IT@ Brief Intel IT IT Best Practices Manufacturing and Intel® Core™ vPro™ Processors September 2011

Managing a Factory IT Environment with Intel® vPro™

• Up to 61% potential reduction Following a successful proof of concept (PoC) test, Intel IT plans to use Intel® vPro™ in deskside visits. technology to remotely manage PCs within select factory IT environments. Intel vPro • Improved security due to more technology is a set of hardware-based capabilities in PCs with Intel® Core™ vPro™ reliable patch delivery. processors that enhances IT’s ability to remotely manage, maintain, and protect PCs.

• Energy savings of approximately We conducted testing at a small manufacturing site to determine whether, by using 64% due to the ability to remotely Intel vPro technology, we could reduce support and energy costs while improving PC control the power state of PCs. availability and security. We successfully tested four use cases: remote troubleshooting, remote reimaging, interim repair, and power management for more reliable security patch delivery as well as energy savings.

Based on our results and an analysis of Service Desk tickets, we concluded that we could reduce deskside support visits, achieve more reliable patch delivery, and reduce energy consumption, as shown in Table 1. As a result, we plan to use Intel vPro technology to manage all 125 PCs at the site, and we are also evaluating use of Intel vPro technology at other Intel factories.

Our results suggest that Intel vPro technology could deliver similar benefits to other organizations with similar-sized IT environments, such as small and medium- sized businesses.

Table 1. Intel® vPro™ Technology Use Cases and Benefits Use Case Test Results Business Value

Remote troubleshooting Verified remote control capabilities; Significant potential reduction in deskside visits and hands-on rebuilds; analysis of trouble tickets indicates and reimaging remotely reimaged PC. that 61 percent of problems that previously required deskside support could be resolved remotely.

Interim repair Remotely loaded OS and client software Quickly enable PCs with (HDD) failures to function as terminals. This means systems can that enabled PC to act as terminal. be up and running in 15 minutes compared with the 1 to 2 hours required for HDD replacement.

Power management for patch Remotely powered PCs on and off. Save about 2 hours per month by being able to reliably power on PCs for patch delivery; approximately delivery and energy savings 64 percent reduction in average power consumption due to scheduled power on and power off during non-working hours. IT@Intel Brief www.intel.com/it

