Antivirus: Tools for SMBs

Security is an essential requirement to providing a reliable, consistent IT infrastructure. In this report, we look at how one financial concern battles viruses and showcase a string of antivirus solutions for small-to medium-sized businesses.

It doesn't matter how small or large your company is -- AV solutions are a must. Regardless of what industry your business may operate in, unless you have a secure, robust network, your information is open to attack, and this particularly rings true for the finance sector.

Perth-based national accounting firm RSM Bird Cameron, for instance, has remained with Trend Micro's NeatSuite -- a centrally managed antivirus suite for servers and desktops -- for years. The standout factor, says national IT director Paul Joseph, has been ongoing vendor support and product reliability.

The solution includes OfficeScan Client/Server Edition -- installed on all servers, desktops and notebooks, ScanMail for Lotus Domino and IWSS (InterScan Web Security Suite) for its Web server.

Despite having some 650 employees, the IT department only has 13, meaning an efficient, reliable antivirus package was essential to keeping its business -- and the technology it relies on -- running smoothly. Bird Cameron found success in Trend Micro's NeatSuite and now has close to 700 licenses.

Gerry Mellon, Bird Cameron's Lotus Domino administrator, says the big difference that Trend Micro offered is good support. Preferring to stick with proven products or solutions where possible has resulted in familiarity and expertise with NeatSuite (for both its IT staff and end users) and, ultimately, a long-term relationship between the two over the last five years.

Implementation occurred over three months and went smoothly overall, Mellon recalls. A few glitches did occur in implementing the latest version of ScanMail for Lotus Domino (version 3) and as a result, a rollback to version 2.6 was temporarily required. The issues, however, were quickly resolved and version 3 is now successfully running, he adds.

Bird Cameron runs an all-Windows environment with Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 for file, print and Web servers. In addition, its IT department runs a SQL Server database and support for users on HP desktops, and Toshiba and IBM notebooks running on Windows XP SP2.

The cost to implement NeatSuite across the organisation was "very reasonable for the coverage required ... [and] in context to what we were trying to protect", Joseph says. While exact pricing wasn't specified, he says it wasn't earth shattering.

Since antivirus protection isn't the "do all and end all", Joseph warns CIOs to be vigilant. Rather than just trusting and relying on the product to do the job, it is important to ensure that the proper policies and protection are in place.