Netwrix Auditor

Avantages

Easy to setup
monitor AD, Logs, Events, etc
customizable notifications
visibility into files, Group Policy, Active Directory, Office 365, Azure, etc
advanced features that help track down file actions, like screen captures or recordings of the actual event

Inconvénients

The interface is sluggish
can cause some network interference if not tuned properly
cost

Avantages

Ease of installation and usage, Reporting, alerts, etc.

Inconvénients

I noticed that the new version of Netwrix tends to eat up a lot more hardrive disk space, but this is due to fine tuning Audit. Without proper tuning, it will easily eat up 100GB - which is what I experienced.

Avantages

Netwrix Auditor is a good product that audits all of the items we need to audit. It will audit file servers, database server, Active Directory Servers, SharePoint servers and a whole lot more. We use it for all of these items and the price did not go up because we added more machine types.

Inconvénients

Netwrix can be a bit finicky at times. We have has it stop auditing a server because the configuration on the server was changed. It took a bit of work with support for them to realize that it shouldn't have stopped due to the configuration change and once they figured that out, they fixed the problem. Once we got the auditing to start, it picked up all of the items it missed while it wasn't auditing, so we lost nothing.

Avantages

Easily identify the 4 W's: Who, what, when, where. Eliminates sifting through several event logs to find the relevant information. Allows easy investigation into changes not authorized or a failed system. Alerts easy to setup for notifications of items you need to know about.

Inconvénients

Occasionally, services fail and don't stop, so monitoring the service doesn't tell you that there is a problem until it is too late. No preventative as I would like.

Avantages

We are a smaller financial institution with limited staff and the automated reporting has been a great time saver for me to review various selected events. There are more than enough predefined reports to meet many of our oversight needs

Inconvénients

I do have some issues with trying to understand the licensing and when we had to had other modules. Perhaps someone coming from an IT administration or CIO background would understand it better.

Avantages

Netwrix Auditor is one of the best preforming program overall, it is user friendly and easy to understand and it is advance in treat detection and aid in our IT overall protection.It has numerous upscaling features that make it stand out above other similar products.It is inexpensive and will give you value for your money.

Inconvénients

I realized that it is not easy to use, more time would require to understand how to set it up properly.when running, it show error sometimes that is not understandable.

Avantages

The website trial shows off the features of the software while also teaching how to perform a user access audit. The user interface is very clean, user-friendly, intuitive, and snappy. The software comes with a lot of explanations for the built-in reports to help users understand what the report is used for. The software also makes it really easy to monitor the organization, with alerts for unacceptable actions or for unusual behavior above thresholds.

Inconvénients

Our IT department spent a long time working on getting some of the features and reports working, with some success, but many reports and features were never fixed after a whole year of working with support. Apparently Netwrix support was responsive, but their fixes often failed to work.

Alternatives envisagées 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Netwrix Auditor

Avantages

The alerting is incredibly valuable. Changes taking place to multiple files will generate an alert long before a human eye could notice what was happening. This is true of administrative logins and failed logins as well. The ability to audit changes in permissions so that they can be "seen" has been very helpful as well.

Inconvénients

It can be a bit too quick to alert but this is configurable. The initial configuration will set the tone for the application and goes a long way toward the initial implementation and usage so plan your install and determine what you want it to do for you before you actually install it.

Avantages

It's very easy to configure most of what you'll want to log directly out of the box. The parts that are a little more confusing are easily done with talking to support. This is overall a great product and one that I've needed for years.

Inconvénients

When you don't work with the setups on a regular basis it's sometimes time consuming to go back and make changes or add/delete things. Since it basically runs itself I haven't touched the setup in months.

Avantages

I liked I could get reports on who made changes to everything on my domain. I knew when someone adjusted a group policy, created a user, or made a change in SQL.

