When an organization decides to deploy PAM, the market offers dozens of products with similar descriptions. "Access control," "session recording," "password rotation" — these phrases show up almost everywhere. How do you see past the marketing language to a system's actual capabilities and choose the one that closes the risks that matter to you?
This article gives you a structured set of criteria and a practical checklist for evaluating PAM solutions. If you're just getting acquainted with this class of solutions, start with What Is PAM — here, we go straight to comparison.
Protocol and Access Type Coverage
The first criterion in choosing PAM is the list of supported protocols and target systems. The minimum set for most organizations: SSH, RDP, HTTPS consoles, and database access (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MS SQL). Modern environments add API keys, cloud accounts, and service accounts for DevOps tools to that list.
What to check:
- Does access to target servers work through a browser — without an agent on the user's workstation?
- Does the jump server (bastion) function within your network topology — in isolated segments, the DMZ, cloud subnets?
- Does the solution cover service and system accounts, not just interactive sessions?
If a solution covers only RDP and SSH but leaves database and API accounts out of scope, the risk remains: privileged accounts continue to exist outside of control.
Session Control and Recording
Recording privileged sessions is one of PAM's key mechanisms. It solves two problems: it deters bad actors — knowing they're being watched changes behavior — and it provides an evidence base for incident investigations.
The depth of recording matters here:
- Video capture — a screen recording in a playable format. Valuable for RDP sessions, where the primary interface is graphical.
- Text logging — a command log for SSH and terminal sessions. Indexable, searchable, and easy to analyze with scripts.
- Session metadata — who, when, which resource, from which host, how long the session lasted. Metadata is what auditors ask for most often.
What to check:
- Does the system support full-text search across session content?
- Where are recordings stored — locally, in the cloud, on a separate secured repository?
- How long is the data retained, and how much storage capacity does your organization's typical load require?
For a deeper technical look at how session control works, see Privileged Session Control and Recording.
Secrets Management and Password Rotation
A PAM system should not just control access to passwords — it should rotate them automatically. This is critical for two scenarios.
After every session. The account password changes immediately after the session ends — an attacker can't reuse compromised credentials even if they intercepted them during the session.
On a schedule. Regular rotation of all privileged accounts reduces the risk of long-term compromise, where a password has leaked but no one has noticed yet.
Separately, check support for a secrets vault: SSH keys, API tokens, certificates. A significant share of privileged access happens through keys, not passwords.
What to check:
- Does the system rotate passwords to target systems automatically, without administrator involvement?
- Is there a built-in vault (secrets store), or integration with external ones (HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk CP)?
- How does the system handle service accounts whose passwords are embedded in application configs?
Infrastructure Integration
PAM fits into an already existing identity and monitoring chain. The less manual work integration requires, the lower the total cost of ownership and the lower the risk of coverage gaps.
Baseline integrations:
- User directory — Active Directory or LDAP-compatible directories. Privileged users are pulled from the corporate directory rather than created separately in PAM.
- SIEM — forwarding events about sessions, authentication failures, and policy violations to the monitoring system.
- ITSM — integration with ticketing systems: PAM grants access only when there's an open ticket (ServiceNow, Jira, and others).
- MFA — multi-factor authentication when entering a privileged session.
What to check:
- Does the system support SAML/OIDC for federation with your corporate IdP?
- Are there ready-made connectors to your SIEM, or an API for forwarding events over syslog/CEF?
- Is JIT (just-in-time) provisioning implemented — temporary creation of a privileged account for a specific task?
Regulatory Compliance
For many organizations, choosing PAM is directly tied to regulatory requirements. In Russia, PAM systems are deployed in the context of:
- GOST R 57580 — information security requirements for financial institutions (a Russian national standard), including privileged access control.
- FSTEC Orders No. 17 and No. 21 — security measures for government information systems, issued by Russia's Federal Service for Technical and Export Control, including identity and access management.
- Federal Law 152-FZ (Russia's personal data law) — when processing personal data, an audit trail of privileged access serves as evidence of the protective measures taken.
If specific standards apply to you, ask the vendor about FSTEC certification and compliance guidance.
Scalability and Manageability
PAM grows along with your infrastructure. When evaluating a solution, it's important to understand how it scales as the number of target systems and users grows, and whether managing it will turn into a project of its own.
What to check:
- How is licensing structured — by number of privileged users, target systems, or sessions?
- Does the solution support multi-tenancy or deployment across multiple geographic sites?
- How usable is the administrative interface when managing access policies for hundreds of accounts?
Checklist for Final Comparison
| Criterion | Importance |
|---|---|
| SSH, RDP, HTTPS, database support | Critical |
| Browser-based access without an agent | High |
| Video and text session recording | Critical |
| Automatic password rotation | High |
| SSH key and API token storage | Medium |
| AD/LDAP integration | Critical |
| SIEM connector | High |
| ITSM integration | Medium |
| JIT access | Medium |
| GOST R 57580 / FSTEC compliance | Industry-dependent |
| FSTEC certification | Industry-dependent |
| Licensing model | Operational |
Use this checklist as a comparison table when piloting multiple solutions. Add a column for each vendor and rate every criterion as fully supported, partially supported, or absent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need PAM if we already have a VPN and a bastion host?
A VPN and a plain bastion host control network access, but they don't record what a user actually did inside the session. PAM adds command and screen recording, password management, and an audit trail — things a VPN simply isn't built to do.
How does PAM fit with DevOps practices such as CI/CD and Kubernetes?
Modern PAM solutions manage not just interactive access but also machine credentials: service accounts, CI/CD system tokens, Kubernetes API keys. Integration happens through a secrets vault or plugins for Ansible, Terraform, and Vault.
How long does a PAM deployment take?
Timelines depend on scale. A pilot covering 20-50 privileged users and 100-200 target systems typically takes 4-8 weeks. A full enterprise rollout with SIEM and ITSM integration takes 3 to 6 months.
How do I evaluate a PAM solution before buying it?
Request a pilot on real infrastructure — even a test segment will do. Test the specific scenarios that matter most to your organization: browser-based access, SSH session recording, automatic password rotation. A pilot on a live environment with the real product is the best way to assess usability and performance.
How does BI.ZONE PAM differ from foreign alternatives?
BI.ZONE Privileged Access Management is a Russian product with FSTEC certification, which matters for organizations operating under Russian regulatory requirements. Its architecture accounts for the specifics of Russian infrastructure: integration with domestic IdP and SIEM products, and support for on-premises deployment without dependency on foreign clouds.
Hands-On Practice in BI.ZONE Cybersecurity Labs
Understanding selection criteria is easier once you've worked with the real product. The BI.ZONE PAM Installation and Administration course, run on isolated BI.ZONE Cybersecurity Labs environments, gives you hands-on practice with exactly the tasks a specialist faces during piloting and deployment: from initial configuration to setting up session control policies and integrating with a user directory.
The course runs on a real environment — no simulators. Afterward, you'll be able to judge PAM architectural decisions based on your own hands-on administration experience, not marketing brochures.