How to ensure peak performance pt 3

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How to ensure peak performance pt 3

FAQ - Tips and Tricks

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Answer

AvaPA, MS SQL Server (SQL for short) and Anti-Virus Software.

Both Viruses and Anti Virus (AV) software itself can significantly affect the speed and performance of your system. All AV software requires correct configuration. A virus infection alone can bring a system to its knees. A combination of protected machines and unprotected (and infected) machines is often the worst case. The infected machine will continually attack the protected ones. The AV software on the protected machine may use all the protected machine's resources fighting off the attacks: bring it to an effective halt for the user, even thought there is no infection on it. The infected machine may use all its resources to attack an uninfected machine.

The solution is correctly configured up-to-date antivirus software on all computers.

It vitally is important that antivirus software is installed system wide and especially on all client computers that are attached to the network. A virus by its very nature may have only one sample on the file that is introduced to the network - by email, memory stick, or any other method that transfers files between systems. As soon as it arrives it can try to spread. If the machine it first arrives on does not have good AV software then the virus will get a chance to replicate and may end up with hundreds or thousands of copies each trying to attack all the other computers. The numbers alone can lead to what is known as a "denial of service attack" by saturating any network with virus commands and bringing it to a virtual halt.

For more information (surprisingly readable)

see The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team

There are five "Areas" where any computer system including AvaPA might be subject to a Virus attack or hijack:

The AvaPA program its self.

In this respect AvaPA is identical to all other applications. The windows operating system allows ALL programs to be "infected". Anti virus software works in two ways:
by preventing a virus coming into contact with any programs
by inspecting all programs (virus scan) on a regular basis to check that nothing has bypassed the protection process.
Solution: correctly configured up-to-date antivirus software

MS SQL Server Database files

The considerations for AvaPA databases and Anti-Virus software are the same as any MS SQL Server database as AvaPA uses SQL as its main data storage engine.
The way in which SQL data is stored is extremely tightly defined. This gives many advantages in performance and as a by product does not allow space for a virus to attach its self. Simply it is immune to virus attacks. This means that scanning these files or protecting them (when they are written to or read from) simply slows everything down. The following files should be excluded from virus checkers Data Files: *.MDF, *.NDF, Log files *.LDF, Backup Files *.BAK, Transaction log files: *.TRN. These files are stored in specific folders. The exclusion can be limited to these folders.
The database files are normally stored in an AvaData folder. This is preferably on a separate drive to the system drive. The log files are preferably on a separate drive to the data files. The backup files are normally stored in a AvaPABackup or AvaBackup folder. This is preferably on a separate drive to the system and data files.
Solution: correctly configured up-to-date antivirus software

MS SQL Server Database engine

The considerations for MS SQL Server are the same as any other program. However, it has been very well designed, and since the launch of MS SQL Server version 7.0 in 1999 only one virus has managed to hijack it. This vulnerability was fixed in a service pack. All installs of MS SQL Server with up-to-date service packs are recognised as invulnerable to virus attack.
Solution: Up to date service packs

AvaPA Document files

The considerations for AvaPA document files are the same as any Word, Excel or other documents. These document formats allows all files to be "infected". Anti virus software works in two ways:
by preventing a virus coming into contact with any documents
by inspecting all documents (virus scan) on a regular basis to check that nothing has bypassed the protection process.
Virus and Anti Virus software itself can significantly affect the speed and performance of you system. It requires correct configuration. The worst case is a virus infection as it can bring any system to its knees.
Solution: correctly configured up-to-date antivirus software

AvaPA User interface: Web and Client Applications

The considerations for User interfaces (web pages and the like) are the same for all web pages and network applications that allow input from a user. A typical book that covers these ramifications will be a hundred pages of technical discussion and coding. There are acknowledged "best practises" for security in these situations. Ava ensures that it designs these considerations in from the ground up.

Solution: Correctly network security (firewalls)