BEST PRACTICES WHITE PAPER BMC BladeLogic Client Automation and Intel Core vpro Processors
Table of Contents Introduction................................................... 1 About BMC....................................................... 1 About BMC BladeLogic Client Automation.................................... 1 BMC BladeLogic Client Automation automates the entire lifecycle of desktops, laptops, and client devices....................................... 1 Business Challenge.............................................. 1 Attain 100% hit rate during critical patch and application deployments................... 1 Power Saving: Following wake-up activity, systems remain on and power gets wasted........ 1 Accurate asset tracking during upgrades, rebuilds, repairs, redeployments and relocations..... 1 Sophisticated users figure out how to disable the configuration management agent.......... 2 Remote diagnostics and repair regardless of power or operating system (OS) state........... 2 technology Solution (Enabled by Intel Core vpro Processors)................ 2 Reliable policy-based patch/application deployments (Enabled by Intel vpro Remote Management Capabilities).......................... 2 Green IT initiative - Auto Power-off (Enabled by Intel vpro Storage)..................... 2 Persistent Inventory (Enabled by Intel vpro Storage).............................. 2 Agent Presence and Failure Alert (Enabled by Intel vpro - Agent Presence, Event/Alert Management and System Defense)....... 3 Enhanced Problem Resolution (Enabled by Intel vpro remote control capabilities)............ 3 summary...................................................... 3
Introduction About BMC BMC Software, Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise management solutions that empower companies to manage their IT infrastructure from a business perspective. BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications, databases, and service management. About BMC BladeLogic Client Automation The BMC BladeLogic Client Automation product automates the entire lifecycle of desktops, laptops, and client devices. The product maintains continuous compliance over software, patches, configuration settings, power settings, and security content through a powerful policy-based management system that: Discovers, manages, and documents configurations for all client devices, including POS systems, handhelds, kiosks, and ATMs Configures, updates, and patches client endpoints to ensure total compliance and prevent security vulnerabilities Installs, updates, and repairs application software and content to ensure successful application releases Tracks, harvests, and re-uses software licenses to control costs and ensure compliance with corporate license agreements Manages advanced PC power settings to help establish and enforce Green IT initiatives By implementing BMC BladeLogic Client Automation, you will: Attain first-time success rates of up to 95 percent for configuration changes even in highly distributed environments Eliminate 90 percent of the manual steps required by other patch management systems Deploy software to hundreds of thousands of diverse endpoints with a lean hardware infrastructure and minimal bandwidth usage Enforce policy-driven compliance, while also saving on license costs and minimizing security vulnerabilities Reduce client power consumption by up to 70 percent Maintain continuous compliance over software, patches, configuration settings, power settings, and security content through a powerful policy-based management system Business Challenge Attain 100 percent hit rate during critical patch and application deployments Because machines are down while patches are applied, you might require as many as three to four attempts to apply critical patches to all machines. Often, this means that critical patches do not get installed for several days, which further increases risk for the organization. What is needed is a more reliable way to power up systems to get closer to that 100% compliance. Power Saving: Following wake-up activity, systems remain on and power gets wasted You might need to wake up machines to perform activities, such as software delivery or patch and security policy management. However, after those machines are powered on and the configuration update is complete, the machines should be automatically powered off. You must then ensure that you power off only those machines that were automatically powered on by some policy. Accurate asset tracking during upgrades, rebuilds, repairs, redeployments and relocations Over the course of a client asset s lifecycle, numerous configuration updates and re-provisioning activities are invariably involved. It s important for your organization that you have an accurate accounting for the entire lifespan of the asset, from procurement through retirement. The inability to accurately track client assets could result in an inaccurate inventory, multiple unrelated entries for a single device, no consistent way to track an asset from purchase to decommissioning, and might result in duplicate payments for software licenses. 1
Sophisticated users figure out how to disable the configuration management agent If users can disable the configuration management agent, they can negatively impact the company and put it at risk. In the case of application management, administrators could lose control over software licenses and potentially incur fines due to software non-compliance. With endpoint security management, this risk is compounded through exposure or breach of critical business systems through an unsecure client endpoint. In either case, disabling the management agent can have serious ramifications on operations in the form of outages and risk of business loss. Remote diagnostics and repair regardless of power or operating system state. As part of root cause analysis, administrators need to gather remote diagnostic data, even when a machine is powered off. It may also be necessary to a repair a system that is either powered off or un-bootable. Today, when a user calls the help desk about a system that is unstable or inoperable, the technician usually can t access that system from the help desk. Instead, the user must reboot before the technician can get any data remotely, or worse, the technician must go out to the system on a costly desk-side visit. Technology Solution (Enabled by Intel Core vpro Processors) With Intel vpro-enabled systems, BMC BladeLogic