Intel vPro Expert Center Blog

Relevance of Architecture: Part 3 - How Architecture Can Help

BobStoddard — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:50:49 GMT

Manageability & Automation - It is all about planning!!!

How can Architecture help:

The primary role of architecture is to provide an orchestrated plan to meet short term and long term Manageability & Automation (M&A) objectives. Architecture is all about technical planning and can enable reduced operational costs and agility if done correctly. I strongly believe that architecture can help accelerate the rate of change and provide real value for "M" and for "A".

Some specific Architecture-enabling activities include:

Service Definition - Define the core Services and what are in/out Scope. Example below.

Taxonomy - Define the next level of Services details. Example below.

Establish a high-level Strategy and Conceptual Architecture (5-10 year vision). Example below.

Define a strategy with a set of guiding principles / policies to enable the M&A. These may include:
- Vendor strategy (single / multiple sourcing)
- Integration "Frameworks and/or Point Solutions" (or combo) strategy
- Operation model strategy (centralized / distributed)
- Data strategy

Define a 3-year horizon "capabilities" roadmap with the first year committed (partnership of Architecture, Operations and Engineering) and the last two years a best guess based on realistic funding, estimated vendor product delivery schedules, business trends, emerging / disruptive technologies, etc. Use this roadmap to communicate and synchronize with vendor roadmaps, driving your requirements into their products.

Establish governance to insure compliance to guiding principles and capability roadmaps.

Define specific detailed architecture (reference, service and solution) to connect the dots. Depending on the detail, they may include: logical diagrams, ports, protocols, product names, configuration standards, naming conventions, etc.

Be vocal when it comes to new concepts/technologies and push back it they do not make sense or pull if they do. In our enterprise, some worthy examples include: SOA, OS/Apps streaming, virtualization, IAMT.

We have seen architecture help. Two years ago, we started assembling an architecture plan (definition of the business, conceptual architecture and a capabilities roadmap). We focused resources and funding (consistent with the roadmap) on improving the "M" (Manageability) first. We have been very successful in key areas like compliance auditing, patching, basic autonomic responses to exceeded thresholds, etc. for servers and clients. We will focus the next couple of years on: increased "A" (Automated responses) and prevention for core platforms, integrating data (for business health reporting and enabling Automation), extending capabilities (like more event sources from storage and data center facility), extending remote management (IAMT), developing Capacity & Performance Mgt to a new level of sophistication and actively enabling automation to meet the operational business needs. The key is to have an agreed to vision and deliverables with some meat around governance to make it happen. This is more like a marathon, not a sprint.

I hope this was thought provoking.

Regards,

Bob

For context, Introduction of the "Relevance of Manageability & Automation Architecture" topic.

Supporting content is at:

Relevance of Architecture: Part 1 - Observations
Relevance of Architecture: Part 2 - Current Situation

Community Updates - couple of updates from Josh

josh.hilliker — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:40:43 GMT

Hi all,

Olde Fashion Shout out.. I wanted to personally thank the community for making vPro Expert Center a great community. Thank you..

So...

We’re almost a year old in the community and I have a few exciting things to share. The vPro Radio show is now listed in the Itunes directory, search for Intel vPro and you will see the show. So if your on the go and want to hear us talk about vPro.

We have also started a blossoming partnership with myitforum.com which they have created an email distribution list that you can subscribe to. Click here and you can subscribe to the list, we just started this and already the dialogue last week was great.

Also we are working on fixing it so providing feedback, wiki updates and Ask the Experts thread is better for the community. Stay tuned as we fix this over the next week (or so)..

If you have additional feedback please post a comment here, or send me an email. josh@intel.com.

Thank You

Josh H
Intel Architect / Community Manager

"The Intern's" vPro's hand's on experience (Finally!!)

Sophia.Stalliviere — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:28:41 GMT

I got to enjoy a hand's on experience with vPro this morning, I got tired of just reading everything. Another intern, Nick Molina showed me some capabilities that I have only read in whitepapers and postings from vPro experts. I am not sure on how you like to learn, but one of the best ways for me to learn is to see the product in action. Plus I didn't really understand it until it was put in front of me.

Nick was able to show me different remote capabilities, how the server is able to power on and off the client computers, and how to read the hardware from the client computer through the server. He also showed me how you can apply filters to the network interface that would cut out any outside source (e.g. through the WLAN) that would put the client and/or server in harm.

To be able to see this better you should see this YouTube video which shows the same thing as what I was learning from Nick. It's a bit shorter than what I have experienced, but it gives you the same idea. Watching this, and after reading my blogs of course, it gives you a better understanding of what vPro can do.

Intel vPro Technology integration w/Symantec Backup&Restore

Chapter 4 should be coming soon. It will be on trusted environments. Stay tuned!!

Understanding vPro: Chapter 1- What is it?

Understanding vPro: Chapter 2-What is it used for/ why should I use it

Understanding vPro: Chapter 3- Proactive Security- Does it have a tiny guard dog???

Altiris - Deployment Scenarios of Intel® vPro™, Part 1: Deployment Scenarios Introduction

josh.hilliker — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:04:40 GMT

Hi all, While Terry is out I wanted to highlight this new 4 Part series on deployment scenarios over on the Altiris Juice site. thank you Terry for posting.

http://juice.altiris.com/article/4801/deployment-scenarios-intel-vpro-part-1-deployment-scenarios-introduction

Centrino 2 - Highlights

josh.hilliker — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:25:41 GMT

Highlights of the new Centrino 2 platform and the impact to the IT shops.

vPro Radio - SCE / SCOM and vPro

josh.hilliker — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:29:36 GMT

vPro radio was live this morning and our topic was on SCE/SCOM and vPro support through the vPro Management Pack. Matt Royer joined us alongside one of the original developers (Nachman Israel) to discuss the use cases, the market focus, and more!

Visit Open Port Radio or Stream this Show Online

Understanding vPro: Chapter 3- Proactive Security- did Intel put a tiny guard dog in my computer???

