Anti-virus solution for Celerra NAS environments

EMC, in conjunction with four of the world`s largest anti-virus software vendors, has announced an integrated anti-virus solution for the Celerra File Server, EMC`s enterprise-level network-attached storage (NAS) offering.

Available immediately, the Celerra Anti-Virus solution leverages EMC`s relationships with Computer Associates, McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro to provide customers with centralised, scalable virus-checking functionality while maintaining enterprise levels of data availability. The solution uses external anti-virus engines from each of the four vendors to provide "on-access" anti-virus scanning by checking data and content files for viruses as they are updated.

"As viruses, denial of service attacks and other attempts at electronic security breaches become more common, customers are looking for more robust, comprehensive ways to protect their information assets," says Graham Prime, product marketing manager at EMC SA. "This need is compounded by two major trends - the explosion of electronic information and the networking of storage. As these trends continue, customers will increasingly find that effective anti-virus protection requires centralisation and scalability - the core features of the Celerra Anti-Virus solution."

The Celerra Anti-Virus Solution provides a consolidated approach to virus checking by taking advantage of the robust Celerra architecture while augmenting existing server and desktop anti-virus software. By integrating external anti-virus engines with Celerra, customers benefit by isolating virus checking from other information flows, scaling anti-virus capabilities as necessary, and facilitating improvements to system performance and data availability.

Bob Passmore, Research Director at Gartner, comments: "With the increase of computer-related viruses - and the escalating costs associated with the damage they cause - virus protection for enterprises using network attached storage is no longer an option; it`s a requirement. Enterprise-level NAS customers can now take advantage of industry-leading anti-virus solutions necessary to protect their valuable assets from virus threats."

A March 2001 study co-sponsored by the Computer Security Institute and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated that the costs associated with security breaches at public and private organisations are increasing at a rapid pace. The CERT Coordination Centre, a centre of Internet security expertise for the Department of Defense at Carnegie Mellon University, also reported that the number of new computer vulnerabilities is growing rapidly - nearly tripling since 1999.

Each of the four partners is a member of the recently expanded EMC E-Infostructure Developers Program (EIDP). The initiative, which began in 1999 with programming interfaces for EMC`s Symmetrix systems and software, now enables developers to customise their software to use key management and protection features of EMC`s Celerra File Servers.