Intel vPro - why is it good?
HEXUS managed to grab David Hollway, Technical Marketing Engineer, for a fireside chat about Intel's vPro technology and why it's a good thing for businesses.HEXUS: David, thanks for joining us for a chat on Intel's vPro technology.
DH: My pleasure.
HEXUS: In a nutshell, what is Intel's vPro technology?
DH: Intel vPro technology is the latest Intel brand, which takes in a number of key products and technologies and group them together under one banner; in the same manner that Centrino, Intel's first brand, did so for mobile technologies.
Speaking specifically about Intel vPro, it encompasses the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Intel Q965 chipset and an Intel 82566DM Gigabit Ethernet Controller. If you put those three together in one PC it is then vPro-certified and it then gives you a set of capabilities.
HEXUS: And what are those capabilities. What can I do with Intel vPro?
DH: The combination of the processor and the chipset gives you Intel's Virtualisation Technology, and the chipset and Ethernet Controller gives you Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT).
Essentially, AMT is a means of accessing and controlling a PC out of band, meaning that it can be accessed when the PC is switched off, for example.
HEXUS: How, exactly, does that work?
DH: Intel's AMT technology utilises the embedded processor on the Q965 chipset and is kept powered at all times. It listens to commands from the network administrator that are relayed via the aforementioned Intel 82566DM Gigabit Ethernet Controller.
As an example, a network of 100 PCs could all be switched off at night and the network administrator, via an IT console, could remotely poll each PC on the network and find out its current hardware/software build, ascertain which BIOS and application events have occurred. Further, via a wake-up command, an administrator can remotely switch on all or a selected number of PCs.
HEXUS: In that way, then, can an administrator wake up the desired number of PCs and update software without having to manually install it on each client in turn?
DH: Yes, exactly. An administrator can remotely push through updates to any number of connected and vPro-enabled PCs through software such as, for example, Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) and LANDesk, and then, once completed, remotely switch them off by the same AMT technology.
HEXUS: That sounds great for large business where hundreds of PCs may need updating, but does Intel's vPro work in the same manner for smaller business with, say, only 10 PCs on a particular network?
DH: In the main, yes. Intel, however, has two distinct security models for AMT. For smaller businesses Intel has a lightweight model. For larger businesses, and we're speaking of enterprise-class here, Intel has Enterprise security, which requires certificate servers on the network and a pre-shared key infrastructure. What I want to get across is that Intel's vPro technology is completely scalable from the single PC right through to a multinational company with complex networks and satellite offices in many continents.
