SMB Talk

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

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 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

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

New Intel® IT Director Wiki site created!!!

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:05:44 GMT

All,

Please take a peek at the new Intel IT Director Wiki site... it is only the beginning, but we will be updating content quickly to assist our customers!!! Please check back often and feel free to start a discussion on any questions related to Intel IT Director!

Link provided here as well: http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-2675

Regards,

Corey T. Morris

Looking for SMB manageability software for your Intel® vPro™ processor technology?

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:05:38 GMT

Intel® System Defense Utility is an easy to use tool for small and medium businesses to take advantage of valuable proactive security and manageability features of Intel® vPro™ processor technology. Combined with systems built on Intel® Desktop Boards Executive Series, this tool lets you unleash the power of proactive management in your local network.

It enables you to remotely perform security and manageability functions such as setting security policies, BIOS configuration, remote reboot, asset management, event logging, and more.

Click here for a demo!

Intel System Defense Utility may be used with the Intel® Desktop Boards based on:

· Intel® Q965 Express Chipset

· Intel® Q45 Express Chipset

· Intel® Q35 Express Chipset

For more information: http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/software/isdu/index.htm

Looking for a "finall" solution - SMB question or IT Utopia

office@yutro.com — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:33:24 GMT

As an first MSP in Eastern Europe, I had a dilema which software or solution to use.
I made my decision but still I'm not sure did I made a good decision.

Before I make my finall decision, I tried couple of software and mostly I'm was looking for a solution that can satisfied all the needs.

I wish to manage vPro platforms and non vPro platforms as well.

Solutions which were more apropriate to vPro platform has a lot of problems with non-vPro machines, SNMP devices etc...

The other one were very good with non-vPro platforms and SNMP devices but were poor with vPro platforms.

Still, I don't have a perfect answer, which solution is the best for MSP bussines and my personal opinion is that combination of few solutions are the only possible winning combination.

Normally, there is no recepies for perfect combination, as well but there is always a "winning" combination for specified situation.

I would be very greatfull if someone share some experiance with me in finding the best combination for MSP bussiness and to find out the best possible way for this kind of bussiness.

From my experiance, vPro is just a "cream of chocolate cake" and lots of "free" software for vPro is only something which should promovate technology in small bussiness companies.

But when we get to some serious bussiness !?!?

Regards,

Sasa Milasinovic

How to setup an Intel® IT Director environment for SMB...

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:45:02 GMT

There have been some questions around how to setup the Intel® IT Director environment for SMBs. Below is a diagram of how Intel IT Director can be setup and managed.

Important to point out the minimum system requirements for Intel IT Director:

System Requirements

Intel IT Director will ONLY install on the following hardware platform:

The Intel IT Director application, "itdirector.exe", requires an Intel® Core™2 Processor with vPro™ Technology, with the Intel® Q45 or Q35 Express Chipset
The Intel IT Director configuration tool, "itdirectorconfig.exe", requires no special hardware

Intel® IT Director dashboard PC and client PC’s should support one of the following Operating Systems:

Windows* XP Professional 32-bit with SP2 or SP3
Windows* XP Professional 64-bit with SP2
Windows Vista* Ultimate 32-bit or 64-bit, with no SP or with SP1
Windows Vista* Enterprise 32-bit or 64-bit, with no SP or with SP1
Windows Vista* Business 32-bit or 64-bit, with no SP or with SP1

Languages Supported
Intel® IT Director software application supports English, Russian, French International, Portuguese (Brazil) and German.

Where to download or learn more information about Intel IT Director: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/it-director

If you have any questions about Intel IT Director, feel free to reply to this blog or start a discussion! We are here to help answer questions!

Regards

Corey T. Morris

Which Intel® boxed products support the latest Intel® vPro™ Technology?

corey.t.morris@intel.com — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:35:05 GMT

There have been many questions around which Intel® boxed products such as Intel® Desktop boards and processors. See below which desktop boards and processors are supported for Intel® vProTM Technology:

Desktop boards supported:

DQ45EK - http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Motherboards/DQ45EK/DQ45EK-overview.htm

DQ45CB - http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Motherboards/DQ45CB/DQ45CB-overview.htm

Processors supported:

Intel® CoreTM2 Quad Processor - http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2quad/index.htm

Q9650, Q9550, Q9450, Q9400, Q9300

Intel® CoreTM2 Duo Processor - http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2duo/index.htm

E8600, E8500, E8400, E8300, E8200

For complete list of part numbers – See the following links:

Intel Core2 Quad Processor - http://support.intel.com/support/processors/core2quad/sb/CS-025351.htm

Intel Core2 Duo Processor - http://support.intel.com/support/processors/core2duo/sb/CS-023098.htm

Are you Maintaining, Maximizing or Migrating to vPro?

