How to make PCs easier to manage

Thousands of PCs can be quite a handful to manage. Luckily HP and Intel have ways to make the job easier.

IT departments in universities and colleges spend the majority of their time dealing with routine maintenance - inventories, patching, theft prevention, break/fix and end-user support. In the business world, Gartner estimate that this makes up to 90 percent of IT spending. With similar hardware, the proportion must be similar in the education sector.

There are more valuable things a university or college IT department could spend its resources on. Simplifying PC management releases staff and budget for them.

Simplify management

There are a number of things you can do to make life simpler:

• Standardise hardware and software images
• Deploy PCs with Intel® vPro™ processor technology (see below for more on this)
• Switch to vPro™ support on computers you already own
• Measure real costs by taking a whole-of-business and whole-of-life look at PC costs, including energy consumption and support costs
• Make manageability features part of your RFPs for new hardware
• Consider outsourcing, for example: infrastructure management and technical support
• Choose hardware that makes it easier to implement features like encryption, biometric authentication, etc.
• Gather statistics on PC management: how long does it take to deploy new security updates? How many support problems can you fix remotely? How accurate are your inventories?
• Deploy management software to monitor and manage your entire fleet.

How HP can help

• Many printers, one printer driver. HP’s universal print driver works with most HP networked printers. It’s simpler for users and simpler for the IT department.
  
  
• Easier BIOS management. HP’s Client Management Interface lets IT technicians manage BIOS configurations by providing a consistent interface to popular management software.
  
  
• Built-in data recovery. HP’s Local Recovery Solution provides data back-up and recovery capabilities. With little or no help desk assistance, users can quickly recover data lost due to accidental deletion or software image corruption.
  
  
• HP OpenView. Automate and centralise the management of your PC fleet, including operating system, software, updates, content and configuration settings, with HP OpenView software.
  
  
• HP System Management solutions. Altiris Inventory Solutions for clients makes it easy to identify and manage heterogeneous devices across the whole campus.
  
  
• Single software image. HP Business Notebooks share a single software image, making management and support easier.
  
  
• Longer life cycles. HP has committed to longer product life cycles - up to 18 months or more - to reduce lifetime costs and simplify transition planning.
  
  
• Warranties and support. With a range of warranty options, HP eSupport and add-on Care Packs (extended warranties) HP has a comprehensive range of support options.

Intel® vPro™ processor technology

Intel® vPro™ processor technology, available on certain HP Notebook and desktop PCs, embeds management and security capabilities into the processor itself.

Features include:

• Hardware-based secure remote access. Giving support technicians remote control over computers, even if they are switched off or unresponsive.
  
  
• Remote power control: reboot, power up or power down as required.
  Allowing remote, unattended patching, inventories and support. It also cuts energy consumption.
  
  
• Alerts. For example if management software is removed.
  
  
• Non-volatile memory. For storing log files and other system information.
  
  
• Hardware network filters. Protecting against malware with network throttling or isolation, to prevent the spread of viruses, even if the OS is unresponsive.

When linked to a configuration management tool, such as HP OpenView or Microsoft SMS, Intel® vPro™ processor technology promises substantial savings. In pilot studies, companies using it were able to cut the number of desk-side visits by 60 percent, inventoried 1,000 machines in 30 minutes and patched 5,000 PCs in 12 hours (compared with 253 hours using older technology).

Benefits include:

• Fix problems remotely. Reducing desk-side support calls by up to 50 percent.
  
  
• Reduce interruptions. Speed up diagnosis of technical problems.
  
  
• Better inventories. Faster, more accurate hardware and software inventories.
  
  
• More efficient updating. Push updates and patches, even if machines are switched off.
  
  
• Reduce power consumption. New CPUs offer more power for the same energy consumption, but they can be switched off overnight and still kept up to date.
  
  
• Increased security. Hardware network filters, buffer overflow protection and port authentication.

The benefits of Intel® vPro™ processor technology increase as the number of installed systems grows. There is a tipping point where universities and colleges can switch it on and get an immediate benefit. Until that point, it makes sense to specify the technology in RFPs, much like buying HD-ready TVs even if there is not much HD content available. It’s a question of future-proofing. Bringing forward Intel® vPro™ activation by, for example, deploying it on a department-by-department basis, can also bring interim benefits.