VPro Brings Remote Management To Your Business
Managing multiple or even numerous computers in a network is very important for enterprises, because an intact IT infrastructure is imperative for a healthy business, and maintenance in IT can add considerable cost. Small offices may be relatively simple to manage, because you don't lose time walking between different floors, buildings or campuses. In such a case, elementary tasks such as taking an inventory, updating software or replacing faulty hardware can become time consuming - not to mention expensive.
What Exactly Is VPro?
vPro is a marketing-friendly product name such as Viiv or Centrino. It summarizes a number of features designed for business customers in the PC space. And it basically combines a number of existing features and technologies that can be found in the Intel portfolio: vPro requires a certain version of the 965 chipset, the Q965 and Intel's AMT (Active Management Technology). Lastly, the vPro Website also refers to the Core 2 Duo processor as a part of vPro, although our test system by Acer came with a Pentium D. The important thing here is to have a processor that supports VT, Intel's Virtualization Technology, so you can run a maintenance operating system partition.
Intel's description of vPro is centered on manageability and security. vPro is intended to reduce desk-side visits by administrative staff and to reduce labor-intensive manual processes in IT, and Intel promises seamless integration into existing management infrastructure. Manageability refers to the ability to inventory PCs, including their components, via hardware-based, OS-independent and system status-independent communication. System information can either be collected, or fetched from a small non-volatile memory on vPro-enabled systems. And it refers to minimizing desk side visits to client PCs by enabling remote boot, diagnosis and backup/restore capabilities. Security is offered by filtering network traffic, easy isolation and quarantining infected systems; up-to-date asset information, remote/push updates and the optional creation of a virtual system environment for management services.
vPro provides out-of-band communication for all management related activity, which means that it runs on a different sub network, although only one physical network connection may be used. The vPro BIOS extensions allow you to either fetch an IP address via a DHCP server dynamically, or you can manually assign one. The onboard LAN controller is used for vPro; other network cards are not affected. All management activity generally works regardless of the power state or the operating system.
