspired by the X side. Servers, workstations, and NAS storage are in separate segments. We put stringent policies in place only to allow specific ports to open toward the servers. This has automatically reduced attacks. 

Before, most default ports were used, which created problems. Even from outside, when opening an RDP connection through the Internet, even on a customized port, the process was getting attacked. But once the VPN was implemented, things changed a lot. In recent years, we haven't found many attacks. But before that, there were many incidents I could elaborate on. It's getting more and more stabilized.

We are also educating our clients. We give training, like knowledge base, security awareness training. That is giving a bigger output. People are becoming much more educated. They're not clicking unnecessary links. They are aware and will send us a message if they have a doubt about opening a file or email. 

Another thing that is becoming advantageous is implementing a mail security solution in front of the mail servers. That is cutting edge because whatever firewall or antivirus software you have, they are not able to scan the emails. It already comes to the email. Unless it blocks the threat, it can only tag it. But if the user clicks on a link or attachment, it is going to infect the computer. It is inside your computer, and then you're trying to. Therefore, it, most of the time, stops the antivirus first, and then it takes action. That means you are already infected, and you are trying to solve the issue. But when we implemented mail security, even without a firewall, if you have mail security, with my industry experience, I saw that users need mail security in the first place and then go for the firewall in the second place. Because once you clear up the mail security, the majority of attacks are blocked. Majority threat comes from the mail. 

The major threat is coming; almost without exaggeration, 70% of attacks are coming through the mail. Whether it is ransomware or clicking on a link. But once you put in mail security and customize it properly, that stops everything. It is stopping the links, and then you have quarantine. The admin can check and release the emails. 

Another thing most companies do is allow the quarantine message to be seen by the end user. Then, he or she doesn't know if it is a good or bad email. It is better to have somebody with experience analyze the emails and then release them to the end user. In the last few years, we have found that viruses and malware have been reduced. This is the major difference.

The important factor is that after implementing Bitdefender, we haven't found any attacks. It has a vaccine for the RDP protocol, which is specific to this. We do some customization, but it does not lack any protection. 

Compared to older versions, we have not found any degradation in performance in the newer versions from the last three to five years, whether for graphical or normal users. They're not complaining that we are facing problems like memory issues. 

Bitdefender is also customizable and granular, but once you install it, it keeps running. The admin gets the information about which computer has been infected and can take action accordingly.

On a regular basis, Bitdefender's AI capability is okay. But you cannot leave some decisions to AI. You must have control. You have to look at what you're filtering, as it can be a false positive. But on a regular basis, AI can be helpful.

The price of the bandwidth here is very expensive compared to European countries.

One of the issues about Bitdefender GravityZone is pricing and bandwidth.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It is very stable.

Scalability is good because if the client wants to add a module, it's easy. Just call the distributor, and we add it to the console, configure the policies, and push it to the end user. When they log in, it's already there. Scalability-wise, it is pretty useful.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. There is some room for improvement.

We don't have many customers in the enterprise segment. We have only ten clients who are using it. Our area of specialization is the SME segment, mainly up to 150 users. We concentrate on that segment because it is still untapped.  

We are downsizing enterprise solutions into the SME segment, giving them a turnkey solution for servers and everything. We have been doing this for many years and are doing well in that segment.

So far, we are very good. Our distributor is very cooperative, and we have been working with them for quite a long time. We are not facing any problems, and they support us immediately.

Positive

We work with both on-cloud and on-premises solutions. If the recommendation is for on-premises, then we work with that. But in the last few years, everything is moving to the cloud.

We do not prefer AWS cloud. We are in the SME segment, and the price does not match. The pricing that AWS is asking for is high compared to the hardware pricing, which has come down a lot. For example, a high-end server with GPU memory, a one-terabyte hard disk RAID 1, an Enterprise 10 server, or something like that with an eight-core CPU costs around $6,000. With $6,000, you can get a very high-end server.