Client Automation now helps administrators make remote management more efficient and reduces the total cost of ownership for managing the client computing environment. Reliable policy-based patch/application deployments (Enabled by Intel vpro Remote Management Capabilities) With Intel vpro capabilities, patch installation and policy based software deployments are also improved because Intel vpro operates regardless of the state of the machine. Even when machines are powered off, BMC BladeLogic Client Automation can use Intel vpro remote management capabilities to power on the machine before critical patch installations or software deployments to ensures maximum hit rate and greater compliance. In addition, the power on commands can traverse switches and routers without any modifications to infrastructure. Green IT initiative - Auto Power-off (Enabled by Intel vpro Storage) To help address Green IT initiatives, it is necessary to correctly manage PC power settings to keep power consumption at a minimum. Intel vpro enables BMC BladeLogic Client Automation to automatically power off machines when a deployment is complete. At the same time, it also makes certain that only those machines that were powered on by BMC BladeLogic Client Automation are powered off again. BMC BladeLogic Client Automation uses Intel vpro Storage as a mechanism to determine which machines were powered on by BMC BladeLogic Client Automation by storing and retrieving control information during deployment activities. Persistent Inventory (Enabled by Intel vpro Storage) In a typical enterprise, computing systems are constantly being upgraded and redeployed as business needs change. Automated asset-management solutions streamline the tracking of such changes, but those solutions often depend on installed agents or registry settings to ensure that the identity of a system persists across the change. When systems are re-imaged or migrated to a new OS, this identity can be lost. Asset managers are then left with multiple unrelated entries for a single device, and no consistent way to track an asset from purchase to decommissioning. Using BMC BladeLogic Client Automation to manage Intel vpro-enabled systems solves this problem. BMC BladeLogic Client Automation takes advantage of the Intel vpro non-volatile memory to store data important for managing a machine, including the unique machine ID. This data persists regardless of the state of the machine. For example, even if the computer is moved from one building to another, if the OS changes from one vendor platform to another, or if software or settings are added or removed, BMC BladeLogic Client Automation can still accurately identify and match the machine to previous inventory scans. Asset tracking is more accurate, eliminating potential duplicate payments for software licenses. 2
Agent Presence and failure AlERT (Enabled by Intel vpro - Agent PRESEnce, Event/AlERT ManagEMEnt) The agent is the most important component of BMC BladeLogic Client Automation infrastructure. Without it, activities such as software installation and upgrading, patch installation and audit, or software usage monitoring for license compliance become impossible. As part of the integration effort, BMC BladeLogic Client Automation now ensures that agent is running at all times. It uses underlying Intel vpro Agent presence functionality to periodically send a heartbeat, indicating that it s up and running. Whenever a sophisticated user disables the agent, Intel vpro ceases to receive the heartbeat at the configured time interval and will send an SNMP alert to BMC BladeLogic Client Automation s Infrastructure Status Monitor dashboard. This enables quicker agent redeployment and improved compliance across the PC fleet through BMC BladeLogic Client Automation. Enhanced Problem Resolution (Enabled by Intel vpro REMote control CAPABIlITIES) Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) enables enhanced problem resolution for BMC BladeLogic Client Automation via out-of-band communication. BMC BladeLogic Client Automation now allows technicians to launch a query to an Intel vproenabled computer subsystem, even if the machine does not respond to standard tools. This lets the technician remotely gather accurate and extensive hardware data (for example, the brand and size of a failed hard disk) and event logs, regardless of the OS or power state of the machine. BMC BladeLogic Client Automation also lets the technician reboot the machine by selecting the reboot option for Intel vpro-enabled machines. Technicians save significant time in diagnosing and repairing systems. They can also connect to Intel vpro web GUI to do further diagnostics and repair. If technicians decide that the best solution is to re-image machines to their standard configurations, they can do so knowing the machines unique network IDs will persist across the rebuild. To meet the demands for maximum system security and availability BMC BladeLogic Client Automation (version 8.1.00) supports Intel AMT to extend control and enable always-available management for remote computers. Summary BMC Software s BMC BladeLogic Client Automation solution, when combined with Intel vpro technology, offers comprehensive remote software configuration management. This software/hardware combination also offers IT departments complete visibility into the computing environment, through accurate asset tracking, effective change implementation, and execution and enhanced policy-based applications enforcement. Business runs on IT. IT runs on BMC Software. Business thrives when IT runs smarter, faster, and stronger. That s why the most demanding IT organizations in the world rely on BMC Software across both distributed and mainframe environments. Recognized as the leader in Business Service Management, BMC provides a comprehensive and unified platform that helps IT organizations cut cost, reduce risk, and drive business profit. For the four fiscal quarters ended December 31, 2009, BMC revenue was approximately $1.90 billion. Visit www.bmc.com for more information. BMC, BMC Software, and the BMC Software logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Software, Inc., are registered with the u.s. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending *124948* registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the u.s. or in other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2010 BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved.