Clearspace Server Syndication Feed

5 Minutes to Provision - Proven

tcduncan — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:29:09 GMT

You just got to the lab with your first Intel® AMT computer.

You’ve downloaded all this cool software to evaluate the technology.

You’ve got one more thing to do…

Provision / Configure the Client!

Here’s a video (requires adobe FLASH player) to help you set up your computer for Intel® AMT. We’ll be publishing more throughout 2009.

Here's a link to the <F2> BIOS setup option on Youtube if the window below fails to appear. If you'd like to see an example of the <CTRL-P> screens, check this video out on Youtube,

Typical Week in Software Engineering

tcduncan — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:28:04 GMT

This week we had three of our team in Israel meeting with other Intel® vPro^TM technology developers. They worked on getting the latest features into our utilities that support the Intel® Setup and Configuration Services (SCS) for remote and one-touch client configurations as well as further synchronization on other utilities in our capability suiteincluding Manageability Commander.

The first utility to benefit from this trip is our Intel® SCS Setup Wizard for SCS 5.x which will release later this year. Two other utilities that will be releasing soon also benefitted. The Intel® Remote Configuration Certificate Utility and the Intel® Remote Configuration Certificate Scout are two programs targeted at helping determine the best security certificate to use when activating Intel® AMT in an enterprise with many generations of Intel® AMT firmware. We will publishing a white paper soon to further explain the issues these utilities address.

And, the teams established plans to align Intel® AMT Software Developer Kit functionality aligned with Manageability Commander, Director & Outpost.

And finally, we announce the release of the Intel® Remote Configuration Certificate Scout, a simple command line utility that allows users to query a system to detect Intel® AMT Firmware version and DHCP option 15 ‘DNS domain option name' settings. These values are useful for determining what type of remote configuration certificate your system can support. This utility supports Intel® AMT systems, and will work on either provisioned or unprovisioned systems.

Click here to download this utility: RCFG_support_util_1_0_08304_1.zip

Utility Updates Keep Coming

tcduncan — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:15:37 GMT

We've been busy integrating the Manageabilty Developer Tool Kit into our utility suite, and we will continue focusing our efforts in that direction while maintaining momentum on the rest of our utilities. As always, let us know what you think of our efforts to make Intel® vPro(TM) technology the best.

New Utility Updates

This week we released the following utility updates.

1) Manageability Developer Tool Kit updated to address issues reported by users. Release version 0.6.08302.2.

a. Manageability Commander User Guide version 0.7 published.

2) Intel® AMT Remote Power Control Utility updated to address matching certificate names for mutual TLS connections. This is also the first source code release for this utility. Release version 0.9.08303.
3) Intel® AMT Unprovision Utility updated to address matching certificate names for mutual TLS connections. This is also the first source code release for this utility. Release version 0.8.08303.

Usability Study

We are currently conducting user studies on our utilities to help guide our focus on usability. If you'd like to participate, there is still time - please send us an email stating your interest in participating to support_dopd_swe@intel.com and we will be in touch to supply you more information on the study.

DOPD Software Engineering Links:

Utilities on Expert Center

Manageability Developer Tool Kit Download

Manageability Software Development forum

How to be up and Evaluating in 30 minutes or less - Talking to IT proffesionals

tcduncan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:24:25 GMT

Some of our team had the opportunity to present demos and talk with IT managers in the Portland, Oregon area this week. To prepare for the event, we created a couple of Intel(R) AMT provisioning recipes that you can download from the vPro Expert Center Activation Zone today. These recipes use screen shots and some of our tools to get a test network of Intel(R) AMT computers provisioned and ready for activation in minutes rather than hours. We chose one set of conditions for each of the recipes and once you've done them, feel free to modify to meet your needs. you can even catch a glimps of yours truely making a dry-run of the demo on YouTube.

bon appetite'

Free Provisioning Recipes - Start Evaluating Intel(R) AMT in Under 45 Minutes

We had a great time at the event, "Intel Premier IT Proffesionals Conference" and look forward to meeting many more people in the coming weeks as the conferences swing through North America. For more information on the events go to ipip.intel.com. If you can make one, I'm sure you'd learn something and we'd love to see you. We also recieved some very favorable reviews on our givaway at the event. A nice USB drive complete with all 26 of our tools, documents, videos, links, and the recipes mentioned above. The whole set takes up around 700 MB, but Josh hillicker was pretty excited about it and mentioned we'll be trying to make it available on-line. Stay tuned...

