Configuring Antivirus Software
Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2010
DPM is compatible with most popular antivirus software products. However, antivirus products can affect DPM performance, and, if they are not configured properly, they can cause data corruption of replicas and recovery points. This section provides instructions for mitigating such problems.
Configuring Real-Time Monitoring for Viruses
To minimize performance degradation on the DPM server, disable antivirus real-time monitoring of replicas for all protected data sources by disabling real-time monitoring of the DPM process DPMRA.exe, which is located in the folder Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin. Real-time monitoring of replicas degrades performance because it causes the antivirus software to scan all affected files each time DPM applies changes to the replicas.
Additionally, if you experience degraded performance while using DPM Administrator Console, disable real-time monitoring of the csc.exe process, which is located in the folder Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v2.0.50727. The csc.exe process is the C# compiler. Real-time monitoring of the csc.exe process can degrade performance because it causes the antivirus software to scan files that the csc.exe process emits when generating XML messages.
For instructions for configuring real-time monitoring for individual processes, see your antivirus product documentation.
Setting Options for Infected Files
To prevent data corruption of replicas and recovery points, configure the antivirus software on the DPM server to delete infected files rather than automatically cleaning or quarantining them. Automatic cleaning and quarantining can result in data corruption because these processes cause the antivirus software to modify files with changes that DPM cannot detect. Any time that DPM attempts to synchronize a replica that has been modified by another program, data corruption of the replica and recovery points can result. Configuring the antivirus software to delete infected files avoids this problem. Note, however, that you must run manual synchronization with consistency check each time that the antivirus software deletes files from a replica. For instructions for configuring your antivirus software to delete infected files, see the product documentation.