SMB Talk

Soren Knudsen from Intel will be presenting at MSP World in Las Vegas this Friday at 2:00. The Session Title is “How to leverage Intel technologies to drive profitability instead of trucks.”

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:33:04 GMT

Soren Knudsen from Intel will be presenting at MSP World in Las Vegas this Friday at 2:00. The Session Title is “How to leverage Intel Technologies to drive profitability instead of trucks."

For more information visit: http://www.mspalliance.com/events/mspworld-las-vegas

Video - "Real" Intel engineers role playing for Intel® Upgrade Service!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:12:52 GMT

Intel® Upgrade Service overview and introduction played by real Intel engineers. They provide overview of why the service is important and how it can save costs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAvCFA3q5K4

Video on Intel® Upgrade Service - Testimonial from Citon* CEO Steven M. Dastoor

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:09:43 GMT

Great Testimonial from Citon - Steven M. Dastoor - CEO about Intel® Upgrade Service!! Must see!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKQfsbdRVI

New Video on Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology! See it in action!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:06:43 GMT

Very good video on How Intel® RPAT works and can help you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dopaug3Zs3g

Intel vPro Technology for Managed Service Providers

kevin.s.havre@intel.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:29:24 GMT

The Economy and MSPs

Many companies in the US are reacting negatively to the current economic conditions; defending their position in the market and tightening budgets. The savvy MSP is turning this environment to their benefit by capitalizing on the efficiency of scale. SMBs can reduce the cost of managing their IT assets by hiring an MSP who spreads the cost over many smaller companies. Then, as the economy swings back, MSPs can organically increase their revenue by adding new and greater levels of service offerings, as their SMB customers grow.

Intel^® vPro™ Technology and the MSP

With Intel® vPro™ Technology, MSPs can monitor, manage and repair computers anytime; even if a computer is powered off (laptops must be plugged into AC), the OS is inoperable, management agents are missing, or hardware (such as a hard drive) has failed. When integrated into a third-party management solution, computers with Intel vPro Technology let service providers spend less time managing and maintaining computers, driving down cost and increasing the SLA with your customers. Usages include:

1. Green IT – Saving energy is becoming a key driver for selling managed services. Even though users are asked turn off their computers, many are left on after work hours. You can schedule a task in your 3^rd party management console that checks for computers that are left on, and perform a graceful OS shutdown. Now, energy saving policies set by your customer can be enforced, and a scheduled Intel vPro Technology power-up command, before normal working hours, saves their employees time at the start of the day.

2. Maintenance off-hours – Disk defrag, cleaning up temp files, SW updates, AV updates, back-ups; these are all maintenance tasks you can perform to keep systems running at peak performance, and as secure as possible. However, performing these tasks during the day can be annoying and disruptive to your customer’s employees. By scheduling an off-hours power on and maintenance task, ensures you have a higher SLA, while not interrupting employees during working hours.

3. Deeper hardware inventory – Intel vPro Technology provides the next level of detail on HW inventory; providing data that is not currently available by standard operating systems.. Intel vPro Technology displays the list of components reported by the BIOS; with accurate manufacturer, model and specifications. This allows you to identify replacement parts, and more accurately track changes to the computer, without having to visit the PC.

Intel vPro Technology can also help repair systems remotely and more quickly than OS level tools. If the OS is down, the only option without Intel vPro Technology is to roll a truck. A remote terminal application that supports serial-over-LAN and IDE-redirect (both Intel vPro Technologies) allows:

1. OS repair remotely – Typically, when an OS is disabled or severely corrupted, the only option is to roll a truck with your trusty CD of diagnostic tools. With Intel vPro Technology you can remotely boot up a computer using a Pre-boot Environment OS and toolset pre-staged on a share drive in your customers’ network. Remotely repairing the NTLoader.dll or a Master Boot Record are examples of how Intel vPro Technology eliminates the need for a truck roll, saving your customer time and improving your bottom line.

