Symantec has announced that its endpoint security, messaging security and endpoint management solutions have been optimized for density and performance in virtual environments.
By randomizing virus definition updates and scheduled scans across the VM’s hosted on the virtualization platform, Symantec minimizes the impact of these tasks on the hardware resources. This randomization feature is available from Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 Maintenance Release 3 making Symantec the last Security Software vendor providing a VDI friendly security solution.
The randomization feature is detailed in a white paper titled: Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 Securing Virtual Environments Best Practices White Paper. The paper mentions how the client policies can be set so that this randomization takes place. The settings aren’t orchestrated from a central point though, so that real randomization can’t be guaranteed, which makes the solution sub-optimal compared to what the competitors are doing at this moment.
Symantec says it will also support the VMware VMsafe API in the future just like VMware which is going to release an introspection antivirus framework by partnering with TrendMicro, and McAfee which will release solutions optimized for Citrix XenClient, XenDesktop and XenServer. Introspection means that the AV vendor provides a Virtual Appliance which calls the hypervisor’s security API in order to protect the guests running on top of it.