We had the Intel vPro technology Challenge at MMS 2008 - a competition where teams of two competed to fix a troubled PC using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 with PCs with Intel vPro technology. Check out how much fun this Challenge was at MMS 2008 this year:

When Intel released Intel vPro technology into the marketplace in 2006, the press asked us what the "v" in Intel vPro technology meant. Now that the technology has been in the marketplace for almost two years, we thought that the best answer to the question, "What does the "v" in Intel vPro technology mean to you?" would come from Intel customers, as well as from some of the technical experts from Intel and our partners who deal with our customers on an almost daily basis. See their answers below.

At the MMS booth I was asked this question & was able to sit down with Matt for a minute. Here is the answer to when will you see WS MAN & the Migration Tool for Microsoft Service Center configuration manager SP1

Top 5 questions from the vPEc booth
#1. How do you get started
http://communities.intel.com/openport/blogs/proexpert/2008/02/09/high-level-guide-to-installing-sccm-sp1-beta or
http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-1499

#2. What about legacy support
http://communities.intel.com/openport/blogs/proexpert/2008/04/16/sccm-sp1-38-wsman-translator-how-vpro-firmware-versions-less-than-321-are-supported

#3. What are the top features that I capture about
Top features are in band client agent provisioning and integration of power control in collection based operation and task sequence support.

#4. Why does SCCM matter for vpro?
Sccm is microsoft's first managiblity software that provides native support for vpro capibility. You are able to have a single software provide you on on complete software solution for you vpro client fleet.

#5. What is the difference between Wake On LAN
http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/articles/eng/1151.htm#2 (abstract from the site)

Q1: Does the Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) feature of Intel vPro technology support Wake On LAN* (WOL), Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE), and Alert Standard Format* (ASF)?

A1: Yes. A PC with Intel® vPro™ Technology can be managed using legacy tools that utilize WOL, PXE, and ASF when Intel® AMT is turned off , so existing tools that use these protocols can be used. However, Intel® AMT provides higher levels of security & functionality. Intel® AMT provides mutual authentication between client and console along with encrypted communication to guard against unauthorized access to networks and PCs, along with the ability to read hardware and software asset information even from PCs that are turned off or down.

Q2: How is Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) feature of Intel® vPro™ technology different from ASF and Wake-On-LAN?

A2: Intel® AMT provides more security and functionality than ASF or Wake-On-LAN. Unlike legacy technologies, the Intel® System Defense feature within Intel ® AMT proactively helps prevent the spread of viruses by blocking transmissions from infected PCs. Intel® AMT also provides authentication and encrypted communication of management traffic so the Intel® AMT features can only be activated by authorized management consoles. Its out-of-band management capabilities include not only the ability to reboot PCs and send alerts, but also allow remote control, remote BIOS updates, and access to event logs and asset information regardless of system state or operating system presence. Alerting is policy based rather than based on preset criteria, allowing additional flexibility in IT processes. And Intel® AMT is designed to ensure management traffic can pass through network routers allowing remote management of a greater portion of your installed base.

Note: This information is based off Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 RC and is subject to changes between now and RTM.

With the upcoming release of Microsoft SCCM SP1 and native support for vPro manageability, there may be a scenario where you have vPro Clients that are activated (provisioned) under Microsoft SMS with the Intel SMS Add-on / Intel SCS that you need to migrate to SCCM SP1. As may have read in the previous blog, Microsoft does not use the Intel SCS for provisioning and configuration of the vPro Clients. Instead, Microsoft as part of their SCCM SP1 implementation, have chosen to develop and integrate their own code base for provisioning and configuration management of vPro Clients. So to migrate vPro Clients from SMS / Intel SCS to SCCM, Intel will be providing a migration utility to help make this transition.

Before we get into the details of the migration utility, let us first discuss at a high level the overall SMS to SCCM migration process. The first thing to keep in mind is that the vPro client migration from SMS to SCCM SP1 is just a post step after you perform the recommend steps that Microsoft provides for upgrading your SMS environment to SCCM. Microsoft has created an excellent Configuration Manager Upgrade, Interoperability Planning and Deployment guide that walks a customer through the planning and upgrade path from SMS to SCCM. Once these steps are completed, the migration of the vPro Client from the Intel SCS to SCCM SP1 can be initiated.