Inconvénients

We set this up to monitor employees only. We did not want to monitor students or service accounts because of the extra cost. The count on the user side showed 2000+ and we were not licensed. I opened a support ticket with the company and was told not to worry about it because it would just not monitor any user because of the license. I didn't like the answer, but it was still monitoring so much more. Then a year later I was hit with a huge bill because we had 2000+ people being monitored. We decided to just turn of the service.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Netwrix Auditor

Avantages

The product has always worked for us and is extremely easy to manage. The cost was definitely right for the product.

Inconvénients

Only problem is that I haven't explored all the options that Netwrix has to offer. The have a wide range of products and I've just scratched the surface.

Avantages

That I can monitor all of my servers and get automated reports

Inconvénients

Our current Sales Rep. Our first sales rep was very helpful and didn't lie about what we would be getting.
Our current Sales rp has been extremely rude, and not helpful at all.

Avantages

Provides all the features you need......

Inconvénients

The features are there, however, reports hardly work, constant bug fixes or upgrades.

Avantages

Netwrix makes the process of auditing changes within our Active Directory environment very simple. We no longer have to spend additional time chasing down problems and what caused them. We can quickly evaluate what has recently changed, who changed it and then evaluate the best resolution without wasting time. This allows us to focus on the most important aspects of our jobs!

Inconvénients

Netwrix does not have a lot of features that I do not find amazing. The only item that I can find that comes close to being a "con" involves the way that data is processed. I would love to find a method of auditing active directory and servers that do not involve granting Domain Admin rights to an account used for the product. It is understandable, though.

Avantages

This software takes your computer and server event logs and breaks them down into reports that you can easy view and understand exactly what is going on with your environment. You can also record what anyone does on your servers as a video. All reports can have real time notifications of events you select like multiple failed logins etc. It is also an amazing price for all that you get.

Inconvénients

The only thing i have had is that the new version doesn't support Windows Server 2003-2008 so what i did was spun up 2 VM's for this software and ran an older version on one VM and the newest version on an other so I can have the old version monitor the 2003-2008 servers and the newest version monitor 2008 R2 to 2016.

Avantages

Automation!! Set it and forget it. Once you set up the items you want to monitor, you have the ability to shift your focus to other important items and then be alerted when the criteria matches your rules.

Inconvénients

A little complicated to get things working at first.

Avantages

The daily reporting is great at providing a snapshot of changes the environment for Information Security Officer. In our IT department we rely on the real-time alerts daily for user lockouts and other AD related changes to inform us of changes made so we can act accordingly.

Inconvénients

It takes some time to get a handle on the on-demand reporting, but Netwrix provides a huge list of canned reports so you rarely have to create a customized report from scratch.

Avantages

When the software works as advertised the information collection and reporting is far easier than attempting to extract the date from convoluted Microsoft logs using problematic scripts. The advertised data collection is extensive, and covers the most critical areas needed by a small business IT department with a limited staff. The active directory reporting is incredibly valuable and should be a mandatory for any business with or without a dedicated IT department.

Inconvénients

Getting the data collection to work, and then keeping the data collection working is almost nothing short of an exercise in futility. The purpose of the software is to collect and report data, and yet Netwrix does not seem to hold back on making the process seem like a customer problem by providing numerous dead end resolutions. The lack of data collection troubleshooting tools does not go unnoticed.

Avantages

Consolidates logs, easy to access reports on AD/file server changes. You are also able to set up alerts for account lockouts, failed logins and more. Netwrix can also help detect ransomware by reporting on bulk file changes (thankfully this isn't an issue for us). The application is easy to set up and navigate.

Inconvénients

Whilst the modular approach is great for price/budgeting, it's a shame you can't trial the different modules for 30/60/90 days before making a decision on which modules to implement.

Avantages

Netwrix Auditor can be setup to audit most all of the systems that a company is running. It also allows, for one price to audit most of the systems that need to be audited. In addition you can audit systems that are not part of Netwrix by using the Integration API.

