[SOLVED] Installing BitDefender GravityZone

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Kirby

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I have a customer that insisted on BitDefender. I HATE BitDefender, not because there is anything particularly wrong with the software, but because it seems impossible to actually get someone to answer questions, whether it be sales or support. But, it's what the customer wanted, so after WEEKS of searching, emailing person after person to get a quote for the single server version they needed, FINALLY finding a place on the Internet where I could buy it outright only to learn that what they sold me was something not compatible with Windows Server 2012 R2, then getting that exchanged for GravityZone and being told to install it on Hyper-V, I'm stuck.

I installed Hyper-V. The instructions for that are pretty easy. And I have a GravityZone VHD file. But I'm not sure I got the right Hyper-V settings when I installed it. I have no idea how an antivirus on a virtual machine works or why you would do it that way. Can I assume it somehow monitors the host OS or do I have to install everything I want checked on this virtual machine? How do I "mount" the VHD file? There were no instructions whatsoever and I don't often deal with servers to begin with (just this one customer once every 5 or 6 years). Can someone give me some tips, maybe link me to step-by-step installation and give me a rough overview of how this works? Thanks.
 
I believe that is just the console, then then after it is installed it access it through your browser and then you can download the agent from there. I just use the the cloud hosted console, but there might be more features on the onsite one.
 
Have you read up on what GravityZone is?
It's a centralized management console, just like most other brands of antivirus have for their "business edition".

I take it you've never seen Microsoft Hyper-V before, if you are asking what to do with a VHD file.
A VHD is a Virtual Hard Disk...you simply create a VM (based on what hardware specs you want to give it)...mount the drive, boot it up..and follow the wizard. They basically created a "ready to go" guest instance for you.
Soon it will be up and running and you access it. It's a centralized control center to manage all of the rigs on the network. Create various configurations and install packages, push installs, manage profiles, scans, updates, etc.

You don't NEED a centralized management portal for the clients to run, all clients can run individually, like stand alone installs. But having a centralized management console for a whole network is MUCH easier, more efficient, it's just the logical choice.

GravityZone is not an antivirus client...so it's not what you install on a server to protect it. It's a tool to help you manage a whole network full of Bitdefender installs.
 
This customer is paranoid about anything with "cloud" in the name. She's an accountant, so it's not without merit that she doesn't want her customer's information leaving her site. And yes, I know that a "cloud antivirus" doesn't vacuum up information off her computer, but she doesn't and she won't be told otherwise. She used to write programs in BASIC in the '80s, and she was an electronic tech back in the day. She understood things then and you just can't explain to her how computers today are nothing like they were back then. When she gets something in her head, it's there for good, the end.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Have you read up on what GravityZone is?
It's a centralized management console, just like most other brands of antivirus have for their "business edition".

I take it you've never seen Microsoft Hyper-V before, if you are asking what to do with a VHD file.
A VHD is a Virtual Hard Disk...you simply create a VM (based on what hardware specs you want to give it)...mount the drive, boot it up..and follow the wizard. They basically created a "ready to go" guest instance for you.
Soon it will be up and running and you access it. It's a centralized control center to manage all of the rigs on the network. Create various configurations and install packages, push installs, manage profiles, scans, updates, etc.

You don't NEED a centralized management portal for the clients to run, all clients can run individually, like stand alone installs. But having a centralized management console for a whole network is MUCH easier, more efficient, it's just the logical choice.

GravityZone is not an antivirus client...so it's not what you install on a server to protect it. It's a tool to help you manage a whole network full of Bitdefender installs.
Click to expand...
I have used virtual machines before, but it was just to test viruses and manual removal of them. It was the old XP one I used to use, but haven't in a few years (don't remember the name).

So, no, I know nothing about it. I'm not really a server guy. I did try to mount the VHD, but got some error.

This customer is...different. The computers all have to have individual, not managed antivirus. They just have basic BitDefender on them. GravityZone is just for the server antivirus. I'm going back on site again today with a couple more sets of instructions I printed out from a search I did. Pretty much the instructions I got were, "Install Hyper-V, download GravityZone. I did figure out how to enable virtualization in the BIOS. I've actually done that before. I just can't figure out how to mount the VHD now and have no idea what to expect once I do. But from what you're saying the installation of Hyper-V isn't that crucial (ie, whether I include one LAN card or both), it's just a stepping stone to actually getting the antivirus installed, which is helpful. Thank you.
 
Well, the management console, GravityZone, doesn't have anything to do with "cloud" than Hyper-V Manager does. It's a management console to manage the client installs on the LAN. Its base OS is linux (as you can tell by the first setup screen in the screenshots showing it once you boot it up). (probably BSD).
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Well, the management console, GravityZone, doesn't have anything to do with "cloud" than Hyper-V Manager does. It's a management console to manage the client installs on the LAN. Its base OS is linux (as you can tell by the first setup screen in the screenshots showing it once you boot it up). (probably BSD).
Click to expand...
Yeah, I just can't use the "cloud hosted console" because it has "cloud" in the name.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
No..see my above post. Gravity Zone does not protect any computer..it is not antivirus itself. It is a tool that allows you to manage the antivirus clients on a whole network.
Click to expand...
Well, hopefully it will allow me to install SOME antivirus on the server. She insisted on BitDefender, but I've already told her that after this, I will NEVER deal with BitDefender again. I spent over a month just trying to get quotes for 12 computers and 1 server. Nobody responded. And support takes a day to get back to me, when things go well. I did have one guy actually get back to me on a quote in a day, I mentioned that it couldn't be "cloud" anything and he said he'd get back to me. To his credit, he did. But it was weeks later. Literal weeks. By that time I had already bought something.

Good antivirus or not, it is impossible to get help on it, even when the only thing you need help with is purchasing. You can't find prices anywhere, sales people never get back to you, nobody can comprehend that "cloud" anything is not an option (to be fair, probably because that's not exactly rationale, but the customer gets what the customer wants)...BitDefender has just been a horrible, horrible experience, and all on a "free install" where every time I go on-site they have additional, unrelated tasks for me and "chat" with me endlessly. I can't concentrate on what I'm doing and a conversation at the same time. I have laser focus and I just can't not have laser focus. I've tried.
 
Kirby said:
Yeah, I just can't use the "cloud hosted console" because it has "cloud" in the name.
Click to expand...

Doesn't have "cloud" in the name...but there is a "cloud hosted" option. OR....you can host it yourself...such as what they sent you..the VHD file. All this means, is where the centralized management page is hosted...locally, or across the internet. Only the management part.

Just because she programmed in BASIC in the 80's doesn't mean she can't grasp hosted services if properly explained. I learned BASIC in the 80's...and I also learned Fortran and Watfive77 from the 60's and 70's....saving and reading programs from punch cards! Didn't stop me!
 
As @YeOldeStonecat said Gravityzone is the management console for managing clients using Bitdefender endpoint client. Cloud or self hosted. Sounds like you should really just sign up as a partner so you can get a distributor to help you out.
 
Kirby said:
Well, hopefully it will allow me to install SOME antivirus on the server. She insisted on BitDefender, but I've already told her that after this, I will NEVER deal with BitDefender again. I spent over a month just trying to get quotes for 12 computers and 1 server. Nobody responded. And support takes a day to get back to me, when things go well. I did have one guy actually get back to me on a quote in a day, I mentioned that it couldn't be "cloud" anything and he said he'd get back to me. To his credit, he did. But it was weeks later. Literal weeks. By that time I had already bought something.

Good antivirus or not, it is impossible to get help on it, even when the only thing you need help with is purchasing.
Click to expand...

Whelp...too bad you'll give up on the best AV product....when you just have to find a good reseller. I don't know what your location is, but from the grammar I'll assume you're in North America or the UK. Similar to years ago when I got on board with Eset, working with a foreign AV product can be challenging until you get a top tier reseller, or get under a regional sales rep direct from the brand. Don't ever both going direct through the main website...that won't get you far. Get a regional sales rep.

We're mostly BitDefender now....with a few clients left on Eset.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Doesn't have "cloud" in the name...but there is a "cloud hosted" option. OR....you can host it yourself...such as what they sent you..the VHD file. All this means, is where the centralized management page is hosted...locally, or across the internet. Only the management part.

