vPro™ Technology from Intel®
Next to "Centrino™" for mobile users and "viiv™" for the multimedia environment, "vPro™" is the third technology from Intel® which has been designed for business desktop PCs. The large number of computers in this sector represent an enormous savings potential for companies and vPro™ will finally help to leverage these savings.
The new Intel® platform is based on its own Averill chipsets and Dual Core™ Processors. This guarantees a seamless integration of chipset and processor and thanks to Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, power consumption will drop and system performance will be boosted by 40 percent. Another feature of the vPro™ Platform is the second version of Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT). This enables single desktop PCs to be managed over a central console and the complete hardware infrastructure can be administered from one workstation. Intel®'s Virtualisation Technology (VT) is the last component of vPro™ technology. Intel® VT enables single partitions to be managed from consolidated server and desktop platforms allowing mixed OS and application environments to be both run and scaled as required.
Furthermore, vPro™ also belongs to the Intel® Stable Image Platform Program (Intel® SIPP). Intel® SIPP enhances software stability by ensuring no changes to key platform components for at least 15 months.
The enormous benefits resulting from this new technology can be broken down into four areas:
1. Manageability Analysing, updating and repairing systems is now child's play as everything can be done from one workstation. Thanks to Intel®'s AMT, the journey from the service engineer to the affected computer will become obsolete. This not only saves on time but also the system administrators' work who often spent the same amount of time going to the PC as they spent repairing it. Departmental efficiency increases while personnel costs decrease. The most interesting feature of vPro™ Technology is tracking individual systems in the network regardless of the current state of the computer. An exact inventory of all PCs is thus possible regardless of whether these are switched on or not.
2. Security Besides advanced features for hardware-based recognition and protection against viruses and other attacks, vPro™ also includes the processor-own Execute Disable Function. This enables the processor to detect damaged codes and to disable them before they can pose a serious threat to the system. This also helps to reduce the high downtime costs of a workstation PC. Infected PCs can automatically be isolated using hardware-based protective measures so as not to represent a threat to the rest of the network. The OS application is executed separately by Intel® VT and an attack cannot affect the entire system. Mass updates can now be executed reliably as vPro™ can upgrade every computer even if they are not switched on or the OS is not available. Thanks to the integrated Intel® Matrix Storage Technology, data security can be improved by setting up a simple RAID set. The data mirrored onto a second disk are thus protected against attack.
3. Performance You can utilise the same technology to increase performance. A RAID 1 array delivers excellent data protection and together with a RAID 0, the speed and number of HDD accesses are optimised. However, the big boost in performance is from the Core™ 2 Duo Processors. In comparison to standard desktop processors, they offer a 40% increase in performance with a 40% drop in power consumption. The processors' 64-bit architecture enables addressing of a larger memory avoiding slow outsourcing operations. Designed for energy efficiency, these processors also enable smaller, quieter fans that make your office a more pleasant place to work.
4. Platform-stability
Unexpected changes to a previously qualified platform can force hardware requalifications and software image revisions. This adds complexity in the client environment and increases hardware support and image management costs. Intel SIPP was designed to help address the need for hardware platforms that support a stable image. By ensuring no changes to key platform components or drivers for at least 15 months from introduction allows for a 3-month qualification period and a 12-month deployment cycle. The benefits of Intel SIPP include a reduction in the total cost of ownership and an improvement in deployment success with fewer configurations on platforms and software images.
Conclusion: The Intel® vPro™ platform represents a solution to the challenges of modern IT environments. PCs with this technology help companies increase employee productivity whereby saving on management and TCO costs. The previously unattainable security level not only means less work for administrators but is also well equipped to meet future advancements and will be able to reach its full potential in combination with the new Windows Vista.
