Intel® vPro™ Technology

Innovating Above and Beyond Standards

Open Manageability Architecture on Platforms Running Intel® vPro™ Technology

This section provides a detailed description of the external interfaces for the manageability services that use Intel® vPro™ technology. This includes the network interfaces for a remote console to interact with a client running Intel® vPro™ technology, as well as the host-based interface for the host OS (and applications) to interact with the underlying embedded manageability services running on the Intel® Management Engine (Intel® ME).

Host-Based Interfaces

Platforms enabled with Intel® vPro™ technology offer two host-level interfaces for the underlying embedded manageability services: a driver-level interface and the Host Embedded Controller Interface (HECI). They also offer a user-level local management service (LMS), as depicted in Figure 3.

Host Embedded Controller Interface

The HECI is a bidirectional bus that allows the host OS to communicate directly with the Intel ME, exchanging system management information and events. HECI enables the host OS (by loading the HECI device driver) to control other devices, such as on-board fan controllers, Wake-on-LAN, power supply devices, and so on. HECI is the primary software interface between the host OS and the Intel ME. Other interfaces, such as the LMS, build on the HECI infrastructure, to provide a more programmer-friendly interface that applications can use.

Figure 3: LMS (routing application) and HECI interfaces
Source: Intel Corporation, 2008
click image for larger view

Local Manageability Service

The LMS is a user mode service that runs as part of the host OS. LMS exposes Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) functionality through standard interfaces, such as general-info interface, firmware update interface, and local agent-presence interface. LMS listens for the request directed to the Intel AMT local host, and when an application sends a SOAP/HTTP message addressed to the local host, the LMS intercepts the request and routes the request to the Intel ME interface via the HECI driver.

External Interfaces

Starting in 2007, with the second generation of platforms enabled with Intel® vPro™ technology, external interfaces for new management services running Intel® vPro™ technology were all based on the WS-MAN industry standard. In the past, a non-WS-MAN interface called Intel® AMT network interface was the only external interface. Platforms running Intel® vPro™ technology also offered DASH-compliant interfaces that are defined and available for specific Intel® vPro™ technology features. This is not the case for all features, since DASH supports a subset of Intel® vPro™ technology features only.

The Intel® Active Management Technology Network Interface

Intel® AMT network interface is a SOAP-based interface between a remote management server and Intel® AMT. The interface allows an external network host, such as an enterprise management console, to access Intel® AMT features. Intel® AMT network interface describes the network programmatic interface that allows an external network host to do the following:

• Perform administrative operations.
• Access the event log and manipulate the event filters.
• Power off, power on, reboot, or wake up the PC.
• Read hardware asset management information.
• Read/write unformatted data to the public area of the nonvolatile store.

In the first generation of platforms enabled with Intel® vPro™ technology, Intel® AMT network interface was the only interface available. The WS-MAN/CIM-based interface (see next section) was introduced in the second generation of platforms in 2007. Intel® AMT network interface is still supported on newer platforms running Intel® vPro™ technology for backward compatibility. Intel will support multiple generations of the interface with reasonable overlap to ensure backward compatibility. Developers are highly encouraged to switch over to WS-MAN and CIM-based interfaces going forward.

External Interfaces Based on WS-MAN/Common Information Model

WS-MAN is a SOAP-based industry standard protocol designed for Web service-based remote management of systems, such as desktops, notebooks, servers, and other IT-related infrastructure. WS-MAN defines basic operations that can be performed on resources; it does not define what an actual resource looks like [2]. This is the role of the CIM, an object-oriented modeling language that can be used to define the actual structure of resources, including their properties and methods. The model or definition of a specific resource is known as a CIM class, where CIM profiles are collections of classes needed to implement a specific management feature. The description of the CIM schema that Intel AMT is based on can be found at the following DTMF website: http://www.dmtf.org/standards/cim/cim_schema_v211/

DASH-Compliant External Interfaces

DASH interfaces also build on WS-MAN and CIM. They assume and depend on the existence of profiles, which roughly correspond to programming interfaces found in software development kits, in cases where standards do not currently exist. These profiles describe base functions, usages, and the relevant portions of the CIM model to focus on for a base set of capabilities.

DASH profiles are organized in functional areas (such as hardware inventory), but describe only interfaces. They do not define or prescribe how to develop a feature and are not the same thing as features.

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