Sophia.Stalliviere — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:24:26 GMT

In today's world we want top notch security to protect our lives. Since our computer holds a cornucopia of our information that if lost or stolen would become detrimental to our lively hood. We need to do all we can to make sure our information is not going to be in the wrong hands. Companies have to ensure that private information is protected from malicious attacks from people who are trying to make a quick buck, or revenge, or whatever latest motivation tomorrows hacker may have (just ask around at defcon 16 to find some motivations). For me, security is a big issue so I want to dive into this one a little early compared to some of the other topics that I will get into.

Intel vPro addresses these concerns with the chipset (a tiny processor on the motherboard) and processor features along with the capabilities of Active Management Technology (AMT). I have been reading several whitepapers on the subject this last week, and have learned a lot about the security system that vPro provides.

As I understand it, vPro has three layers of security:

Filtering threats and isolating PC's
Nonvolatile memory and third party data storage for software agents
Virtualization and Trusted Execution Technologies

Filtering Threats (the tiny guard dog)

vPro can identify threats before they reach the Operating System (OS) by inspecting the network traffic to your computer. When something looks fishy, IT can isolate your computer quickly, and use the remote management features of vPro to fix your computer. After your computer is working again, they then restore your connection, and all is well with your system. IT can specify certain system agents stay active, and if these are disabled (either by you, or bad software), they can fix it without corrupting the system. The vPro hardware filters are programmable and watch the characteristics of the traffic that comes in and out of the OS (it doesn't know that you're writing an email to a long lost friend - but does know if your system is trying to infect the rest of the network). When a problem has been identified, IT has the ability to flip a "switch" and limit your network connection so that only they can access your computer (and you no longer pose a risk to the rest of the environment).

Nonvolatile Memory and Third Party Data Storage for Software Agents

Ok - that's a mouth full!!! What is a third party software agent? A third party agent would be a piece of software which runs on your computer to make sure things are working well (thin firewall, antivirus, or any of those hundreds of little icons on the taskbar). These software agents can store information in the nonvolatile memory (memory that stays around when the computer is powered off), and then remote applications can read or update this information even when the computer is frozen or turned off. Other information which can be stored in the third party data storage can be anything from system configuration (making sure someone hasn't compromised your system) to how many times you booted your computer without having the keyboard plugged in... By knowing this information, the security experts in the world are able to help ensure your cornucopia of information stays safe! For example, lets say your virus scanner stored information about how up-to-date your protection is, the IT department can check this information and figure out if your system needs updated (even when the computer is turned off).

Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization

This, I feel, is the most interesting. It is a simple but complex thought. With vPro, servers can access any vPro enabled computer. With virtualization, the computer now is able to run multiple OS environments at the same time. If you were to run two operating systems on the same computer, you can layers the access to core parts of the computer and in turn increase security. With Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) programs can execute in an secure memory space and not allow other programs to modify it - done at a hardware level making it much more safe.

What other things would you expect for security? Post it!

The BriForum Experiance:Through the eyes of the intern

“The Intern’s” Understanding vPro: Chapter 2-What is it used for/ why should I use it?

Centrino 2 - Digging in deeper into CIRA

josh.hilliker — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:07:23 GMT

In prior posts I shared out the CIRA (Client Initiated Remote Access) technology. Since the release is coming closer it's time to start talking about what this means for the IT shop and what the exact touch points are. here is a quick flow that shows the touch points, whic highlights this new MPS (Management Presence Server), which sits in your DMZ and acts like a proxy between the client and the management console. this is that final mile of connecting your notebooks when they are out of your corporate enterprise. I listed out the limitations in my last post that I reference below.

(note: Thanks to Kyle in Brand Promise Validation for this great flow..)

Here are the prior posts on CIRA
Client Initaitied Remote Access - vPro in 2008 - IDF

Here is the Centrino2 one stop shop wiki
Centrino 2 - One Stop Shop Wiki

I'm working on posting a video to showcase CIRA and also will be looking to post who supports this capability in their console.

BlogTalkRadio back in action with SCE/SCOM!

Kelsey_Witherow — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:04:40 GMT

THIS WEEK: Our topic will be around SCE/SCOM and vPro support through the vPro Management Pack. We'll have Matt Royer alongside one of the original developers, Nachman Israel, to discuss the use cases, the market focus, and more! Tune in live!
Date: 7/14/2008 9:30 AM
Call-in Number (Listen live!): (347) 326-9831
Visit Open Port Radio or Stream this Show Online

Incase you weren't aware...vPro Expert Center's BlogTalkRadio is hosted by Josh Hilliker, Russ Pam, and Jeff Torello. This bi-weekly informal show, produced by me, covers a variety of topics and is a perfect avenue to get your questions answered. Listen in live, give your two cents, or just download the show after it has aired. Make sure not to miss out on this awesome opportunity to learn and engage with the vPro experts. Can’t join us live? Have no fear, blogtalkradio let’s you listen to the show whenever you have the time. Visit the Open Port Radio site (link is above) to hear previous shows and even catch a glimpse of what’s to come!

Montevina, CIRA - vPro 2008 - Platform Users Guide

josh.hilliker — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:31:32 GMT

Community Members,

I can't tell you how excited I am to share this with you as I have been waiting awhile to showcase more about CIRA & what is coming in Montevina from a vPro stand point. I remember awhile back I was asked by a group of students if this capability would exist like this in the future & finally I can showcase more of the pieces of the puzzle to the world. For the folks out there that asked me about this & I just smiled.. well.. here's more of the puzzle..

Here is the AMT 4.0 (Cira, Montevina) Platform User Guide that explains the MEBx settings in detailed screen views.
AMT 4.0 (Cira, Montevina) - MEBx Platform User Guide

Also here is my first post on CIRA about what it does in picture format.
Client Initaitied Remote Access - vPro in 2008 - IDF

If you have any questions let me know & hopefully soon to follow will be a youtube video to show off these new capabilites of the new mobile platform.

Please watch out for this new platform to hit the news wire in the near future.....

Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases - Part 4 - Auditing and Software Remediation

joelsmith — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:05:24 GMT

NOTE: If you have not read parts 1 through 3, please read these before reading this part as this is a continuation of the story begun in the previous sections. Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases

Security is only as tight as the weakest link in your environment. More often than not it's internally where the security holes are created, either inadvertently from carelessness or intentionally from a disgruntled or disillusioned employee. The hardware and software security can be top of the line, but if the human factor doesn't adhere to policy, it may not make any difference. This part follows the IT team for Mighty Modern Marketing as they try to track down a security hole where productivity is taken down through the very tools used to defend and manage the network.

Mighty Modern Marketing HQ - Boston, Massachusetts

Somehow the air inside the building congealed hotter than the heavy, humid swelter wallowing outside. Tevita, sweat running down the sides of his face, fanned himself with an empty binder. He stared at his screen, the image thereon frozen.

"I think one of the servers seized up," he said. Jessica Langley glanced at her Remote Desktop window. The previously blinking text icon in the script she edited no longer blinked, and as she watched the disconnected icon appeared, the remote screen graying-out. She closed it with a quick click of the white on red X.

She took a long drink of water. "If they don't fix the AC soon, I'm going home," she announced.

"They'll have it up soon. Besides, it's never been so quiet here. I only have one system running, and I think I'm approaching something like Zen. Either that or I'm about to pass out."

"Any more missing application tickets?"

Tevita groaned. "Oh yeah. Five so far today. It's like the uninstall faerie ran around randomly touching computers with her magic star-wand. I've taken care of it."

Jessica stood, feeling sodden. "Thanks. I'll check on Bobby to make sure he hasn't suffered from heat stroke."

The server room actually felt cooler despite the cacophony of running servers that reminded her of the sound and feel of a jet engine escalating towards takeoff. Somehow Bobby had created a wind tunnel with large fans, and she felt her hair whip away from her as she stepped directly in the wind's path. She shielded her eyes and walked to the developer's cube area. The pull of the moving air seemed to try and yank her off her feet by her dress-suit jacket. She folded her arms as she stepped into the relative stillness of the cube.

Bobby looked like a wilted plant. He looked up, and sighed. "What, IM down again?"

"Of course not," she responded with a smile. "You holding up in here?"

He shrugged. "I'll survive, though it reminds me of Phoenix, Arizona, except here it's like standing in front of a vat of boiling water. Phoenix is like standing in front of the open door to a blast furnace."

"The SQL Server locked again."

Bobby nodded. "I did a hard reset just a minute ago. I had to open the case and point a fan right at the CPUs. I think it'll stay up this time."

"Good."

Bobby shrugged again. He looked back at his screen, then back up at her. "You need something else?"

"Not really. You want to go to lunch with Tevita and I? The local Italian place has great AC."

"No, I'm good. My lunch cooked itself in this heat, so I ate already."

"Alright. See you later."

When she returned Tevita still sat in front of his computer, sweating profusely. He looked up as she passed by, a frown on his face.

"The facilities guy just passed by," he said as she sat down. "He says someone deliberately messed with the AC. He's fixed and says it'll be up and running any time now."

"Someone sabotaged the AC?" she inquired.

"Yep."

She sighed. "Just when I thought we were done with the underhanded antics."

Tevita nodded. "The AC guy put thick padlocks on all the control panel cases. Too bad we don't have any way to track who goes in and out of that room. A magnetic badge reader would work."

The next hour passed in receding misery as the AC kicked on and began liberating the employees in Might Modern Marketing's Headquarters from oppressive heat. Jessica checked the Altiris Notification Server Logs, ignoring the SQL errors for the times the SQL server seized up. Except for an occasional error where an event arrived for a package already deleted from the Notification Server, the logs looked clean.

"Mrs. Langley," Edgar's dry tones greeted.

Right on cue, she thought. Despite the heat things had been going too smoothly. She turned around and stood.

"Hello Edgar."

"I wanted to let you know that the budget we set aside for the mess with New Nifty Networks is on target, thanks to everyone's diligence," he said, eyes briefly moving down to the papers clasped in his hands. "We've even been able to devote some resources to Legal. It won't be long before we can put this whole ordeal behind us."

Tevita rolled over in his chair. "What, and I've done nothing?" The expression on his face and tone of his voice took away any sting of the words.

"Both of you have performed exceptionally," Edgar said, shuffling the papers in his hands. "Though it's not official, I believe you will both receive a merit increases for your performances."

"You're kidding!"

"I do not kid, Mr. Tatafu."

"So be honest, was it hard to allow that through?"

The barest hint of a smile touched the corners of Edgar's thin lips. "Yes, adding my approval felt much like pulling out stitches. Now don't you both have work to do?"

He shuffled away, his posture a little bent.

Tevita gave Jessica a thumbs up. "Ha! So some good is coming from this whole competition nightmare."

"Perhaps," she said noncommittally, having trouble suppressing a smile. "It's not over yet, not until this school-friend of Mr. Johnson's finally gives up. I'm hoping it happens soon so we can go back to normal."

"Normal?" countered Tevita. "When is IT work normal? It changes faster than the seasons."

She opened her mouth to respond when her telephone rang. The caller ID noted Johnson. She quickly picked up the handset.

"Mighty Modern Marketing, this is Jessica," she greeted as cheerily as she could.

"Jessica, this is Mr. Johnson," greeted the CEO. "Can you please come up to my office immediately? We have a sensitive matter to discuss."

"Of course. I'll be up right away."

"Please have Tevita join us as well. See you in a minute."

"Will do. Thanks. Bye."

When she looked up Tevita had his day planner in one hand, the other locking his computers.

"Ready for lunch?" he inquired.

"Change of plans," she said, rising. "Mr. Johnson wants to see us in his office immediately."

Tevita stared at her for a moment, then tossed in planner onto his chair, a wry smile twisting his mouth. "Wonderful. Somehow even though everything he says sounds enthusiastic and wonderful, we end up with a pile of work."

"Job security," she responded.

The CEO's office, remarkably, looked very much like the other offices in the entire building. She glanced through the window on the door, then knocked politely. Mr. Johnson, looking as refreshed and lively as ever, waved her in. The building continued to cool, but still hovered near eighty degrees. Though she felt sweaty and rumpled, Mr. Johnson appeared completely unaffected by the heat, his hair perfectly combed and his clothing pressed and clean. He smiled warmly as they sat down in the two chairs set before his desk.

