KuppingerCole named IBM Security Guardium as an overall leader in their Leadership Compass on Data Security Platforms. IBM was ranked as a leader in all three major categories: Product, Innovation, and Market. With this in mind, let’s examine how KuppingerCole measures today’s solutions and why it’s important for you to have a data security platform that you trust.
The Transformation of the Data Security Industry
As digital transformation continues to expand, the impact it has had on enterprises is very apparent when it comes to data security. It is becoming extremely challenging to securely store, process, exchange, and protect sensitive data.
In order to protect sensitive data, organizations should look to implement a data security platform that will help them automate their data security efforts and simplify compliance. KuppingerCole realized the importance of data security platforms within the market, which is why they adjusted their original focus from big data and databases to data security platforms. Database security is still a relevant section of information security that prioritizes protecting databases and structured data but is no longer the focal point as the market evolves.
Register for the Report
How the Report Ranks Vendors
When evaluating the various products, KuppingerCole does not only evaluate overall aspects of the solutions and their vendors. They also rank the strength of vendors’ solutions along several functional areas:
The Overall Leadership rating provides a combined view of the rating for the other three categories: Product, Innovation, and Market. IBM was listed as an overall leader and kept its lead among the pack, due to its global market presence, broad range of database security solutions, and impressive financial strengths.
Product Leadership is based mainly on the functional strength of the vendors’ solutions, no matter their ability to gain substantial market share. KuppingerCole uses five categories to rank products within the report: Security, Functionality, Deployment, Interoperability, and Usability.
For the Innovation Leadership category, KuppingerCole views innovation as a key capability in IT market segments. Innovation is important because it is a feature that customers prioritize to ensure the solutions that they are using advance and adapt to their needs. Although IBM may be a veteran data security vendor, the company has shown time and time again that it is able to keep up with the ever-changing data landscape and produce new capabilities as the world of data security shifts.
Market Leadership is analyzed by the number of customers and their geographic distribution, the size of deployments and services, the size and geography of the partner ecosystem, and the financial health of the participating companies. From KuppingerCole’s perspective, the Market Leadership category requires global reach.
IBM Security Guardium Remains in the Lead
For the fourth time in a row, IBM Security Guardium was ranked a leader in all three sections — Product, Innovation, and Market.
KuppingerCole listed IBM as an Overall Leader title for the fourth time along with Oracle. IBM was only 2 out of 14 vendors that received a “strong positive,” the highest rating, in the five categories previously mentioned:
- Security
- Functionality
- Deployment
- Interoperability
- Usability
To take it a step further, IBM received the “strong positive” in four additional categories:
- Innovativeness
- Market Position
- Financial Strength
- Ecosystem
IBM Security Guardium stands out among the pack of solutions for a multitude of reasons. The platform offers a full range of capabilities for both structured and unstructured data and supports hybrid multi-cloud environments. The advanced data and analytics integrate with not only IBM, but also with 3rd party security, identity, and analytics products, which separates them from Oracle.
Interested in diving deeper into the report? Register for the Leadership Compass to learn more about the data security platform market and how IBM Security Guardium compares to other vendors within the industry.
IBM Security Brand and Content Strategist, Guardium
Dayja Brooks is a Brand and Content Strategist at IBM with a focus on IBM Security Guardium. She is new to the data security world but is eager to learn all ...