Just because she programmed in BASIC in the 80's doesn't mean she can't grasp hosted services if properly explained. I learned BASIC in the 80's...and I also learned Fortran and Watfive77 from the 60's and 70's....saving and reading programs from punch cards! Didn't stop me!
Click to expand...
You don't know this customer. I also started with BASIC and assembly, and I've moved on. But she doesn't. When she gets information in her head which is "good" that information is "good" forever. As in, "I know this works! I did it on a computer in 1989!" It's not that she can't learn more, it's that she can't ever un-learn something.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Whelp...too bad you'll give up on the best AV product....when you just have to find a good reseller. I don't know what your location is, but from the grammar I'll assume you're in North America or the UK. Similar to years ago when I got on board with Eset, working with a foreign AV product can be challenging until you get a top tier reseller, or get under a regional sales rep direct from the brand. Don't ever both going direct through the main website...that won't get you far. Get a regional sales rep.

We're mostly BitDefender now....with a few clients left on Eset.
Click to expand...
I don't sell a lot of antivirus. Not enough to bother selling it myself. It's a very small town and, yes, it is North America. It's a one-man show here, so I don't really have time to waste setting up a partnership I will maybe use a half-dozen times a year and get at least twice that many spam emails from.

Like I said, you don't know this customer. She is a very "high maintenance" customer. She used to swear by Kaspersky...until she found out it was from Russia and started getting ideas that they were hacking into her computers. The country her antivirus comes from can't be too near Russia, either. At one point I had to deliver her a short list of American antivirus companies and printer manufacturers, which she then promptly forgot she had even wanted.

Anyway, I just don't have the time to go out of my way to "get" information from them, and I HAVE SPENT a lot of time on this already. About 2 months, off an on. I don't have a lot of time for one frigging antivirus sale, and in this case she get it at cost AND is getting free installation. BitDefender cost me money. If you're in business, you know what that means. It means "f!*#k BitDefender!"
 
Whoa, the amount of miscommunication in this thread is insane.

If she doesn't want cloud, that's fine, there are still valid reasons for that position, she just needs to be willing to pay the costs of keeping infrastructure in house.

When I was evaluating going with Sophos v.s. Bitdefender, the Sophos sales rep brought up that Bitdefender was Romanian.

I'm surprised that they didn't try to hook you with a reseller (one of their partners who would help with the installation and then be your support contact, and then gets a cut of the purchase) I thought that it would be their standard practice. They tried to double reseller me, since the reseller I was using didn't provide support, but I went with the lower cost instead and just support from Bitdefender. They email me back within a day, which is good enough for me. There has been an issue that I purchased 3 year licencing, but Bitdefender only gave me a 1 year licence, but my reseller is the one sorting that out, so I'm quite happy that I'm not dealing with it.

Part of your problem is because with the solution you are using, there is a certain expectation of experience. Since you don't have much experience with VMs, this can be a good learning opportunity for you, and the time it takes to set things up will reflect extra time for your learning.

Windows 10 Pro has a version of Hyper-V installed. I recommend playing around with it a bit. Install any OS, and get a feel for how it works. Then you won't have to do so much learning on site.
 
I did get the VM up and running. Unfortunately I don't know where to go from there. They are supposed to email me instructions. I'm presented with 6 options, none of which is "just install the damned thing already". What a pain in the ass this has been.
 
@Kirby what remote program do you use?

Pm me, if you get a chance to, in the next 60 mins or so, or tomorrow morning, and I will show you how I get BDGZ installed on my clients.

It's so easy, you will pinch yourself.
 
Nige said:
@Kirby what remote program do you use?

Pm me, if you get a chance to, in the next 60 mins or so, or tomorrow morning, and I will show you how I get BDGZ installed on my clients.

It's so easy, you will pinch yourself.
Click to expand...
I appreciate that, but they just sent me a 158 page PDF for installation of this thing and I'm ready to just throw it in the garbage and buy a "normal" antivirus for the thing myself. At this point I'm probably throwing this **** in the trash and just buying a new antivirus. This install has been a nightmare from start to finish. 10 hours on site at her house, computers at her office installed and then taken down because they weren't in the right place, so I have to reinstall it, requests for me to take the computers back and install the antivirus at my office, then install them a second time... I just need this damned job over with.

So, does BitDefender make an ordinary "download and install" antivirus for a file server? The workstations all have individual antivirus on them and don't need monitored (that's all her too, it's not going to change, I have no control over it). At this point I'll just spend my own money on a new antivirus and throw this license away. I'm about to leave for the day (after going on site there yet again because they can't wipe their noses without my help), but tomorrow I want to show up with a new solution on a flash drive, install it and be completely done with this stupid install.
 
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