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BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (12th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
BMC Helix Cloud Security
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (26th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (36th)
Symantec Data Center Security
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC Helix Cloud Security1.5%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud11.6%
AWS GuardDuty8.9%
Other78.0%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Data Center Security3.3%
Illumio Segmentation14.0%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation12.2%
Other70.5%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
DG
Portfolio Manager/ Helix Administrator at Frontier Communications
A highly scalable and straightforward solution with a knowledgeable support team
We work on a third-party shared environment. It wouldn’t have been feasible for a smaller company. My company was actually the first one to do it. Just like any cloud security, it pays to do your research and have complimentary security involved. The product can’t be the be-all and end-all tool for your security. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I found the initial setup user-friendly."
"I would definitely recommend it because it is easy to handle any cloud resources."
"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"I highly recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"I depend heavily on the reports that I have from this tool."
"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"It is a good tool to make sure that your containers are safe and sound."
"Role-based security is a valuable feature."
"Using this solution is an eye-opener; having that holistic view is the biggest eye-opener because you understand, from any of your connected cloud accounts, what your vulnerabilities are with it."
"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."
"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."
"The console and tools are very user-friendly."
"Symantec Data Center Security, as a name, represents the perfect solution if you want to harden your servers."
"Overall, this is a pretty good product."
"The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server."
"We use the product to prevent unauthorized access to data, systems, and servers. It provides essential features for data center security."
"The tool will then detect any anomalies, such as an intruder who has breached the network, which can trigger the system lockdown feature if it's enabled and meets the defined threshold."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys TotalCloud."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
"One thing that could be improved is the user experience and navigation."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"Qualys TotalCloud's increasing complexity, due to the development and deployment of multiple solutions, is making the GUI difficult to navigate."
"To be honest, I would move out from this tool because it does not give a full view of vulnerability."
"The biggest challenge now, which is a good problem to have, with BMC Helix is content."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"We've had some issues with connectors; the connectors have seemed to cause a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment."
"I think its TOA interfaces are still not that comfortable. The UI could be more user-friendly, easier to use."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"Symantec is lagging on the reporting side."
"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."
"Since the acquisition of Symantec, our customers have not been satisfied with this solution."
"It would be advantageous if Symantec or Broadcom, given the rebranding, could simplify the process, enabling users to leverage the antivirus functionality more easily."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing its graphical user interface for a more user-friendly experience."
"Adding more compatibility with common products like Microsoft would be a plus."
"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."
"Agent management is a challenging task."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."
"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."
"The product is a bit costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise32
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?
As a partner support, we handle all Symantec products for various clients. Currently, we work with DLP, Symantec Endp...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Data Center Security?
I am still a Symantec partner. Price rating is five out of ten. Symantec Data Center Security is a perfect solution, ...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
Information Not Available
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