You may have heard that perimeter security is dead, but rest assured, IT folks aren't about to do way with theircorporate firewalls just yet. The perimeter is just one―albeit critical―dimension of your organization's digital attack surface , and endpoint security is no lessimportant, especially with the continued enterprise adoption of cloud and mobile technologies. Tanium and IBM BigFix are competingsolutions in this space that were, interestingly, born from the same progeny.
According to Research and Markets , the global consumer endpoint security market is expected to grow 11.81% between 2016-2020. Both fledgling and veteran cybersecurity vendors recognize the enterprise'sdire needs in the endpoint security and management space―increasingly, catastrophicoutages and security compromises are due to simple misconfigurations and unpatched systems.
In fact, the SANS Institute cites unpatched software as beingthe most critical cyber security risk to businesses today. And in this age of business digitization, such disruptions carry a definitive price tag―w hether it be a data breach or service interruption , IDC estimates that infrastructure downtime for large enterprises costs on average $100,000/hour, with critical application failures between $500,000 and $1 million/hour. IBM BigFix and Tanium focus on remediating and preventing these costly incidents through effective endpoint security and management.
IBM BigFixAs mentioned previously, both BigFix and Tanium were created by father/son duo David and Orion Hindawi. A decade before founding Tanium in 2007, the team developed BigFixfor enterprise endpoint management―the company was later sold to IBM in 2010. Post-acquisition, the product was merged with IBM's Tivoli line and branded as Tivoli Endpoint Manager (TEM). TEM was later renamed IBM Endpoint Manager and more recently, simply IBM BigFix.
The IBM BigFix UI. Source: ibm.com.
Today'sIBM BigFix consists of a suite of complimentary offerings for finding, fixing, and securing endpoints: IBM BigFix Compliance for continuous adherence withregulatory measures, IBM BigFix Patch for real-time patch management/enforcement, IBM BigFix Inventory for software audits and license management, and more.
Tanium
Speed is critical to effective e ndpoint security and management, whether it be spotting vulnerabilities before cyber attackers do or applying crucial patches/fixes en masse. To this end, Tanium offers its15-second visibility/control and natural language search capabilities for querying endpoint configurations. These capabilities enableenterprises todetect security flaws and disseminatecritical patches and updates faster than with traditional client management solutions.
Tanium IOC Detect interface. Source: tanium/vimeo.com.
Tanium's performance benefits are due to the platform's unique architecture: by using a peer-to-peer "linear chain" configuration, endpoint agents can communicate adjacently in dynamic configurations, with only select agents at the chain's endpoints communicating with the server directly. This allows for significant performance benefits for fasterthreat response and remediation.
Side-by-Side Scoring: IBM BigFixvs.Tanium
1. Capability Set
Both platforms offer threat detection, vulnerability assessment, patch management, asset inventory management, and software distribution capabilities, among others; that said, BigFix is more on the IT operations management (ITOM) side of affairs. The platform's single-agent management console houses 18 applications for managing endpoints and infrastructureIT assets in one streamlined interface. Tanium is arguably more cybersecurity-focused, with various modules such as Compy, Discover, Incident Response, and more rounding out the platform's capabilities.
BigFix Tanium2. Ease of Use
BigFix can be complicated and difficult-to-use, with an abundance of submenus and confusing interface elements. In contrast, Tanium―with its familiar SaaS interface―is relatively trivial to get up to speed with; that said, an overload of dashboards make it somewhat unwieldy for novices.
BigFix Tanium3. Community Support
A myriad of community support resources exist for IBM BigFix, including the official BigFix forum and the community-driven BigFix.me community portal, to name a few. For an exhaustive list of BigFix community support resources, check out the product's developerWorks wiki on the IBM website. Tanium also maintains a community website with an updatedknowledgebase and repository of support resources.
BigFix Tanium4. Release Rate
BigFix has evolved significantly over the years, from its early incarnation as part of the Tivoli systems management platform to the latestIBM BigFix endpoint security and management suite, currently on version 9.5 at the time of this writing. Tanium 7 was released inMay and includes arevamp of itsadministration console and workflows. Release histories for both Tanium and BigFix are available from the vendors' websites.
BigFix Tanium5. Pricing and Support
Both Tanium and IBM BigFix platform are decidely enterprise-level products and beyond the means of most SMEs. Specific pricing for Tanium is not publicly available, so be prepared to consult with Tanium sales and/or professional services.
However, various IBM BigFix componentscan be had quite affordably via the IBM Marketplace for certain use cases and applications―for example, its IBM BigFix Patch Management solution is available from $5.46 USD per user/year. Both vendors offer amyriad of online and paid-for (phone and email) support options to customers.
BigFix Tanium