Background need to get PCs up and running as quickly as possible. It would be faster and more Implementing Intel® vPro™ Manufacturing operations are at the heart of Intel’s business. Efficiency, availability, efficient if IT technicians could fix these Technology within the and security are paramount throughout the problems remotely. Intel IT Environment manufacturing environment—including factory • At times, all support personnel may be offsite, Intel® vPro™ technology consists IT systems. making remote manageability essential. of hardware-assisted security and To enhance security, Intel’s factory IT systems • Software updates and security patches are manageability capabilities that are isolated from the rest of the corporate IT delivered from another facility during off enhance Service Desk technicians’ environment so that security compromises hours; delivery has not been completely ability to maintain, manage, and cannot spread to vital manufacturing operations. reliable because PCs may be powered off protect and desktop PCs— Accordingly, factories have their own dedicated during the scheduled delivery time. Manual effort is required to check whether patches even if the PC is shut down or the IT support staff—who must work extremely efficiently due to the limited IT resources were delivered and remediate if necessary. OS is unresponsive. available at each factory. • We are constantly seeking energy savings. Embedded in hardware, Intel vPro At a small manufacturing site in the United Users may leave PCs on after work hours, technology capabilities can be States, for example, there are only two so the PCs consume energy even when accessed and administered in a dedicated IT support people to manage 125 not in use. pre-boot environment, without PCs, 8 physical servers, and 12 virtual servers. reliance on the hard drive, OS, or The PCs at this factory are primarily used Proof of Concept software applications. This allows to access a variety of factory management We tested four use cases using Intel remote access to the PC regardless applications. For security reasons, the PCs run a vPro technology capabilities: remote of the system’s power state or OS locked-down IT software build and are assigned troubleshooting, remote reimaging, interim condition. IT can manage PCs using static IP addresses to prevent ad-hoc addition of repair, and power management for patch Intel vPro technology over wired and new devices to the network. deployment and energy savings. wireless networks, both within and This factory recently upgraded to new PCs with REMOTE TROUBLESHOOTING outside corporate firewalls. Intel Core vPro processors, including PCs with Challenge. Without Intel vPro technology, 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ processors. Intel IT sees Intel vPro technology many everyday software-related problems These PCs include Intel vPro technology, a set as a core capability for improving require a deskside visit. These problems include of hardware-assisted security and manageability corrupted data or code that can prevent users system defense, asset discovery, capabilities that enhance Service Desk from launching applications, completing the boot remote builds, virtualized client technicians’ ability to maintain, manage, and process, or logging on to the network. usages, and device-independent protect systems. (See sidebar.) computing. Because of these With Intel vPro technology. PCs based on 2nd Intel IT is deploying Intel vPro technology across benefits, Intel IT is implementing generation Intel Core vPro processors support our enterprise environment and expects to Keyboard-Video-Mouse (KVM) Remote Control. Intel vPro technology across our IT achieve significant savings as a result. We saw This capability allows IT to remotely take over environment. the potential to realize similar benefits within users’ PCs. It lets IT support technicians see factories, by using Intel vPro technology to more what their customers see, regardless of PC quickly and efficiently resolve PC problems while state. Our goal was to use this capability to reducing cost and improving security. remotely troubleshoot a variety of problems, Due to the critical operational requirements including those that prevent PCs from of Intel’s factories, we undertake extensive completing the boot process. testing before introducing new into the factory IT environment. We therefore Test Procedure and Results conducted PoC testing to explore the use of We verified that we could remotely view the Intel vPro technology to address current IT user’s screen as the user sees it using KVM challenges within the factory: Remote Control from a support technician’s PC. We were able to check that each step of the • Many problems, such as inoperable PCs, boot process completed correctly. currently require deskside visits or costly downtime. In the factory environment, we www.intel.com/it IT@Intel Brief

REMOTE REIMAGING important to get PCs back online more quickly and apply patches to five to 10 systems. This can Challenge. A system may crash or fail to boot due than is possible using the reimaging process. take up to two hours. to a corrupted OS or other significant problems Test Procedure and Results The inability to remotely control PC power state with the build on the hard disk drive (HDD). Today, We devised a process that takes advantage also hinders our ability to save energy. The factory this requires a Service Desk technician to remove of Intel vPro technology to quickly get a PC typically works from 7:00 to 16:00, so PCs are the system from the factory floor and either functioning on the network. As shown in unused for nearly two-thirds of each 24-hour replace it with a spare or completely reinstall Figure 1, we loaded a bare-bones Linux* OS cycle. However, employees currently leave PCs the lock-down build image. into the PC’s RAM over the network. This OS powered on at all times so that patches can be With Intel vPro technology Support technicians included terminal server client software. We applied after hours or at the weekend. can remotely install or reinstall images on the used this software to launch a client session to With Intel vPro technology: Intel IT can PC from network drives. Our goal was to replace a server running the required applications. remotely power each system on and off based on corrupted OS images remotely, eliminating the This process enables an employee to quickly a predetermined schedule, or whenever required. need for a deskside visit or to physically take the resume working, though not with the full This means that we can power up systems to system for reimaging. functionality of a PC. The entire process took verify patch delivery and that users can now Test Procedure and Results about 15 minutes, compared to the one to two power down their PCs at the end of each day. hours typically required to replace a HDD. For a We were able to successfully reimage PCs Test Procedure and Results permanent repair, the PC could then be taken using the remote reimaging capability of Intel Using the PC Alarm Clock capability within offline for HDD replacement or reimaging outside vPro technology. We created a corporate OS Intel vPro technology, we created a job that working hours or during scheduled downtime. image on a network server and installed it on remotely powers the factory’s PCs on and off at the PC using a tool that utilized serial over LAN REMOTE POWER MANAGEMENT FOR scheduled times. We built a Web interface that (SOL) and integrated device electronics redirect ENERGY SAVINGS AND PATCH DELIVERY enables the factory’s managers to power up PCs (IDE‑R). We repeated this several times with two if the factory is working non-standard hours. We Challenge: In the past, we have not been able different desktop PC models. The process took verified that the software consistently powered to reliably power PCs on and off remotely to from about 30 minutes to an hour, depending PCs on and off as intended, enabling reliable enable consistent patch delivery and reduce on network traffic. patch delivery. energy consumption. INTERIM REMEDIATION OS To analyze potential energy savings, we Security patches and other updates are typically measured and compared PC power consumption. Challenge. If the HDD fails or becomes delivered remotely from another site on weekends, We found that even when running typical inaccessible, systems may be unusable for a when the factory is not working. However, patches workloads, PCs based on Intel® Core™ i5 vPro™ significant period, hindering factory productivity. cannot be delivered to some PCs because they processors used greater than 50 percent less A failed HDD must be physically swapped out, have been switched off. To avoid security risks, power than our previously installed PCs based which takes one to two hours. If the issue is due IT support staff must check each PC after the on Intel® Pentium® 4 processors. The factory’s to software or data problems, it can be fixed using weekend to determine whether the patches were actual energy savings would be even greater the reimaging process above; however, it may be delivered. They typically must manually power on than this, because we could remotely power off the new PCs when not in use.

