Since the end of the eighties, system administrators have been faced with the constant threat of computer virus infection.

These professionals have therefore had to deal with a new task: that of installing, configuring, and updating a reliable system of antivirus protection. This means having to install the antivirus on each and every computer in the network, update it, and monitor it periodically.

If we take an average-sized network of some 50 workstations and an antivirus package that takes five minutes to install, in the hypothetical case that all the network PCs and servers were located together, and the skill of the hard-working administrator in exchanging disks bordered on miraculous, more than four hours would be needed to complete the installation.

This is the minimum time required only for installation, as the tasks of configuring, updating, and monitoring could take several days, which would mean paralyzing the company on numerous occasions during this period. Clearly no administrator in their right mind would try to carry out all these tasks in less than an hour, even if this is what the company's management insists on or expects.

For all of the above, Panda Software has developed Panda Administrator, an application that, from a single 32-bit Windows workstation (95, 98, NT Workstation, or NT Server), allows the user to automatically install, scan, update, monitor, and carry out all antivirus-related network administrator tasks.

In addition, this new tool notifies the supervisor of any virus incident and blocks the affected computer in order to protect it and prevent any possible additional damage.

The latest Internal Study of Program Functioning carried out by Panda Software in June 1998 yielded a surprising result: the average time required by a network administrator to install the 24h-365d Antivirus Insurance for Network Servers and Workstations in two servers (Novell NetWare 4.11 and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0) and nine workstations (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 3.1x, DOS, and OS/2) in no case exceeded four minutes. It literally took more time to explain how to update the antivirus than to carry it out, bearing in mind that the people who did the tests had in no case computer training more than that of the average computer user.

How long would it take to install from a simple, obsolete 486 in a network made up of 15 servers and 500 workstations? Exactly the same. It can be done in just five minutes. The administrator may take longer in remembering the main NT domain controller or the name of the NetWare context than in carrying out the installation itself.