A man sat next to him, and though she knew she should know who he was, she couldn't place his face in her memory.

"Thank you for coming up so quickly," he said, rising to shake their hands. "This is Dan Williams, Chief Security Officer."

She said hello, shaking Dan's hand. Funny how she knew the name so well from countless emails and conference calls. She felt she knew him despite only seeing him on rare occasions, all from electronic or audio correspondence. Somehow she'd never put that voice with this face.

"Jessica, Tevita," he said in way of greeting in that familiar voice. "We need to meet more often, especially with how much I depend on both of you."

"Definitely," Tevita responded as he sat down.

Jessica had trouble controlling a laugh that threatened to escape. "Mr. Williams, you don't look like I imagined."

Dan smiled, amusement dancing in his eyes. "What did you think I looked like?"

She blushed. "Well... you sound like Chuck Norris. But you're more like..."

Mr. Johnson started. "Chuck...?" He burst into laughter. Tevita's booming laughter joined in as Dan's smile grew wry. Jessica wondered if someone could faint from embarrassment, and imagined she looked as red as a tomato.

"Sorry, I like yoga, but not much of a martial arts guy," Dan said, trying not to laugh.

"Alright," Johnson said with a deep calming breath. "Without further preamble, I'll let Dan discuss the situation."

Dan nodded. "As you are well aware of our situation with our friends over at New Nifty Networks, what I'm about to show you shouldn't come as much of a surprise. We have a plant."

"A plant?" Tevita inquired. "Like a house plant?"

Jessica covertly elbowed him in the ribs as he chuckled.

Dan continued, undaunted. "Someone here is feeding information to our competitor. We're tracking this using email, etc, but the trail is long and convoluted. We think this spy, for lack of a better term, is also sabotaging our business here. While we're pretty sure he or she disabled the air conditioning, we don't have enough data to even begin to narrow down who it could be. There are other things happening that I believe you'll be able to help us with.

"You see, we believe he's somehow obtain access to your management tools. We've had increased cases where vital software has been mysteriously uninstalled from systems."

Jessica exchanged a look with Tevita. "We have had a large amount of emergency software deployment tickets," she said.

"The tickets always say the shortcut is missing," Tevita added.

"Exactly," Dan continued. "Depending on the user, this can severely hamper our productivity. Since some of the computers are locked behind office doors I'm assuming they're using management software to accomplish this. Is Altiris capable of this?"

"Yes," Jessica answered. "However you need rights to do anything."

"And that will be to our advantage. Please look through any auditing or logging done by Altiris and see if you can figure out how this individual is uninstalling applications, what credentials he or she is using. Any evidence or data you capture please forward to me."

"We will," Tevita responded.

Back at her desk, Jessica pulled up the Altiris Console. Events would allow her to see if any Software Delivery or similar jobs had been schedule to run on the affected systems. They had uninstall-programs setup for most of their managed applications. She browsed in the Altiris Console under View, Solutions, Software Delivery, Tasks, Windows, Software Delivery Tasks. The first task she choose uninstalled their accounting software, one application the spy or whatever he or she was liked to target. She did a quick scan to ensure no new tasks showed up.

She clicked on the Status tab. Once the tab loaded she used the dropdown labeled, "Display computers on which this task ran:" to set it to "All". Once the grid loaded she clicked on the top of the "Attempt Time" column to sort by date, and looked at the last week's runs. Only three showed up, and all of them had been scheduled by either her or Tevita.

"Any luck?" Tevita asked, his head rising above his cube's wall.

"Nothing yet. I guess it's possible they created a task and then deleted it after each execution."

"Yeah, but there's an ItemDeleted table that we can look at to see if that's occurred."

He walked into her cube and sat down on the spare chair. He used her secondary system to open SQL Enterprise Manager and launch a query window. He used the query:

SELECT ItemName FROM ItemDeleted

WHERE ItemName LIKE ‘%Accounting%'

AND ItemClassGuid = ‘D922981C-B8E7-40EE-B6BD-1E6CB354C9FE'

"This class-guid here represents Software Delivery Tasks," Tevita explained as he ran the query. "Nope, nothing. Let me try one more query, this one more generic..."

SELECT * FROM ItemDeleted

WHERE ItemClassGuid = ‘D922981C-B8E7-40EE-B6BD-1E6CB354C9FE'

ORDER BY DeletedDate

"Okay," he continued. "I don't think he used Software Delivery. I don't see any Tasks deleted recently enough to account for all the uninstalls reported."

Jessica nodded. "Hmm. If he didn't use this, then the only other two options I can think of are Deployment Server and Task Server."

Tevita smiled. "No chance with Deployment Server. I've changed the management credentials recently and blocked everyone else out. Since only you and I use it, I figured with all the security stuff going on I'd better be safe, not sorry."

She blinked. "I didn't know you'd locked... I guess DS is your baby."

"You know it. So, do you think Task Server could really be it? Wouldn't he need to know scripting?"

"Not necessarily. There's a ‘Deliver Software' task available that can run any Package-Program we have available in Software Delivery. Let me look through here... I don't see any Jobs or Task Server tasks that reference the uninstall program. The ItemDeleted would have deletions if he'd done that. But you used the standard Software Delivery Tasks, right? Can you do one for Task Server Tasks?"

Tevita scratched his chin. "I think so. In fact we don't delete things that often. Let's try this..."

SELECT * FROM ItemDeleted

ORDER BY DeletedDate

"Okay. A few deletions, but they all look straight-forward. Computers purged, a couple of Software Portal Requests... but nothing that looks like a Task Server task. Wait... what's this? Bobby deleted a task named WOfW? This was last week. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's been playing with Software Delivery and Worlds Of Warcraft."

Jessica grinned. "You think he wants to roll it out company-wide? I can see it now. ‘Productivity hits an all-time low, though the average level of Mighty Modern Marketing exceeds fifty'!"

Tevita laughed, pointing at her. "I didn't know you knew enough about gaming to make a joke like that!"

