FW: Mcafee Products

[Bruce Purcell <bpurcell () CSUHAYWARD EDU>]

A really good response to my question about Mcafee products. As a couple of
others have asked me for updates, I thought it easiest to post.
 
Bruce Purcell
Enrollment Services
Executive Director
bpurcell () csuhayward edu
510 885 4494
510 885 4595 (fax)


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Babb [mailto:babb () denison edu] 
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 2:57 PM
To: bpurcell () csuhayward edu
Subject: Re: [NETMAN] Mcafee Products


Hi, Bruce,

I've been managing our EPO server for about 2 years.  We started with 2.0
and quickly upgraded to 2.5 and then recently upgraded to 3.0.  I love the
product.  The only negative comment I have is that McAfee is so Microsoft
centric.  Our network is built around Novell file servers, so we don't have
Active Directory or domains or anything like that.  For that reason, McAfee
doesn't always test their updates with other environments.  When we upgraded
to the 3.0 version, most of our clients stopped communicating with the
server.  It turns out that the new agent depends heavily on the Microsoft
Network client which we do not install on our desktops.  Other than that
issue, the 3.0 orchestrator is a big step above 2.5 for the anti-virus
policy management.

I had to jump through some of the Microsoft hoops to get the console to
connect to the server from another workstation, but now it works great from
my desk.  Since you are already familiar with ePo for the firewall side, I
image it will be similar for you for the Anti-virus side.  We don't use the
personal firewall, so I really can't compare the experience.  It has been
wonderful for lab, faculty and staff computers as long as the client machine
names are unique (another Microsoft domain requirement).  Now we can run a
report to see which computers are not getting the latest updates and such.

I'm also using it for the student computers and it has done a great job with
the recent Blaster/Nachi invasion.  Getting the students to opt in is
usually the most difficult part.  A close second is getting them to properly
remove existing anti-virus software if they choose to install ours.  On the
student side, ePO has been managing everything from Windows 98 through
Windows XP without many problems.  If there were a lot of problems, I would
probably have to pull back because I'm the only full time staff for 2100+
students and I can't possibly fix problems on all of their computers.

Our McAfee regional sales rep has been great.  I've run into a couple of
different issues with an upgrade and a migration.  We also have some issues
with their Macintosh Virex product that he has been fairly good with us.  We
actually purchased through a VAR, who included 8 hours of installation
assistance.  I didn't need it initially, so I don't know how good the third
party assitance might be.

If there is something specific that you had in mind that I haven't answered,
let me know.

Thanks,
Andy Babb
Student Computing Coordinator
Denison University
740-587-5785

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