Like, even for a dual processor, you can get one with dual power supply. There's some sort of redundancy coming in. Again, the main problem we are facing is because of the restricted upload bandwidth compared to your European countries, the US, and so on. For example, if you have a 100 Mbps connection, we get only 10 Mbps upload speed. That is where we are facing the real problem with backing up. It can take a long time. When they want to restore, it takes double the time.

In practicality, it is becoming an issue. But nowadays, for protection, we use hybrid network connections because of ransomware attacks and such threats from cloud services. So, we do more of a hybrid cloud type. So, the local backups are faster. We now have storage with multiple firewalls, and we take the working data, let's say, the last two years' files, into the cloud, not the backup of the system or anything like that. Up to 10 users, we have not found that particular problem. But when it comes to more than 15 users, and if those users are heavy users, then the bandwidth becomes an issue. The price of the bandwidth here is very expensive compared to European countries.

One of the issues about Bitdefender GravityZone is pricing and bandwidth.

Bandwidth is one thing we are not able to manage. But otherwise, if it is a hybrid solution, it is working fine, and we are able to manage it. It looks okay.

Bitdefender integratation with the existing infrastructure is good. We didn't face any issues with integration.

We have deployed it for many clients, and all of them are running fine without any issues. They haven't complained. But sometimes, especially on AutoCAD and similar software, we put a power user password and exclude that specific program from scanning. But it's working fine so far. I haven't found much of an issue. And again, we are not doing only antivirus. We mostly focus on integration, connectivity, and the app solution. Antivirus is a small part of that.

For the initial setup, we need more employees, but for maintenance, since it's a stable solution, we don't need as many. On the technical side, we need two to three people.

It is very competitively priced if you compare it to others and the functionality it gives you. It's almost neck and neck with Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro, Kaspersky, and Node32. If you look at the same level, maybe a few dollars here and there, plus and minus. But almost all of them are the same. A little bit of difference comes when it comes to EDR, Hyper Detect, malware protection, ransomware protection, and all these things. When we compare them like that, you'll find they are almost the same. But if we take this thing, or if we're not taking that one (customize the package), then the prices vary. But for me, Bitdefender is okay

The pricing is okay as it  depends on what we offer to the client. For on-premises, we are protecting the server. On the workstation side, we are not pushing too much, like EDR, because that may slow down everything. 

But again, it has to be customized. For example, you're running an SQL server. It can be a false positive because the SQL server is always accessing the hard disk, and it may be treated as a malware infection. Therefore, we have to follow the best practices.

The pricing stays competitive with the competition. It's not cheap, not very expensive; it's mid-range. It's okay.

It's modular-based pricing. For example, if you are purchasing antivirus, malware protection, and hyper-detect, you will be charged for those. If you don't want EDR, you won't be charged for it. If you're buying a hundred user licenses and only need EDR for ten devices, you pay for ten devices with antivirus, hyper-detect, and EDR. That means you will be paying extra for those ten devices. If the end user doesn't want EDR, you don't have to pay for it.

So, it has very flexible licensing costs, and it's modular-based.

I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive and one being cheap. 

The solution we provide includes maintenance for your customers. We have two models. One model is for direct end-users, where we work as consultants. The other model is for other IT companies who don't have this expertise. We charge for our services and provide consultancy. If they want us to implement it, we charge for our hours, and the remaining work is theirs. We work as a consultant for the IT companies.

I check everything regularly, keep on testing. I started working with Sophos, then Symantec, McAfee. I've worked with most of the main vendors. We keep evaluating them. Now there is a new one, Webroot, that is coming up, but it's still in the testing phase. We keep testing the product lines.

Another model we are pushing is having two different levels of antiviruses on a network. So we have a different set for servers and another one for workstations. Another interesting product is Emsisoft. It's a malware and ransomware prevention software that complements Bitdefender. It combines well with any antivirus software. It's very stable. If you run a script, it quarantines it and informs the administrator, who must approve it to run. We are deploying this in combination with Bitdefender on servers.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.