Active Management Technology (AMT)

Intel introduced manageability directly into its chip set with the Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) initiative; the direct result was the Intel vPro desktop processor. Intel and Microsoft worked on a strategic management initiative so that software could communicate directly with hardware. Now, when a user contacts the help desk with that same scenario, a help desk administrator can actively engage and potentially resolve an issue without needing to escalate a ticket to another team.

Configuration Manager leverages four key areas to communicate directly to hardware. These areas may be leveraged holistically within an organization’s standard operating procedures for in-band and out-of-band management to provide a streamlined resolution process. In-band management is used when the Configuration Manager client agent is functioning, and out-ofband management occurs when software communicates with hardware because no other means may apply. These are the four areas:

1. Discovery Discovery is an out-of-band management area that provides an administrator with the ability to achieve discovery on demand. This can be performed on a single machine or groups of machines via a Configuration Manager collection. It also allows you to schedule a discovery so that if the software does not respond, the hardware still can provide insight into an asset.
2. Power Control Power control provides the flexibility to allow both scheduled and ondemandpower-on capabilities. From a scheduling perspective, this can potentially improve efficiency and data consistency when used in conjunction with other Configuration Manager features such as software distribution, software update management, or operating system deployment. From an on-demand perspective, this enables administrators to wake up, restart,or shut down a remote machine. One area of efficiency that enterprises are increasingly demanding is power management. Thus, the ability to control hardware and software from a single pane of glass becomes an attractive feature.
3. Provisioning Provisioning workstations, either as new assets that enter the enterprise or as a means to an end in the remediation process, has become a necessary part of an administrator’s role. As the operating system becomes less independent of hardware (that is, the operating system hardware abstraction layer [HAL]), the provisioning process may become more streamlined. With an integrated solution such as AMT and Configuration Manager, secure, zero-touch setup and provisioning of workstations can be achieved.
4. Remote Console Remote console for out-of-band management enables administrators to perform advanced techniques such as serial over LAN, IDE redirection, BIOS password bypass, and manual power control. This allows an administrator to remotely mount a bootable troubleshooting image (ISO image), boot into the BIOS to change the boot order, or turn the targeted machine on or off at will.

To that end, when the user contacts the help desk with a nonfunctioning operating system, the help desk administrator can proactively take the appropriate actions. For example, the  standard operating procedure might look starkly different from just creating a ticket and dispatching a desktop support technician. It may be that the help desk administrator reboots into the BIOS, leveraging the serial-over-LAN capabilities, and changes the boot order in the BIOS so that the network card is the first in the boot order. From there, a diagnostic tool is mounted with IDE redirection, which shows the administrator that the operating system has some corrupt DLLs. Thus, the administrator can then provision a role-based operating system image to this user to reimage the workstation. A process or help desk ticket that might have been very expensive or time consuming now becomes a streamlined process that results in the user having less downtime and a higher degree of satisfaction with their help desk experience.