For small and newly established enterprises, considering personnel flow and capital allocation, many companies choose to lease equipment services. The traditional “equipment-only” leasing service is gradually unable to meet the actual needs of many enterprises. Therefore, many traditional computer leasing companies are upgrading to the DaaS (Device as a Service) model. DaaS is a brand new equipment leasing model, where in addition to the equipment itself, enterprises can also enjoy a full-process one-stop service, such as equipment installation, maintenance, upgrades, management, and other full-process services, greatly reducing the management burden on enterprises.
A recent IDC study shows that DaaS is helping enterprises reduce computer costs by up to 17%, with small businesses benefiting even more. DaaS helps reduce IT workload by up to 16%, with the reduction rate for small businesses reaching its highest level again. However, for equipment leasing companies that want to upgrade to the DaaS model, remote IT management is a challenge that must be solved.
At the 2023 Intel Commercial Client New Product Launch Conference, Intel’s partner, the largest enterprise DaaS provider in China – Bear U Rental under Lingxiong Technology, shared relevant customer cases of cooperation with Intel in the enterprise leasing industry.
In the cooperation cases between the two parties, many enterprise customers face common challenges such as fast production R&D rhythm, heavy tasks, high equipment computing power requirements; a large number of IT office devices, scattered models, and the need for daily maintenance, troubleshooting, and asset inventory, which consume a lot of manpower and material resources; and the difficulty of equipment procurement and operation and maintenance due to office locations spread across dozens of cities.
Therefore, Bear U Rental needs to provide enterprise users with devices that are easy to maintain remotely, manage remotely, and have high performance and strong security. The devices on the Intel vPro platform happen to meet these needs.
The Intel vPro platform is a PC platform designed specifically for enterprises. It is a validated solution aimed at providing high performance, security, manageability, and stability, capable of delivering the latest PC technology to meet the needs of IT departments and employees.
In terms of remote operation and asset management, devices on the vPro platform can provide hardware-level out-of-band management capabilities. Unlike ordinary remote management software, hardware-level out-of-band management capabilities allow operation and maintenance personnel to perform operations without relying on the operating system when connected to the network and power. Even in the case of operating system failure, IT personnel can normally maintain it. Ordinary remote management software often becomes ineffective when encountering system failures.
In actual work, everyone inevitably experiences some sudden situations with computer equipment, such as network disconnection during an important online meeting or a computer crash when presenting to clients offline. If using terminal devices on the Intel vPro platform, IT departments can quickly diagnose and repair related faults remotely after authorization, helping enterprises maintain uninterrupted business at critical times.
Intel’s out-of-band remote management capability can also help enterprises achieve simple and efficient remote IT maintenance and management functions, such as one-click power on/off, one-click statistics of IT asset information, remote management, and more. This not only greatly reduces the enormous workload brought by on-site operation and single-device maintenance but also significantly expands the applicable scope of remote operation and maintenance, improving maintenance efficiency.
At the conference, Fu Bin, General Manager of Intel’s Client Computing Business Unit in China, introduced the vPro platform based on the 13th generation Intel Core processors.
The 13th generation Intel Core processors adopt a new P-core (Performance Core) design and add more efficiency cores in some products, significantly improving application performance compared to the first generation of hybrid processors from Intel.
The Intel hardware thread scheduler can intelligently assign the right tasks to the right cores at the right time, achieving smarter task distribution. Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology can adjust the clock frequency of P-cores and E-cores based on operating conditions and system design parameters, dynamically optimizing system performance, battery life, and thermal performance.
Compared to products from three years ago, desktops can achieve up to 65% performance improvement, while laptops can achieve up to 2.3 times performance improvement.
Additionally, the 13th generation Intel Core mobile processors and desktop chipsets integrate Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), making them the best choice for dense environments and optimizing cloud computing wireless networks. The 6 GHz band supports additional and wider channels, generating more bandwidth and accelerating download, sharing, and collaboration speeds. Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+) allows desktop computers to be placed in all workspaces, whether or not wired connections are available.
Moreover, Intel’s Connectivity Performance Suite allows users to optimize wireless performance based on traffic type, such as prioritizing traffic for video conferencing and collaboration applications in busy wireless networks, as if there were an IT expert ensuring uninterrupted wireless connection experiences for enterprise users at all times.
Currently, incidents of enterprise users being attacked by ransomware are on the rise, and information security has become an essential part of enterprise IT management that cannot be ignored.
The Intel vPro platform supports Intel Hardware Shield and Intel TDT (Threat Detection Technology).
Intel Hardware Shield provides enterprise users with hardware-level security protection that starts at boot, offering protection at the firmware, BIOS, operating system, and application code levels.
Intel TDT is a chip-based AI threat detection technology that can provide protection before security threats arise.
