Symantec enterprise tool

today announced plans for a Web-based console to centrally administer Macintosh clients licensed for Symantec's Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0. The Symantec administration console is designed to provide centralized antivirus management for OS X clients, ensuring up-to-date protection across multiple platform network environments. It will offer functions for distributing and updating clients protected with Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0 and auditing the machine name, location, software version installed and latest virus definitions update of each networked Mac without relying on user action. In addition, the console is being designed to provide a view of the most recent viruses found on each Macintosh within the network along with the ten most prevalent viruses.

"Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 9.0, with the administrative console, will be the ideal solution for organizations that have a heterogeneous PC and Macintosh environment," said Stephen Cullen, senior vice president, security products and solutions, Symantec. "IT Administrators will be able to use the centralized administration functionality to update Macintosh clients with antivirus protection, confirming that their Mac's are protected and their network is secure."



Other functions will included scheduled or on-demand virus definition and product updates, deployment of NAV, and configuration changes pushed to Mac clients, lock-down of system setting to prevent user-initiated changes, storage of data in a central MySQL database, standard and custom reporting, and web-based administration.



The Symantec administrative console for Macintosh is expected to be available in November 2004. The company says that customers with current applicable maintenance using Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 8.x, Symantec AntiVirus Enterprise Edition 8.x and Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition 9.0 will receive information on how to request the CD.

by MacNN Staff