Impact of Scheduled Windows 11 Antivirus Scans on Ignition windows Temporary Files

Ignition
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1

I plan to schedule antivirus scans on a Windows 11 machine running an Ignition Gateway with multiple modules. The antivirus vendor is not finalized yet.

My main concern is whether including Windows/Java/Ignition temporary files(Temp Folder) in the scan could affect Ignition operation through file locking, CPU/disk usage, or resource contention.

Could antivirus scan impact the Gateway, tags, database connections, historian, Perspective, OPC/PLC communication, MQTT, or Gateway scripts?

What antivirus exclusions and scan scheduling are recommended for an Ignition Gateway, especially for temporary/cache files? Are there any best practices from Inductive Automation?

2

I'd generally just stick with Windows Defender. It's no worse than any of the other commercial products. And it's already there eating your resources anyway. No need to add another resource hog. And tell them all to stay the heck away from the Ignition folder. You don't need them screwing up and quarantining something in there all of a sudden because they got stupid with their heuristics.

3

Your concerns are entirely valid. IT-induced disruption is one of the many reasons I strongly encourage my clients to NOT deploy any production systems on Windows.

4

We use threatdown, I haven't noticed any interruptions on my local gateways but I don't develop in them much.