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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection pros and cons

Vendor: IBM

4.1 out of 5

79 reviews
85% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection excels in database logging and audit functions, offering advanced encryption and data protection. It supports compliance with regulations like GDPR and SOX while ensuring centralized encryption key management and flexibility across databases. Despite valued scalability and integration, challenges include complex deployment, limited cloud and NoSQL support, and effective technical support. Users note insufficient data encryption, relying more on data masking.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection excels in database logging and audit functions, offering detailed insights into data access and compliance.

Security policy enforcement and centralized encryption management maintain a secure environment for data protection.

Its scalability and compatibility with various database platforms offer an extended range of monitoring capabilities.

The system is known for its comprehensive data activity monitoring and efficient vulnerability assessment.

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection provides features like data masking and encryption, enhancing data security against unauthorized access.

CONS

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection has a complex deployment process requiring knowledge of advanced parameters and higher-level resources.

There are issues with data encryption, with encryption capabilities not being utilized to their full potential and a reliance on third-party solutions.

IBM Security Guardium requires database skills for effective use, which can be challenging given its role as a security and monitoring tool.

There are frequent challenges with patches breaking existing setups and causing unexpected issues within environments.

IBM Security Guardium lacks adequate cloud support and integration with various database types, particularly NoSQL databases.

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection Pros review quotes

Senior Middleware Engineer at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 5, 2017

Database logging and audit functions are the most valuable features.

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Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jul 4, 2017

Ability to define reports based on SQL query, especially when you have complex report criteria.

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DC

Operator at Halliburton

Dec 26, 2017

Efficiency is key and IBM Guardium provides information in a heartbeat, but protects the data with military grade encryption.

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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection

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Learn what your peers think about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

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Systems Programmer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Mar 20, 2018

Satisfies audit requests, to give us an idea if anybody is accessing our privileged user IDs without our knowledge.

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Senior information security analyst at PFG

Mar 20, 2018

Our main focus for IBM Guardium is to support security initiatives and compliance policies within our organization. We use the DPD product for monitoring, especially for GDPR, SOX regulations and, of course, the vulnerability assessment that we use to make sure we're keeping up with our patches, making sure things are configured, making sure we're following the best practices.

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Information Security Analyst Consultant at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

You could easily throw it onto a VM or add additional hardware. One central manager supports about a hundred managed units, so scalability is excellent.

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Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

Encryption is not straightforward, but Guardium made the setup easy for us.

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App Mainframe And Storage at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 21, 2018

It's one of the first to encrypt DB2 databases.

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Systems DBA at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 21, 2018

Our internal audit is keeping an eye out, and making sure that we're in compliance. Having the Guardium solution and its reporting helps us get through that process a lot more quickly and efficiently.

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Database Administrator at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

It supports our audit compliance.

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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection Cons review quotes

Senior Middleware Engineer at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 5, 2017

I would like to be able to upgrade appliances within major versions without needing to rebuild the appliance.

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Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jul 4, 2017

Deployment process is very complicated as you need to now all advanced parameters. Almost not possible to figure out for yourself.

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DC

Operator at Halliburton

Dec 26, 2017

I would like to see IBM Guardium have other encryption algorithms employed.

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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection

Free Report: IBM Security Guardium Data Protection Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about IBM Security Guardium Data Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Systems Programmer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Mar 20, 2018

Right now we're having some issues where it's using a high CPU, we don't know why. So, better testing before the product is ready would help.

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Senior information security analyst at PFG

Mar 20, 2018

I'd like to see a smoother GUI interface for the CAS agent - CAS does configurations on the database - to interface better with the vulnerability assessments.

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Information Security Analyst Consultant at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

We have had some issues with patches breaking things unexpectedly in our environments.

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Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

It needs an integration with Optum.

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App Mainframe And Storage at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 21, 2018

It was difficult implementing it, configuring it, getting it up and running and in production. However, since then, I believe it has stabilized.

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Systems DBA at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 21, 2018

The one thing that I would like to see improved, but I don't think it's going to be in the next release, is its reporting capabilities. I think that's been offloaded to another third-party product that I think IBM actually endorses for that.

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Database Administrator at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

I would like them to support cloud services.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 60)

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