Overview of Intel® Platform Administrator

Intel® Platform Administration Technology

Intel® Platform Administration Technology is an integrated, cost-effective, and easy-to-use manageability platform solution for small and medium-sized network environments.  It provides manageability functions that assist IT administrators in maintaining clean and stable systems with high efficiency. Intel® Platform Administration Technology is based on the Intel® Innovation Framework for EFI, including motherboard technology components, firmware components, software components for both clients and servers, and application programming interfaces (API's) for enabling further development of applications on Intel® Platform Administration Technology.

Intel® Platform Administration Technology delivers high efficiency management service to help users in administrating computing platforms and applications in a networked environment. It includes:

l Motherboard technology components

l Firmware components (based on the Intel® Innovation Framework for EFI)

l Software components for both client and servers

l Application Programming Interfaces (API's) for enabling further development of applications on Intel® Platform Administration Technology

Intel® Platform Administration Technology can assist in:

l Out-of-box PC set up by automating and simplifying OS and software installations for multiple PCs.

l Daily maintenance and operational PC management with platform asset monitoring and administration capabilities.

l Software upgrades by provisioning new software packages to multiple PCs in a networked environment.

l System recovery and hard-disk protection capabilities.

Intel® Platform Administration Technology provides the following features:

l Multicast (1-to-many) deployment of OS images up to 1GB in size to hundreds of clients within a few minutes in a 100Mbps Ethernet environment.

l Block-level incremental disk image creation and deployment for faster application software deployment and upgrades.

l Low performance-penalty hard-disk protection of your system from viruses and malicious operations.

l Network recovery to restore crashed PCs.

l Hardware and software asset inventory reports.

l OS-independent remote control: Power on, power off, reset and real-time query of client status.

Intel® Platform Administrator

Intel® Platform Administrator is an Intel software solution built on top of Intel® Platform Administration Technology to deliver client and server functionalities. The package includes the following:

l Intel® Platform Administrator Server

l Intel® Platform Administrator Client

l Intel® Platform Administrator Agent

Intel® Platform Administrator Server provides remote computer management of client computers in a network. The administrator conducts all of the remote operations via Intel® Platform Administrator Server.

When the client is in BIOS lifecycle, Intel® Platform Administrator Server interacts with Intel® Platform Administrator Agent and provides functionalities, including image creation, image deployment, network recovery, and remote control.

When the client is in OS lifecycle, Intel® Platform Administrator Server interacts with Intel® Platform Administrator Client to provide functionalities, including remote configuration and remote control.

Intel® Platform Administrator Client is an application that runs on the client, with features that include hard disk protection and background monitoring.

Intel® Platform Administrator Agent is an application that runs on the BIOS, which provides key features like network management and image and package deployment through communication with the server.

Typical Scenario

The following picture shows the most common usage scenario for Intel® Platform Administrator. The administrator needs to enable Intel® Platform Administrator Agent and install Intel® Platform Administrator Client on the client computers. Intel® Platform Administrator Server must be installed on the management server. After these three installations are completed, the administrator can remotely manage all the clients from the server.