Case Study
Intel® vPro™ Technology
IT Authorities
A Strategy of Continuous
Improvement Leads IT Authorities
to Adopt Intel® vPro™ Technology
Advanced PC Management Capabilities Help MSP’s
Customers Do More, Spend Smarter, and be More Secure
“Managing 5,000 PCs at
one company is infinitely
simpler than managing
5,000 machines at 100
companies. So for an
MSP, efficiency and
simplification are critical.
Intel vPro technology
extends our reach and
makes many activities
simpler.”
–T
om Beckman, CTO,
IT Authorities
IT Authorities has built its success as a managed service provider on continuous
improvement of both processes and tools. In the managed services arena, change is
constant and yields both threats and opportunities — but no room to stand still. “Every
one of our 22 employees believes that they will be a little bit better tomorrow than
they were today,” says Tom Beckman, chief technology officer at IT Authorities. “You’ve
got to approach the managed services business that way if you’re going to grow and
remain competitive.” This approach to growth led IT Authorities to adopt Intel® vPro™
technology-based HP desktop and laptop PCs as a standard part of their solution1. By
managing these advanced platforms through their N-able N-central* management
console software, the company has been able to significantly cut the cost of delivering
services while at the same time significantly improving their customers’ IT experience.
“vPro-based HP PCs offer new ways to connect to our customers’ PCs, new ways
to troubleshoot, and new ways to remediate,” explains Doug Garrett, director of
managed services for IT Authorities. “These are significant advantages. In addition,
they’re advantages that can eventually be made standard across all our customers,
regardless of the PC brand or location.” As a result, IT Authorities has made Intel vPro
technology-based PCs their standard and preferred platform. “The cost addition for
a vPro system is only $20, which is inconsequential compared to the ROI for the
customer,” says Beckman. “Every PC we quote is now a vPro-based machine.”
Table 1. Delivering More to Customers Through Intel® vPro™ Technology
IT Authorities’ deployment of PCs based on Intel vPro technology yields better IT functionality and lower service delivery cost3
Activity
Without
Intel vPro Technology
With
Intel vPro Technology
Improvement
Average time to resolve a hardware problem
48 hours
24 hours
Reduced 50%
Average time to resolve an OS problem
72 hours
3 hours
Reduced 96%
Average amount of downtime per PC per month
20 minutes
15 minutes
Reduced 25%
Time to achieve 95% patch saturation
168 hours
72 hours
Reduced 67%
Deskside visits per month
10
8
Reduced 20%
Power cost savings per PC over 3-year life span
$0
$561
TCO lowered
by $561
Advanced Tools Cut Costs
and Improve Customer Service Levels
The advanced manageability and security features of Intel
vPro technology allow IT Authorities to significantly streamline
a number of key PC management tasks within their existing
management console software. This both reduces their cost
and helps eliminate downtime and interruptions for PC users.
The power of this solution has three elements:
• Increased abilities to monitor, manage, and repair PCs remotely —
regardless of power state or operating system health2 — that
greatly reduce maintenance and management costs and increase
the utilization of IT Authorities’ personnel.
• Increased security capabilities that better protect the customer’s
critical data while reducing downtime.
• A standardized, energy-efficient platform that can meet the
developing demands of the customer’s business while significantly
reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).
These capabilities give IT Authorities considerable advantages.
“Managing 5,000 PCs at one company is infinitely simpler than
managing 5,000 machines at 100 companies,” explains Beckman.
“So for an MSP, efficiency and simplification are critical. Intel vPro
technology extends our reach and makes many activities simpler.”
“We can now re-image and rebuild a machine
remotely – which means the turnaround time
has gone from two days to ten minutes.”
–T
om Beckman, CTO,
IT Authorities
Advanced remote capabilities that significantly raise efficiency and lower costs. The advanced remote capabilities of
Intel vPro technology allow IT Authorities to maintain and repair
PCs more quickly and at lower cost. This is true for both normal
maintenance activities and problem resolutions. “Clients often
turn PCs off after hours, and that used to mean that we couldn’t
reach that PC,” says Beckman. “Before vPro, we got at best a 50
percent success rate on updates, resulting in performance and
security problems.” With Intel vPro technology-based PCs, IT
Authorities can automatically power the PC on and execute the
updates seamlessly. “Showing clients how this improves their IT
function helps us in the push for standardization of their PCs,”
notes Beckman.
