eTrust Antivirus Offers Direct Management of Antivirus Activity

The Mission Consolidated Independent School District (Mission Consolidated) rates as one of the top two Texas school districts for the education of Latino children, according to a study by The Texas Education Excellence Project at Texas A&M University. The district’s 13,000 students from the city of Mission and its neighboring community of Alton enjoy education at the hands of a 1,900-member staff, an annual budget of $88.3 million and 5,000 computers on 16 separate school campuses.

	eTrust Antivirus has met all of our expectations and then some. We don’t have to worry about how safe the system is. And my network specialist can feel comfortable that he can see what’s going on from one machine and is able to make some quick decisions based on that.
		Robert Sanchez, Director for Media and Technology Mission Consolidated Independent School District

When computer viruses began escaping detection by the antivirus solution they had in place, Mission Consolidated turned to eTrust Antivirus from Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA). Not only did it have a version for the district’s Domino email platform, eTrust Antivirus afforded technicians in the central office direct management of the antivirus activity on its desktop computers.

Centralized Management of Antivirus Updates
“We wanted to have the control here,” said Robert Sanchez, Director for Media and Technology at the Mission Consolidated schools. The district had been using Norton Antivirus but it was predominantly a desktop application. Updates occurred at the user’s discretion and, according to Sanchez, “Users were not doing the updates even though we were sending them email reminders. We found that no matter what kind of messages you put in front of users, they’re inclined either to cancel the messages or ignore them. They think it’s not going to happen to them.”

When the Goner virus evaded detection and struck the district, said Sanchez, “It was a big blow to us for a couple of weeks. We simply had to go and check out every machine in the district.” The technical staff from the central office worked with technical teams at each school for nearly three weeks to clean the infected machines and stop the infection. With its Norton licenses due to expire, the district began evaluating other solutions. It adopted eTrust Antivirus following an extensive review.

Cost, Support and Installation
Not only did eTrust Antivirus support Lotus Domino and provide centralized management, it was economical. And CA offered a level of support and assistance that was unmatched by its competitors. “We’re always looking at price per unit because funds are not readily available,” said Sanchez. eTrust Antivirus topped the competition with a lower unit cost per station. “We have to make sure we have the support to make these applications function,” he added. “Most school districts don’t have personnel to handle them. My network person doesn’t have time to be looking up numbers, asking questions and holding the line for 30 minutes, waiting for somebody to get to the phone.” When help is needed, a CA customer relationship manager finds the right person to address our needs. District technicians were delighted at the ease and speed with which eTrust Antivirus was installed. It literally took 15 minutes working from the central console, sparing them visits to every campus.

Instant Network Protection
eTrust Antivirus immediately demonstrated its might. The day it was installed, the district was hit by the Klez worm. eTrust Antivirus detected and intercepted about 50 infected files that day. The next day it intercepted another ten infected messages and the third day it caught two more. Not only did it catch infections being spread to the district’s systems from the outside, it caught viruses being replicated as users sent messages to one another within Mission Consolidated’s own networks. “So right away, we felt very good about our choice,” said Sanchez. Since that time there have been no further infections. By using eTrust Antivirus, the district established a schedule of weekly antivirus updates that occur automatically — not at the discretion of users. Updates are downloaded through the central office’s network operating center (NOC) and pushed to the desktop systems at each campus.

Sanchez and his staff are also reaping an unexpected benefit — user education. eTrust notifications, alerting users when they have a virus, has raised awareness about the importance of security. “Users see that either they have sent a virus in their email or somebody is trying to send them an attachment with one,” said Sanchez. “People are actually saying ‘Wow! I understand now.’ Our users are calling us and saying ‘Hey, this guy is trying to send me a virus’ so we’re able to proactively prevent problems that may arise.”

Moving Toward Centralization
Having already saved on unit costs, Sanchez now expects the school district to reap a big pay-off that will accrue over time. Because eTrust Antivirus allows the district’s network specialist to monitor all systems from a central console, the district can maximize his expertise, eliminate travel among the schools and save payroll costs because it can staff more junior level support technicians on the individual campuses.

Looking ahead, Mission Consolidated faces two immediate challenges:

To complete the installation of eTrust Antivirus across all of its systems. It initially installed eTrust Antivirus on its 3,000 Windows 2000 systems and delayed adoption on the other 2,000 as it determined whether to upgrade the older Windows 98 systems before completing installation.

To provide email for all of its students, a move that had been delayed until it could be done with the confidence that a secure antivirus solution was in place. When that has taken place, said Sanchez, the district plans to evaluate other CA enterprise products that can provide central management tools within the school district’s NOC environment.