Intel’s Gen Intel vPro platform to support business

With the development of technology, “online” has become the mainstream form of activity, e-commerce has grown rapidly, and the digital platform has become the main communications channel. Nowadays, many employees are gradually choosing to work from home, and information technology (IT) organizations are going to control the changes between “Work from Home” and “Work in the Office”. Therefore, Intel has released the 11^th Gen Intel vPro platform to support business leaders needing security features as well as productivity improvements during the pandemic.

Intel vPro is a platform built for business, using 11^th Gen - 12^th Gen Intel Core. It is a set of hardware and firmware technologies utilized to build business computing endpoints. The Intel vPro platform also accelerates business security and productivity. Its value proposition spans four pillars, and business decision-makers who standardize on the vPro platform can benefit from hardware-enhanced protection, advanced maintenance, and validated platforms, all with the performance headroom to handle a wide range of business workflows.

The 11^th Gen processors feature the all-new Intel Iris Xe graphics processor, which delivers a huge jump in performance. They have also integrated both Intel Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 4 so that users get the latest wireless and cable connectivity standards built in. When we combine all of these latest technologies, 11^th Gen processors deliver exceptional performance for workers who need to collaborate and be productive.

Intel Hardware Shield enabled Hardware-enhances Security Features with Advanced Threat Protection, Application & Data Protection, and Below-the-OS Security. Advanced Threat Protection uses aggressive memory scanning and artificial intelligence to detect new threats like ransomware and crypto-mining. Application & Data Protection includes encryption acceleration along with other features to protect applications and login credentials from attacks. Below-the-OS Security prevents attacks against the BIOS and other firmware to enable a secure hardware and firmware foundation for the operating system.

The Intel vPro Platform comes with Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT), which allows IT to establish a secure connection between IT and a vPro-based PC. Once that secure connection is established, IT can perform a lot of different tasks as part of AMT. Remote power control continues to be one of the most used features of Intel AMT. With this, IT is able to remotely control the power state of a PC. Businesses use this to automate after hours patching while keeping energy costs down. They can turn PCs off at the end of the day, yet wake them during the night to perform security updates without impacting productivity. Once they complete the patching they can put the PCs back to sleep to save energy. Lastly, before the workday begins, they can wake those PCs so everything is running and ready when employees arrive.

The other most popular feature is hardware KVM. We are all familiar with software-based tools that we can use to take control of PCs and see the screen and move the mouse to help fix a system. It’s a very powerful tool, but only if the software can run. When a PC cannot successfully boot, those software-based tools are powerless. That is where Active Management Technology really shines because it has a hardware KVM built into the chips. Even if the PC cannot boot, IT can connect with full KVM support to remotely remediate the PC, even entering the BIOS while maintaining the KVM connection.

Intel Endpoint Management Assistant extends the power of Intel AMT beyond the firewall. By using a cloud-based management infrastructure, devices do not need a functional VPN to receive support from IT. As long as the AMT-enabled PC can reach the cloud, IT can securely connect to and remotely control that PC. This also allows IT, technicians, themselves to do their job either onsite or remotely. The cloud-based infrastructure is also easier to deploy and scale than traditional on-premise infrastructure and can be controlled using a simple web interface. When you are running Intel EMA combined with Intel AMT, not only can you fix corrupted applications but a corrupted VPN is no problem at all and a corrupted OS can also be remediated remotely.

In addition, the pandemic brought a lot of disruption and the additional need to support millions of devices remotely. Accenture used Intel vPro technology to remotely access, monitor, and manage devices but more importantly resolve any issues. Accenture chose vPro both internally for their more than 500,000 employees and uses vPro to manage millions of devices among their thousands of customers around the globe. It is clear that the Intel vPro platform is a comprehensive solution for businesses to increase productivity, protect business assets and maintain business organizations to get over the pandemic. All thanks to the modern technologies built into this platform.