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:37:43 GMT

Over the next few posts I would like to describe 3 different scenarios as they apply to the adoption of vPro technology. I will be leveraging 3 categories as it describes to the IT shop (Maintain your baseline, Maximize your potential and Migrate completely to the new technology). These categories also relate directly to the % of vPro machines that are in your IT shop.

First, let’s start with maintaining your baseline. What are the challenges facing the IT shop and support provider of IT services as it relates to the client computers? Manageability and Security of that asset, along with ensuring lower costs for keeping them updated and the highest level of availability as it relates to the usage. However what is missing above is the Energy savings piece of the equation. To date our experience has been that integrating a power management & energy savings profile in your IT environment for vPro machines is an easy way to keep your baseline going and just add one new usage in your environment. I consider this to be maintaining your baseline, but making a small modification to realize benefits. Specifically this means the standard ability with turning Machines off that can reduce the power bills, however it is just a small change in the current IT policies/practices.

Now for the IT shop that is looking to Maximize your potential and have new level’s of service. The opportunity to implement more usages is always possible, for example if you are looking to move beyond the power use case to more of the remote repair to save $$’s in both Tech Time, downtime, productivity of the employees. I would note that the further you look to maximize your potential it will require additional planning, testing and of course effort to do so. I will deep dive deeper into the impact of each additional usage and what you can expect from a change perspective for your IT shop in the coming blogs.

Last case is the Migration path.. full migration of ZERO/Little vPro to all vPro ( here is where it gets fun ).. Must haves are: Good Strategy, Architecture awareness, Manageability/Security Landscape, & Top Pain points. If you have these at your disposal you are in good shape to have immediate value to your migration.

I look forward to deep diving into each of these over the coming weeks.

Josh H

Intel IT Director - Did you hear about this in the vPro 2008 keynote?

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:16:36 GMT

Hi all,

If you heard the keynote with Gregory Bryant, you probably heard Frank Soqui talk about IT director. You may be wondering to get this new software - well here's the link www.intel.com/go/itdirector. however it's no live until next week. check back..

Josh H

SMB Activation Cheat Sheet for MSPs - Updated!

teri.h.mcfaul@intel.com — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:49:55 GMT

Check out the latest updates to the SMB Activation Cheat Sheet for MSPs. The value and use cases of vPro for MSPs has been added, as well as basic mode (smb mode) configuration guides for various OEM systems.

SMB Activation Cheat Sheet for MSPs

MS SCE - vPro Use Cases Supported

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:32:03 GMT

Here are the key use cases supported by MS SCE (Microsoft System Center Essentials). Each of the use cases below will reference a certain page in the Manageability Pack located @ http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/downloads/Manageability/Intel_AMT_MP_Guide.pdf. Therefore I highly recommend you download the PDF and then cross reference the list below.

System Discovery

Discovery allows the Management Pack to locate Intel® AMT systems. During the discovery process, the Management Pack retrieves asset information from the Intel® AMT subsystem. Discovery needs to be performed before you can perform any other Intel® AMT-related tasks.

For details on the different ways to perform discovery, see “Discovering Systems” on page 87.

Viewing Asset Information

You can view information about the Intel® AMT system’s hardware assets (CPU, memory, and more).

For details on viewing asset information, see “Retrieving Asset Identification Information” on page 97.Intel® AMT Management Pack for Ops Manager and Essentials • Installation and User’s Guide 6

Power Control Operations

Power control operations enable you to remotely control the power states of Intel® AMT-supported systems.

You can apply the following power control operations to Intel® AMT systems:

•power-up

•power-down

•power cycle

•reset

You can specify the way that a system should boot, depending on the specific system implementation.

For details on power control operations, see “Power Control Operations” on page 101.

