Running antivirus software is critical part of server security but it is also important to understand the impact and effect it has on sql server. Configuring the following antivirus exclusions verifies any files required by sql are not locked or modified by antivirus software when they are needed. After rebooting a server, if the antivirus software locks a sql server file before sql server can gain access to that file, potential issues ranging from sql server not being able access those. How to configure antivirus for sql servers brent ozar unlimited. If your server is dedicated to sql server, you can make the surface area of that machine extremely small. Configure windows defender antivirus exclusions on windows. Although antivirus software is a very important part of security planning, it is important to understand the effect it has on sql server files. Sql server antivirus exclusions best practices with sql server.
Antivirus activity on sql server file system can potentially cause high disk utilization. Recommended list of antivirus exclusions for sql server when used. Strict and conservative firewall, limited direct access, and your above opinions make antivirus software unnecessary. Download eset file security for microsoft windows server. Sql server antivirus exclusions best practices with sql. Recommended list of antivirus exclusions for sql server. In a perfect world, your sql server would be so secure that you would not need antivirus software, you would have behind layers of firewalls. Some implementations of antivirus software are known to microsoft to cause a variety of problems for sql server, and microsoft has a support article dedicated. Antivirus activity can cause your sql server performance degradation and data corruption. If you dont implement it, someones sure to log onto your sql server and download some free tool that puts you at risk as soon as youre not looking. Need exclusions for sql server on a antivirus microsoft. Running antivirus on production sql server sql server community. If you are running antivirus software on a cluster, make sure that you also exclude these locations from virus scanning.
My it department installed an antivirus with sql server born sql. Overall sql server performance may also be improved by implementing the following antivirus exclusions, especially when using discovery accelerator analytics. You can also refer to guidelines for choosing antivirus software to run on the computers that are running sql server. If you restart the system, or restart the sql instance, it is possible that the antivirus software could start first and open a data or log file to scan it for viruses, at which point when sql server starts it may not be able to access that file, therefore preventing sql server from starting. Contact your antivirus vendor about clusteraware versions and interoperability. However, you must make sure that the antivirus software is a clusteraware version. Hello team, could you please provide the exclusions for sql server for antivirus. Choosing antivirus software for computers that run sql server.
To install the antivirus software on the physical hosts, exclude the following list of directories and processes. Sql server should never be an internet facing machine anyways. Antivirus software parallel data warehouse microsoft docs. Provides general guidelines to help you decide which type of antivirus software to run on the computers that are running sql server in your. Is it safe to run antivirus software on my database servers. If you do implement it, sometimes it can make you crazy.
Ms sql server and antivirus software sql server dba. Eset file security for ms windows server represents crossplatform antimalware protection of your file servers. This topic is based on the guidance in how to choose antivirus software to run on computers that are running sql server and kb article 961804. Antivirus is one of those necessary evils that we need to keep around, because if you dont implement it, you could be at. Structured query language typically pronounced seequill rather than the acronym, sql is a language used to interrogate and process data in a relational database. Windows defender antivirus uses the deployment image servicing and management dism tools to determine which roles are installed on your computer. Configuring the following antivirus exclusions verifies any files required by sql are not locked or modified by antivirus software when they are. These should not be scanned by the antivirus software. Most of us have heard horror stories about av products. When we discuss av software, we should be thinking antimalware, not antivirus. Opt out of automatic exclusions in windows server 2016 and 2019, the predefined exclusions delivered by security intelligence updates only exclude the default paths for a role or feature. How to configure antivirus for sql servers brent ozar.