We’re pleased to let you know that the new Bitdefender-powered Managed Antivirus Engine will shortly become Generally Available (GA), after a successful Release Candidate (RC) period. We want to thank you for all the great feedback we received over the past few weeks, helping us to move to GA as quickly as possible.

This means you can start to roll the new Managed Antivirus engine out across clients by upgrading to the new GA Agent, so you can take advantage of Bitdefender’s award-winning AV technology and offer customers the best available protection from malware as part of your managed security services.

With the Managed Antivirus update we have a few great enhancements coming through, including a policy migration tool to help you transfer VIPRE policies to Bitdefender policies – see below for details.

In addition to this milestone, the recently launched Active Discovery feature also turns GA with this release. This gives you a fantastic tool with which you can start to monitor your clients’ wired and wireless networks. We’ll continue to build out this feature area in the months ahead in order for it to become an indispensable service in your day-to-day management of clients and their networks.

All the details…
Here’s a quick overview of the Managed Antivirus enhancements and how to switch from Vipre to Bitdefender:

NOTE: Please ensure you have tested the new Bitdefender offering in your environment before deploying to all devices.

1. First you must upgrade to the latest GA Agent: Click on ‘Agent’ in the top menu bar, then select ‘Agent Auto-update Settings’. Now you can select the Clients, Sites and devices you want to switch over to use new GA Agent v9.10.1 (1). You can see the current status of the Agent upgrades in the Client tree on the left-hand side (2).

Remember to add your own branding to the AV service using the Installation Settings option, which is available in the MAV Policies dialog. Once the new Agents have installed, you’re ready to roll out the Bitdefender-powered MAV service across clients.

2. If you haven’t already done so, please review the three default Bitdefender policies or create a new Bitdefender policy.  You can use the new Policy Migration tool to quickly copy original Vipre policies to new Bitdefender ones. Go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Managed Antivirus’ > ‘Protection Policy’, select an original Vipre-based policy, then click  the Migrate button (3).

3. This will now automatically copy as best it can the original Vipre settings into a new Bitdefender policy (4). You can change the policy name or leave it the same.

NOTE: Bitdefender partners with Microsoft to create smart exclusions based on Microsoft recommendations. These smart exclusions are automatically included in the background for each Protection Policy (so do not appear in the Exclusions list) and are applied by the Bitdefender engine depending on the scanned device’s Operating System. There is no longer a requirement to create separate Protection Policies just to scan different Operating System types, unless these policies are to include custom exclusions or settings that only apply to specific Operating Systems.

4. Once you’re happy, click Save to add the new Bitdefender policy to your list (5). Make sure to carefully review the policy settings! As Bitdefender and Vipre are separate AV engines, not all features are the same. The Policy Migration tool will do its best to match the new policy to the old one, but ultimately it’s is up to you to confirm that the new Bitdefender policy is configured correctly.

5. Now you have the right policies set up, you’re ready to roll them out. Go to Settings > Managed Antivirus > Settings. Select the clients and sites you want to update. Once you’ve made your selection, switch the Engine option from Vipre to Bitdefender (6). Now choose the desired Bitdefender MAV policy from the list (7) and hit OK.

NOTE: Please ensure you have tested the new Bitdefender offering in your environment before deploying in mass.

(You can also upgrade individual devices one at a time by double-clicking a device in the North Pane, then select the desired Bitdefender policy on the Managed Antivirus tab.)

6. The MAV Service will now begin the installation process. The North Pane tab will show a green dot after the MAV installation has completed (8). The Summary tab in the South Pane will show the status of the Managed Antivirus installation. After the new MAV service has been deployed, it will apply the desired policy and update the definition files.

NOTE: Migrating from Vipre to Bitdefender requires a reboot. Once the reboot has been completed and Vipre is uninstalled, the summary tab will show Bitdefender as pending until it completes installation (9).

Bonus Feature: Thanks to your feedback, there’s now an option to fail the MAV check when it quarantines an item, just go to the General Settings of the MAV policy to set the desired check behaviour (10).

And that’s it, you’re all set with the best antimalware protection in the industry!

And finally…
The staging release notes are listed below. Please note that staging release notes are subject to change. Final release notes will go out with the release.

Summary for Service Release
– Service release focused on new features, bug fixes and performance
– Dashboard v6.3
– Agent v9.10.1 GA, Agent v9.10.2 RC

Dashboard v6.3
UPDATE: A new policy migration feature to transfer VIPRE to Bitdefender policies
UPDATE: A new option in the MAV policy to fail the MAV check when threats enter quarantine
UPDATE: Data in the Bitdefender MAV reports is extended to go back one full calendar year
UPDATE: Increased automatic reboot setting for Bitdefender engine from 1 minute default to 5 minutes. NOTE: We will look to add in a custom message at a later time as requested with the 5 minute setting
UPDATE: In Active Discovery optionally disable SMB Guest account in discovery scans
BUGFIX: In Active Discovery ensure older data does not cause iOS devices to report in as Windows devices
BUGFIX: Performance enhancements for CPU Time on non-discovery agents in Active Discovery
BUGFIX:  MAV Check outage report no longer reports date as 1970
BUGFIX: Backend performance improvements to ensure the Feature Settings dialogs processes all updates successfully

Agent v9.10.2 RC
UPDATE: Add support for Symantec Backup Exec 2014 and 2015 in Backup Check
BUGFIX: Show detailed error when Bitdefender install fails due to missing Windows patches (previously showed “Pending”)
BUGFIX: Corrected issue in installer related to temp files named “Program” or “Advanced” when installing MAV or Active Discovery

KNOWN ISSUE: Windows 10 is reporting as Windows 8.1 in the Dashboard. We’re working on an update to correct this issue.

Agent v9.10.1 GA
Includes all the updates since the current production Agent v9.8.13

KNOWN ISSUE: Intermittent issue in installer related to temp files named “Program” or “Advanced” when installing MAV or Active Discovery. This has been corrected in Agent v9.10.2 RC.

Agent v9.10.0 RC
FEATURE: Introducing Bitdefender engine deployment for MAV.
BUGFIX: Address Site Concentrator intermittently failing while downloading VIPRE definition files on some machines
BUGFIX: Correct issues where Non-English text in Active Discovery exceeded allotted space in some areas of the UI
BUGFIX: Remediate Active Discovery DCOM errors being written to the event log.
BUGFIX: Lessen Active Discovery failed login attempts on SMB guest accounts.
BUGFIX: Address Offline Network alerts from Active Discovery.
BUGFIX: Ensure Symantec Backup Exec 2012 Backup check no longer duplicates log entries
BUGFIX: Corrected the wrong status returned for failed checks in AV history and Backup history

Agent v9.10.1 RC
UPDATE: Updated TeamViewer Agent to the latest version
BUGFIX: Fix issue where disconnecting Take Control session could leave Desktop Wallpaper blank
BUGFIX: Resolve error message with Take Control
BUGFIX: Advanced Vipre removal for MAV Bitdefender migration