Network admins: anti-virus solutions?

[kami333]

I need some help with coming up with a anti-virus solution for my work (study abroad school). It has been primarily a Mac/OSX network but we have started using more and more Windows machines (couple of workstations in accounting and a 5 new servers running Windows 2003 we just installed) so our anti-virus requirements have increased. The ideal solution would be to have one server handling all the email and anti-virus scanning for the whole network, and maybe push updates out to client machines if necessary. Just for reference the network is about 30Macs, 5 Windows, 3 OSX servers, and 5 Win2003 servers. I've been looking at the Trend Micro packages, any comments on them or other recommendations?

Then the other part of the problem would be the student segment of the network, which is completely segregated from the staff part. Some of them bring in laptops with no protection or updates and after connecting to dorm networks or similar they end up clogging up the network which is why we segregated them. Is there any good solution other than have them cleanup their own computers? Since most of them are only here for a couple of months, it's not efficient to spend too much money and time cleaning up their messes.

 

[mrEvil]

McAfee might give you a good deal. I am not advocating them by any means, just know that we got stuff pretty cheap and they will probably be looking for the business since Symantec has been kicking their butt lately. McAfee has their ePO server, which will have, if it does not already, the ability to push AV software to clients without it automagically. Been away from it for about 4 months now, but they were well on their way down that road. You could push manually back then. ePO should be able to do many more things now, as they are integrating it with a ton of their products.

 

[Boscoh]

Originally posted by: kami333
I need some help with coming up with a anti-virus solution for my work (study abroad school). It has been primarily a Mac/OSX network but we have started using more and more Windows machines (couple of workstations in accounting and a 5 new servers running Windows 2003 we just installed) so our anti-virus requirements have increased. The ideal solution would be to have one server handling all the email and anti-virus scanning for the whole network, and maybe push updates out to client machines if necessary. Just for reference the network is about 30Macs, 5 Windows, 3 OSX servers, and 5 Win2003 servers. I've been looking at the Trend Micro packages, any comments on them or other recommendations?

Well...I'm pretty sure that Trend does not have anything for your Mac and OsX machines. They're tough to beat for protection on your Windows boxes though. However, for manageability you'll probably want something that lets you manage your Mac, OsX, and Windows clients from a centralized console. You might want to look at Sophos, I think they offer something like this.

Trend's spam filtering solution is not bad. Their heuristics engine catches a lot of false-positives though.

Then the other part of the problem would be the student segment of the network, which is completely segregated from the staff part. Some of them bring in laptops with no protection or updates and after connecting to dorm networks or similar they end up clogging up the network which is why we segregated them. Is there any good solution other than have them cleanup their own computers? Since most of them are only here for a couple of months, it's not efficient to spend too much money and time cleaning up their messes.

Well...if you go with Trend for your Windows machines, take a look at their VirusWall appliance. It was designed to do exactly what you're looking for.

 

[reicherb]

I'm also at a school and we use F-prot. The price is pretty hard to beat.

 

[gaidin123]

We use Trend for all our PCs and Exchange. It works great.

With Macs the only one I know of that works on both and is centrally managed is Sophos, which I personally don't like very much but it seems to do the job.

Gaidin

 

[Varun]

We use McAffee, and though there are a couple bugs to get worked out, it works pretty well. ePO is nice.

 

[Night201]

I think Trend will pick up more trojans. That's been my experience at least.

 

[kami333]

Can anyone give me an idea of what they are paying for their Sophos package and how many clients they are using? I would like to be able to come up with a price range when I talk about it.