What is our primary use case?
SentinelOne is the first line of defense for all our endpoints. We have approximately 700 endpoints, and each has a SentinelOne agent controlled by the cloud. We have a first layer of support at the network gateway, but most people aren't covered by our firewall. They are roaming users, so providing these people with protection is our first priority.
How has it helped my organization?
Singularity is a cloud-based solution, so we don't need to spend anything on the infrastructure. We don't have to procure the hardware to host the server application.
The management is effortless. Anybody can operate it, and it has the ability to delegate day-to-day tasks to the help desk team that they can manage on their own. Once the devices are integrated and Singularity is configured, we hardly have to do anything. The console is nice. I don't have any problem with it.
I have limited knowledge about Singularity's identity protection features because we only started using the solution this year. We plan to integrate a few products with the SentinelOne platform to get more out of it. When we were transitioning from an EDR to an XDR, we raised this question to SentinelOne. In the meeting, they explained how this integration works and what type of security they provide. We have the authority to revoke the integration and the other reporting parts, so everything is clear over there, but we need more time to mature in this particular aspect.
Singularity offers deep and continuous visibility into our attack surface. We are notified via email, and there is always a link to a page that defines the specific threat. From that page, we investigate everything, including the affected files, root cause analysis, etc. The solution's detection and prevention capabilities are excellent, but we still must do more configuration, and there are plenty of false positives. Singularity has helped us reduce our mean time to detect. Compared to Kaspersky, we have 60 to 70 percent fewer attacks and investigations to do.
What is most valuable?
I like the detection and protection features. We don't need to do anything, and it will alert us when the mitigation is not successful. We only need to target those endpoints. Otherwise, we don't have to do anything about that.
What needs improvement?
The policies could be more precise, and Singularity should use more templates like alternative solutions have. Endpoint management is poor. We cannot manage individual endpoints and must rely on policies, exclusions, or block lists to apply settings to a group instead of the individual agent. If I have to make settings for one computer, I need to create a group, apply the configuration, and move the agent there. It's challenging to manage endpoints that way.
Singularity also lacks web filtering, a feature that came with other solutions we previously used. When we evaluated Singularity, we also did PoCs for EDR solutions by Trend Micro and Kaspersky. All of them had the ability to manage which websites were allowed. We need to do a workaround and use the firewall to block web access, but it doesn't take what we say as a wild card entry, so we have to define every part. That is one major disadvantage, but we have provided this feedback to the Sentinel support team and requested feature updates.
Another issue is agent updates. Because it is a cloud version, Singularity doesn't have a proper management system for the agents. SentinelOne has a policy to release new versions of the agents at least every three months. However, the management console has no option to automatically update agents to the new version. We must create a policy or define the schedule based on a specific version of the agent to be installed, not the latest. That is one major drawback of using the cloud version.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Singularity for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SentinelOne requires minimal CPU, and the management portal is never down, except during the maintenance window. They always notify us about scheduled maintenance well in advance, and it is done outside of business hours.
The platform's stability has been solid, and we don't have issues with the agents crashing. In some instances, we had issues with installing and uninstalling the agents, but support has provided resources in a timely manner. They've given us utilities to clean up the previous installation files or current files.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate SentinelOne Singularity seven out of 10 for scalability. It takes a little time to make your deployment mature. You can scale Singularity, but the process is a little slow. One of the pain points is agent management and the inability to automatically update the agents. Because of this limitation, I must say that it fell short of our expectations.
How are customer service and support?
I rate SentinelOne support eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Kaspersky, but we wanted to transition to a next-gen EDR solution from SentinelOne. We switched to Singularity because of its management capabilities and EDR system. We like the policy and agent management. Kaspersky has a traditional signature-based detection system, not an AI-based solution like SentinelOne offers.
The management was difficult with our previous solution. We struggled with managing agents, installation, uninstallation, creating and managing policies, device control, etc. All of those pain points prompted us to switch to a SentinelOne. Our usage has constantly grown in the past four years. We started with 500 agents initially, and now we have more than 700.
How was the initial setup?
When we implemented SentinelOne, the main challenge was rolling out our agents. Since it is a cloud-based version, it was difficult for us to manage centrally because the console doesn't allow us to install the agents remotely. We need to use Active Directory or an endpoint management solution to push the agents.
However, using the endpoint solution we still had trouble identifying the agents across 25 organizational units in a few directories. We also needed to structure the SentinelOne infrastructure, and we had difficulty with this. On top of that, we couldn't find a suitable vendor in the Oman market, so we had to buy it from another region.
Our retailer is from Saudi Arabia, and the support from them was lacking because the sales team knew very little about the product. Their service was good, but they were poor in technical terms. We need to get help directly from SentinelOne.
What was our ROI?
The main return we see is from the protection SentinelOne provides, which is better than any other solution we've used in the past. Though they've been increasing the prices, it still fits our budget, and we haven't needed to invest anything in our infrastructure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Singularity is cost-effective. It's slightly cheaper than our previous solution. However, the licensing policy is unfair. We were using SentinelOne's EDR solution before we renewed our license this year. They added the XDR solution that deploys to the Singularity platform. The platform offers 13 tools, but you don't need to use all of them. For example, if I want to use Mimecast for email security, I can integrate it with this, and all the logs from the third-party tools are fed into SentinelOne.
At the same time, it isn't transparent because they raise the price every year, saying that they have to invest in research and development. However, we are hardly getting anything from their research and development. On the other end, agents can become outdated if they fail to update for a long time.
The agent is capable of detecting and preventing threats, but they're not adding features. We are paying for research and development but not getting anything new. Also, they never disclose the price increases in advance. They tell us the prices are changing when it's time for renewal.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at Trend Micro and Microsoft Defender. Before moving to Sentinel, we did a lot of research. Someone suggested Microsoft Defender, but the solution's capabilities are limited, and management is challenging. Microsoft suggests adding more products on top of Microsoft Defender, but then you need to add XDR or endpoint protection. On the other hand, Microsoft has a single platform for its products, so the integration is much better, but SentinelOne comes out ahead in detection and prevention.
What other advice do I have?
I rate SentinelOne Singularity eight out of 10.
When implementing SentinelOne, you need to plan for the number of endpoints and servers. It's crucial to define the structure and grouping of agents in the SentinelOne management portal and identify which policies are necessary for your requirements. I also recommend going through a proof of concept.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.