SQL Server and antivirus software

From time to time we have performance degradation problems with applications and in general we can find quickly what is the issue. But we had few problems that took longer to find the main reason for the degradation and we come to discover that is about the antivirus software.

 

Last time we have found that one weekly process that used to run for 10 minutes took more than 90 minutes to complete and it was because the antivírus software was running a full scan in the same time.

 

This article is to remind you to verify the exclusions that are configured in your antivirus software for MS SQL server files, folders and processes and also to verify the scan schedules for your antivirus software. 

 

The more important is to exclude SQL Server datafiles (*.mdf, *.ndf), transaction log files (*.ldf) and SQL Server process (sqlservr.exe), Analysis Server process (msmdsrv.exe) and Reporting Services process (reportingservicesservice.exe). But you can find more complete information in this  Microsoft article about using antivirus with MS SQL Server, so I do not need to rewrite here the full article.

 

Keep your servers free of virus but also keep them with a good performance.

EDIT: You should also (ask for) check the files that are scanned in application server and file server. Can also degradate the performance and the first thing the clients will complain is the slow access to the database.