RackFoundry Total Security Management (discontinued) vs. Splunk Cloud Platform

I would not recommend RackFoundry to any company whatsoever. At first it seems like a viable solution for the cost. Offering SOC monitoring, implementation and deployment all-in-one seems like a great deal. However it all falls apart when push comes to shoves. As it currently stands we are just over a year into our deployment. All we have to show for it is a fancy web app that does not display any information. In the year that this deployment has been ongoing it has taken us a few months just to get the virtual appliance installed. Then it was another few months of back and forth until we finally got credentials. Then when I finally logged in we began the process of deploying agents and began collecting data. Shortly afterward things began to stall to where they are now. We faced major issues with the web app, scans were not running, assets were not reporting in and data and reports were not being generated. After doing some more research and googling I realized that we were not alone with these issues. Countless other reports from companies who have had similar issues to ours. Each time I ask when the issues were going to be resolved, I got the same answer every time: "The next release should fix the issues you have been experiencing", only for the next release to come, and the issues remain.

I will highly recommend this software because using Splunk
Cloud has helped us become more proactive about handling our security concerns
and better manage our environment. It is one of the finest security software
that is easy to use and also provides analytics. It has excellent features like
creating dashboard security and managing features etc. So you must give it a try once!

Incentivized

• All-in-one solution that covers all the essentials and basic of security needs
• Unique methodology way for cost effective enterprise security solution
• Help exceed compliance as their interface allows you to tailor your compliance needs
• Simple and friendly customizable user interface dashboard
• Unique function: Ask an Expert
• Premium fully manage automatic updates with access
• Deployable Security Modules that encompass IPS/IDS/SIEM/VA/FW
• Knowledgeable engineers, who helped improve our overall infrastructure by making it more secure

• With Splunk Cloud you get the advantage of moving from POC to Production in a matter of days rather than in months allowing the Business to gain a lot.
• Takes you away from managing infrastructure/administration, allows saving time & money. Reduce the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
• Move from Reactive to Proactive Monitoring
• Highly secure environment at your finger-tips

Incentivized

• Product they offer does not work.
• Time to implement is unbelievably long.
• Services they offer are so far, non-existent.

• Some of their more advanced features, like ITSI, Machine Learning, or Security Analytics, can be very challenging to setup and configure.
• Splunk Cloud support has been a challenge in the past. They are getting better, but they have had problems responding in a timely manner to issues.
• These are only some minor observations of things I have had to deal with. In general, Splunk is a solid product that is fantastic to use.

Incentivized

Ease of use and have all the features we need

Incentivized

What it does well:

- Powerful SPL query language for advanced users

- Excellent visualization dashboards

- Comprehensive documentation and community support

Where it needs work:

- Steep learning curve for SPL syntax

- Non-Intuitive UI for beginners

- Complex administration and data model configuration

- Search performance degrades with poor query optimization

Bottom line: Enterprise-grade tool requiring dedicated training investment. Best for teams with experienced analysts.

Incentivized

Splunk Cloud support is sorely lacking unfortunately. The portal where you submit tickets is not very good and is lacking polish. Tickets are left for days without any updates and when chased it is only sometimes you get a reply back. I get the feeling the support team are very understaffed and have far too much going on. From what I know, Splunk is aware of this and seem to be trying to remedy it.

Incentivized

Well I have experience with the big names: SecureWorks, IBM and Splunk. Individually their logging tools are much better than RackFoundry's Total Security Management. This is great for large corporations and urban cities, however not so great for municipalities, mid size businesses and companies who fluctuate between 1-7 members on their IT staff. Why? Because it takes too much of their resources and integration with other products gets a little rough as you will need to configure your preferences to theirs. When a company has stability it is great to have a name brand product, however renewals and upgrade costs can be taxing to an organization.

Microsoft Dynamics is far more complex and far more costly to implement and configure in comparison to Splunk. It can be useful for integrations into existing Microsoft databases. Grafana is quick and easy to deploy and configure. However, it lacks the scale required for an enterprise of our size. It is great for smaller test cases.

Incentivized

• Just knowing that we are protected from attacks is our main objective and so far that sense of security is well worth the cost associated with it.

• Splunk Cloud has had a positive ROI in helping more efficiently track the cause of Help Desk Tickets.
• The billing model which is based on the amount of data from logs uploaded doesn't alert if a threshold is approaching. This can have a negative ROI.
• The training that I have taken while in-depth and focused is pretty expensive.

Incentivized