Altiris Juice - A Community for Altiris Product Enthusiasts

Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases, Part 4: Auditing and Software Remediation

Joel Smith — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:27:15 -0500

NOTE: If you have not read parts 1 through 3, please read these before reading this part as this is a continuation of the story begun in the previous sections.

Security is only as tight as the weakest link in your environment. More often than not it's internally where the security holes are created, either inadvertently from carelessness or intentionally from a disgruntled or disillusioned employee. The hardware and software security can be top of the line, but if the human factor doesn't adhere to policy, it may not make any difference. This part follows the IT team for Mighty Modern Marketing as they try to track down a security hole where productivity is taken down through the very tools used to defend and manage the network.

Intel | Altiris

Deployment Scenarios of Intel® vPro™, Part 4: Migration Scenarios

Terry Cutler — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:09:06 -0500

The previous articles in this series, along with a foundational understanding of the Intel® vPro™ provisioning sequence, are prerequisite before exploring migration scenarios. This articles provides a brief exploration into migration of Intel® vPro™ clients from one ProvisionServer instance to the next. Common scenarios where this may be applicable include migration from a testing to deployment environment, migrating of the ProvisionServer role to the Altiris environment, and so forth.

Intel | Altiris

Deployment Scenarios of Intel® vPro™, Part 3: Setup and Configuration Application

Terry Cutler — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:01:57 -0500

The core of the Intel® vPro™ enterprise deployment reference architectures are based upon an understanding of the setup and configuration application (SCA). Providing the important roles of enterprise mode provisioning and configuration, the SCA becomes an integral part of the overall configuration management for Intel® vPro™ systems. In essence, the client management solution suite maintains the configuration at the operating system layer and above, while the SCA maintains the configuration of the Intel® AMT management engine (ME). Without the SCA, remotely maintaining the Intel® ME below or without the operating system presents a difficult challenge.

Intel | Altiris

Deployment Scenarios of Intel® vPro™, Part 2: Five Deployment Models

Terry Cutler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:14:42 -0500

As noted at the introduction of this series, there is an expectation that the reader is already familiar with the provisioning process of Intel® vPro™ within an Altiris environment. Materials on Altiris Juice, User guides, online or instructor led training, or other sources provide a necessary foundation in understanding the core provisioning process.

This article introduces five models or approaches to deploying, configuring, and using the Intel® vPro™ technology with Altiris Out-of-Band Management. The five base scenarios provide a foundation for custom and advanced deployments that are currently in use, have been tested in the lab, or are being discussed as this article is being drafted.

Intel | Altiris

Deployment Scenarios of Intel® vPro™, Part 1: Deployment Scenarios Introduction

Terry Cutler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:06:16 -0500

The articles in this series assume the reader is familiar with the core provisioning, enabling, and configuration of Intel® vPro™ within an Altiris Out-of-Band Management. The topics covered here are advanced deployment situations such as:

Multiple client facing Altiris Notification Servers
Mixed environments of Altiris and other client management consoles
Migration of Intel® vPro™ configurations and deployments to an Altiris environment

Intel | Altiris

Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases – Part 3: Hardware

Joel Smith — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:09:55 -0500

If you have not read parts 1 and 2, please read these before reading this part as this is a continuation of the story begun previously. Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases

From the OS level vPro has tools to help quarantine and remediate compromised systems as demonstrated in part 2. This section explores the capabilities at the hardware layer, completely below the OS and any related dependencies. Can the IT staff continue to respond well to threats and avoid outages and threats to the businesses wellbeing? When the gloves come off sometimes even the most secure networks are vulnerable to threats.

Intel | Altiris

Navigating Endpoint Access Control and 802.1x with Intel® vPro™

Terry Cutler — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:40:44 -0500

This article assumes the reader has a core understanding of provisioning the Intel® vPro™ technology within an Altiris environment. Other articles and materials on Altiris Juice and so forth provide the fundamentals. In exploring endpoint access control (EAC) and 802.1x configuration options, the guidelines provided here should be referenced. Environments deploying Intel® vPro™ may benefit by first using a "Standard" provisioning approach, followed by extending the provision profile to pursue "Advanced" provisioning approaches.

Intel | Altiris

Provisioning of Intel® vPro™ Technology, Part 5: Intel vPro Activator Utility

Terry Cutler — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:49:35 -0500

The last few articles have highlighted Altiris specific tools and approaches to initiate Intel® vPro™ provisioning in a post deployment situation. This article will focus primarily on Intel® vPro™ Activator Utility which is the successor to the RCT.exe utility mentioned in a prior article by Joel Smith.

Intel | Altiris

Video: Application Virtualization and Streaming at St. Agnes Academy

Juicemaster — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:30:38 -0500

In this new video from Intel, students, faculty and IT staffers at Houston's St. Agnes Academy talk about how they're leveraging application virtualization and streaming as an enabling technology. SVS Pro (which includes the AppStream technology recently acquired by Symantec) helps teachers focus on teaching and students focus on learning.

"What used to take three days to set up now takes 3 minutes with the AppStream client."

Application Virtualization & Streaming

Altiris and Intel vPro Use Cases, Part 2: Antivirus

Joel Smith — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:08:41 -0500

If you have not read Part 1 of this series, please read it first. This is a continuation of that story.

Antivirus is a must for any IT infrastructure. Without it productivity is quickly reduced as viruses run rampant in the environment. Keeping Antivirus installed and up to date is vital to ensure continuity of business services. In Part 2 the IT team for Mighty Modern Marketing is put up to the challenge of protecting their network from viral attacks. Using Symantec End Point Protection, Altiris and the Intel vPro technology, they work to ensure that the viral attack and subsequent virus attempts fall ineffective.

Intel | Altiris