At the heart of any SIEM system is log data. A lot of it. Whether from servers, firewalls, databases, or network routers — logs provide analysts with the raw material for gaining insight into events taking place in an IT environment.

Following our comprehensive introduction to SIEM systems, we looked at the available open source SIEM platforms. In this third article in our SIEM series, we review five of the most popular commercial offerings in this space. We evaluate them by looking at their intended audience and market segment, deployment model, SIEM features (threat intelligence, reporting, etc.), and each solution’s pros and cons.

Many enterprises are at the brink of digital transformation, which entails adopting new technologies that process a sea of both personal and enterprise-level data. Despite a surging number of innovations to prevent evolving cyber threats from hijacking that data, the sheer number of successful, high-profile data breaches and attacks recently highlight the insufficient security practices of organizations around the globe.

Helping to protect IT environments from cyber attacks and comply with tightening compliance standards, SIEM systems are becoming the cornerstone for security paradigms implemented by a growing number of organizations.

As time goes on, more and more organizations are abandoning the outdated waterfall development methodology for more practical and efficient Agile development practices. As this movement has occurred, development teams are moving faster than ever by employing Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) practices that are serving to shorten development cycles and get new features into production with increasing speed.