1. Distant desktops in outsource shift
SIMON SHARWOOD - September 19, 2006
Intel's new vPro platform could lower the cost of outsourcing services, says Telstra's Kaz Group, the only Australian
outsourcer to play with the new technology.
The platform is a combination of Intel's new Core 2 Duo chips, Kaz's own motherboards and existing technologies
such as Wake-on-LAN. Thanks to new firmware features - Intel calls this active management technology - vPro allows
PCs to be managed without being switched on when harnessed to management software such as Microsoft's System
Management Server.
Intel has opened its firmware to third parties to enable specific management tasks. Symantec is one vendor to make
anti-virus tools for vPro.
Grant Chapman, Kaz's distributed computing solutions manager, says vPro allows technicians to manage PCs at
chipset level instead of via the network interface card.
Kaz tested vPro on 20 desktop PCs, running the Windows-based standard operating environment it offers clients. Mr
Chapman says the tests showed the benefits of the vPro approach, such as the ability to monitor switched-off PCs so
that an alert would be sent out if components are removed.
The technology's ability to distribute updates to anti-virus software without switching on the target computers also
impressed Kaz, as did being able to start up PCs without accessing the disk partition targeted by viruses or other
malware.
"We can wake up a PC, deliver the update, perform any other action and then shut down," Mr Chapman says. "And we
can do it without waking the operating system and risking the problem will spread."
He says in Kaz's case visits by tech staff to desktops will drop by half: "That means less disruption to users. And we
will arrive with the right tools because vPro will have diagnosed the problem before we arrive. You can never get away
from the fact that hardware fails. The difference is the action we take will now be more precise."
Because physical interventions will be fewer in number and shorter, Mr Chapman also believes costs will fall.
But the admission that it will cost Kaz less to service customers who deploy vPro has drawn calls for users to ensure
that their outsourcing contracts will benefit from this innovation.
"If an outsourcer can cut their costs internally, you will never know," says Dr Kevin McIsaac, an analyst with Intelligent
Business Research Services. "I am not aware that an outsourcer has ever come back and said, 'We are doing such a
good job, we are cutting the price of our services'."
Dr McIsaac recommends companies ensure their outsourcing deals allow them to compare their services against best
practice, "if the cost of hardware falls or something like vPro comes along that cuts the cost of delivering services".
He says independent expertise when drafting agreements can help ensure contracts include the flexibility to adopt
cost-cutting technologies without handing the savings to their outsourcers.