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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Feet on the Street series continues with a 1:1 w/ Teri McFaul.   Hear what Teri does for Intel & vPro.

Feet on the Street - Matt Royer (Microsoft vPro Guru)

Feet on the Street - vPro Series - Meet Wendy West

Feet on the Street - It's time to talk with Gregory Bryant

Feet on the Street - vPro Series - Meet Jake G. - Part I

“Yes we can!” - SCS 6.0 now reaches the SMBs

Overview

When we first got back to the drawing board and thought about new SCS Architecture, for SCS6.0, we had several things in mind.

It was clear that the existing provisioning flow (end to end) had to be simplified – Feedbacks from the field, showed that the required IT setup and configuration interaction required steep vPro specific learning curve, even before the actual provisioning process that happens through the SCS tool.

We also realized that in order to improve the ISV integration we had to listen to Key ISVs’ trends. Some of them requested the ability to configure vPro from the local host while others - SMB/MSP ISVs had different needs.

Interoperability and scalability were also 2 focus items when we started the new design.

The plan was to hit the road with a new agile development methodology – SCRUM.

In parallel, we decided to break the setup and configuration logic into different components that ISVs can use as their building blocks.

This new architecture allows ISVs greater flexibility in order to provide a more integrated solution that will be easier to use by IT administrators, or on the other hand, can be used by small scale ISV who are not interested to deal with provisioning as part of their offering.

Let the SCRUM begin!

SCRUM is defined as agile development process that allows teams to deliver usable software periodically throughout the life of the project, absorbing change and new requirements as the project proceeds.

Working agile for us, meant being able to divide the SCS deliverables into short iterations (“sprints” ) and by the end of each sprint be able to provide “potentially shippable” product - Something that can be actually used by the customers.

This way, in an incremental effort, we are sharing more features and high quality releases on a regular basis.

This is how the SMB requirements started floating around. First, through several email threads and then, after the team looked at the requests, they all said: “Yes we can!”

In an effort to reduce the number of tools trying to solve similar problems to the customers, and in reality only adding to the confusion, we defined the following milestones for SCS6.0:

•    Release #1 – Q1’09 (ww03’09) - SCS 6 Technology Preview #1 - SMB Provisioning

•    Release #2 – Q2’09 (ww15’09) - SCS 6 Technology Preview #2 - Enterprise Provisioning

•    Release #3 – Q3’09 (ww32’09) - SCS 6 Technology Preview #3 - Maintenance, Installer and improvements

•    Release #4 - Q4’09 (ww45’09) - SCS 6.0 Final - AMT6 Features Support

The Lightweight provisioning and the SMB provisioning story

The recent technology preview provides a lightweight solution aimed for small and medium business (SMB) customers. In the spirit of the SCS 6.0 approach, pre-requisites were reduced to minimum: No DB is needed (XML based solution is the alternative), No configuration is needed - Profile is ready. It can be installed on any windows based host, No prerequisites from the “server” and … Low footprint on the host system.

In only 3 simple steps, that take only few minutes, the user can now configure the machine (with or without PSK).

All that is required is:

•       User step 1: IT installs SCS 6.0 LW with default profile out of the box

•       User step 2: IT buys RCFG certificate

•       User step 3: IT remotely distribute host based Activator (Through existing Management consoles that are out there already, in the organization)

Or … with PSK:

•       User step 1: IT installs SCS 6.0 LW with default profile out of the box

•       User step 2: IT remotely distribute host based activator

•       User step 3: IT admin creates USB file containing PSK/PID pair to be consumed by the Intel® AMT (One touch end-user restart is required)

Lastly, there is also an option to do Local USB key configuration through the Activator’s GUI in SCS 6.0. This manual configuration takes 2 steps:

•       User step 1: User insert USB key containing GUI Activator SCS 6.0 application

•       SCS Activator Determine Local AMT State

•       SCS Activator creates setup.bin file containing all information needed to configure the system (using user input regarding password and        information if no DHCP is present)

•       SCS Activator formats the USB key then copies both setup.bin file and the Activator application to the disk again.

•       User Step 2: USB Key – Reboot & Approve

•       End User Shut Down Applications and Reboot PC

•       End User “Approve” BIOS AMT Provisioning Process

Under the hood

For those interested to know what’s going on under the hood, the new SCS6.0 technology preview #1 contains 3 elements:

• AMT Configuration Server Service — A Windows service (known as the SCS service) performs the steps required to make an Intel AMT system operational. (This includes Intel AMT Release 2.0 and later releases.) The configuration is determined by a configuration profile stored in an xml file. The SCS service exposes a WMI interface for managing the configuration file, creating and importing USB keys and performing configurations (see the MOF API section for details on the interface). The SCS service writes log messages to a file.

• Intel® vPro™ Technology Activator Utility — This application runs on an Intel® AMT system. It performs a diagnosis of the current state of the Intel AMT system and triggers the SCS (via its WMI interface) to perform configuration or unconfiguration.

• SCS Console — A GUI application for managing the SCS configuration profiles and creating and importing USB keys via the SCS WMI interface.

The new technology will be demonstrated in 2009 ISMC, but you also have the ability to download it and experience it yourself. The ease of use of the Intel® AMT Setup and Configuration Service (SCS) 6.0 first Technology Preview can be checked here:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/download-the-intel-AMT-SCS-technology-preview/

See also a simple demo that shows the usage of this release using the link above listed under "Additional Information": Sprint 5 Demo

If- you have any questions about Intel® IT Director, we have a new demontration that illustrates how IT Director works!    To view the demo visit: www.intel.com/go/itdirector

Please feel free to start a discussion if you have any questions regarding Intel IT Director!

Regards,

Corey

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

Here is my second use case video - this time on SyAM (System Area Manager).

This use case video is on making changes in your BIOS through entering a SOL session.

Enjoy! =]

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