Speaking of staying tuned, next time we'll be discussing our team's recent adoption of the tool set formerly known as the Intel(R) AMT Developer Tool Kit (DTK). After years of stellar work, Ylian Saint-hillaire has passed the baton to our team to maintain and enhance this tool set. We look forward to the challenge and the future of the tool. Until next time, good-bye.

Digital Office Platform Division Software Engineering Bulletin

tcduncan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:01:47 GMT

Volume One

What's new this round -

Activation Tools: SCS RCT Wizard

Management Tools: Remote Power Control Utility

Testing Tools: BVT

Current Projects: SMB Provisioning Utility

Thank you for taking the time to review our blog. We are a team of software engineers who take pride in making technology easier for others to use. We are busy working on creating tools to help in activation (use) of Intel® vPro(tm) technology. So far in 2008, we have released 7 publicly available tools and a few others special pieces of code for folks working on yet to be released Intel technologies. This being our first "all tool" blog, We've included short descriptions of our current releases as well as a couple nuggets on projects that are currently under investigation. Please plan on coming back every couple of weeks for updates on our projects. We relish suggestions from you on what you would like us to look at in our future development of the right tools to make this the great technology we know it to be.

Activation Tools:

SCS RCT Wizard

RCT.exe is a command line utility that comes with Intel® AMT Setup and Configuration Services (SCS) distributions. This tool wraps a graphical user interface and troubleshooting guide around RCT.exe making it a little easier to use.

USB Key Provisioning Utility

A tool focused on simplifying one-touch provisioning using a USB thumb drive to distribute management credentials through an Advanced mode**.

SCS Setup Wizard

A tool designed to automate the installation of the Intel® Setup and Configuration Service (SCS) along with the third party pre-requisite components automatically. SCS Setup Wizard Performs the following functions -

Install/configure MS SQL Server 2005 Express* Edition and MS SQL Server Management Studio Express

Install/configure Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0

Install/configure MS Certificate Authority*

Install/configure Active Directory Services

Install certificate for IIS

Install certificate for Intel AMT Client

Install/configure Intel SCS service

Management Tools:

Remote Power Control Utility

Simple command line utility that allows administrators managing Intel® AMT computers to power systems down without a management console application.

Unprovision Utility

The Intel® vPro&trade technology "mulligan." Allows administrators to remotely unprovision systems that have become unresponsive to other commands or where incorrectly provisioned.

Intel® AMT Reflector

A tool which offers a unique implementation allowing an Intel® AMT client to access/manage some Intel® AMT functionality locally via the OS without entering the management engine directly (usually via BIOS).

Testing Tools:

Brand Verification Tools (BVT)

This is the tool Intel's customers use to get Intel brand assets such as the Intel® vPro&trade technology sticker. The tool verifies the configuration meets the brand requirements. This tool is only available to registered users. Learn more about Intel's brand programs at http://www.intel.com/GO/brandadvantage/.

Intel® AMT Reflector

Packet Decoder

The Intel® AMT Packet Decoder is a debug / test tool for capturing and decoding Intel® AMT commands that are sent between, an Intel AMT management console and an Intel AMT platform. Requires small business (basic mode) and non-TLS enables Standard or Advanced** Intel® AMT provisioned clients.

Current Projects (see note 2):

SMB Provisioning Utility

Many of our customers have expressed a desire to be able to activate their Intel® vPro&trade technology systems remotely. While this is possible for customers who choose to use the standard and advanced provisioning modes(see note 1), it has not been generally accomplished in the basic** mode. Our team is currently researching what is required to create a SW tool that can do this.