SOL/IDE Redirection Operations

The SOL/IDE Redirection feature enables you to remotely perform the following redirection operations on Intel® AMT-supported systems:

•Serial Over LAN (SOL): Allows you to display the non-graphic boot screens of an Intel® AMT machine, thereby allowing you to modify BIOS entries or to change the way that the system boots.

•IDE Redirection (IDER): Allows you to boot the Intel® AMT machine from a boot image located elsewhere on the network.

For details on redirection operations, see “Redirection Operations” on page 109.

System Defense

The System Defense feature allows you to define multiple system defense policies and apply them individually to a system.

For details on the System Defense feature, see “System Defense” on page 121.Chapter 1 • Introduction7

Event Handling

You can configure Intel® AMT systems to send PET (Platform Event Trap) events to multiple event collectors, and view these events in Ops Mgr/Essentials. For information on the PET protocol, refer to the ASF specification at http://www.dmtf.org/standards/asf/.

For details on registering for PET events, see “Registering and Unregistering for PET Events” on page 137.

For details on monitoring PET events, see “Monitoring Alerts (PET Events)” on page 157.

Looking ahead to the next post..

the plan is to showcase each use case in quick video's and post out.. stay tuned for more..

Josh H

SyAM - Use Cases with vPro

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:49:11 GMT

I am in the process of setting up a SyAM environment and ran across their use case documentation on their site. While I'm just in the reading phase right now I am pleased with what I am seeing around the use cases and documentation for configuration. here's the TOC from their document - http://syamsoftware.com/main/products/SyAM_AMT_Common_Uses-Draft_v5-Final.pdf

Use Case 1: Patch Deployment

Use Case 2: BIOS Flash

Use Case 3: BIOS Changes

Use Case 4: System Recovery from Corrupt NTLDR File

Use Case 5: Restoring the Operating System

My next step is to finish installation & test it out. If you are using SyAM i'd like to hear from you on your experience, configuration and any vPro relevant information.

Josh H

Management Console ? why?

josh.hilliker@intel.com — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:29:17 GMT

I was asked recently which consoles are available for Small / Medium buisness, therefore I talked with my peers in the SMB space to pulse them for the info below.. here’s what they said..

Intel tools are designed only to demonstrate AMT functionality and do not include all of the features one would need to manage a network.

The 2 main SW packages for companies 200-1000 that have Intel vPro Technology built in are:

SyAM http://syamsoftware.com/main/index.php

Microsoft SCE: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/essentials/default.mspx?pr=blog

For over 1000:

LANDesk http://www.landesk.com/

Altiris http://www.altiris.com/

Microsoft SCCM http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configurationmanager/en/us/default.aspx

So.. the next question is what do you do with the infrastructure that is less than 200? This is what I’m going after to figure out and post. Also to note is that we just finished building our first SCE server in my lab and we’re managing a few machines and it looks pretty good, of course I’ve yet to try automation & other tasks, currently just testing the OOB capability and the functionality for vPro. Nicole on my team is going to blog about this more. Things I wish I knew BEFORE I installed SCE (System Center Essentials) As for SyAM I saw this installed at an End Users site right before the summer and looked like a lot of the DTK functionality integrated in, however I’m still working to get it installed on a console to test/break, etc..

So.. next journey, finish out the use cases on the MS System Center Essentials console with Nicole and then start-up our SyAM testing with a 1/2 dozen boxes. If you want to see something specific or discuss a certain area please let us know as we dig deeper into SMB setup's.

SMB Talk

Intel vPro Technology for Managed Service Providers

The Economy and MSPs

Intel® vPro™ Technology and the MSP

Buying and Configuring Intel vPro Technology

Enhanced Remote PC Support for Small and Midsize Businesses

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

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

New Intel® IT Director Wiki site created!!!

Looking for SMB manageability software for your Intel® vPro™ processor technology?

Looking for a "finall" solution - SMB question or IT Utopia

How to setup an Intel® IT Director environment for SMB...

Which Intel® boxed products support the latest Intel® vPro™ Technology?

Are you Maintaining, Maximizing or Migrating to vPro?

Intel IT Director - Did you hear about this in the vPro 2008 keynote?

SMB Activation Cheat Sheet for MSPs - Updated!

MS SCE - vPro Use Cases Supported

SyAM - Use Cases with vPro

Management Console ? why?

Intel^® vPro™ Technology and the MSP