"Right. Like you don't bring it up every week. It was bound to rub off on me at least a little."

"This looks clean. That doesn't make sense. Perhaps Dan's wrong, and whoever's responsible for this isn't using Altiris."

Jessica shook her head. "He's right, I don't think this could be done at this rate any other way. Either they're using a different method, or they have intimate knowledge of Altiris."

Tevita leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. Jessica placed a fingertip on her lips, thinking furiously. If Software Delivery and Task Server wasn't used, and the evidence suggested such, what other method could you use to remove software? They planned on using PC Anywhere for remote control, but it wasn't up and running yet in the Altiris environment. Tevita used the simple Remote Control feature in Deployment Server, and she still used Carbon Copy. She'd disabled access to it in Altiris and used the stand-alone product that only existed on her system for security reasons. Could they have a rogue copy of Carbon Copy installed...?

"What about vPro?" Tevita inquired abruptly, interrupting her thoughts.

"Serial-Over-LAN doesn't work in Windows currently," she responded. "No other remote application abilities... it's really considered an out of band management interface."

"Yeah, but if you built a remote tool into an ISO, using IDER, couldn't you use that?"

"In theory, yes... In fact if you ran an IDE redirect with something like that you could do whatever you wanted to the system."

"Exactly."

Jessica smiled. "And we have an actual activity log."

In the Altiris Console she browed in View, Solutions, Real-Time Console Infrastructure, Tools, and clicked on "Activity Log". She scanned down the entries.

"Well, well," Tevita said, leaning forward. "Our friend has been busy."

The icon showing a redirection session appears like two plugs plugged together. The other pertinent columns appeared as "client": showing what computer by IP Address is being accessed, "user": what credentials were used to execute the action, Host: as in the hostname of the destination computer, Description: showing the path to the ISO, and lastly Technology showing what method was used. Multiple RTSM sessions showed a redirection to an ISO labeled: RemoteControl.iso. The path led to a UNC share.

Jessica pulled up the contents. "Jackpot."

Tevita shook his head. "Too easy. If they know how to create ISOs of that nature and use RTSM to deploy them, did they actually think there wouldn't be some sort of logging?"

"I don't know. RTSM is unique in that it isn't dependent on an agent at all, so there is no logging client-side. Still... perhaps whoever's doing this didn't create the ISOs and is just in charge of running it. And we aren't done yet. Note that the User is all listed as admin. This means he or she is using the AMT credentials available on all systems."

"Oh. Can't exactly blame the invisible AMT admin..."

"No, but we can change the password easily. Before I do that, I'll send Dan the information on the share. That share should have some sort of user footprint his team can get to."

She quickly sent the email with all the information. She explained that she would change the admin password so that this rogue user could no longer use this method. After sending it she browsed in the Altiris Console to View, Solutions, Out of Band Management, Configuration, Provisioning, Configuration Service Settings, and selected Provision Profiles. She double-clicked on the profile they used for all systems. Under the Administrator Credentials section to the right, she changed the password under the Manual radial option. She clicked OK to save the changes.

Next she browsed back up to Provisioning, and into Intel AMT Systems, selecting the node Intel AMT Systems. When the frame loaded, she clicked on the icon on the icon bar that looked like a system with refresh green arrows surrounding it, labeled: Re-provision. She hadn't selected any systems so she selected the only live option, "All systems". She clicked OK to execute.

"That should do it," she said aloud.

"A re-provision?" Tevita asked.

"It's a simple way to send down the changes in a profile to the systems. It'll take some time to cycle through all the systems, but soon all systems will have the new AMT admin password set."

Tevita leaned back. "So we're done?"

"For now, unless you have any ideas for further tracking this guy...?"

The rest of the day proceeded smoothly, with only one more reinstall helpdesk ticket coming in. By the next day no new tickets had developed, and things had settled down to normal. Dan said he had enough to identify the perpetrator, but said no more on the subject.

He did say one thing very firmly. "All the security we can muster is worthless if those with the right privileges are not careful with their credentials."

Further, he requested they review their procedures concerning the AMT admin password. Was it written down anywhere? Did they ever say it out-loud? Though neither knew how the password got originally stolen, the increased care with which they handled passwords became a driving program within the company. Security was everyone's job.

At the end of the week, as Jessica headed away from Boston on the Redline Commuter Train, she hoped they'd seen the end of the targeted attacks, but in her mind she already looked through her current policies and processes to see where she could increase security.

End Part IV

Altiris provided not only an audit trail to track potential rogue usage of RTSM, but it also provided a very quick and efficient way to change security within AMT when somehow the credentials are compromised. Is this the end of the threats against Mighty Modern Marketing? Only time will tell.

vPro Expert Center moves out to myITforum.com

Kelsey_Witherow — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:27:49 GMT

myITforum.com is a community of worldwide IT professionals. myITforum.com membership and visitors are made up of IT Administrators and IT Managers from several countries, in small, medium, and large companies around the world. Close to 50,000 people visit myITforum.com each day to find solutions to problems they face. These answers come in the form of articles, self-help forum posts, self-help email discussion lists, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) database, blog posts, and online media such as videos and podcasts.

So today I decided to put some of our vPro efforts out onto another website designed to aide the IT community. I re-created our "Known Issues" wiki as well as the "Tools for vPro and Centrino Pro" wiki onto a vPro Expert Wiki. I wanted to let the expert center aware of this so that any of you can help out in our cross-linking efforts. Feel free to visit the vPro wiki that I have created over there and add whatever docs you think might be helpful. The wiki markup that they use is slightly different than ours, so let me know if you're interested and I can help explain it all to you

Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases - Part 3 - Hardware

joelsmith — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:26:36 GMT

If you have not read parts 1 and 2, please read these before reading this part as this is a continuation of the story begun previously.

http://juice.altiris.com/book/4687/altiris-and-intel-vpro-use-cases

From the OS level vPro has tools to help quarantine and remediate compromised systems as demonstrated in part 2. This section explores the capabilities at the hardware layer, completely below the OS and any related dependencies. Can the IT staff continue to respond well to threats and avoid outages and threats to the businesses wellbeing? When the gloves come off sometimes even the most secure networks are vulnerable to threats.

Mighty Modern Marketing HQ - Boston, Massachusetts

"This is Jessica, how can I help you?"

The voice that spoke through the headset caused her to flinch, and she moved the earpiece two inches away from her ear.

"This can't be happening now!" the voice exclaimed loudly.

"What's the problem?" she responded calmly, hoping the user would match her volume.

He didn't. "The timing is the worst possible, since the end of quarter is only two days away! I need my computer up and running two hours ago!"

"Let me see... I'm speaking to Mitch Cavanaugh, correct?"

"Yes," he responded, his voice dropping a trifle. "My computer isn't booting, and I have sales to approve and record. If I don't get this up quick, we may not be able to add this revenue this quarter!"

"I understand," she said as she used the Altiris Console under the All Computers Collection to find his computer. She double-clicked on it, bring up Resource Manager.

"I see you're using an HP 7800..." she began.

"I need this problem fixed pronto," he interrupted.

"Of course," she said, clicking on the ‘Real-Time' tab. "Give me just a moment."

She smiled, feeling a warmth from the fact that she'd made sure those with the most business critical functions got the vPro systems first. The Real-time tab loaded, revealing the function tree in the left-hand pane. She noted immediately that only the AMT functions loaded, and that the system's powerstate was on.

"I can see," she said when she heard a sound of irritation on the other line, "that while there is power to your computer, the operating system is not loading."

A pause followed her comment. "Really?" Mitch responded, the edge on his voice disappearing. "You can tell me that already? Usually I have to tell you IT people everything... that's great. So do you know what's going on?"

"Give me another moment," she said in her most pleasant voice. She clicked on the Hardware Management node in the left tree. After the page loaded, she choose the reboot radial under the Remote power management section. Under Redirection options she check the box, "Display task progress and remotely control computer". Next she clicked "Run Task Now". When the page began to refresh a new window popped up, showing her the boot of the computer.

"Wait, my computer just rebooted..." Mitch said, sounding suspicious.

"Yes, I just initiated a reboot," she responded. "I'm going to watch the boot from here."

"You can do that? I thought I had to be in Windows for that to work."

When the boot verified devices on the system she noticed that no hard drive was detected. The message "No boot device" appeared.

"Okay Mitch, the computer isn't recognizing the hard drive for some reason. Give me a moment to check a few more things."

"Is that fixable?" Mitch inquired.

"I don't know yet. Give me a moment."

She rebooted again, but also added the "Enter BIOS on startup" option by checking the box. The remote window reappeared, this time entering the BIOS. She looked under the IDE channels, but no hard drive was listed.

"Okay Mitch, I've determined that your hard drive isn't being detected at all by the computer. Since you have critical work to perform, we'll immediately image and restore your data to a backup system using Deployment Server and Symantec's Backup Exec. It should take about 30 minutes. Tevita Tatafu will bring it by then. It's about lunchtime. Can you take a short break?"

"Well... it is a little early for lunch, but that should work."

"Alright Mitch. Anything else?"

"No... I just hope the backup had all my files on it."

"It should."

"Thanks."

She leaned back as she hung her headset by the phone. "Tevita?"

He swung out of his cube, a huge smile on his face. "Mr. Cavanaugh having problems?"

"Yeah," she responded.

"He's such a joy. Did you know he was the one who got impatient waiting in line at the vending machine so he ran to the nearest Dunkin Donuts, opening the door fast enough to knock Edgar flat on his back?"

"You be nice," scolded Jessica with a stern look. "He may have anxiety issues, but he's a spot on accountant."

Tevita laughed richly. "Spot on, eh? And what do you know about Accounting?"

"I got a Masters from University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, in Accounting."

"You did?"

"Yes. Now don't make me a liar and get that machine to Mitch ‘pronto'."

Tevita laughed, but got up and headed to the equipment room. Jessica sorted through her email. She wanted to clear out her inbox but only halfway through the process Tevita returned, no longer smiling. His mouth bent down in a frown she rarely saw, and usually only when he was about to explode with anger. His eyes didn't seethe, but looked down at a computer in his hands. He sat down and rolled his chair over towards her cube.

"It really is missing the hard drive," he said, expertly using the buttons on the side to open the case. He pointed to an empty bay. "It should be in here, but... well... the IDE cable was cut, right here. Seems stupid, since they had to unscrew the drive, but..."

She stared at the empty bay. "Someone stole his hard drive?"

Tevita nodded. "It looks that way. Mitch said he only left to take a restroom break, and when he came back the system was off and wouldn't boot."

"This isn't good..." Jessica started to say.

"Guys!" Bobby said loudly, his voice piercing through the area like a gunshot. They both stood up, staring at the gangly developer loping towards them from the door to the server room.

"The sky must be falling," Tevita said, but despite the amusement in his voice his mouth only twitched once in an upward smile.

"What's wrong?" Jessica asked.

Bobby took a deep breath. "It's a ninja. I swear by my grandma's heirloom earrings that a ninja just showed up in the server room!"

"A ninja!!?" Jessica exclaimed.

Tevita looked down a the computer he held. "Bobby, that's not funny..."

Bobby threw his hands up. "You know I don't have an imagination, or much of a sense of humor. Didn't you used to call me Cardboard Boy?"

"Yeah, but I stopped after you randomly locked out my user account at the worst possible moments..."

"I'm not kidding."

Jessica, feeling like she'd just stepped off a rollercoaster, reached out and put a hand on the wall. "Bobby, you mean to tell me there's a ninja loose in the building?"

"Well.. no. He's lying unconscious in the server room."

Tevita gave her a quick look, then bee-lined towards the door to the server room. Jessica wanted to run the other way, but Bobby gave her a helpful shove on the back towards the room. She glanced behind at him, and he blushed.

"Sorry, but the more witnesses the better."

The figure sprawled out on the floor clutched a hard drive in his back-gloved hands. He didn't look like a real ninja, but a black ski mask that looked similar to a ninja wrap covered his face. A goose-egg on his forehead the size of a golf ball, halfway hidden by the mask, seemed to say loudly why he wasn't conscious. Jessica found herself staring, her mouth hanging open and her hand moving up to cover it.

