Released in 2006 as a feature set of the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, vPro technology has been winning its followers slowly but is now set to explode. It has helped that Intel has also embedded the technology in its Centrino processor for mobile PCs. Today, most of the major PC hardware manufacturers have business model PCs embedded with vPro, and the top purveyors of systems management software have developed the interfaces to complement the processor technology. In addition, enough customers have deployed PCs with vPro to give Intel some great proof points of the value.

You haven’t heard of vPro technology? Well, you aren’t alone. It’s another one of those Intel technologies that is under the hood, unseen and unsung, but the buzz is starting to build.

As part of the Core 2 Duo and Centrino processors, vPro technology adds management, security and reliability capabilities at the silicon level so that you can protect and manage PCs regardless of their state. A PC can be active, turned off, or even dead as a door nail, and you can still reach it to diagnose and remediate problems or conduct routine management activities. (Intel personnel are emphatic to say this is not Wake on LAN technology, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.)

As a complement to systems management software, the vPro technology provides better out-of-band (underneath the OS) management. Customers are finding value in four main areas:

* Discover – for platform auditing and hardware and software inventory management.
* Heal – for remote diagnosis and remote and local repair.
* Protect – for software version compliance, hardware-based isolation and recovery, endpoint access control.
* Configure – for one-touch configuration, and remote (zero-touch) configuration.

Here are just a couple of ways that companies are utilizing this technology to cut operations and support costs, lower the Mean Time to Repair (MTR), increase security, and generally reach the “last mile” of machines that were practically impossible to reach before:

* When a PC crashes, no matter where it is located, a technician can diagnose and potentially fix the problem without leaving his desk.
* Companies can run patches on PCs when there's downtime at night. Even if a PC is turned off, it can be remotely awakened to allow for maintenance routines such as software updates.
* It’s possible to get a complete hardware and software inventory, regardless of the on/off status of the PCs. The inventory can be done at night when network traffic and user workloads are low.
* If a PC is infected with a virus or other malware, it can be isolated at the machine level. However, a technician can still communicate with the PC to diagnose and remediate the problem without having to physically visit the PC.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.