ER/Studio Data Architect vs. Varonis Data Security Platform

ER/Studio is great for providing data model images for teammates to use when they are not data modelers.

Incentivized

For sure it is well suited for companies that need to keep track of their data and that are willing to pay for it. It does an excelent job of monitoring the file's access, with zero impact on Storage's performance. Sometimes it is not enough to be able to restore the data. Sometimes in critical incidents, managers and heads demand to know who caused it. Thanks to Varonis we were able to give them this information easily and in a short time.

Incentivized

• ER/Studio is great for dividing logical and physical design. A logical model can be used with different physical platforms.
• Studio can a useful macro capability that allows me to apply the naming standards across the model with ease and consistency.
• ER/Studio does a very good job at comparing the model with the actual database and generating DDL scripts for production deployments.
• ER/Studio has an excellent reporting and model publishing capabilities allowing me to produce models in the HTML format and publish them for the team as needed.

Incentivized

• This tool allows us to protect sensitive data.
• It also improves our ability to maintain compliance with many different requirements.
• The tool also permits auditing capabilities that we did not have prior to its implementation.
• The tools also proactively alerts us to potential ransomware related events.

Incentivized

• Relationships are a bit on the weaker side. Many times I found orphaned relationships that I could not get rid of, or additional columns that were automatically created during the push to the physical model that appear to be due to key constraint bugs
• There are a lot of bugs introduced when merging keys. I tend to model 2 tables for example logically, establish the relationship, and then merge the additional key column that is automatically created when establishing the relationship. This sometimes causes downstream issues with the physical model (creating duplicate columns with _1 appended)
• Meta-data could be improved. I find it hard to keep descriptions and other meta information clean when copying and pasting from other sources due to formatting tags being introduced on each object (font, size, color, etc.). The attachment feature comes in handy, however I am looking for the ability to cleanly document and map multiple sources to a single target while providing searchability and traceability

Incentivized

• Implementation can be challenging in some areas and can only be executed by the vendor
• Implementation can only be executed by the vendor and additional work can be chargeable
• Licensing can be improved upon
• Agent based so implementation can be longer than expected

Incentivized

I wish the cost was a little bit lower and increase functionality and features would give it 10/10.

Incentivized

I can call or email support and both get quick turn around. The only issue is they are on the west coast (US) and have a west coast work schedule and I'm on the East coast.

Incentivized

Support has always been very responsive and addressed any issues we may have had in the past. Some local engineers are willing to come onsite or work over a web session to discuss creating a new rule set or look at some issues. Getting issues address has never been a problem. There was one feature we had trouble getting to function correctly, but support and local engineers were willing to work with us as much as needed to get it working correctly for our organization.

Incentivized

ER Studio Data Architect is a global leader in the data modelling space and most other solutions that have support for third party data models include support for ER Studio Data Architect file formats. Many of the features are a bit more intuitive than the competitors and several of our vendors were already using Data Architect themselves which helped solidify the choice.

Incentivized

When it comes to data security we all want something stable with good protocol practices. Varonis is good at data analyzing, detecting threats, taking actions and compliance. Varonis needs lots of resources to run and it is somewhat expensive. But still I believe that Varonis does a good job among the other competitors

Incentivized

• Using ER\Studio to create models and eventually the actual database schema allows for a picture that is understandable to the customer and saves significant time writing DDL to create the database objects (tables, indexes, relationships, constraints...)
• A nice customer interface tool so you can create a web based interface to the metadata for a particular design.
• The tool also supports sub-models so you can break a large project into smaller parts, I find this feature very helpful.

Incentivized

• Varonis has only been a positive impact on our environment, but helping us close security holes that we didn't know existed.
• This product has also provided piece of mind by watching our environment for Malware attacks and taking automatic actions if necessary.
• This software does require a fair amount of server resources, but fortunately can be hosted in a virtual environment and has made this need easier to handle.