1. A computer program product for scanning files in a network environment including a plurality of scanner nodes, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform operations, the operations comprising: providing a list of the scanner nodes in the network and for each of the scanner nodes a performance value, wherein the performance value for each of the scanner nodes comprises a scan rate that is a function of at least a time for the scanner node to complete a scan operation; receiving a file request with respect to a file; in response to the file request, selecting one of the scanner nodes in the list based on the performance values of the scanner nodes; transmitting the file to the selected scanner node to perform the scan operation with respect to the file; receiving indication from the selected scanner node performing the scan operation whether a subset of code in the file matches code in a definition set; processing the file request to result in execution of the file request based on the indication of whether the subset of code in the file matches a definition in the definition set; determining a current scan rate for the selected scanner node to perform the scan operation on the file in response to the scanner node completing the scan operation; and adjusting the performance value for the selected scanner node by the determined current scan rate, wherein the adjusted performance value is used for subsequent file requests to determine the scanner node based on the performance values.