Jon Tullett

Trend Micro offers a product that comes more or less in the middle of the charts throughout this test, doing nothing spectacularly well, but not making any major mistakes either.

This test was a surprise, with performance and default settings letting Symantec down, although the presentation couldn't be better.

Norman delivered quick and efficient performance, with acceptable, but unexceptional, reporting. Installation required Norman Virus Control to be installed first, for the AV engine. No reboot was required and, if anything, a surprising lack of feedback resulted - the software just quietly went to work with the default server configuration.

Kaspersky has come up trumps with very fast software with some neat features. Queuing the mail was just moments slower than the top runners with 49 minutes, but processing was fastest of the lot at 107, and it nearly tops the efficiency chart too, with 4,055 scanned.

In last year's anti-virus management group test, Hauri's product impressed us with a slick interface and strong set of features. In this test, first impressions were similar. Configuration was quick and easy and the interface excellent - limited options compared to other products, but ample for most users. No reboot was required and the software demanded confirmation that the empty admin password required was in fact correct.

Aladdin's eSafe did well enough and has some features that would be particularly useful during an outbreak, but performance was nothing special. Although eSafe is up to version 4 now, that version is purely appliance-oriented. The last version to support Exchange was 3.5, which the company still sells and supports (for now) despite its focus on moving away from that side of the business towards its Linux-based appliance version.

This software fared well enough in our tests, although some peculiarities raised a few warning signals. It installs easily, with separate AV and Exchange components, and an optional management interface. A reboot is required, after which mail scanning was switched off by default and had to be enabled.

As firewalls go, the CyberGuard SL3200 is a monster: a huge, noisy beast with performance that matches its rugged looks. The name denotes its capacity - 3.2 gigabits of total throughput, shared among a maximum of 26 Ethernet ports. Even more notably, it is able to multiplex several interfaces into a small number of very high-capacity pipes, all secured at wire speed.
Designed for high-demand environments, the box has all the HA features you'd expect - hot-swappable fans and power supplies, as well as RAID 5 storage, with an internal layout designed for maximum airflow and heat dissipation. Fail-over between two boxes is available if you have an extended license.

As an alternative to costly proprietary tools, we sourced a variety of open source software, with the goal of emulating as much of the feature-sets offered by closed source products, such as EnCase and ProDiscover.