Symantec Advanced Authentication Reviews

What is our primary use case?

Symantec Advanced Authentication can be useful for wherever you require a strong authentication. If you want a strong authentication, second factor authentication, by email, SMS, or soft token, you can use this tool.  I've had multiple customers running their banking solutions and applications integrated with Symantec. Whether it is web-based applications or PAM applications, privileged access management, it can be integrated with this strong authentication solution. So far, our customers are very happy.  This solution is deployed on-prem. 

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it's a strong authentication solution that's able to integrate with applications. 

What needs improvement?

This solution could be improved with risk-based authentication. I think that this product has everything that most customers are looking for, but modern technology has people looking for security tools with risk-based authentication, which they have a separate tool for. If they could integrate this, it would improve Symantec Advanced Authentication. They have to look at what's newly trending and how things are moving forward, and then adapt and adopt those features.  Symantec's technical support should also be improved, in terms of response time. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Symantec Advanced Authentication for a long time. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This product is pretty scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

Symantec has very bad support, so I have no words for it. It's one of the worst support experiences I've ever had. The response time is very bad and the priority calls take more time to get resolved. Sometimes it takes months to resolve tickets. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup process is easy. It's straightforward, but as far as integration, the complexity will depend on the application and how those applications will be integrated.  For implementation, generally, you will require one to two people, including an architect and implementers. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There are eventually going to be implementation costs. Sometimes you're required to have custom code developments there, so that has to be part of the implementation price. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The competitors are RSA and Microsoft. Symantec Advanced Authentication was one of the top leading products back in the day and, still, it is very stable. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Symantec Advanced Authentication a seven out of ten.  We have at least two to three customers using this solution, both of which are reasonably big-sized customers. Some customers have it for about 5,000 to 10,000 servers.  To those considering implementing this solution, I would advise them to look at what their requirements are. If they want to integrate their active directory, if they want to have an integration with their exchange or application to enable multi-factor authentication, then they need to look into design because architecture is important. Sometimes you can do an architectural level integration at the firewall end, at the load balancer area, and do it in one shot for all applications, rather than going at silos and installing one application, and doing multi-factor authentication for each application. It depends on architecture, so when you are selecting a product, you have to make sure that you do the right architecture. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises