New vPro brings excitement to PC management

INTEL JUST LAUNCHED another vErsion of vPro, this one has added AMT5.0. For those of you who don't know about vPro, it is basically remote management technology for the desktop.

Then new vErsion was called McCreary, and to gain the wondrous benefits, you need a Core Prefix Number Numeral Suffix CPU, a Q45 chipset and an Intel 82567LM NIC. You can tell those by the 82567LM stamped on the chip carrier, it really stands out if you pull the heatsinks off. Together, they make vPro.

The three pillars of benefits are security, energy (savings presumably), and manageability, all good things. With the security component, Intel is now claiming through-firewall secure connections, an obvious good thing by any measure. They also say that you can access any vPro based machine to monitor it remotely, again a good thing.

The downside is that they support MS NAP environments, putting support for a broken proprietary technology in hardware is never a good idea. 100 per cent security unless you use a different OS, what a bright idea! Now with added hardware support. Another down side to this all is for it to work in any sane way, you must buy into a security framework from one of several large vEndors. Anyone trust Symantec or McAfee to do everything for you?

For manageability, the new machines now have remote help calling features that are not OS dependent. In theory, this is a really good idea, if you can pester the help desk and have them reimage your HD while on an 'executive retreat', that is a win/win. You also get remote scheduled maintenance if your machine isn't totally borked.

To deal with it all, there is a new console called IT Director, basically a dashboard with a few features. The most annoying thing it has is USB device block, an oft requested corporate feature that hammers productivity while reducing data loss by .0000000317 per cent if it is warm enough out. Until they come out with camera phone blocking technology, this tech won't do much to save precious bits from the bad guys, but it will annoy Joe Exec on that retreat.

The last bit, energy saving, is one of those things that all new techs absolutely must have now. If GM comes out with a new 8L V12 Hummer, it will be 'green' somehow. The vPro spin on this is that you can more precisely turn on and off machines, saving power. While this is true, it is a fraction of what you could by educating your employees to turn off lights, turn off PCs when not in use, etc etc.

In the end, the new vPro does what it says, makes things a bit more manageable, a bit more secure, and a bit more fixable. Given the cost, basically included in the Q45/82567LM combo, there are really no good arguments against it.

If you choose to deploy it, you may vEry well see some benefits. If you don't, no harm done.µ