"Oh my gosh," she said, her voice embarrassingly high-pitched. Her heart hammered in her chest as if she'd just jumped off a cliff

Tevita gave Bobby a searching look. "Do you know martial arts or something?" he asked.

"No. I thought I heard something while I was bringing back the two new demo laptops, so I went to check it out. When I saw him, I just reacted."

"What did you do?"

"Well... I had a MacBook Air in my left hand, and a Panasonic Toughbook in the right. The MacBook might be thin enough to decapitate a ninja, but more likely it would have bounced off his skull without slowing him down, so I threw the Toughbook."

Tevita reached out with his toe and nudged the intruder.

"We should leave and call the police," Jessica said, edging towards the door.

"He's out cold," Tevita said, reaching down to pick up the Toughbook. The screen gleamed beautifully, no sign of damage despite being used as a blunt weapon. "Too bad these aren't vPro yet," he said.

"I called the police," Bobby said. "They should be here soon."

The next half-hour moved as if in a dream. Jessica felt like she'd stepped out of the real world and into some crazy movie. Slowly the facts of the intruder came to light, and like wiping away the mist on a foggy window things didn't seem as ridiculous as they first seemed.

The man had been hired to steal a specific hard drive. He was fully cooperative with police, apologetic for getting caught and worrying everyone. He indicated he wore the mask not as an intimidation method, but to remain incognito to security cameras. The policy cuffed him and off he went, leaving everyone standing there in disbelief.

"Is that Mitch's hard drive?" she finally asked Tevita, who had retrieved the hard drive the "ninja" held.

Tevita pointed to connector of a cut IDE cable sticking out the back. "It looks like it..."

Bobby took the drive, hefting it, his small eyes squinting. "No, this is a RAID drive. He ‘raided' a server..."

Jessica stared at him as he chuckled. Tevita stared for a moment, and broke into a wide grin.

"And you say you have no sense of humor," he said with a laugh.

"My Dad told me puns don't count," Bobby responded.

"What about the data on Mitch's hard drive?" Jessica inquired. "I know he had confidential, sensitive information on it."

Bobby shrugged. "Nothing we can do about it unless we can find it. It wouldn't be the first time."

She shook her head. "Too bad vPro doesn't have disk encryption yet. I know they're working on it."

Bobby's head perked up. "vPro with disk encryption? Nice."

The receptionist motioned to Jessica, and she walked over.

"Mr. Johnson has called a meeting in the executive briefing room," she explained, a phone held between her ear and her raised shoulder. "He says it's urgent, but not to worry."

"Not to worry," she echoed, feeling a surreal sense of amusement at the statement. "Right."

She rounded up Tevita and Bobby and they headed upstairs. The executive briefing room flooded with light, with the impeccable CEO standing by the floor to ceiling window showing the bottom half of the skyline to downtown Boston. He smiled casually, his hands clasped behind his back. When they'd all entered and sat down, he turned around, his smiling increasing.

"The mighty defenders arrive," he said. "I had a call from Mitch Cavanaugh concerning your ability to quickly resolve the theft of his hard drive. I commend you on a lightning-fast response. I can tell by your expressions that you're a bit shaken."

He paused, the smile abating. "Let me assure you that we are permanently stepping up our security. I blame myself for not taking steps against blatant thievery. I guess I'd hoped my former colleague had gotten past that type of criminality."

Bobby raised his hand, and Mr. Johnson gestured at him. He cleared his throat, folding his skinny arms.

"So don't we have enough evident now to get the police involved?"

Mr. Johnson shook his head. "No, and even with the thief in hand I doubt they'll be able to link this to New Nifty Networks. For all we know this isn't related to them, though our situation and the probability point in that direction. No, we won't be making any effort to link the thief with Nifty. Your job is to continue tightening our security.

"First, let me commend you, Tevita, for your mastery of providing mirror systems to people when theft occurs. Second, I commend you, Bobby, for always delivering when issues arrive. Lastly, I commend you, Jessica, for your insistence on vPro. I know Edgar and others have given you are hard time about it, but it seems you prove it's worth daily."

"Thank you," she said.

"Our next step is to find out if any other systems have had their hard drives stolen. I'll leave this task in your capable hands. If you have any questions or concerns, please come see me in my office."

As quickly as the meeting started, it ended.

When they reached their cube area, Tevita didn't sit down at his, but followed her into hers. He stared at the Altiris Console idling on her screen, his arms folded and his expression pinched in thought. She sat down, eyeing him, as she reached for her keyboard.
"Let me guess," Tevita said, "you already have a plan?"

She let her hands fall into her lap. "Well... yeah. It shouldn't difficult to find out which systems no longer have HDDs even if the systems have been off for a while. I just..."

Her voice faded away. She stared at Tevita, trying to sort through her emotions.

"You're freaked," Tevita offered.

"No... well... yeah. I kind of am. Cyber attacks are one thing, but Bobby's ninja..."

Tevita retrieved his chair from his cube, sitting down and leaning back at the entrance of her cube. "With computers thieves usually only break into places for the hardware. Some of the servers Bobby runs cost more than a new BMW. Stealing the hard drives means they're after data. It's really no different, except we're using software to block software attacks, and we use guards, locks, and other such things for the hardware attacks. You heard Johnson. I don't think you have to worry."

She sighed. "We should get occupational hazard pay. I'll get over it, though I may bring pepper spray tomorrow."

"That'll work."

She cracked her knuckles by clasping her fingers and pushing her arms out. "Let's get into this. First off, we can't rely on Inventory Solution to know if the hard drive is there or not, since the OS obviously has to be up and running to get an updated Inventory. We might be able to use the Altiris Agent's last check-in time to note those systems that are no longer reporting, but that won't tell us if those machines are simply off or something similar."

Tevita nodded. "Fun. Without the hard drive we have no manageability capability."

"Except for the one thing that runs outside of the hard drive."

"Intel vPro."

"Exactly. All capabilities are still available even when the hard drive's been yanked."

"So we can use RTSM to remote into those systems not responding in Altiris using Serial-Over-LAN to see if the hard drive is there, like you did for Mitch."

