Intel IT Training Room - Making PRO a reality in the training rooms

[idata]

Global Management of PC based Training Rooms within Intel has been an ongoing struggle requiring a support person to be physically in the room to do OS and Application installs, and Repairs which in turn add additional overhead supports costs to my team.

Back in Q1'07 we did a vPro Pilot in one of the training rooms here at Intel to determine how vPro technology would help reduce the day to day support costs, increase performance and give my team the ability to centrally manage the day to day support activities.

At IT@Intel website, http://www.intel.com/it there is the whitepaper that IT and Training Room Solutions, my team put together covering the Pilot

Managing Training Rooms with Intel(R) vPro(TM) Processor Technology

http://www.intel.com/it/pdf/managing-training-rooms-with-intel-vpro-processor-technology.pdf

Over the months after the Pilot my team has deployed 300 systems, 210 across the US and 90 in Malaysia. USB Provisioning to pre-configure the systems iAMT allowing the systems to connect to the corporate SCS(Setup and Configuration Services) server finishing the corporate standard configuration.

Once everything was configured it has added a more reliable remote capability allowing my support team to remotely rebuild a room without physically touching the systems, debug hardware failures and force sleeping systems to wake up.

My team still has work to do with vPro integration but very happy with the first steps.

[JoshHilliker]

What type of problems have you ran into & what are the key things you need to know in order to implement vPro?

[Terry_C_Intel]

This approach of "start small and with minimal risk" is reflected across other enterprise environments we are working with. Generally speaking - the immediate values and learnings have led to renewed interest and focus for wider deployment of vPro\AMT capabilities.

Other corporations have successfully deployed and configured 100's if not 1,000's already - with refined plans\strategies in place to pursue the next 1,000 and beyond.

[idata]

A big issue that the I've been running into is funding for PC Based training rooms. The ROI is definitely proven moving to the vPro platforms, increased performance, new systems reliability and the remote iAMT capabilities allowing for a central support team to manage, diagnose Hardware issues decreasing support costs and the ability to do remote system NON-Hardware repairs.