2. Catastrophic hard disk failure – When a hard disk fails, it normally takes 2 truck rolls to remediate; one to identify the failure and another to repair. By remotely booting to a Pre-boot Environment OS and toolset, you can validate the failure and get accurate replacement part specifications, eliminating the first truck roll. If you have a recent image of that system, you could even ship the part directly to the customer with that image, or re-image remotely once the customer has replaced the part. For urgent requests, you have saved both truck rolls, and expedited getting your customer back in business!

Buying and Configuring Intel vPro Technology

Many of the tools you have to remotely monitor and manage your customer’s networks, have Intel vPro Technology integration. Check with your Remote Monitoring and Management or Network Management software vendor to determine which of the above use-cases they support. This link will take you to the Intel resource page for MSPs: msp.intel.com

Many manufacturers have PCs and Laptops with Intel vPro Technology; follow this link for model numbers. Refresh your customer client infrastructure with vPro-based PCs now so you will be able to reap increased margins and expand your business growth potential, tomorrow!: Order an Intel® vPro™ technology "Activation-Ready" PC

There are several methods to configure Intel vPro Technology with the appropriate security, network, and operational parameters before a third-party management application can access the system. This link will help you determine which method is best suited for your environment, and provides implementation guides for each method at the Intel vPro Expert Center: Intel® vPro™ Technology SMB & MSP Provisioning Method Selection Guide

New video on Intel® Upgrade Service - Overview of how it works!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:15:06 GMT

Want to learn more about Intel® Upgrade Service? This video clearly explains why you would want to use this new service! Check out this "flashy" video now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyLsF5kpgZk

Remote PC Assist Technology & AT&T

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:27:32 GMT

One of the key announcements that came out during IDF was AT&T Tech Support 360 supporting vPro & specifically the Remote PC Assist Technology. Here's David Tuhy explaining.

Enhanced Remote PC Support for Small and Midsize Businesses

scott.allee@intel.com — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:18:35 GMT

I’ve worked for a number of startups. Was “Marketing Director/Office Manager/HR” (lot of slashes in small business) for a software startup; a great experience but certainly fewer resources (compared to what I have now) to turn to for help. Still, doing so many different things, every day, was one of the best aspects of working for a small business.

Best aspects of working at Intel? Near the top: Intel tech support. If my PC has a problem I can’t solve myself, I call somebody and it’s fixed. In minutes. Day or night, 365 days a year, from anywhere in the world. I hit speed dial and someone from somewhere is answering my questions or remotely controlling and repairing my PC. I’d give up my dental plan before I’d give up this little perk.

I didn’t have that luxury during my startup days, but a new announcement from AT&T and Intel should bring that kind of support to more small businesses than ever before. Last fall, AT&T launched a service called AT&T Tech Support 360^SM-- remote 24/7 support including setup, configuration, troubleshooting and performance optimization for PCs, networks and more. They obviously addressed a need, as over 100,000 small and medium business customers have signed up. Now they’ve announced support for Intel® vPro™ Technology (starting first half of 2010) including the Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology (Intel® RPAT) feature.

With Intel RPAT, a small business (using Intel vPro Technology-based PCs) having PC problems can enter a keystroke sequence on a failed computer and directly connect the failed PC to their Managed Service Provider (MSP) or IT Helpdesk, such as AT&T Tech Support 360 technicians, even when the PCs has had a hardware or OS failure, or has been corrupted by a virus or malware. That means support for a whole new class of tech problems, and I’m talking about the nasty ones that get down deep into the PC: BIOS issues, damaged internet connections, system password resets and the toughest viruses and malware to name a few.

I’m excited to be part of a solution that enables my small business customers and friends to experience the kind of PC tech support I enjoy in my 80,000+ person company – hopefully it means you can remove one of the “slashes” from your daily tasks. Check out the AT&T and Intel press release for more information, or comment here with any questions I can help answer.

