Gordano Antivirus Goes The Extra Mile

Providing antivirus protection for a customer's network entails more than simply installing and administering a solution. Staying on top of new developments is important to maintaining a high level of network security. In choosing an antivirus solution, integrators should concentrate on management features such as support, logging and notification. Viruses abound in the business world, and solution providers need to be reassured that their selected vendor keeps up to date with virus information and updated signature files.

Antivirus software is only as good as the virus signature list it uses. Signature files contain the details of the viruses' designs. The better solutions provide fully unattended automatic updates, but solution providers should verify that customers' networks are protected with the latest signatures. While many vendors take different approaches to inoculating networks, virus detection and containment remain the most important tasks, which means signature lists need to be updated frequently.

CRN Test Center engineers were particularly impressed with Gordano's unattended file signature update. The GMS antivirus software scans messages and the service of new signature files and sends them along with the frequent updates. GMS will send a special e-mail message to Gordano giving version details of the current signature file, and Gordano systems will reply with any files that have changed.

Choosing an "average" antivirus package for enterprise-level companies is never an option for integrators. Organizations need business-critical data protected at all times, and having to reconstruct a virus-stricken system should always be the last option. The GMS solution attempts to curb the horror of a virus through its ability to configure the system to update as often as administrators wish. Once updated, the GMS antivirus solution does not require the system to stop and start services. It does it all on the fly, so administrators can set the system to check for updates twice a day and never have to go back and monitor it.

While many audio/visual tools work at the client level and dig into Windows Explorer and MS Outlook, scanning attachments and detecting new viruses in realtime, GMS works at the server level and scans the e-mail before it ever gets to the client. If GMS determines the e-mail to be virus-free, it will allow it to be downloaded by the client.

Gordano delivers a wealth of consoles and features with its enterprise antivirus product. As a result, installation is somewhat complicated. Solution providers are well-advised to carefully plan a deployment to ease setup. Other products installed include quarantine consoles, live updates and various platform-dependent options. Installation may require a system reboot depending on the environment, so solution providers are advised to install during off-hours.

Test Center engineers installed the GMS suite on a dual-processor Pentium III file server running Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Two client PCs running Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP were connected to the test network. To test the efficacy of the antivirus solution, CRN engineers downloaded the Eicar test, a real virus available for test purposes, from www.eicar.com. The test file does not include any fragments of viral code. Most antivirus products react to the test file as if it were a virus. CRN engineers attached the file to an e-mail and sent it over the server. GMS detected the file, encrypted it and put it into quarantine to prevent it from being accidentally executed.

One minor gripe about the product is that during password authentication on the client side, the Java applet jammed with the wrong password in cache and had to be reset from the server side.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>GORDANO MESSAGING SUITE (GMS) BOUNDARY PROTECTION PACKAGE
PRICE: $13,875 for up to 1,000 users
MARGIN: 25 percent
WARRANTY: 90 days
DISTRIBUTORS: Direct from vendor
TECH RATING:

CHANNEL RATING:

CHANNEL OVERVIEW: Bristol, England-based Gordano assists partners in setting up online sales tools and provides MDFs and incentives. Account managers answer partner sales and integration questions over the phone, and 24x7 tech support is provided.

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.