For the repair of hardware and software problems, Intel vPro
technology’s remote capabilities eliminate many field service
calls by allowing IT Authorities to fix problems remotely. “Avoiding a technician dispatch is a big deal,” says Beckman. “It can
easily save half a day of effort.” Recently, a client called with
a blue-screened Intel vPro technology-based PC. “With vPro’s
out-of-band capabilities, we were able to remotely examine the
machine and determine that it had a memory fault. That allowed
us to check inventory and get the right part shipped overnight.
Without vPro, we would have had to visit the site twice, once to
diagnose and once to remediate,” explains Beckman. “We can
even poll machines for hardware inventory information when
they’re turned off.”
Remote repair of software problems. In addition to allowing IT
Authorities to diagnose many hardware-related issues remotely,
Intel vPro technology allows the company to diagnose and repair
many software-related issues without a service visit. “With vPro’s
in-band and out-of-band capabilities, there really is no software
problem that you can’t fix remotely,” notes Beckman. “We can
now re-image and rebuild a machine remotely — which means the
turnaround time has gone from two days to ten minutes.”
IT Authorities recently dealt with a PC that failed to boot up.
“We looked at it remotely and determined that the user had a
USB key plugged in that was preventing the boot from disk,”
says Beckman. “By avoiding a field visit, vPro’s remote capability
turned a 4½ hour remediation into a very quick fix.” Even simple
maintenance tasks are greatly accelerated: “One of our clients had
a start-up utility that they wanted removed from every machine,”
notes Beckman. “We could do it remotely without vPro, but only
on the machines that were turned on – so the task took five days
to accomplish. With vPro, it would have been a snap.”
“A vPro-based PC replacing an older PC saves $187
per year [in energy costs] – and that’s for every PC.
This makes upgrading to a vPro PC very attractive
and makes our sales process easier.”
–T
om Beckman, CTO,
IT Authorities
Built-in technologies that improve security and help lower
customers’ risk. Because IT Authorities can reach machines that
are powered down, security software updates are accomplished
much more quickly, resulting in better customer protection. “vPro
decreases the time it takes to reach 95 percent patch saturation
at a typical customer from seven days to three days,” says Beckman. In addition, Intel vPro technology’s hardware-based filters
can automatically isolate an infected PC and keep it from spreading across the entire network while maintaining IT Authorities’
connection to the infected machine for remediation. “These are
critical improvements,” says Beckman. “If one guy plugs in a USB
key that his kid was playing with, he can take down an Exchange
server, an SQL database, or an entire company. vPro delivers
marked improvements to the customer’s security profile, and
these are benefits that customers understand and want.”
Active and passive power management capabilities that significantly reduce energy costs. With the ability to turn off groups of
PCs after hours and then power them back up before the start of
the next business day, IT Authorities can now save their customers
money through lower energy usage, making a substantial positive
impact on their ROI. “Unlike server power consumption, most people
are not aware of how PC power usage adds up,” explains Beckman.
“We estimate that a vPro-based PC replacing an older PC saves
$187 per year — and that’s for every PC. This makes upgrading to
a vPro PC very attractive and makes our sales process easier.”
According to Beckman, energy-efficient IT is becoming a client
priority, and Intel vPro technology’s power savings is an important
part of the sales process. “In terms of energy cost, the dollars
saved for many of our clients are monumental.”
N-central* Fuels Managed Services
N-central from N-able Technologies is the leading remote
monitoring and management platform deployed globally by
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) servicing the small and
midsize business market. In addition to providing full support
for the capabilities of Intel® vPro™ technology, N-central
accelerates growing managed services businesses with
unique offerings:
Unparalleled business support. N-able’s state-of-the-art
knowledge management portal provides the training, tools,
and materials you need to build a profitable, high-value
managed services business.
A low-risk, proven solution. N-central is deployed by 2,000
MSPs to monitor and manage 25,000 remote networks.
Powerful PC and server management features.