Jessica nodded, smiling. "That would work, but I have a faster, much easier way."

Tevita rolled closer as she put her hand on the mouse and started using the Altiris Console, his eyes focused on the screen. "I like easy," he said.

She browsed under Manage and clicked on Jobs. When the left-pane tree loaded, she browsed under Tasks and Jobs, Server Tasks, Real-Time Console Infrastructure, and clicked on ‘Get Intel® AMT Inventory'. She clicked the Run Now button.

On the resulting window that popped up she gave the Run name: Ninja stolen hard drive, and clicked on the ‘Select computers' link. Within the ‘Select Computers' dialog in the left-most pane, she browsed in the tree from Collections, Out of Band Management, Provisioning, and double-clicked on ‘Provisioned Intel® AMT Computers. The middle pane showed a list of all vPro capable systems in the environment, and the right-most pane showed the Provisioned collection she'd selected. She clicked OK. She then clicked the Run Now button.

"That's it," she said, leaning back. "In the next minute or two we should have inventory from all vPro capable systems."

The Tongan shook his head. "You're going to outsmart us all out of a job," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you kidding? We might, just might, get to all the stuff on our plates we normally leave forever on the backburner."

She browsed in the Altiris Console under View, Reports, Incident Management, Real-Time Console Infrastructure, and selected Intel® AMT Hardware Inventory. When the report home page loaded, she clicked the Run this report link. For the parameters she left ‘System' to ~~Any~~, and changed ‘Hardware Type' to ‘Media'. She clicked the ‘Refresh' button to load the report.

"Okay, this shows us all systems that have a hard drive reported with AMT Inventory. We could manually compare the list, but why not create a new report that shows us systems that do not have anything in the Media table?"

She right-clicked on the ‘Real-Time Console Infrastructure' folder and choose New, Report. She gave it the name: Intel vPro Computers Without a Hard Drive. She choose ‘Enter SQL Directly' and then rolled back from her desk.

"Alright SQL guru, I'll give you what I need and you can figure out the query."

He scooted around her, reaching for the keyboard. "Alright. Shoot."

"Okay, we need to have a list of all computers that either do not have an entry within the table Inv_AMT_Media_Device. That's it."

"That's it? That's easy enough..."

Tevita entered in the SQL, and saved the report. When they ran it, only two systems showed up.

Jessica looked at the names of the computers. "These are both from accounting, but Joe is in New York doing his accounting work on his laptop, and this other... he's here, but hasn't reported anything yet.

Tevita stood, dragging his chair back to his cube. "I'll take care of these two. Why don't you go home?"

"And leave you here..."

He laughed. "I'll be fine. It's almost five, and you probably want to take a nice relaxing evening trying not to think about thieves and ninjas."

"Thanks for that," she commented dryly, but with no conviction. "Only if you're sure..."

"I'm sure. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thanks. Have a good evening."

End Part III

Recognizing the need for better physical security, and using vPro to minimize the effects of theft, the IT team continue to rise to meet the challenges facing them.

“The Intern’s” Understanding vPro: Chapter 2-What is it used for/ why should I use it?

Sophia.Stalliviere — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:14:49 GMT

Wow, what a question to come up with. It is pretty broad. What is it used for? To have that cool sticker planted on your laptop or on your desktop? Is it a status issue? The first blog I posted did tell a little about vPro. It is a tiny little processor, no bigger than an aspirin pill, if you saw on the floor you would just throw it away, more likely, it would be lodged in your foot. That tiny little piece is so vital to what would take us to the future of virtual technology because of the remote management capabilities.

Imagine this:

*+I have a friend who lives in, oh I don't know, Timbuktu and he comes over here to visit me here in Folsom. He realized he needed to get a file from his computer. Well, if he has the vPro processor in his computer and I, of course, have one in mine, he will be able to get what he needs from his computer virtually. You think to yourself: what a simple but complicated idea. It's complicated because you think, how does it do that? I don't have to go anywhere and I would be able to fix a computers software from my house. *+</stro</p>

If the operating system is unresponsive, the power is off, and even if the hardware has failed, with vPro you are able to fix, protect, and get anything from your computer. That would save companies money, and who doesn't like to save money. They wouldn't have to fly a technician out to fix a computer. The technicians would have an opportunity to fix more than just one or two PC's. They can sit at their office and fix multiple PC's.

There is one thing I can't wrap my brain around you can work on the system when it's powered off? That was one thing that perplexed me from the last blog. Everyone knows you need power for any electric to work or for it to read anything, assuming everyone does know that. Well, I guess that not true if your system has vPro. It has a remote power up item on it. Amazingly, it can turn on a pc or laptop. But for this to only work is if the system is plugged into a wired LAN (Local Area Networks, they are special grades of twisted pair wires and network adapters connect the devices) and is connected to an AC power source then it will be able to be tapped into.

Crazy concept huh?!?!

Why would I personally use it since I am not a business? Well simple, convenience. If I am a busy person and I needed something from my computer at home and I am on my business laptop I can just do a couple of clicks and I have it. Or, in one instance, you are on a business trip and your family at home (surprisingly) screwed up the house computer and they can't get anything that they want off of it. You manage to be 1000 miles away but fix all the problems in an hour and you are the hero!! This little chip could be saving you a lot of money and time.

Next blog- HMMM...So many possibilities!! Stay tuned!

-Sophia "the Intern" Stalliviere

* Note to self would that mean it's also a "green product" because it would cut down on cost for gas since I wouldn't have to travel anywhere to fix something? I guess that might have to wait to be a whole other blog.

Josh out at IPIP (Intel Premier IT Professional Event)

josh.hilliker — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:35:03 GMT

Hank and I decided to take a road trip to Denver today to attend the latest event. Hank is writing up a blog that we will be updating as well. http://communities.intel.com/openport/blogs/server/2008/06/26/live-from-intel-premier-it-professional-eventdenver check out his blog.

If you are interested in a play by play.. I'm using twitter @ http://twitter.com/JoshProStar.

Here's the booth's that are here.

I talked w/ Dave, Intel IT guy.