Forefront Endpoint Protection - Is it any good?

[Norphy]

Our antivirus is up for renewal in September and at the moment I'm evaluating packages. We're using Kaspersky, at the moment the management server is running on v8 and we have v6 MP4 out on our workstations and 8.0.something EE on the servers.

 

We have an EES and we're running SCCM so it seems logical to look at Forefront Endpoint Protection being as we'd get it for peanuts. I've got a copy from MSDN and have stuck it on our development systems to have a look and I have to say, I'm impressed. There is very little bloat. The interface inside SCCM is basic but good enough for our needs while Kaspersky seems to be getting more and more bloated all the time. I like the fact that updates and deployments are handled though WSUS and SCCM so there isn't another system on the network using resources. In short, I like what I see and I'm giving some serious thought about recommending that we adopt this come summer.

 

However, I'd like some opinions from people who have already evaluated it and from people who are actually using it to see what they think and how it performs. Are there any schools who have migrated from Kaspersky to FEP? How did it go?

 

Any input gratefully received!

[MrWu]

We are using FEP as standalone on Servers and impressed with small footprint and simple interface. Shame that SCCM for full reporting and control, but will at least roll out FEP and control via GPO and update via WSUS for now. I came from Kespersky, bar not having centralised control on FEP compared to Kespersky i have had less bugs.

[MatthewL]

Cannot fault it, very small footprint wise and does not affect PC's like McAfee used to.

[plexer]

There is a simple management interface in development from lms.truesec.se

 

Ben

[internetuser]

I am looking at using this to get rid of Mcafee, when I roll out the Windows 7 migration.

 

It looks a simple install for the clients, anything to look out for ? Updates will be done via WSUS, which should just work shouldnt it ?

 

I plan to deploy it via a start up script, is this the best way of doing it? As we do not have SCCM yet, I may get a chance to look at the 2012 edition in the summer, but do not have the time currently.

[glennda]

I trailed about 5. In the end went with Avast Pro - for 900 clients it was under 5k for 3 years.

 

It's brilliant and I played with the likes of trend/vipre/Sophia etc

[dave.81]

I'm starting to question this for us when Avast renewal is up later this year. Be interesting to see people's opinion of it.

[internetuser]

I have just deployed it on a few test machines, lot more light weight than the current mcafee 8.x which is always a good thing.

[andyfield]

It was something that I was nervous about changing but with the tiny cost having an ESS agreement and enterprise CAL's then it was worth the risk. I completely removed all of my McAfee on the network (in fact reinstalled whole network last summer) and replaced it with Forefront endpoint protection on all servers and clients. Using the protection for my exchange 2010 box and SharePoint 2010 box. It works fantastic! Haven't had a single issue with it and the fact that wsus can push out the updates is great!

[Dave84]

As Forefront uses WSUS for updates what happens when staff take laptops home? With ESET/Sophos you can run a dual update profile system so that it downloads via the internet instead. Can Forefront do this too?

[cscott]

When it can't contact your WSUS server Forefront will check the public Microsoft Windows UPdate sites for updates - which makes it really good for staff laptops!

 

We just upgraded to Forefront EndPoint Protection about a month ago but have been using it's predecessor Forefront Clinet Security for years - really good

[JMB]

Can anyone give me an idea of price? It seems to be one of those products that you simply can't get an idea of cost for. We're rocking McAfee school-wide, and that sets us back about £150 a year.

[cscott]

All depends, we're an FE College, we pay just over£30K a year for our Microsoft Campus licence with Enterprise CAL, which includes Forefront Endpoint Protection (Buy Forefront Endpoint Protection) so for us it was "free" as it was already included in what we had - one of the reasons why we moved as previous AV was costing £7K a year.

 

You never know you may already be covered to use it!

[JMB]

Thanks cscott, hope so! Microsoft are going to contact me, as the company I tend to organise my licenses through doesn't seem to have any idea. All our MS stuff is VL, so hopefully this won't cost an arm and a leg...