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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

Trusted Security Advisor at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 4, 2019

It allows us to put in controls to make sure that only the right persons access the proper records in the database.

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Ahmer Faisel Khan

Director | CTO at COMMTEL

Apr 3, 2024

The maturity of the agent is the most valuable feature of the solution

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Internet Security Specialist at National Bank of Pakistan

Aug 11, 2022

What I like about IBM Guardium Data Protection is that some of its features were deployed by collectors during the installation phase. The solution has collector and aggregator features, license installation, and even server patches that you won't find in other security providers. I like the collector-aggregator capabilities of IBM Guardium Data Protection where you install each component on separate servers, then on the aggregator, you collect all the logs on a central server or central console.

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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: October 2025.

870,697 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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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Md Saiful Hyder

AGM, Enterprise Solutions at Omgea Exim Ltd

Jan 26, 2021

IBM Guardium Data Protection has better integration options than most of the leading competitors on the market, and the price is always better.

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Application Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 20, 2018

It's allowing us to be more proactive than reactive on alerts and access rights and types of resources that are being hit. Before, there were a lot of different solutions, but this expanded that out and made it a more holistic solution. It provides centralization of monitoring, instead of multiple, disparate applications. It definitely allows more economies of scale, streamlining, less fragmented use.

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MM

Muhammad Misbah

RETAIL BANKING AND AML/KYC MANAGER at National Bank of Pakistan

Jun 26, 2024

Guardium is easily integrated with other IBM solutions, a significant advantage and a key reason we chose Guardium. Both platforms share the IBM infrastructure, enhancing compatibility and integration. Additionally, Guardium offers a vulnerability analyzer, which is another compelling feature of the platform.

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Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 31, 2022

he solution offers trouble-free access.

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SM

Sidney Monteiro

Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 28, 2018

The most valuable feature is using the capture operation mode “S-TAP/K-TAP agent”, because all activities in the database are captured, including direct access to the database server by privileged users. This is useful because, even if the database server logs were deleted, the Guardium Collector has already stored such data to enable traceability of access.

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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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Show 10 more reviews (out of 64)

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection Cons review quotes

Trusted Security Advisor at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 4, 2019

The biggest complaint that I hear from customers and users is that using this solution requires database skills, yet it is a security and monitoring tool.

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Ahmer Faisel Khan

Director | CTO at COMMTEL

Apr 3, 2024

The solution should allow the data to shift to a centralized repository with elastic servers and big data infrastructure

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Internet Security Specialist at National Bank of Pakistan

Aug 11, 2022

Right now, we're in the development phase for IBM Guardium Data Protection, so I don't have any recommendations about additional features and room for improvement in the solution. We're very excited to work on IBM Guardium Data Protection because we are new to the solution, and we're still exploring product features. We're very excited about integrations and use case creation, and it's only after six to eight months that I'll be able to share my recommendations in terms of additional features the solution should have. We did find some difficulty in deploying IBM Guardium Data Protection here in Pakistan because of the lack of resources.

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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: October 2025.

870,697 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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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Md Saiful Hyder

AGM, Enterprise Solutions at Omgea Exim Ltd

Jan 26, 2021

Guardium Data Protection is far better in terms of external integration. But in terms of firewall features, like when you're blocking activities, it's as if Oracle AVDF simply has superior features. This is just from third-party observations, but the users of Oracle AVDF are saying that when it comes to the firewall and protection functionality, they're much more inclined to AVDF.

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MM

Muhammad Misbah

RETAIL BANKING AND AML/KYC MANAGER at National Bank of Pakistan

Jun 26, 2024

We are currently facing a challenge because it does not offer data encryption by default, only data masking.

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Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 31, 2022

The technical support is very poor.

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SM

Sidney Monteiro

Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 28, 2018

I have already mentioned to IBM that a primary need is to improve the number of records in the reports above 65,535.

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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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LW

IT Security Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 21, 2018

One of the limitations that everyone who uses Guardium knows is its ability for back-end reporting. The ability to collect it sometimes is easier than the ability to retrieve it, use it, or give a good representation of it for incidence response or questions which come from the different people who want to use the data.

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