Today I’ll be talking about “Exploiting the Benefits of vPro”. When you have to manage hundreds to thousands of PCs standard management tasks like, hardware and software asset inventory, hardware diagnosis and repair, software patches and deployment, and, service packs updates become a daunting task.

Even more challenging is when these PCs are powered down, preventing IT support from performing all these management tasks remotely. They either have to perform them when users are working, resulting in reduced productivity or perform them onsite, resulting in higher support costs. Some companies even have a policy of not switching of their PCs after working hours; however, this will lead to increased energy usage.

The good news is businesses that deploy PCs with vPro technology will not face such challenges anymore. So what is vPro technology? vPro technology comes from Intel. PCs are said to have vPro technology when they have a combination of these four components, Intel Q965 chipset, Intel core 2 duo processor, Intel gigabit NIC and the Intel active management technology firmware. HP and Intel have worked together to bring you vPro technology on the HP dc7700P desktop PC.

PCs with vPro technology give businesses these benefits, enhanced manageability, enhanced security and cost savings. Enhanced manageability is the ability to perform all the manageability tasks mentioned earlier even when the PCs are turned off or the operating system is disabled. Running on auxiliary power, Intel active management technology firmware within the chipset communicates directly with the IT network management console. As a result IT staff need not make shuttle runs to all powered off PCs to turn them on.

Enhanced security is the ability to monitor threats even if the PC’s security agents are compromised. vPro technology uses hardware based tools to proactively and automatically monitor traffic running up and down the OS stacks looking for threats. If a vPro PC is infected, it will automatically be detected, disconnected and isolated from the network. So what happens to the infected PC now? It can still be remotely diagnosed, repaired and consequently brought back onto the network.

Finally, businesses deploying vPro technology will also enjoy cost savings. These savings come from, one, energy savings since they can now deploy a policy to shut down all PCs after working hours. Two, more productive users since they will be disrupted less from IT visits or from remote management during working hours, and three, reduced IT workforce since almost all manageability tasks can be done remotely.

I’m Rosanna Elias, product manager from Hewlett Packard.

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