AV in Business Environment SME

As a regular lurker here I am familiar with discussions on desktop AV for home use and have tried a few products myself over the years. I know about AV comparatives and how certain applications are regarded more highly than others.

I am not familiar however with AV security in an enterprise environment and would like some recommendations for AV security for 15-20 users. I had an initial look on the net and noticed that pricing is all over the place. Any practical advice will be very much appreciated.
I am not sure for example if you can work efficiently with a license for 20 desktops, install them once and let them autoupdate. My gut feeling is that a solution that allows for updates to be centrally managed would be better but hopefully someone can shed some more light on this.
Any specific product recommendations would also be great - while I assume that the efficiencies in detecting malware is similar / identical to the desktop application test, how about ease of use and stability?

 

We are running McAfee Enterprise and its quite robust and manageable. Other than that, previously we were running Trend Micro OfficeScan, which is also good. Have also tested Sophos, which also have an active HIPS. But can be talkative and annoying for workstations being used for Software testing or development ( due to the HIPS ).

In my experience, always best to approach the local office of the vendor or your local reseller. You can bargain the price usually with them and some aggressive resellers do give discounts too. Ask them for a limited trial and run the solution on a small group of users. Then depending on the feedback, you can fix/bargain the rest.

 

I have used Kaspersky for Windows Workstations for many years:

http://www.kaspersky.com/anti-virus_windows_workstation

Before the switch from Symantec to Kaspersky, my workstations were frequently infected. Since the switch, I have not experienced a single infection.

Kaspersky Administration Kit (included with any workstation purchase) makes management and monitoring of the workstations from the server as simple as possible. I never need to log in to the workstations themselves.

I might have purchased Kaspersky for the server as well, but I believe in a layered approach to security. For these same many years, I have been running Avast Server Edition on my Exchange server:

http://www.avast.com/eng/buy-avast-antivirus-sbs-suite.html

This combination of Avast on the server and Kaspersky on the workstations has been ideal.

 

KWG,

I am a bit confused. So you have one licence for X workstations by Kaspersky and manage them from a server that is protected by Avast?
How do you update the stations - is that auto-update or do you manage this from the server individually?

Also, I take it you never had any issues with ISwift and IChecker?

 

Correct.

Kaspersky Administration Kit, which is installed on the office server, automatically downloads updates from Kaspersky Labs via the Internet. The workstations, in turn, automatically download these updates from the office server via the LAN. It all works very smoothly.

You can download documentation for both Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows Workstations and Kaspersky Administration Kit here:

http://www.kaspersky.com/docs/work_space_security

Correct.