Inconvénients

The primary con with Netwrix is that the documentation is not complete. It does show how to configure a basic system but then stops there. It should also show how to configure more complex configurations. This then requires you to submit a ticket which might take a bit to get a proper answer.

Avantages

Netwrix Auditor was easy to deploy and you can very quickly gain deep insights into what is occurring in your environment. A huge positive is that a single application can provide data for so many different environments.

Inconvénients

Not a knock against the software itself, but in some cases, requirements for certain audit features could be documented a bit better or more centrally. Perhaps this has been improved upon since my initial deployment 5+ years ago.

Avantages

Netwrix Auditor audits a lot of different products such as SQL Server, Windows Servers, Active Directory and NetApp file servers. It is very consistent in its runs and produces reports and alerts that our US government clients fully accept. It has helped my company receive numerous accreditation for performing auditing properly.

Inconvénients

It can be difficult to configure and sometimes fails during a heavy load. Although it may fail every now and then, it will go back and gather the information it missed in the last run and get backup to date on the audits.

Avantages

Its User Interface. Netwrix has a lot of built-in features that come right out of the box.

Inconvénients

It needs a full time person to run the software.

Avantages

Netwrix provides a thorough, easy to use interface to address supporting documentation for almost all of our Microsoft audit requirements. We have been able to easily produce the documentation and evidence for all requests from our audit team with ease. Something that used to take a considerable amount of time to compile.

Inconvénients

Would prefer that the client be web based, as opposed to the Windows client that is used today. Additional detail in error reports to help identify exactly what is not working would be extremely helpful as well. We occasionally have to do quite a bit of exploration to determine exactly what component is generating the error.

Avantages

Monitor our file server usages and provide detail reporting on abnormal access to sensitive information.

Inconvénients

We are experiencing resource issues when the application is running. When running scan on the server over the WAN, the application seems to use a large amount of memory.

Avantages

The fact that Netwrix always includes new and better features all of the time. Great price for the software and once it is in place and working it is very stable and solid. The new 9.0 version really allows for so much more than the old versions.

Inconvénients

Some of the plugins are hard to use. I have a hard time figuring out what is causing errors sometimes when it runs its nightly scans of my systems. But customer support is always very good in helping solve the issues.

Avantages

Netwrix has given me insight about our network quickly and in a clear format without having to hold several IT certifications.

Inconvénients

I am still not clear about what some of the alert messages in the data collection process is referring to with an ambiguous message about error in gathering the information

Avantages

Always works. Extremely easy to use! You set it and forget it for what we are using it for. When I have to go back to it I actually remember where things are which shows that it has great design.

Avantages

Allows you to setup email notifications to help keep your network and infrastructure secure. Works very well.

Inconvénients

Cost. Is a little pricey for what you get. The overall product works well and is worth the money for what it provides.

Avantages

It catches things that you need to catch! You can set it and forget or you can generate all kinds of reports.

Inconvénients

Sometimes it is a little slow at getting the reports to pull - it gets what I need but would like to be faster.

Avantages

none really

Inconvénients

console crash all the time (at least once a week) especially when you use it. version 8 GUI was redesigned and it worst than the original one.

Avantages

I like that I have can a "one-stop shop" for all my auditing needs. Very easy to use and the support folks are great!

Inconvénients

That I had to remove the old version - which was a big pain.

Avantages

Real time notification of any changes in AD and successful and unsuccessful logins to machines, which tells administrators of unauthorized login tries and legitimate user problems even before users approach administrator

Inconvénients

There has to be exception reporting options which lets administrator know as some thing is not right for example I particular user is not supposed to be logging into a particular server and if such action happens then administrator should be alarmed - such relationship database should be there

Avantages

Great alerting and customizing. We use it to send alerts for AD and Windows Fileshares. Each version has made it better and better.

Inconvénients

For some reason it doesn't always see when user lockout. All other alerts work great.

Avantages

It just works. Set it up once, and the daily/weekly jobs run without any further effort. We have our reports sent to our ticketing system, making the daily review a breeze.