Intel® IT Director 1.5 Flash Demo is avaliable now!

jason.j.he@intel.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:09:59 GMT

Have you tried Intel® IT Director 1.5? How do you think of Intel® IT Director 1.5? If you have not tried it and want a glance on how the application is configured, how to do AMT provision and how Intel® IT Director 1.5 is monitoring the security software, here the Flash Demo you can look, very easy, just click the demo file in our support site!

http://support.intel.com/support/vpro/itdirector/sb/CS-030558.htm

How does the Intel® Upgrade Service Work?

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:51:25 GMT

The Intel® Upgrade Service is a "Down-the-wire" hardware upgrade that allows users to be able to "upgrade" their system based on a series of available upgrades. For more information, this diagram below is throughly explained on this site: http://www.intel.com/technology/product/ius/howitworks.htm?iid=ius_prodtech+howitworks

New Intel® Upgrade Service Level III Manageability Upgrade!!!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:41:52 GMT

Intel® Upgrade Service is now offering a Level III Manageability Upgrade for desktop PCs featuring the Intel® B43 Express Chipset, consisting of Intel® Standard Manageability, Fast Call For Help, and Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology. The included technologies in detail:

Asset inventory, HW alerting, SOL/IDE-R, remote configuration, agent presence, and system defense plus:

DASH 1.0 compliance for support of industry standards. Support for profile updates.
Measured Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) allows Intel® AMT to be part of trusted platform
Host VPN* gives support for local management VPN tunneling
Fast access to fix PC problems inside or outside the firewall
Remote scheduled maintenance allowing IT to pre-schedule when a PC connects for maintenance
Automatic remote alerts so IT is aware when computer issues arise

How to contact Intel for Intel® IT Director support?

jason.j.he@intel.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:54:09 GMT

Have you tried Intel® IT Director 1.5? Could you share some experience you have with Intel® IT Director 1.5? If you want to contact Intel Customer Support for more information of Intel® IT Director, please send email to us:

http://supportmail.intel.com/Welcome.aspx?id=42,2262,3049

Or contact our worldwide contact center to talk with an Intel® IT Director expert:

http://support.intel.com/support/9089.htm

Intel® IT Director v1.5 - New Release!!!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:41:22 GMT

Intel^® IT Director v1.5 Release

We are pleased to announce the release of IT Director v1.5. The release is available for download at: IT Director Download

We would like to hear your feedback! Use the "Discussions" tab within this community and post your comments about the Intel IT Director version 1.5!

Key enhancements over v1.1 are:

Intel® AMT and standard manageability detection and provisioning
Security Monitoring (agent presence)
New usability enhancements
IT Director supports multiple chipsets. IT Director will install and function on the following chipsets:
- Intel® Q45, Q43, Q35, G41 or B43(upgraded) Express Chipsets

New to IT Director?

Watch a quick animation demo of IT Director, an intuitive and easy to use Small Business application, at IT Director Website

Intel® Upgrade Service - Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (AT-p) enrollments available...

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:59:52 GMT

The Intel® Upgrade Service provides a variety of different upgrades/enrollments based on what you have for your platform and configuration. One of the latest enrollments is the Intel® Anti-Theft Technology PC Protection Services or otherwise called AT-p.

Where can I get it? - http://absolute.com/products-intel.asp (Currently on Lenovo* T400 has AT-p capability)

Here is a great place to learn more about AT-p thanks to Joshprostar - http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-2384

Enjoy!

Corey

Interested in Intel® RPAT? Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology – enables you to make a fast call for help and request remote technical assistance…

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:31:50 GMT

About Intel® RPAT – Also found at the following site: http://www.intel.com/technology/product/remotepcassist.htm

Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology enables you to make a fast call for help and request remote technical assistance from a service provider if you encounter a problem with your PC, even when the OS, network software, or applications are not functioning. Available starting in late 2008, Intel Remote PC Assist Technology will be an option on PCs with Intel® Core™2 processor with vPro™ technology using the Intel® Q45 Express Chipset and will expand to consumer PCs in 2009.

If you are interested in our Early Access Program (EAP), please please post any questions/comments to this blog post and we will be happy to assist!

Regards,

CoreySMBPro