A recent Spiceworks survey of IT professionals showed 76% of them had concerns over AV Storms, the simultaneous scanning or updating of Anti-Virus software causing negative effects to over-all system performance.
Among the top concerns were degradation of system performance, downtime and lower staff productivity.
Anti-virus is just one of many components that requires system resources, that if performed at the same time can bring work to a stop.
Monitoring system capacity and managing software updates are both important information security themes to ensure business continuity and availability of data.
Knowledge of System Requirements
It’s important for system administrators to be aware of the software running on their network and for this reason many organisations implement a policy restricting installation of software on desktops.
Scheduling software updates can also limit their impact on the network and provide an opportunity to test them before they go live.
Monitoring Tools
Most system administrators will have monitoring tools to identify memory, processing bandwidth or other events that could impact performance. If the above controls fail, monitoring may help limit the downtime caused by a rouge update or AV Storm.
Having a formal process to manage utility programmes and patches can save time and money later on.
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