User’s hard drive fails. User contacts the Service Desk. 1

Desktop PC Based on IT Console 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ vPro™ Processor Family Client session is launched on user’s PC, enabling user to log onto server-based application and quickly resume working. 2 3 Support technician uses an Intel® vPro™ technology-enabled management tool to load a Linux* OS with a terminal server client into RAM on the user’s PC.

Server-based Application Figure 1. Interim remediation OS use case. Analyzing the that such a failure occurs, our interim repair use Business Value case demonstrated that Intel vPro technology significantly reduces downtime. We can provide a We analyzed the potential benefits of 61% user with access to network applications within implementing our tested Intel vPro technology could have about 15 minutes, rather than the one to two been resolved use cases at the factory. remotely hours required previously. REMOTE TROUBLESHOOTING AND POWER MANAGEMENT FOR PATCH REMOTE REIMAGING DELIVERY AND ENERGY SAVINGS The biggest benefits to Intel of these use cases The ability to remotely power on PCs enables are the potential reductions in deskside visits Figure 2. Of the 301 Service Desk tickets in us to save approximately two hours per month and the ability to diagnose and repair PCs even 2010 that required deskside support visits, of IT technician time by successfully applying when the support team is offsite. 61 percent could have been resolved remotely patches to all systems down the wire. using Intel® vPro™ technology. To quantify these benefits, we analyzed the 472 Across the 125 PCs at the factory, we tickets received by the factory IT support team estimate energy savings of approximately during 2010. Of the 472 tickets, 301 required a 64 percent due to the ability to remotely deskside visit. Users commonly reported problems control the power state of PCs based on with loading the OS, or logging into the network Intel Core vPro processors. or applications. Other tickets were created because users did not understand error messages or how to respond to them. Typical fixes included Conclusion and Next Steps replacing corrupted files and deleting registry keys. Our PoC demonstrated that we can achieve significant productivity, security, and cost As shown in Figure 2, we estimate that 61 benefits due to reduced deskside support visits, percent of these tickets (186 out of 301) could more consistent patch delivery, and reduced have been resolved remotely with Intel vPro energy consumption. As a result, we plan to technology, by using KVM Remote Control and, use Intel vPro technology to manage all PCs in some cases, remote reimaging capabilities. at the factory, and we are investigating its An additional benefit of Intel vPro technology is use at other factories. AUTHORS that we could potentially use remote reimaging Our experiences suggest that Intel vPro Patricia Roberts to upgrade to a new OS, such as technology could deliver similar benefits Automation Engineer, Intel IT Windows 7*, down the wire. for other organizations with similar-sized IT Kelly Frey INTERIM REPAIR environments, such as small and medium- sized businesses. IT Support Technician, Intel IT With our PCs based on Intel Core vPro processors, HDD failures are rare. However, in the event CONTRIBUTORS Dan Brunton For more straight talk on current topics from Intel’s IT leaders, Senior Technical Integration Engineer visit www.intel.com/it

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