Varonis DatAdvantage

A large share of critical corporate information lives in unstructured data stores such as text documents, slide decks, spreadsheets, and PDFs on file servers, collaboration platforms, or even internet-based storage. This unstructured layer is continually fed by structured systems: data from ERP and CRM environments is frequently exported—often automatically and on schedule—into files, with hundreds of recurring SAP exports being common. Such data is consistently high-risk and business-critical, including R&D information containing valuable intellectual property and product liability evidence, financial data that must not leak ahead of reporting deadlines (especially for listed companies), and PII, which has become substantially more sensitive under GDPR because organizations must both prevent leaks and locate data to fulfill data-subject rights.

Most organizations lack control over unstructured data because Identity and Access Governance (IAG) within broader IAM focuses on cross-system identity/access management and cannot provide the fine-grained entitlement discovery and management needed for environments like Windows file servers or SharePoint. Admin tools for those platforms are often too technical and siloed, while SAP access control tools are mature but specialized and not suited to unstructured data requirements. This gap has driven a dedicated tool segment—Data Governance (also called Data Access Governance or Entitlement & Access Governance)—aimed at identifying unstructured data and owners and governing entitlements across diverse repositories. It is positioned as a mandatory complement to IGA and broader data protection strategies.

Varonis DatAdvantage is presented as a leading solution in this segment. It analyzes file structures, entitlements, and usage across supported platforms; provides both data-centric and user-centric entitlement views; enables entitlement optimization with sandbox modeling, rollout, and rollback; supports ownership identification; and maintains a comprehensive audit trail with optional real-time alerting via additional modules. Strengths include broad enterprise-platform coverage, low runtime impact, deep entitlement visibility, and integrated optimization, while challenges include privacy concerns around auditing, limited coverage of some cloud stores (e.g., OneDrive and Box), and reliance on separate products for advanced functions.

• A significant portion of critical corporate data resides in unstructured data stores.
• Unstructured data commonly exists as text documents, slide decks, spreadsheets, and PDF files stored on file servers and collaboration platforms.
• Data from ERP and CRM systems is frequently exported—sometimes automatically on schedules—into unstructured file formats.
• Hundreds of recurring exports from SAP systems are common.
• R&D information can contain valuable intellectual property and be relevant to product liability.
• Financial data used for annual statements is sensitive and must not leak before certain dates for listed companies.
• GDPR increases the need to understand where PII resides to meet data-subject rights obligations.
• Varonis DatAdvantage supports Microsoft Windows Server, Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, Office 365, Unix/Linux file servers, and NAS (CIFS/NFS).
• Some supported environments require agents, while others such as Active Directory, most NAS platforms, and Office 365 do not.
• Varonis DatAdvantage is the foundational product in the Varonis Data Security Platform, where additional licenses can be enabled without separate installations.

• “A very significant portion of critical corporate data resides in what commonly is named ‘unstructured data stores’.”
• “Factually, a significant portion of data held in central IT systems such as the ERP or CRM transforms, sometimes even automated and on schedule, into such unstructured data.”
• “Having 100’s of regular exports from the various SAP systems in place is the norm, not the exception.”
• “Unfortunately, the vast majority of organizations still are not in control of unstructured data.”
• “IAG (Identity and Access Governance) as the core discipline of IAM (Identity & Access Management) comes to its limits when it is about identifying, managing, and protecting unstructured data.”
• “The focus is on cross-system management of identities and access, not on the level of granularity required for environments such as the ones named above.”
• “The target of such solutions is implementing some form of governance and control for unstructured data, spanning various systems that hold such data.”
• “Varonis DatAdvantage thus goes beyond pure visibility and supports direct actions, including modeling changes in a sandboxed environment, rolling them out and even rolling them back if required.”
• “Delivering a comprehensive view on all activities generally counts amongst the strengths of Varonis DatAdvantage, independent of the target environments.”
• “Given the fact that standard approaches such as IAG fail in delivering these capabilities… we consider Data Governance as a mandatory element in a comprehensive IAM and Data Protection strategy, complementing IGA and other core components of IAM.”