On Wednesday, April 30th, Brad Anderson, General Manager of Microsoft Management and Services Division, demonstrated the capabilities of Intel vPro technology with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 in his keynote at MMS 2008. Brad, along with Dave Randall, Microsoft Program Manager for System Center Configuration Manager, showed off the secure power control capabilities of Intel vPro technology by shutting off a collection of 20 PCs with Intel vPro technology during Brad's keynote. Further, Dave went through a remote diagnosis and repair scenario from System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 using Intel vPro technology's Serial Over LAN (SOL) capability. View this Intel vPro technology demonstration from the MMS 2008 keynote below.

To see more videos from MMS 2008, go to http://www.intel.com/go/mms/.

Intel Manager Brian Johnson demonstrates the combination of Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 with PCs powered by Intel vPro Technology and servers powered by Intel Xeon Processors. This hardware and software technology is designed for businesses with 500 or less PCs, and brings the capabilities that till now only large businesses could take advantage of into a package that's optimized for small business. His video includes demonstrations around remote power control of PCs with Intel vPro Technology and remote diagnosis and repair of troubled servers with Intel Xeon Processors.

To see more videos from MMS 2008, please go here: http://www.intel.com/go/mms/

While at MMS, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Program Manager Dave Randall demonstrated how Intel vPro Technology enhances Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1. The video below includes demonstrations around secure remote power control, remote diagnosis and repair of troubled PCs, discovery of PC assets, and remote configuration.

To see more videos from MMS 2008, go to http://www.intel.com/go/mms/

At MMS, we had Brad Anderson, General Manager of Microsoft Management and Services Division, and Gregory Bryant, Intel VP and General Manager of the Digital Office Platform Division, answer some questions about the new capabilities in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 with Intel vPro technology. See their responses below.

1) How does Intel vPro Technology fit into System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1?

2) What can IT expect in terms of the level of integration of Intel vPro Technology into System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1?

3) Why should IT now take advantage of Intel vPro Technology and System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1?




4) When should enterprises activate Intel vPro Technology with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 in their PC infrastructure?




5) Last, we asked a series of questions about System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 Support for the Current Generation of Intel vPro Technology with WS-MAN Support, as well as with Legacy Generations of Intel vPro technology.




To see more videos, demonstrations, interviews and more from MMS 2008, go to http://www.intel.com/go/mms/

In Josh's blog post about "Stump the PRO" - he mentions WMI & ConfigMgr. I wanted to post a bit more context for everyone interested in that integration point.

Overview: ConfigMgr client agent uses WMI to query AMT via the HECI driver.

The Configuration Manager client agent ships with a new WMI provider for the AMT HECI driver. Additionally, we have extended the SMS_DEF.MOF file with new classes that support the WMI provider. This is used by the hardware inventory agent when returning information about the client computer. You'll find the data easily for your AMT computers using the resource explorer for an AMT computer. The information is categorized under a new resource called "AMT Agent"

The inventory from that agent make a great basis for building queries to use the in-band agent based provisioning method.

Dave