Darktrace vs. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)

Darktrace would be well suited to any environment really; the only constraint would be the budget. The cost scales on the number of devices to be monitored by the product, so it can be quite expensive in larger environments. Any company that would benefit from having 24/7 monitoring of their network would find that this product would suit that need perfectly. It can also create a number of reports, which is useful if you have any requirement to present periodic figures and statistics for your network. There are also additional features available and in development such as Antigena, which can be configured to allow potential threats to be automatically mitigated; it can block connections to a certain address, using certain ports, or it can enforce "normal behaviour" where it will only allow a machine to communicate in a way that Darktrace has observed before and considers normal. This has huge benefits particularly for 24/7 organisations where you don't have the ability to have someone monitoring the network personally at all times, as it could stop a malware outbreak in its tracks.

Incentivized

I would suggest this tool to any user that has to monitor multiple sites and locations where bandwidth monitoring can be a labor. This software works really well for central monitoring of multiple sites and services where having a technician onsite isn't feasible. I really like the reporting, though, and would recommend this for someone wanting to keep an eye on bandwidth usage for replication of data across sites.

Incentivized

• Uses it Al model UEBA to detect anomalies in the behaviour of not only the users in a corporate network but also the routers, servers, and endpoints in that network.
• Provides a visualisation of both egress and outbound network traffics flowing in and out of the organisation.
• Darktrace comes with it autonomous AI model detection and responses capabilities.
• Darktrace as an AI next generation NDR solution, prevents ,contains and quarantines malicious traffics from and into the corporate network.

• The level of customization possible with Network Bandwidth Analyzer is very valuable. Rather than being stuck with a "one-size-fits-all" presentation, an administrator can easily create customized views, reports, and alerts so that users can have a more tailored view of the data provided by Network Bandwidth Analyzer. This has the effect of making the tool more attractive to the end user.
• The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer piece of Network Bandwidth Analyzer provides the details on bandwidth usage on the network. More than knowing how much bandwidth is being used, one is provided with detailed information on how that bandwidth is being used. This provides invaluable information for capacity planning and even certain forensic tasks faced by the network engineer.
• The ability to produce network maps provides an easy way to create an attractive and functional NOC/SOC view of the entire network. Both technician and the occasional passerby can quickly determine if there are issues to be addressed. The ability to customize a map with background images and custom icons and stencils can make these maps really pop.

Incentivized

• The system has so many features and places to tweak we found it hard to tune for our use.
• We met regularly with someone from Darktrace to assist us in processing the alerts
• The process for mail scanning requires you to reroute mail traffic

Incentivized

• The ability to intuitively and quickly serve up specified information up to a dashboard for general “public” consumption, that cycles through several pages of information.
• The ability to intuitively set up alerting on bandwidth levels, instead of having to dig through all types of alerts available to find the one needed.
• Provide a pricing model based on different support levels: if I want only available update installations, don’t make me pay the same amount as those wanting full support.

Incentivized

It's a powerfull product that help administrators to provide email security to our organization.

Good metrics about received emails that help us to determine in doubt case if the email is a false positive or it's malware.

They're improving the product releasing continuous updates and have mobile phone app to manage it.

Incentivized

The Darktrace toolset is very expansive, allowing it to handle many different tasks, but this leads to a user interface that is sometimes not at all intuitive. Icons don't always make sense visually, and the associated tool tips do not always provide enough detail on what action the button performs

Incentivized

As far as rating for usability is concerned I would give 10/10 as NTA is very easy to use. All you need to do is install that module and ask network Team to configure the Netflow towards Server IP. [The] rest is pre-configured and reports are pre-built. Moment you receive the flows from Network all you will have is information about traffic.

Incentivized

Darktrace support is excellent in my experience. They send a competent engineer on-site to provide on-boarding training. They were also very responsive in responding to questions and concerns. Having an individual point of contact who is a competent network and security engineer is not a common experience, at least for me.

Incentivized

It is useful for our Infrastructure team and also provides valuable insights to our application team regarding the traffic being sent from various endpoints. They can monitor their applications and ensure there are no network issues that may impact their application.

Incentivized

The training offered by SolarWinds is some of the best out there. They have several different videos that go into great detail from initial setup to advanced configurations. In addition to the view at your own pace video, they also have live training for customers that focus on a single product and you can ask questions with the folks who develop the software. I have had good success with their live sessions and getting questions answered.

Incentivized

We did NOT select Darktrace. OSSIM/AlienVault is a more mature product and it provided better intelligence and reporting. The end user interface is much easier to use - and you can tell built form engineers who have had to do the work. My suggestion for anyone considering Darktrace, is to get the price upfront; do a 30/60 onsite trail; and do the same thing, at the same time, with AlienVault. AlientVault will win every time. I say that because that's exactly what I did.

Incentivized

SolarWinds NTA is hands down a superior product compared to Wireshark. However, when doing smaller isolated projects the affordability of Wireshark can not be overlooked. Wireshark does a great job of collecting data on ports and circuits. The advantage of SolarWinds NTA is the all encompassing collection of data and management of the multitude of devices. It is designed to do that, and does it very well.

Incentivized

• One big positive is how it helps us with the security assessments that clients have done on us. They are looking to see if we know how we might have unusual/malicious traffic running on the network.
• If you have a small network and only need 1 appliance, it can be a good ROI and peace of mind.
• You could go down a hole in trying to spend time looking at all of your traffic with this software. You need to focus only on what it is showing as potential bad traffic.

Incentivized

• Be prepared to answer lots of questions. When people see the data in NTA they are going to want to know why App A is talking to App B. Be ready to explain!
• Hand the keys to the NTA kingdom to the network team. They will thank you. Everyone wants to have friends on the network team, right?
• Be prepared to invest in some significant compute and storage performance to keep up with your NTA monitoring
• Running the latest firmware for your network gear is (often) required to take advantage of all the flow-monitoring. You upgrade regularly, right??

Incentivized