I was present in the Intel vPro conference today. Although I didn’t stay through the entire event, I got the jist of it.

Intel talked about what vPro is, and how it can be used in remote IT management. Although vPro is not really new (launched in 2006), it has gone through some enhancements and improvements with the new 32nm technology.

What is vPro? It’s actually three components that interact with each other, regardless of the existence of an operating system on top of that: A CPU, chipset and an Intel network chip. Those three allow remote access to a system that may be turned off, hibernated or otherwise disabled (e.g. some hardware failure). With the right admin tools, that system can be brought back to life, turned off, put to sleep, installed some patch and otherwise manipulated, even in a catastrophic hardware or OS failure (when appropriate).

One of the demos shown was using vPro technology with Microsoft’s SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager, the new version of SMS). The two technologies complement each other, creating an all around IT solution. Impressive.