A comprehensive set of remote management tools provide
the core functionality that all MSPs require to manage
customers effectively and deliver more than 90 percent
of services remotely.
Lowest cost of service delivery. The combination of
N-central, best-practice tutorials, Automated Configuration
Management, and Remote Support Manager reduce your
cost of service delivery.
Agent and agent-less monitoring. Only N-able offers the
flexibility of both agent- and probe-based network monitoring, allowing you to select the most efficient way to manage
your customer’s environment.
Available as an on-premise or hosted solution. N-able’s
remote monitoring and management technology is offered
both as a platform and as a hosted subscription service,
allowing you to pick the option that best fits your needs.
For more information on N-central, visit www.n-able.com.
Better customer experiences and improved account control.
Because Intel vPro technology helps IT Authorities respond more
quickly to customer issues, customer’s productivity and satisfaction are improved. “We can show customers that we’re doing
more proactively, and the customer instinctively understands
how responsive we are to reactive issues,” says Beckman. “In
both cases, Intel vPro technology puts us ahead.” Especially in
the case of problem remediation, Intel vPro technology brings
clear advantages. “When a vPro-based system has an issue, we
can start the process faster; fix the problem faster; and eliminate
that frustrating ‘middle-time’ when the customer knows help is
coming but the help isn’t there yet.”
Delivering Increased Margins
and Competitive Advantage
Overview of Intel® vPro™ Technology
According to Beckman, Intel vPro technology’s capabilities are
resulting in higher margins. “It’s clear that for each client that has
deployed Intel vPro technology-based PCs, our margins are higher,”
says Beckman. “We estimate that overall service profit margins at
those clients average 5 percent higher after the implementation of
vPro systems. This in turn allows us to enhance our offering to the
client, with additional tools such as backup, change management, and
richer monitoring.” Not only does the technology build profitability,
but it also delivers competitive advantages that build revenue. “The
capabilities of Intel vPro technology make IT Authorities faster than
our competitors, with better capabilities for monitoring and remediation,” he says. “As vPro becomes more and more the standard in the
small and midsized business market, we have an advantage because
we know how to leverage those capabilities. We can bring better
resolution times and greater flexibility in the delivery of our services.”
For More Information
For more information on the benefits of Intel vPro technology
for small and midsize businesses, visit msp.intel.com.
For more information on IT Authorities, visit www.itauthorities.com.
For more information on N-able’s N-central management console
software, visit www.n-able.com.
Desktop, notebook, and tablet PCs based on Intel vPro
technology, combined with a leading software management
application such as N-able’s N-central*, provide unprecedented
capabilities. These advances allow you to deliver more value
to your managed services customers by helping them spend
smarter, get more done, and be more secure.
• Remote diagnosis and repair reduce costly and time-consuming
deskside and service depot visits by resolving problems and
repairing PCs quickly from the console – even if the PC is
powered off or in standby mode, is connected to a wireless
network, or has a disabled OS.1
• Automated proactive alerts identify issues before they
become problems or costly repairs. These include alerts
about missing or disabled software, memory usage, hard
drive health, fans, and power supplies.
• Secure remote power up and power cycling allow you to
perform scheduled maintenance, backups, and monitoring
after hours.1
• Encrypted, remote security updates ensure that security
patches are up to date and speed the deployment of
critical patches, even to systems that are off or down.
• Remote asset tracking eliminates time-consuming manual
inventory of hardware and software with remote inventory
management, even if the system is off or down.
Solution provided by:
Intel® vPro™ Technology is sophisticated and requires setup and activation. Availability of features and results will depend upon the setup and configuration of your hardware, software and IT environment. To learn more visit: http://www.
intel.com/technology/vpro
1
2
Requires activation and a system with a corporate network connection, an Intel® AMT-enabled chipset, network hardware and software. For notebooks, Intel AMT may be unavailable or limited over a host OS-based VPN, when connecting
wirelessly, on battery power, sleeping, hibernating or powered off. Results dependent upon hardware, setup & configuration. For more information, visit http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/intel-amt
3
Source: IT Authorities based on field testing performed during July 2009.
This document is for informational purposes only. Intel makes no warranties, express or implied, in this document.
Copyright © 2011 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel vPro, and Core inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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