Intel Updates vPro Platform and Features

MojoKid writes "Intel's has certified the Core 2 Duo E6550, E6750, and E6850 processors for vPro, and is releasing the new low-power Q35 Express chipset with a companion ICH9-DO Southbridge, and 82566DM Gigabit Network controller. With these new chispets and technologies, the vPro platform offers next-generation Intel Active Management Technology, enhanced Intel Virtualization Technology, and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (aka Intel TXT). vPro also supports next-generation management standards like WS-MAN and DASH (draft 1.0 spec) and v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module. Intel has plans to provide continual updates to the vPro platform and will likely enhance vPro further after the launch of their 'Montevina' platform in the first half on 2008."

Comments

v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not want!

Re:v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module

[Andreaskem]

Just to clarify: Read this Ars Technica article about how the new trusted computing technology introduces the kind of DRM geeks have been rebelling against for years.

Re:v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module

[Technician]

Do not want!

As a home user you maybe right. This is not aimed at the home user. Have you seen the demo? This platform has an IT departments dream, a firmware OS wrapped around the end user's OS. In the demo, they demonstrated live the corruption of Windows which crashed it to BSOD. Remotely they patched Windows and rebooted it all while Windows was crashed.

A powered off machine needing a scheduled backup or critical software rollout is no problem. The machine can be remotely turned on, patched, rebooted, configured, and tested without disturbing users while they are home.

Demos are here.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Intel+V-Pro+ demo

As an end user, it means installing Party Poker or Tor on the corporate machine may result in immediate application removal. The same goes for SONY rootkits and keystroke loggers. So yes for the end user, they have less ability to hose the configuration.

This is bad and the RIAA and MPAA is on the other end. This is good if your company supplied PC refuses malware. For its corporate target, this provides strong immunity to a BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc, audit. Unauthorised stuff can't be stuck on the machine.

Re:v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module

[smilindog2000]

So, TXT in short is hardware DRM, right? Will it do more? I'd love to know that my Linux kernel has been compiled signed by the vendor, and not hacked by any virus. Will TXT significantly mitigate viruses, worms, spy-ware, and the like? Will it allow vendor signed Linux kernels to be trusted to play DVDs out-of-the-box in the US? Will it help commercial companies port their products to Linux without fear of hacking? Will it allow FlexLM to finally be semi-secure? Will it get the damned bot-hackers off the gaming networks? If it will in fact do all that, I'm not sure I'm opposed, but of course, the proof is in the making.

Re:v1.2 of the Trusted Platform Module

[DaveWick79]

Call it hardware DRM, call it Trusted Computing - but this is exactly what corporate and even small business is looking for, and vPro 1.2 delivers. You've got to be able to manage your risks before they turn into an expensive problem. And vPro makes remote management a snap to boot and has for quite some time now, if implemented.

Even if you buy a vPro board and use it at home, which there's no reason you'd really ever do anyway, it's probably not going to come out of the box configured to block anything you want it to do.

Trust Not

[Anonymous Coward]

"Intel Trusted Execution Technology". Way to sound ominous.

Re:Naming

[Kelz]

Its the current wave of marketing. They're trying to establish brands that sound cool that people can remember when they shop for a computer.

Unless you're talking about chipset/product line codenames (Kentsfield, etc etc) which are geographical locations, since they can't be trademarked.

Re:much...

[TofuMatt]

Err, the Linux kernel, Mac OS X, and Windows all have support for TPM. Still using AmigaOS then?

Re:Is Intel a friend of Open Source?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not aware of a single hardware company that is as open with their specifications and hardware documentation as Intel. Their chipsets are open and documented, the audio, network and disk controllers are open and documented, their video hardware is open and documented (Who else can you say that about?). They have a great developer relations program, although you can download a lot of their documentation without even joining it.

So what's all this secretive technology you think Intel have been producing?

Re:Is Intel a friend of Open Source?

[RAMMS EIN]

``The reason Linux became so successful is because of Intel's low-cost, standards-compliant, open-source hardware; but with initiatives like virtualisation, vPro, multi-threaded compilers etc. the balance gets tilted further in favour of TCPA and DRM partners;''

Err, I have no idea what you mean. Intel's hardware used to be standard-compliant and open-source? What standards? Which source? How does virtualization (and I do believe they published specs on how to use it) tilt the balance in favor of DRM? What do multi-threaded compilers have to do with anything?

Now to look at some other aspects, Intel hosts and supports a number of open-source projects, among them open source drivers for certain Intel graphics and WLAN cards. These are recent efforts, as well.

All in all, I don't think I can agree with your suggestion of Intel moving away from being supportive of open-source and towards being one of the forerunners of DRM.

Re:Is Intel a friend of Open Source?

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

That is quite a load of mis-information you are hauling there. Intel is far more open with their hardware specs, are providing lots of open source driver support and porting many of their development apps to Linux (and either giving away or open sourcing many of them as well). You can actually go to Intel's site and find a list of which boards they actively support Linux on and find drivers for older RedHat 4 and SLES builds. Additionally, BIOS updates are now provided via ISO image so Linux users (or any platform really, but we are the targeted group) can update their BIOS without jumping through hoops. I won't even get into your whole "technology is available to a few limited US h/w mfrs" as it makes no sense when you consider that outside of BFG (maker of nVidia based video cards and a smathering of motherboards) there are no U.S.hardware makers any longer (and all BFG does is assemble over here, the parts are still off-shored).

By way of comparison, AMD/ATi have yet to provide any really decent drivers, little in the way of documentation and have offered virtually zero F/OSS developer support. Via has been slightly better but hardly a font of knowledge. For desktop computing (and including Via was a stretch) Intel is probably the most supportive and easiest to deal with hardware make for a Linux workstation.

Chispets

[Life700MB]

Aaah what I really want to know is about those "chispets", are they some kind of pokemon from intel or something?

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Re:much...

[julesh]

You do know that TPM does _nothing_ unless you actually, you know, use it, don't you?

So by disabling it in your kernel config, the only thing you achieve is making your system incompatible with any software that requires it.

Looks like Lights-Out Management + IPMI

[Morgaine]

Others have commented on the TPM and DRM aspects of vPro, but the part that interests me most is the remote access functionality. Is this coming to desktops now?

Most modern servers have remote management capability these days, through some kind of Lights-Out Management (LOM) system that works even when the operating system is dead or when the host CPU is powered off. It's not just the high profile Sun/HP/IBM brands that have such capability --- even Dell servers have BMC hardware (a small embedded microcontroller) running a LOM and providing access through IPMI, and have had it for many years. I've found all these LOM systems extremely useful, even without the more recent remote KVM features.

I'd love this kind of functionality independent of the running O/S to appear on desktop motherboards too, but motherboard manufacturers have traditionally kept server and desktop markets separate. Is there any sign that the new vPro chipsets could start moving such functionality towards the desktop too?

From the videos, it doesn't seem so, as they're targetted at corporates. But the worries that people have expressed about the TPM/DRM side of vPro suggest that the desktop isn't far away ... which on the positive side could mean that we get BMC/LOM capabilities soon on normal home machines as well.

As always, a powerful tool can be used both for good and for bad, and a BMC could do unwanted things as well as providing a very useful LOM. However, if it can be controlled by the end user, this sounds like useful technology.