2005-11-01
Abstract
Kaspersky's David Emm comments on the KAV 5.0 writeup from last month's comparative review. Virus Bulletin's Matt Ham responds.
Copyright © 2005 Virus Bulletin
In your October 2005 product review (see VB, October 2005, p.12), Matt Ham comments that 'The Kaspersky entry this month was a great surprise, consisting of a command line scanner rather than the usual GUI' and further that 'the interface required a fully functional SQL database to be installed on the machine in question'.
In fact, the command line scanner is only one element of KAV 5.0 for Windows File Server. The product 'interface' is in fact the Kaspersky Administration Kit management console. When installed using minimum configuration, with the 'Administration Server' option unchecked, it does not require any database at all.
Of course, Kaspersky Administration Kit also provides wider functionality. If a system administrator needs to administer multiple anti-virus installations from one place he can use AdminKit (see http://www.kaspersky.com/ productupdates?chapter=146274756) on one or more machines in the LAN. This requires MSDE or SQL Server to be available on any machine on which AdminKit is installed. In this case the Administration Server stores all the data about the corporate anti-virus protection system in an MSDE or SQL Server database.
The review comments further: 'While many servers will have SQL available, those which do not will require a new installation which is free neither in a financial nor in a manpower sense'. While it's true that a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 licence costs money, MSDE (the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine) is freely available from Microsoft at no charge (http://www.microsoft.com/sql/ msde/default.mspx). Further, Kaspersky Lab, as a Microsoft partner, is permitted to re-distribute MSDE with its applications.
The ability to use MSDE in order to supply a back end for the administrative functions was an unfortunate oversight on my part. Virus Bulletin's policy is, however, that all tests for comparative reviews must be performed in the default state of the product, which in this case certainly seems to be without the administrative database installed. This type of installation, where a GUI is able to be installed somewhere, yet not necessarily on the machine tested, has always been a potential source of debate on server platforms.
