Any security administrator knows that they are only as strong as their weakest link. We have seen a lot of products in this group that focus on making sure devices are in compliance with the security policy, but what about the users? Users with too many privileges or permissions are just as dangerous as a non-compliant machine or network device. This is where Viewfinity fits into the group. Using Viewfinity Privilege Management, administrators can control privileges for users throughout the environment and escalate privileges as needed on a case-by-case basis or as part of an overall policy.
Setup of this product requires Microsoft Windows Server 2008 running IIS and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Once the server is set up, the installation of the Viewfinity server itself is quick - guided by an easy-to-follow setup wizard. The wizard aids in setting up general server components, as well as the necessary connections to the backend database and the web-based management console. At the completion of the wizard, all further configuration and management is done via the web-based management console, which we found to be well-organized with a clean look and feel. Navigating around the interface is comfortable and fluid, as well as intuitive.
Viewfinity Privilege Management offers a lot in the way of functionality and allows for many flexible and granular policies to be easily deployed throughout the enterprise. This product also features a fair amount of automation capabilities, including policy creation and management, using compliance-based or custom policies and full automated user analysis to determine the needs of specific users or groups of users. This product also plugs into Active Directory directly to help streamline user and group management through Microsoft Group Policy. Furthermore, this product offers full auditing of privileged accounts and account activity.
Documentation included server installation, quick-start and full operations guides. The server installation guide illustrated the full process for setting up the Viewfinity server along with detailed instructions on how to install all prerequisites to get the server up with an initial configuration. The quick-start guide took over from there illustrating some basic configuration steps and a brief overview of the product features and functions. The operations guide provided a more in-depth look at using advanced features and configurations. We found all document to be well-organized.
Viewfinity only offers customers paid support as part of their subscription costs or as part of an annual agreement. Customers with contracts can access either eight-hours-a-day/five-days-a-week or 24/7 phone- and email-based technical support, along with a full portal available online.
This product can either be quite cost-effective or very cost-prohibitive based on the size of the environment. Viewfinity Privilege Management is licensed on a per-node basis with prices ranging from $40 for a perpetual desktop or laptop license to $200 for a perpetual server license. Volume discounts are available, but in a large environment it could get expensive quickly. Overall, we find this product to be a good value for the money due to its comprehensive feature set and ease of management and automation abilities.
