Action1 vs. BeyondTrust Network Security Scanner, powered by Retina (Legacy)

[Action1 Cloud Remote Monitoring and Management Solution is a] really great tool for organizations looking at a solution that doesn't rely on on-premise infrastructure to manage multiple sites or work-from-home devices. As long as the endpoints are connected to the internet they will show as online in the system.

Retina Network Security Scanner is well suited for any environment and infrastructure that would like to expose security deficiencies across their network as well as visualize vulnerabilities as they pertain to assets in their environment. I cannot think of any scenario that would not be appropriate for this product. Since the product carries over to pretty much all assets in your environment, I don't know off the top of y head what it wouldn't be appropriate for.

Incentivized

• Easy remote access to devices. That simple. We have some very unskilled users in the field where asking them to access their PC via conventional remote tools like TeamViewer, Anydesk, etc. was always a pain. Now, all they have to do is ensure their PC is online, and we can connect to them.
• Remote software deploy. Before Action1, we did have some GPOs and scripts, but again - being able to deploy to PCs outside of our office/LAN, is just beautiful. On top of the standard repository, being able to create new packages is very useful for our scenario.
• Inventory Reporting. Recently we had to identify PCs running old versions of Windows. Can't highlight enough how easy it is.

Incentivized

• Besides the fact that Retina NSS performs the fundamental task of scanning all my network devices, one of the main strengths is the speed at which it scans. Time is money and I know people tent to wear that cliché out a bit, but when you are as small as we are of a team, every minute counts.
• We have utilized other network security scanners over the past 21 years and Retina NSS seems to have the smallest footprint with no evidence of scanning degrading performance of the devices scanned.
• They seem to update their database frequently enough that we notice a correlation of threats to discovery.
• There is a small learning curve, but overall, a seasoned IT professional can quickly get up and running in a few hours and get usable results quickly. This falls back on the speed at which Retina NSS scans. My previous network security scanners would sometimes take hours to complete a full vulnerability scan of between 250 - 400 devices, now it only takes a fraction of that time.

Incentivized

• Lots of times Action1 will identify a program that needs to be patched, but then not really have a path laid out to get that done...so they just remain as they are, but are tagged as such.
• Really wants to replace the windows update mechanism. Resists (or did at least) you if you try to keep updates as they are and update occasionally from Action1
• Could develop the scripts section a bit more, looked pretty sparse last time I checked it out.

Incentivized

• I do not have any obvious cons to report at this time.

Incentivized

Price, functionality, and continuous improvement of the product.

Incentivized

Agent deployment is simple (and silent) - once that is done, you're good to go. Everything is simple, centralized and very easy to work with. There isn't one aspect of this platform that requires crawling over forums and Google, it just works!

Incentivized

I never contacted support services

Incentivized

very easy to start using it.

Incentivized

Action1 excels with patch management and their ability to show if applications have been marked as vulnerable. It is also hard to beat their free model where the first 200 are free. When I first started with Action1 it was only 50 endpoints so seeing that expand so much is awesome.

Incentivized

Retina Network Security Scanner is the only product we have used in our enterprise. I have used a product in the past called GFI LanGuard Network Security Scanner and while it did perform the functions of vulnerability testing, etc...it just wasn't nearly as refined as Retina NSS. It was slow and was not as lightweight as Retina as far as end-user detection.

Incentivized

• Saved hours per week on patching and able to ensure a 100% patching success rate.
• Able to create custom alerting on potential problems as well as able to create some automation to automatically address problems.
• Improved support to our remote locations and users.
• Custom deployments allow us to have a mechanism to deploy custom applications we build as well as other third party applications we need to distribute.

Incentivized

• The product is extremely easy to deploy, extremely positive.
• If you take full advantage of this product as I did, you will maximize your ROI quickly as we did.
• We were able to visualize our vulnerabilities efficiently and effectively and maintain scheduled scans that allowed us to maintain a continuous improvement atmosphere while securing our investments.
• The ability provide reporting allows our IT department to prioritize issues and remediate as required without chasing down low risk issues over high risk issues that need immediate attention.

Incentivized