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Trend Micro introduces antivirus software for virtual desktops
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 08 June 2010, 18:23 IST
Bangalore: Antivirus software provider Trend Micro has launched security software specifically designed for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Trend Micro OfficeScan 10.5.
The software, designed to work in virtual desktops either a Citrix XenDesktop or VMware View VDI environment as well as on physical desktops, senses when it's running in a virtualized environment, adjusts how and when it runs scans and updates to avoid overloading the server's CPU, storage or networking operations.
Other features include the ability to manage up to 20,000 physical and virtual desktop endpoints from a single OfficeScan console, full compatibility with Windows 7-including Windows 7 Action Center (the operating system's one-stop shop for security information and system maintenance) as well as better role-based administration for delegating administration, as well as Active Directory synchronization. The software is expected to be released by the end of July.
According to a report by Mathew J. Schwartz of Information Week, a study done by Enterprise Strategy Group in 2009 has found that around two-thirds of enterprises have a desktop virtualization strategy, and in next few years nearly half of the enterprises expect to virtualize 50 percent of their desktops. So there are amble opportunities for this kind of security software for virtual desktop.
"VDI is a phenomenon that we thought was a ways out, but just in last six to nine months is something we have seen more interest in," said Punit Minocha, Senior Vice President for datacenter and cloud, Trend Micro.
The company claims that with the new VDI-aware antivirus, the virtual desktops on any given server are only allowed to run their antivirus scans serially, thus eliminating the performance hit. Furthermore, IT managers can white list the applications contained in virtual desktop base images, to eliminate the need to scan them further.
By using VDI-aware antivirus, "people can more than double the number of desktop hosts without sacrificing performance," said Joerg Schneider-Simon, Product Marketing Manager, Trend Micro.
