25 replies to this topic 1 votes

[osuwildlifer]

Hello folks,

I'm just wondering if there is a AV product out yet that is designed for Server 2012 environments. I'd like to be able to deploy AV clients to Windows 7, Vista, and XP machines on my LAN via my Server 2012 box. Based on the small amount of reading I've done, FEP doesn't yet support Server 2012. Are there other alternatives?

[farmeunit]

FEP is now System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection and does have support in System Center 2012 SP1 for both Win8 and Server 2012.

I haven't installed System Center yet, so I can't say how well it works or licensing for System Center itself. We have an EES Agreement for MS, so it's not bad for us.

I can't speak for alternatives. We just got Server 2012 installed around the first of the year and haven't got too in-depth yet.

[+goretsky]

Hello,

I would think that just about any anti-malware vendor that has a Microsoft Windows 8 compatible product out has a Windows Server 2012 compatible product out, or at least one that is going through the certification process right now.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Simon-]

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows (for file servers) supports Server 2012
http://support.kaspe...fs#requirements
Just go with Kaspersky.

Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.2 is also compatible (also a lot cheaper than Kaspersky)
http://www.symantec....t&id=TECH195325
http://www.symantec....tection-121-ru2

[+remixedcat]

I do think Sophos has a great interface for managing it was very easy to deploy it.

[TPreston]

ESET has solutions for server core, server, client, gateway etc supports the latest windows editions with remote administration and update mirroring.

[osuwildlifer]

Thanks to all for the info. I'm going to take a closer look at System Center 2012 EP. Busy installing & configuring WSUS (required) at the moment.

[Simon-]

Honestly, System Centre is okay, it is the same as Microsoft Security Essentials, but if you are going to pay for an AV, you might as well buy a higher rated protection than that

[+sc302]

please go with a better program than system center. I am testing out system center and I see it as a very unintuitive pain in the rear package. ease of use as well as ability to protect your systems should be your goal, and from what I am reading it can't protect your systems and it isn't very easy to use (initially).

[osuwildlifer]

It's just a test environment. Not production. So I'll dig in and learn it, then make an informed decision later on. Thanks for the input, all.

[Kaedrin]

sc302, on 12 February 2013 - 02:57, said:

please go with a better program than system center. I am testing out system center and I see it as a very unintuitive pain in the rear package. ease of use as well as ability to protect your systems should be your goal, and from what I am reading it can't protect your systems and it isn't very easy to use (initially).

Huh? How exactly is SCEP or FEP more complicated than any other antimalware package that has centralized control and reporting over multiple platforms? I've been using it since before it was integrated with SCCM 2007 R3, and SCEP/FEP itself is pretty damn easy to manage. You don't even require SCCM if you don't want centralized reporting, you can use a GPO instead (mind, I haven't bothered doing a GPO for it since SCCM 2012 was released).

I currently have SCEP deployed to over 500 systems running Mac OS 10.8, Mac OS 10.7, Windows 8 & 2012, Windows 7 & 2008 R2, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm extremely happy with it now that it supports every platform I also support. Any entity supports many platforms should definitely give SCEP consideration.

I won't deny that Configuration Manager as an entire entity is a beast, but I'd say the Antimalware components of it are pretty damn easy, and very powerful from an Administrative viewpoint.

[Kaedrin]

farmeunit, on 11 February 2013 - 01:25, said:

FEP is now System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection and does have support in System Center 2012 SP1 for both Win8 and Server 2012.

I haven't installed System Center yet, so I can't say how well it works or licensing for System Center itself. We have an EES Agreement for MS, so it's not bad for us.

I have the EES Enterprise Agreement. If you are on this tier of the EES already, SCEP is extremely cheap to implement for desktops. You’ll probably just need one System Center Suite Standard or Datacenter license, and you can then use all aspects of System Center against your desktops. Costs may go up a fair bit however if you plan to support servers with it, as it’s highly unlikely your existing agreement covers server management CAL's unless some aspect of your infrastructure is already supported by System Center.

It’s been a very long time since I was on the EES Standard Agreement, but if you are on that agreement, you may find you only have partial desktop management coverage. It may cover part of System Center, but is unlikely to cover all of it. Either way, talk to your vendor to discover the limits of your existing agreement.

[+sc302]

it is the sccm as a whole. it really is a pain...

Lets go into deploying a client...where is the verification in the admin console that it has been pushed successfully, it has been installed successfully, or if it failed for that matter. Lets go into managing a client that may or may not have the client pushed, how do you tell it was pushed, how do you tell it wasn't, how do you tell if it is in the process of. Lets go into attempting to view anything...connection fails because of a firewall issue..all the ports are open, hell the firewall is disabled...how can it be a firewall issue???

Just about every other management console based software has a way to monitor deployments from start to finish and have a way to be able to tell exactly what is stopping them for the admin to fix the issue. I have used many, kaseya, altiris, level platforms, and labtech and all of them you can tell what is going on at any given point during just about whatever you are doing and you get things like logs and error codes. If ms would just steal one of these management suites it would be beneficial to the rest of us.

If you care to prove differently I have a nice test environment that shows otherwise and would be more than happy to give you a brief tour of what I am complaining about.

[osuwildlifer]

Brief tour? I'm all ears! (And eyes)

So there really is no confirmation in a console once you've pushed the EP client to a device? That does seem like a huge omission of data / features.

[+sc302]

let me know when available. I can do a join.me session.