A centralized anti-virus solution is the only way to maintain anti-virus software once an office grows beyond a small number of desktops. Statistics show that it costs as much as eleven times more to manually update anti-virus products as it does to update them centrally. A centralized anti-virus solution can ensure that your corporate environment stays safe from the worms, Trojans, viruses, and malware. When choosing a centrally managed Anti-virus management suite, it is important to evaluate the solution according to the criteria that best suits your business needs.
Five key features to begin your evaluation are:
Detect/Install
It is important that a central anti-virus console be able to scan a network for systems that have been added to the network. Test systems, contractors machines and rogue machines can easily be the cause of the next late night anti virus outbreak. Once the central console has discovered these systems, the ability to push an anti-virus client installation to them will reduce the time required to physically discover this computer on your network.
Updates - Timeframe
You are evaluating the ability of these systems to centrally manage the currency of the anti-virus software on your desktops. It goes without saying that the ability to update these clients (product and signatures) is a primary goal. However, how quickly does the anti-virus company issue these updates upon finding evidence of a new virus in the wild? Companies all use similar methods to develop updates and controls for new viruses as they are discovered on the Internet. The ability for a company to quickly provide you with an update can greatly reduce the likelihood of the the next virus outbreak. Zero day (0 day) attacks are the most dangerous of these. An organization needs to determine if your central anti-virus solution can quickly obtain the newest virus definitions from your provider and disseminate them quickly to the entire computer network.
Maintain/Configure
The base configuration of any
anti-virus software should occur during the installation. An IT environment rarely remains stagnant for long and as such, the central anti-virus solution should allow the IT staff to change the configuration of existing clients as necessary. Location of the update server, scan times, and update times are all items that can cost lots of time and introduce errors if each desktop has to be visited. A centralised configuration would also allow the IT staff to lock the end user out of the configuration settings as sometimes a well intentioned end user can make changes that leave their desktop exposed. While considering configuration updates and maintenance; it is also important to investigate how the central console allows the IT staff to maintain the database of computers. As computers are retired or removed from the network; it is imperative to allow the IT staff the ability to easily remove them from the update/maintenance list.
Reporting
Reporting is a key feature for IT staff to maintain a watchful eye on the state of the computing environment. Reporting can quickly show IT staff new computers, out of date computers, last updates, and other metrics that can help staff troubleshoot problems or sleep soundly knowing that they have a 99% update rate. Scheduled reporting as well as ad-hoc reporting are two areas to consider when looking at reporting. Reports should also report on infected computers so an investigation of the infection can be performed. Computers that are flagged in the infected computer report are used to expose any repeat offenders. If a particular PC is repeatedly infected, it may signal a rogue user.
Support
Consider support as insurance - most times you do not need it, but when you do need it you are very happy to have it. Most companies now have online support forums, knowledge bases, and offer either email or phone support. This service ranges from support that is included in the price of your product up to a pay per incident model. Choose the best model that fits your business need/budget but check the Internet and see how a company’s support structure has performed for others. Some companies will allow you access to their support mechanisms for free while you are testing their software. This is a great time to try out the software as well as their support.
In Closing
As you evaluate the growing market of centrally controlled anti-virus products, remember to account for the time required for your IT staff to manually perform these tasks versus the cost of the product. This involves some basic calculations on your part but as an example: If it takes 15 minutes per day/desktop to maintain 20desktops manually, you lose 5 hours out of each workday just to this task. This makes supporting other systems such as email, office productivity, and other key software/hardware very difficult.
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