Norman Data Defense Systems Releases NVCNet For Terminal Server

Comdex, Sweden. January 20, 2004 – Leading Norwegian IT security company Norman Data Defense Systems, today announced the release of NVCNet for terminal servers, a distributed antivirus solution to address the increased threat and impact of worms and viruses to networked businesses.

In a terminal server deployment, enterprise applications are centrally installed on high-powered terminal servers and accessed remotely using inexpensive thin-clients. Today native antivirus applications are installed on the thin client and terminal server checking for virus, worms and other malware.

However these servers are a critical resource utilised by a high volume of users and holding substantial applications. High loads on the CPU resources can cause them to slow down. An antivirus application processing files on the already stressed CPU can compound this problem. The solution thus far has been to invest in additional terminal servers to spread the load. This is a costly and timely process involving both software and hardware investments.

To avoid these situations, Norman Data Defense Systems has developed NVCNet for Terminal Servers to support these environments operating under Citrix and Microsoft. The solution consists of two parts, a server application and a client application. The server is a distributed content checking server installed outside the terminal server communicating with the native Norman Virus Control antivirus software installed on the terminal server. When the CPU load hits a predefined threshold on the terminal server, it triggers the traffic to be re-directed to the distributed NVCNet server. Consequently, most of the servers resources can be used to manage applications, files and users, and not virus scanning. When the CPU load is back to normal the “local” antivirus program again takes control of the virus scanning.

In environments where two or more NVCNet servers are installed, load sharing and failover functions can be configured to ensure high uptime and powerful scanning. An NVCNet server has the ability to scan different environments, e.g. file and SMTP mail servers, through simple configuration options.

“We believe this is a cost effective way of solving a problem many organisations find themselves in. NVCNet is a new, innovative, flexible, completely scalable and platform independent client/server network scanning solution for mid-size and large enterprises.” states Audun Lødemel, VP Marketing and Business Development. “The NVCNet concept is a new way of delivering antivirus protection in a robust and effective way. We envisage this hassle-free virus scanning solution to be well received and look forward to implementing this technology at our customers’ sites.”