(Click picture for higher resolution image)

Now let us talk a little about the migration utility… At the most fundamental level, the migration utility prepares the vPro Client to be natively reprovisioned by SCCM SP1. The process can be broken into several key steps.

1. Extract list of vPro Clients from the Intel SCS to be migrated to SCCM (List used to track migration progress)
2. Generate a vPro Client list import file that can be natively used by SCCM SP1
3. Using the "Import Computer for Out of Band Management wizard" within SCCM SP1, import the list of vPro Clients to be provisioned by SCCM
4. Connect to each vPro Client to be migrated and prepare it for reprovisioning by SCCM SP1.
5. Once the vPro provisioning hello packet is received, SCCM SP1 will begin its native provisioning process for the vPro Client

You may conclude that “preparing the vPro Client to migrated” is basically performing an unprovision. For the most part that is correct; however, as part of the preparation step we are setting some critical values to allow it to be reprovision without having to physically touch the client. For example, we are setting values such as Remote Configuration Certification hash used by SCCM, PID/PPS pair (used for WS-MAN Translator for firmware version that do not support Remote Config), and Provisioning Server FQDN / Port (if different then provisionserver DNS entry and 9971).

At the time you initially run the migration tool, there may be a chance that not every vPro Client will be accessible (for example mobile clients that are not on the network when you initiate the migration). The migration utility will have the ability to log and track which vPro clients have been successfully prepared for migration and which ones where unable to be contacted. Re-running the migration utility at a future dates will attempt to connect to vPro clients that were inaccessible at previous runs. If you still have vPro Clients that are being logged as inaccessible after a couple runs of the migration utility, you may be required to investigate the root cause on why those vPro Clients are not accessible.

For those that have vPro Clients deployed in your environment but not activated and you are planning on deploying SCCM SP1, Microsoft has enabled their SCCM SP1 Client agent to initiate and authorize the provisioning process through policy. This provides a fairly straight forward and easy mechanism for provisioning your non-activated vPro Clients. To take advantage of this in a no physical touch scenario, your vPro Clients will be required have a firmware version that supports remote configuration (2.2, 2.6, 3.x). If you are not able to upgrade your firmware to a version that supports remote configuration, you will be required to configure (either manually in the MEBx or USB one touch) the PSK PID/PPS pair expected by the WS-MAN translator.

In the upcoming weeks, we will post our initial beta version of the SMS/Intel SCS to SCCM Migration Utility for vPro Expert Center community review along with a deeper drive into the configuration and usage of the migration utility. Please keep tuned for more detail to come.

Matt Royer

Note: This information is based off Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 RC and is subject to changes between now and RTM.

Microsoft has just release System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 Release Candidate. As previously noted in a past blog, SCCM SP1 is Microsoft's first release that provides native manageability support for vPro Technology.

Some of the high level changes associated to vPro between SCCM SP1 Beta and RC1 are:

• Kerberos support for Out of Band Console
• Maintenance Tasks for Certificate Expiration and Kerberos Master Key renewal
• Update Out of Band Console UI
• Integration support for the Intel WS-MAN Translator (provides legacy support for firmware version less then 3.2.1)
• Active Directory Integration

To gain access to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 RC, you can request access by:

Set-up an account. on MS Connect.
MS Connect Website
http://www.connect.microsoft.com/
After you've logged in, select "Available Connections" from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Select "System Center Configuration Manager 2007". You will be asked to fill out a questionnaire so they can get some background and demographic information.

Wednesday - Russ will be co-hosting with me as we discover more about Microsoft SCCM SP1 with Matt Royer. You may have seen the river of great posts from Matt around SCCM and he's a known pro on SCCM. Matt will be discussing the following topics:

• SCCM SP1 Provisioning and Ease of vPro Client Provisioning
• SCCM SP1 Collection Based Power Management and Task Sequence Power On Capability
• SCCM SP1 Out of Band Management Console for 1 to 1 vPro Client Management

We usually do this every two weeks, however with all that is happening with SCCM SP 1 we thought it would be great to discuss this as soon as we could pull this together. I hope you can join us. Here's the data on the Talk Show:

Dial In: (347) 326-9831
Time: 1:30PM PST

You can listen here or go to the URL below as well .


or

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/openport/2008/02/27/vPro-Expert-Center-On-The-Air

If you have questions fire up chat during the call & ask the experts...

Josh H