Antivirus for virtual desktop machines

Let's start by looking at a traditional desktop antivirus scanning model where an agent is installed and runs on every desktop in the environment. The job of the agent is to perform the antivirus scan and also update the definition file that contains information on the latest malware.

For a desktop PC environment, this model works well, but in a VDI infrastructure, there will be a few challenges. When a scan starts on every virtual desktop, its resource usage will significantly increase, but if you think about the VDI model, these desktops are running on a single ESXi host server, and it's the server that will buckle.

For example, you had a host server running 100 virtual desktop machines, and at 12 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, they all kicked off a virus scan. This host is likely to become 100 percent utilized very quickly, both for the CPU and storage I/O. The result will be unresponsive desktops. Instead of affecting one user's desktop, you have now...