Endpoint Protection

Greetings, am currently using SAV CE in a company with multiple locations, with the head office having a WinXP PRO machine running as the primary server, and secondary servers at each office running NetWare with Windows clients being children under the NetWare server, receiving a.v. defs and mgmt directives from the NetWare server.  For obvious reasons I need to migrate away from this and somebody in sales suggested Symantec Endpoint Protection.  The NetWare servers will mostly be replaced by SLES servers.  All that being said, would appreciate points, tips, and so on with regards to whether SEP will cover my needs.

- I'd like to keep the bandwidth pull from each client to NIL like it is now so each one doesn't try to run LiveUpdates independently, if I've understood some of what I've read, instead of having secondary servers, there is now GROUP UPDATE PROVIDER, which I assume is a computer you setup on the local LAN which does a similar job to the SAV CE secondary servers, providing a.v. def updates and mgmt directives from the main management console, is this correct?  Anything I need to be aware of?  Does this ONLY run on Windows, and if so can it be a Windows workstation?

- For the SLES servers, I see they're supported (32 and 64 bit), but it looks like it's a different product, it's "Symantec Antivirus client for Linux" instead?  Is this client provided as part of the SEP licenses?  It also says these Linux clients are unmanaged, meaning they don't get their a.v. defs from the GUP, and that you can't do anything with these Linux clients from a central mgmt console?  Does this mean I have to remote to each SLES machine to do anything with the a.v. client that's installed on it?  How about virus warnings, do they get handled as an alert on the main system as if a Windows client had detected one?

- Do you know if on a SLES server if it can scan (both real time and scheduled scans) NSS volumes?  The system requirements show specifically that Novell OES2 is supported (as opposed to just saying SLES), so I'm guessing yes?

- As I'm going to have less than 100 clients, this should mean I can run the Endpoint Protection Manager (which effectively replaces SSC?) on a Win XP PRO workstation, as long as the clients are in "pull" mode?  Is there a downside to using pull mode?

- For the database engine running on the EP manager, is the embedded one MSDE?  I have an MS SQL server but not sure yet I want to use this, and I don't think you can run MSDE on the same server as MS SQL is running on...

- There's a free trial available at the Symantec site and it says that it comes with the manager and client and are good until end of July.  However is it only providing 1 client or several?  Is the Linux client included?  Obviously the Linux client is important for me to test!

- There's lots of points about migration, but if I decide to forget about this and just setup a new environment, and as I get to the servers and client PC's that are running SAV CE, to just uninstall SAV CE, and then install SEP, presume this is OK?  May be a little more work, but I don't have to worry about all the migration issues...

Thanks in advance for your help in getting me started
James

Symantec Endpoint is only compatible with Windows OS and now MAC aswell..

For Novell and Linux there is SAV for Linux and SAV for Netware these are diffrent products and cannot be managed from SEPM. SAV for Linux comes free with SEP cd ( in CD2 )

Yes GUP is similar to SAV secondary server it can be any windows machine.

There shouldn't be any problem with pull mode if GUPs are in place.

SEP trialware can be obtained from here 
http://www.symantec.com/business/products/licensing/trialware.jsp
you can install any number of SEPM's and clients but they cannot be upgrade to licensed version you will have to un-install them in-order to install licensed version

Embedded database is not MSDE its Sybase Database ( Adaptive System Anywhere )


Clean install is always better than migration


If you have less than 100 clients then I would suggest go for SEP 12 SBS ( Small business edition )

The linux version of antivirus is supported on SLES 9, 10 and 11 you will just need to check your kernel to make sure it will work correctly. The licensing includes the linux product and is one and the same. Netware is not supported with this product. Linux clients are not managed. If you have a SSC and manager you can configure some settings but you need to connect the client with the grc.dat and read the sav for linux implementation guide on what is configurable.

Gups are just to provide definitions and are not a management piece. they just minimize the bandwidth for clients updating definitions, usually used if there is a slow wan link and they want the clients to still communicate with this manager.

As for using a windows xp machine for the manager, you will have to be in pull mode and the communication will have to be set at an hour so the clients can all connect and not fail to get updates. The communication setting is the downside but manageable. The database for endpoint is the built in embedded, which is a sybase database or you can use SQL. 

I would recommend not migrating the manager, the settings come in but its a different way of thinking so it can be messy. As for the clients there should be no issue with upgrading them if they are on 9 or higher.

I would contact a sales agent for assistance as they can get you trials for any product needed.

Hopefully this is helpful!

Best practices guide for installing the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) on a Windows XP operating system.

Tips For Installing SEP In A Low Bandwidth Environment

Thanks everyone for the great and quick answers!

I'm not worried about the NetWare servers, my understanding is the SEP licensing allows me to continue to run the older SAV CE for about another year, by which point the NetWare servers would have been migrated away from, and I'll leave an SSC/primary/parent running until all the SAV CE installations are gone anyway.

Pity about the lack of management for the Linux client, I can live with configuring the Linux client through a terminal or remote GUI sessions, but I would have liked alerts to be generated from the Linux client, perhaps there's a way I can still do this, it's time to play!  I also have to verify the NSS volume support (although presume this is OK as the NSS stuff is still accessible from the Linux file system except for the NSS file attributes...).

I may run the mangement from a Windows server instead of a workstation, just wanted to know worse case scenarios.

BTW my email account never received notifications that you 3 had posted replies (I checked my spam to be sure), good thing I checked...

Cheers
James

click on subscriptions at the bottom of this page u wil get it...

Odd, thought I already did this, well I checked it now (again?).

Cheers
James

check this post option; u should get it .