Inconvénients

Reporting filters can be a little confusing to use at times, and customization options are limited, requiring editing config files rather than within the GUI.

Avantages

The version 9 client is awesome. It provides a much easier way to drill into reports and events than ever before.

Inconvénients

The activity summary reports that it completed with errors, yet neither we nor tech support has ever been able to identify the problem. Since there are no events missing, we have just let it go.

Avantages

The visibility, insight, alerting, reporting and response time it gives you to watch and respond to security events in your environment.

Inconvénients

It is very expensive. They get you with the entry price then jack up the price at renewal.

Avantages

The software works well and it doesn't take alot of configuration to be usable.
It proactively sends emails with daily recaps.
Very simple to setup

Inconvénients

It is very expensive and to get everything, plan to buy multiple modules. The value for the money is there, but it is alot of money to start. Great value / High Price.

Avantages

This is a Swiss army knife of auditing tools. It's very flexible, and can audit about any major software you use, including online clouds such as Office 365.

Inconvénients

The interface is not the most intuitive.

Avantages

Easy to find the information we need using the search feature. Real-time alerting. Ability to report on any event from the Windows event log.

Inconvénients

Inability to format the reports (choosing data fields or placement of the fields). Inconsistent reporting formats depending on the method selected. Example: running a report within the reporting interface vs. Inactive account report. When running a report and then choosing to subscribe, must reconfigure the subscription to match the report that was already run.

Avantages

Netwrix is very easy to use, very easy to setup. It provides great information and lets you audit your environment very easily

Inconvénients

Documentation could be a little better, but support was great with assisting in setup and they constantly reach out to see how things are going.

Avantages

Reporting, ease of setup once installed.

Inconvénients

Lack of some settings to pull better I fo for reporting.

Avantages

Know what's happening in your environment

Inconvénients

Setup a bit hard. But great once the software is going

Avantages

Setting up email templates to users are easy

Inconvénients

Hard to setup, not very out of the box.

Avantages

Ease of Use, depth of visibility to AD changes, realtime SMS alert and password change notification alert. Above listed requirements and key reasons why the tool is resourceful to Howard's team.

Inconvénients

Task scheduler failure (sometimes) and interpretation of forwarded logs to SIEM. There are few items that can be improved upon to maximize resourcefulness.

Avantages

The change reporting is the most important component that we use. We're able to receive real time alerts as changes are made or when priviledged accounts are used.

Inconvénients

Setup can be complicated. It would be great it could report on device and Linux access as well. As is it works best with Microsoft AD.

Avantages

I like the daily reports that Netwrix sends to the Officers on the network functions. Federal and state guidelines require someone keeps track of the network admins changes to the network. Netwrix Auditor emails a morning report every work day describing the changes made to Active Directory on all our Domain Controllers.

Avantages

Quick and easy deployment. Most features do not require an agent. Video monitoring of server sessions is a really cool features that we actually use.

Inconvénients

Because there is to no support for Cisco products, we are forced to look into alternatives for a fully capable SIEM.

Avantages

The prebuilt reports for so many areas of compliance. The option to install a client rather than RDPing to the server is nice.

Inconvénients

The arduous task of creating an alert via the server console. And on this console (and I know this is not technically a SEIM), it would be nice if there were already pre-built alerts that we could simply enable for the most common security threats. The client interface is great for showing you what you are looking for if you wanted to print a PDF. I don't want a PDF view in the interface though. I want to see data returned in rows that I can filter live, sort columns, drill down on data, pivot on data, etc... Again, these features encroach on SEIM territory, but for what this product is, it kinda should have it. I am open to discussing further if you need more clarification.

Avantages

Ease of use is one, The functionality that it has in it is far beyond what we could have written. It covers a lot of ground on your network. The ease of finding what changed within a file server for me is key.

Inconvénients

Like any software, how it is licensed. Licensed by how many active AD objects you have, well we have some active objects that do not get logged into or touched but they count against us.