This software has a comprehensive range of different components designed to protect all elements of a corporate IT infrastructure.
The elements included are VirusScan Enterprise version 7.1.0, NetShield for NetWare version 4.6, ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) version 3.0, McAfee GroupShield version 6.0 for Microsoft Exchange, McAfee GroupShield version 5.2.1 for Lotus Domino on both Microsoft Windows and IBM AIX platforms, and GroupShield version 5 for Microsoft Exchange 5.5.
Given this plethora of components, it turned out to be the most complex and lengthy install in the group test, including a full system scan. However, the standard of the documentation was first class.
The ePolicy Orchestrator provides a system-wide view of the whole Active Virus Defense Suite environment. Agents are used to feed data back to it from the distributed functional components, including VirusScan on the network client desktops, NetShield on the servers (including Microsoft Windows, Unix and NetWare) and GroupShield on groupware servers.
It is very hard to fault the scalability of ePO, because it is capable of managing up to 250,000 users per server. Using ePO, administrators can perform basic management tasks, including scanning and checking for system vulnerabilities, and keeping virus signature files up to date.
The ePO also gives administrators the flexibility of accessing the management system from a remote console to set more complex security policies. It is possible to configure elements including virus update frequencies, personal firewall settings and vulnerability scans, adjusting file types to be scanned and configuring heuristic scanning settings. These options can be centrally set per machine or per group.
Administrators can generate detailed graphical reports on McAfee Security and third-party offerings, so firms can look beyond McAfee's own client software.
