SEP 11 MR2 Network Scanning Quirck causes massive network traffic
My client has yet to upgrade to SEP11 MR4 from MR2, but they noticed on their proxy that there was a large amount of data being downloaded from the SEP clients on a daily basis across their WAN. In some cases, there was over 5 gb of traffic on each machine. Go into the hundreds of physical machines, and then you start to see a big problem.
Running the reports from the SEPM brought up an interesting pattern: the clients that were on a workgroup were the culprits, as opposed to those that were within a domain, even though those on the domain were also still experiencing higher than normal traffic patterns. (1.5 gb daily)
My theory was that network file scanning on workgroup computers was unlimited and the entire WAN was being scanned by the client. To test, I placed a set of clients into user controlled mode, and manually disabled network file scanning on these. Instantly, bandwidth dropped to normal levels. The same held true for computers within the domain
The result is that for SEP11 MR2, only domain controllers should have network file scanning enabled.
Comments
There is little need for network scanning IMO
I'd rather disable Network File Scanning altogether, 100%.
Why use it when you have the clients with auto-protect enabled? When they open a file the auto-protect will do it's thing.
have the file server hosting the files, scan it's local drives on a regular basis, thus eliminating the need for any network scanning.
The only time I've found network scanning to be handy is when you have a NAS server that is running linux or on some proprietary OS(Netapp OnTap, DART, etc) and you have a specific client or a small group of machines that do scheduled scans on the shares to be pro-active about it. Or you could just foot for SAV for NAS from Symantec, which can scan NAS filers in real-time. It's actually pretty inexpensive from a license standpoint...
And get those clients to MR3 or above asap. Your users may actually thank you...
There is an online portal, save yourself the long hold times. Create ticket online, then call in with ticket # in hand :-) http://mysupport.symantec.com "We backup data to restore, we don't backup data just to back it up."
Please upgrade to MR4 MP1 and
Please upgrade to MR4 MP1 and then to SEP MR4MP1a.
These issues are resolved in this build.
Rgrds,
SAM
Issue Resolved
Yes, after upgrading to MR4 MP1, we were indeed able to fix this issue. It took some convincing for the end user to understand the need for the upgrade, but it was painless after all for them.
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