Performance testing and determining operational baseline

Finding and maintaining an operational baseline for the system application is a key component of performance testing. It is critical to capture performance of the system in an operational state before and after the introduction of the antivirus application. Depending on the specific configuration and system size/activity expected, antivirus applications can introduce unacceptable performance issues. If the antivirus software will be deployed to a live system, careful monitoring must be performed prior to and during the initial operational period. Tools such as Performance Monitor will be essential to detect if regular antivirus operations, such as virus signature updates and full file system scans, are exceeding safe resource usage maximums.

Care must be taken to review any third-party applications that are installed on hosts located on the SCADA network, as they may require additional antivirus configuration. Particularly sensitive applications may include databases, backup utilities, intrusion detection applications, and telecom applications.