With the support of these two technologies, threats can be intercepted in conjunction with antivirus software above the operating system or prevent memory security attacks, while helping to protect critical operations such as System Management Mode (SMM), boot code, and firmware below the operating system.
Based on the 13th generation Intel Core processors, the vPro platform has numerous built-in security features that provide protection against critical threats. Compared to a four-year-old old PC, the protection can reduce the attack surface by about 70%, reduce major security vulnerabilities by 26%, and decrease serious security incidents by 21%. As one of the few commercial platforms with built-in hardware security protection, the new generation Intel vPro platform can effectively detect over 93% of major ransomware attacks, outperforming the protection of merely using security software by 24%, allowing enterprises to effectively avoid hacker attacks and losses.
Additionally, Intel offers the Intel Stable IT Platform Program (Intel SIPP) for eligible vPro platform devices, aiming to achieve no hardware replacements throughout the entire purchase cycle (at least 15 months or until the next generation product is released).
The fewer hardware replacements, the less trouble and disruption for users. The Intel Stable IT Platform Program provides enterprise users with a more seamless overall experience, which is particularly important for PC setup, configuration, and PC image deployment.
Furthermore, Intel collaborates with OEMs to conduct thousands of tests and feedback loops annually to demonstrate that the manufactured devices can provide the stability and reliability of true enterprise-grade devices for IT and end-users.
The vPro family includes vPro Enterprise suitable for large enterprises, vPro Essentials suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises, and Evo vPro for mobile devices. In 2023, over 170 commercial devices based on the 13th generation Intel Core processors from major OEM manufacturers are being launched, including laptops, desktops, entry-level workstations, etc., which will meet the needs of commercial customers for stability, reliability, and high performance in different usage scenarios.
When space is extremely valuable, mini computers (like Intel NUC mini computers) are an ideal choice. For many enterprises, managing business growth also means managing space. NUC, with its compact design, can make the layout of offices or stores very flexible, almost eliminating concerns about the placement of computers.
Laptops strike a good balance between mobile office, performance, cost, and flexibility. They can provide mobile office capabilities for employees who need to respond immediately to business and sales opportunities. They can work anywhere, including on airplanes, trains, and in coffee shops.
Desktops using Intel Core processors offer relatively high cost performance and are usually cheaper than laptops and other devices. With lower lifecycle costs, desktops can also be easily repaired or upgraded. For enterprises with tight equipment budgets, desktops have a significant advantage in procurement costs.
At this launch event, Intel also showcased workstation products based on the Intel Xeon W-3400 and W-2400 series processors.
The Intel Xeon W-3400 and W-2400 processors represent a turning point in architecture for professional high-end computing needs in terms of power consumption and scalability. These processors achieve breakthroughs in advanced CPU packaging technology, utilizing Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology to elegantly connect multiple heterogeneous chips in a single solution, alleviating processing bottlenecks and supporting up to 56 cores in a single slot. This provides professionals with double the core count compared to the previous generation leading Intel Xeon W processors to manage compute-intensive and highly threaded workflows. Additionally, with Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, CPU speeds can reach up to 4.8 GHz, optimizing core performance for light-threaded applications on demand, thereby enhancing system responsiveness. The expanded Intel Smart Cache of up to 105MB reduces the time spent exchanging data between cache and memory, thus reducing latency in complex workloads such as code compilation or rendering. With this new computing architecture aimed at optimizing CPU performance across workloads, creatives, engineers, and data scientists can perform at their best.
Furthermore, the Intel W790 chipset platform used in conjunction with the Xeon W-3400 and W-2400 series processors supports Intel vPro Enterprise technology, such as Intel VT-Redirect Protection, which provides hardware support protection for the Windows kernel, enhancing security in virtualized environments. It also offers excellent system management capabilities, including Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT), Intel Platform Trust Technology, and Intel Boot Guard. These technologies enable IT professionals to manage and protect their enterprise systems anytime, anywhere.
The DaaS model has now become part of large-scale digital transformation strategies, allowing flexible selection, improving business agility, and helping to release resources among enterprise IT departments, end-users, and decision-makers. Devices on the Intel vPro platform can address the remote management, high performance, and security needs under the DaaS model, providing comprehensive rights related to device lifecycle management for enterprises of all sizes.
Additionally, while Intel continues to refine its products, it also implements the green concept of commercial clients into practice. Intel has proposed the low-carbon green PC concept throughout the entire lifecycle, implementing low-carbon green ideas in the four key areas of design, manufacturing, usage, and recycling. Ultimately, Intel plans to reduce carbon emissions related to clients by more than 30% by 2030. Intel will work with PC industry ecosystem partners to continue to fulfill its low-carbon commitments, create sustainable computing products, and better help customers unlock green productivity.
