Improve Endpoint Device Management Efficiency

Managing endpoints can be time-consuming and expensive, often requiring a technician to physically visit the devices to troubleshoot them. Examples of these devices include the following:

• The deployment of Intel Unite® software to more than 5,000 hubs, located in conference rooms worldwide. This technology simplifies conference room configuration by eliminating cables and adapters. It also encourages idea sharing because employees can share content directly from their laptops and tablets regardless of their locations around the world.
• Digital signs in multiple locations including lobbies, cafeterias, and common areas across all Intel sites. These signs provide timely and localized site and community information.

As part of our pursuit of continuous improvement, we collaborate with Intel’s business units, which are constantly developing innovative solutions that have the potential to help us achieve our goals within our own IT environment. For example, we recently evaluated the capabilities of Intel® Endpoint Management Assistant (Intel® EMA) to determine if it could ease the management of multiple types of endpoint devices.

In 2019, we began a proof of concept using Intel EMA to manage approximately 500 Intel Unite hubs and 500 digital signs across four geographic regions. Based on our success, we deployed Intel EMA to manage all our Intel Unite hubs and more than 700 digital signs. The solution was implemented globally in just a few days, and it is saving Intel thousands of dollars annually in licensing and server maintenance costs.

As one Intel IT staff put it, “Using our old third-party tools, this rollout across Intel would have taken weeks or months. Using Intel® EMA, we rolled it out in a weekend!"

Intel® Endpoint Management Assistant (Intel® EMA) offers many benefits, including:

• Enables Intel AMT to operate outside the corporate firewall.
• Maximizes the manageability of the Intel vPro platform.
• Allows our team to do many tasks remotely, including initiating and monitoring the progress of a system rebuild, collecting hardware asset data, or initiating a power-on for the patching of a system.

We are committed to continue working closely with the business unit to adhere to a roadmap of continual improvement to Intel EMA. We are also exploring other opportunities to deploy Intel EMA to further simplify and improve endpoint management at Intel. For example, we are hoping to soon use Intel EMA to manage the more than 100,000 laptops and tablets used by Intel employees.

The collaboration between Intel IT and the client business unit helped improve Intel EMA to make it ready for deployment at the enterprise level. We are now using Intel EMA to meet Intel IT’s remote support needs, and we look forward to extending its deployment to additional use cases.