RCFG Certificate Research

The team is currently researching the requirements to build tools that can simplify the security certificates required to manage Standard and Advanced mode** provisioned computers on your network. Stay tuned for more information as the team solidifies its plans in this area.

More Information on the Intel® vPro Expert Center:

Intel® vPro & Centrino with vPro on the vPro Expert Center

A complete list of software tools targeted for use in evaluating and using your Intel® vPro technology. This list includes the tools listed here as well as other developed elsewhere.

Note 1: Provisioning definitions are changed! Basic was previously called SMB mode. Standard and Advanced were referred to as Enterprise mode. See Michele's http://communities.intel.com/openport/docs/DOC-1684 on the vPro Expert Center for explanation.

Note 2 Intel reserves the right to change plans, features and schedule at any time and without prior notice.

Intel® AMT Reflector - New Release Posted w/Video Tutorial Too!

tcduncan — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:24:13 GMT

Intel® AMT Reflector is a software tool designed to allow local management of Intel® AMT Mangement Engine functionality from the local operating system. Removing the need to reboot to verify and change the Intel® AMT host computer name or un-provision Intel® AMT on the computer. This functionality improves debug and factory operations in activating and building Intel® AMT based client environments. This release completes DOPD SW Engineering's original functionality plan for the tool and is therefore marked as a production level release.

This release has the following updates from the Beta release:

· Added a timestamp to Intel® AMT events in the logs generated by the client-side applications.

· Fixed the XML logfile format so that it will be properly recognized by external applications that support the XML file format.

· Fixed the issue where some commands may not succeed on the first call for some Intel(R) AMT systems.

· Fixed the "Browse" button functionality in the Intel(R) AMT Reflector Server configuration window.

· The Intel® AMT Reflector Server now logs the client FQDN for each event.

· Removed the View Log window from the Intel® AMT Reflector Client application.

· Improved the error handling of the Intel® AMT Reflector Client application.

Download the tool here

Here's a 5 minute video overview of the tool's capabilities (Click here to view video on YouTube) :

Full Featured Version of the SCS Setup Wizard Beta Now Available - Source & Binary

tcduncan — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:57:56 GMT

Available for download and use is the SCS Setup Wizard, a tool designed to automate the installation of the Intel® Setup and Configuration Service (SCS) along with the third party pre-requisite components automatically. This beta level aplication is fully configurable to meet your specific installation requirements.

Here's a video overview (2.5 min.) External link to video:

Background -

The Intel Setup and Configuration Service for Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) is a free toolset that simplifies the preparation of hardware that supports Intel AMT for remote administration.

Intel SCS automates the process of populating Intel AMT managed platforms with the usernames, passwords, and network parameters that enable the platforms to be administered remotely.

The automation of these activates provide an efficient means of implementing Intel AMT hardware for enterprise customers.

The Intel SCS service works with other services in order to provide a secure setup and configuration infrastructure for Intel AMT devices.

To successfully take advantage of the functionality that the Intel SCS service can provide, all of the other needed services must be correctly installed and configured. These services include:

Microsoft SQL* Server

Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0

Microsoft Certificate Authority

Active Directory

Installing and configuring all of the services needed to utilize the Intel SCS can take an experienced user 2+ hours to complete. Using the automation provided by the SCS Setup Wizard, this process can take less than 30 minutes.

SCS setup Wizard Performs the following functions -

Install/configure MS SQL Server 2005 Express* Edition and MS SQL Server Management Studio Express

Install/configure Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0

Install/configure MS Certificate Authority*

Install/configure Active Directory Services

Install certificate for IIS

Install certificate for Intel AMT Client

Install/configure Intel SCS service

Download here:

Download SCS Setup Wizard Binary

Download SCS Setup Wizard Source

DOPD Software Engineering Team

USB Key Provisioning Utility - One-Touch Provisioning Tool - Binary & Source Now Available.

tcduncan — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:31:58 GMT

The USB Key Provisioning Utility (UKPU) tool is designed to create a valid USB key for provisioning Intel® AMT Systems. The UKPU tool prepares a USB Flash drive, copies the requested setup.bin to the drive, and also verifies that the setup.bin is saved using the proper procedures necessary to ensure that it is detected by Intel® AMT.

The tool has a 'repair' mode that allows you to take an existing USB Key and reconstruct it to ensure the setup.bin is visible to Intel® AMT. In addition, you can set up a USB Key using any renamed setup.bin file on your computer, and the tool will automatically ensure it is renamed to 'setup.bin' when setting up the key.

Here's a 3 minute video overview of the tool's capabilities (Click here to view video on YouTube):

Both binary only & open source licensed source versions available at the download site.

DOPD SW Engineering Team

Two New Tools Aim To Ease Activation

tcduncan — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:24:08 GMT

Today we offer the USB Key Provisioning Utility (UKPU) focused on one-touch provisioning and the Intel® AMT Reflector which offers a unique implimentation allowing an Intel® AMT client to access/manage some Intel® AMT functionality locally via the OS without entering the management engine directly (usually via BIOS).

Click here to learn more about Intel® AMT Reflector or here to download directly.

Click here to learn more about USB Key Provisioning Utility (UKPU) or here to download it directly.

Tell us what you think!

DOPD SW Engineering Team

New release of Intel® vPro(tm) Packet Decoder Available for Download

tcduncan — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:02:56 GMT

Today we are announcing version 1.0.5.4 of the packet decoder. This version includes some minor bug fixes as well as two important enhancements:

+ Prerelease* support for Intel® AMT Versions 4 & 5

+ Results search & sort

+ Logging

*Due to hardware availability, not all constructs have been tested

These enhancements are in direct response to user requests.

Here's a 5 minute movie on the tool.

We are currently reviewing other user's feedback to determine what the next update will contain and when it will be available. Stay tuned.

DOPD Software Engineering Team

SCS Setup Wizard Now Available for Evaluation

tcduncan — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:19:10 GMT

Available for download and use is the SCS Setup Wizard, a tool designed to automate the installation of the Intel® Setup and Configuration Service (SCS) along with the third party pre-requisite components automatically. This is a pre-release alpha level project that will be updated soon. It requires a fresh install of Windows Server 2003 and un-provisioned Intel® AMT clients.

Background -

Intel SCS automates the process of populating Intel AMT managed platforms with the usernames, passwords, and network parameters that enable the platforms to be administered remotely.

The automation of these activates provide an efficient means of implementing Intel AMT hardware for enterprise customers.

The Intel SCS service works with other services in order to provide a secure setup and configuration infrastructure for Intel AMT devices.

To successfully take advantage of the functionality that the Intel SCS service can provide, all of the other needed services must be correctly installed and configured. These services include:

Microsoft SQL* Server
Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0
Microsoft Certificate Authority
Active Directory

SCS setup Wizard Performs the following functions -

Install/configure MS SQL Server 2005 Express* Edition and MS SQL Server Management Studio Express
Install/configure Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0
Install/configure MS Certificate Authority*
Install/configure Active Directory Services
Install certificate for IIS
Install certificate for Intel AMT Client
Install/configure Intel SCS service

Download here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/detail_desc.aspx?ProductID=2557&DwnldID=15532&agr=N

DOPD Software Engineering Team

From iCSO SW Engineering – Intel® vPro™ Packet Decoder – The First of Many

tcduncan — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:06:15 GMT

Last month's post of the open source packet decoder is just the first of a strong list of tools planned by the team that brings you the Technology Test Utility. The iCSO software engineering team is charted with making utilities and applications available to the public that accelerate and simplify the adoption and activation of Intel vPro technology.

We will be maintaining these tools and look forward to your feedback, suggestions, and participation in making these tools the best they can be for you and the marketplace. Our commitment is to post new versions of each tool at least every other month and of course post earlier if issues are found that render the tool less than useful.

The next tool we will be posting is a Pre-Installation Utility intended to speed the first user experience and automate as much as possible the initial setup of the Intel® AMT(tm) Setup and Configuration (aka SCS) environment in enterprise mode. Coupled with post setup wizards it will enable users to provision devices with minimal effort and time.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on our efforts.

Intel's iCSO Software Engineering Team