Cliff Hobbs at myITforum.com

[vPro] An exciting new technology…

Intel’s vPro technology is a new systems management technology built into the Centrino 2 (desktops) and Core 2 (laptops) chips providing powerful security and manageability features such as:

• Management of machines including hardware and software inventory, remote access, etc. regardless of the state of the machine (so even if the OS won't boot, the machine is powered off, in hibernation, connected wired or wirelessly you can still access it).

• Integration with both Cisco's Self defending Network (SDN), and Microsoft's Network Access Protection (NAP).

• Integration with system management tools such as SMS 2003/ ConfigMgr, LAN Desk, HP and many others (vPro includes it's own management console).

• The use of hardware-based agents to access machines rather than software-based agents that users can remove, break, disable etc. The vPro console can be configured to check the vPro hardware agent is installed and running on the machine. If the agent doesn't check-in after a configurable threshold you can get the management console to automatically re-install it.

• The inclusion of 32 inbound and outbound hardware filters to monitor network traffic and if a problem is detected the machine can be isolated from the network and a notification sent to the management console. The administrator can connect to the machine out of band (i.e. directly and not through the OS), to fix the problem such as removing a virus.

• The use of an encrypted channel to power on and install updates on those machines requiring them regardless of power state .

• A big reduction in the amount of time taken to update powered off or inaccessible machines as these machines can now be identified and updated remotely rather than waiting for the machine to be powered on or the issue resolved by a deskside visit.

• Automatic management of newly installed machines. When new machines comes onto the network they inform the vPro console of their presence. The administrator can configure the vPro console to install an SSL certificate on the machine to allow it to be managed securely from that point.

Personally I can see this a being a hot technology that a lot of people are going to want to use (although large scale adoption is going to be hindered by the fact you need the latest chips to take advantage of it so it’s going to be a good while before we start to see large scale adoption and use of this technology).

For more information goto:

http://www.intel.com/vpro