Raising the ROI Bar

Read how Intel® vPro™ technology users get ROIs so quick and large they’re raising the bar for IT paybacks, thanks to an activation process that has been kicked into overdrive.

It’s amazing what can happen in just four years:

• The State of Indiana saved USD 1.2 million in travel support costs and realized a positive return on investment (ROI) of 502 percent.
• The University of Plymouth reduced annual energy costs by 50 percent and recorded an ROI of 790 percent.
• The Calgary Health Region realized 2.7M kilowatt-hours (kWhs) in energy savings and achieved a 78 percent ROI.

Intel® vPro™ technology is the common link and the driving force behind these extremely impressive financial returns, which are occurring more frequently because the time required to activate vPro technology is quickly shrinking.

This rapid reduction is enabled by an array of user-friendly tools and utilities that make it is easier than ever for end users, independent software vendors (ISVs), and other third-party providers to deploy vPro technology hardware-assisted management, security, and energy-efficient capabilities to remote PCs.ⁱ

In fact, these capabilities are typically being rolled out in three months or less as a growing number of savvy customers capitalize on Intel’s helpful collection of activation aids.

The new and expedited activation process is a welcome change from the limited, more complex versions encountered by early adopters during the past three years.

That process took many months—and in some cases years—to successfully navigate, and forced customers to drill deep into their IT infrastructures, add intelligent certificates to remote PCs, and determine how to accommodate key underlying technologies such as the Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name Service (DNS), and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

According to Josh Hilliker, architect and community manager for the Intel vPro Expert Center, the lack of a certificate strategy enabling remote PCs to communicate with a centralized management console was a critical shortcoming.

“Three years ago, we did not have that capability,” Hilliker notes. “As a result, an IT guy would have to walk around to every single machine and personally configure its BIOS firmware, and from an IT automation standpoint, that is not a good way to scale. The road back then was a rough one.”

No more.

Empowered by the remote configuration process, network-attached PCs can initiate a secure dialogue with a centralized management console that activates their certificates and remotely configures them with whatever image the company wants.

In addition to saving money, this remote configuration process also eliminates human error from the implementation equation.

On the security side, vPro technology improves network traffic filtering and isolates clients under attack. Automatic security agent verification and immediate remote restoration enhance preventive security efforts, and remote power-up functionality enables customers to more quickly deploy off-hours patches.

The Right Tools for the Job

Customers will appreciate the Activation Cheat Sheet available from the vPro Expert Center. It provides high-level steps and directs users to the training and/or documents needed to accomplish those steps.

Some of the available information includes:

• a list of compatible management consoles
• an overview and description of features, including which ones produce maximum ROI
• data describing training modules for provisioning and remote configuration

Other tools at the vPro Expert Center are designed to enable vPro technology management, testing, and development efforts.

For example, the new Intel® AMT Reflector enables an Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) client to access and manage some Intel vPro technology functionality locally via the operating system without entering the management engine directly. This is usually done via BIOS.

Hilliker says Intel also offers webinars for a more personalized learning experience. “The webinars provide a more intimate setting with a professional giving you a step-by-step, hands-on view of how you need to modify your infrastructure or change your console settings, or do add-ons to increase your value,” he notes.

Three Activation Strategies

Hilliker describes three vPro technology activation strategies:

• self activation
• systems integration
• outsourcing

Self Activation

He recommends that self activators start by obtaining an activation cheat sheet and use it as a planning guide to determine what needs to be accomplished, what resources are required, and which members of the IT organization should be involved.

Once the people and resources are selected, the next step is downloading activation tools from the vPro Expert Center site and making them available to all activation team members.

Hilliker says the third step involves doing “as much lab testing as you want,” and he suggests implementing two or three PCs with a lightweight console to gain a thorough working knowledge of how machines operate in a vPro environment before rolling them out in a production environment.

Systems Integration

Hilliker says that systems integrators should act as “orchestrators” who provide maximum value with their configurations.

Despite their reduced role in this model, IT organizations should still have a hand in deciding what infrastructure modifications should be made, and how technologies such as DHCP, DNS, and certificates should be integrated into the finished solution.

Outsourcing

In an outsourcing environment, the IT organization plays a hands-off role, and acts as a consumer who tells the outsourcer that it wants them to use vPro technology because it will save money and increase productivity based on both reduced power consumption and faster PC repair times.

With vPro technology, those machines can be serviced remotely as opposed to being physically retrieved and sent off-site for repairs.

As Hilliker puts it, “If the outsourcer is driving Intel vPro technology, you can say, ‘Look, it doesn’t matter what coast you are on or where in the world you are located—fix my PC, please’ and they have the ability to do that without coming to your location.”

No matter which of these three strategies are deployed, it is wise to start with a relatively simple application such as remote management or power management. According to Hilliker, “These are easier and faster to do, and they really get your organization pumped up and excited about the technology.”

Conclusion

Any IT executive with budgetary responsibilities appreciates the value of ROI, and an increasing number of vPro technology users are achieving ROIs that are so quick and large that they seem to have raised the bar for IT paybacks.

These gains can be traced back to a vPro technology activation process that has been kicked into overdrive by the growing number of targeted tools and utilities that have made it easier for users to move forward and expand their implementations.

ⁱ Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) requires the computer system to have an Intel® AMT-enabled chipset, network hardware and software, as well as connection with a power source and a corporate network connection. Setup requires configuration by the purchaser and may require scripting with the management console or further integration into existing security frameworks to enable certain functionality. It may also require modifications of implementation of new business processes. With regard to notebooks, Intel AMT may not be available or certain capabilities may be limited over a host OS-based VPN or when connecting wirelessly, on battery power, sleeping, hibernating or powered off. For more information, see http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/intel-amt/.