Intel SCS, SCA, AMT Director - You've Been Provisioned!

By Gael Holmes (Intel) (91 posts) on June 13, 2007 at 9:04 am

Everyone knows that in order to be able to use Intel® AMT features, one must first enable AMT via the ME BIOS extentions and provision the system in either Small Business Mode (very easy and can be done quicky inside the AMT Configuration in the BIOs extentions) or Enterprise Mode (which requires a provisioning server and PID/PPS keys). But what developers don't all know about is the various tools that can be used for provisioning an AMT system in Enterprise mode and which tools can be used for integrating a provisioning server into their own application. These tools are as follows: The SCA, the SCS and the AMT Director. (Yes, more acronyms! Isn't life great?)

SCA: This is the Setup and Configuration Application and Sample code located inside the AMT Software Development Kit (SDK) The SCA sample contains APIs required if you are really ambitious and want to write your own Setup and Configuration Server. A software company wishing to integrate an Enterprise Provisioning server inside their application might consider using the SCA in the SDK. The SCA provides the most flexibility in terms of how a Software Vendor might want to implement a provisioning server inside their application as well as what infrastructure products can be used for the web server and database (IIS vs Apache, SQL vs Oracle, etc.) The SCA is intended for use by Enterprise Software Vendors.

SCS: Setup and Configuration Server - The Intel SCS is an application that a developer can use for provisioning an Intel AMT system in Enterprise Mode - it requires certain other software to be installed on the provisioning server system in order to work such as .Net Framework, SQL Server Express, Active Directory, IIS... The SCS comes with a binary (which cannot be changed by developers) and source code so that Enterprise Software Vendors can integrate the Setup and Config Service into their applications. Note that SQL is the only database that can be used with it and IIS is the only web server that can be used. In summary, the SCS can be used as a standalone application for provisioning in Enterprise mode or it can be integrated into an Enterprise Application - it is intended for use by Enterprise Software Vendors.

AMT Director: This is a provisioning server available within the AMT Developers Toolkit and was written based on the APIs in the SCA - run the main exe and look for the Director exe. If a developer wishes to experiment with provisioning an AMT system in Enterprise Mode w/without TLS he/she can use the AMT Director and be provisioned, up, and running in a matter of minutes. The AMT Director does not require SQL, IIS, or AD, however it does require the .Net Framework. This tool would probably not be used for an actual Enterprise environment - it is mostly intended for developers to play with and to get a feel for how provisioning is done. (And is the fastest way of provisioning a system in Enterprise Mode.) Ylian should correct me if this is not an accurate statement.

Note that the provising server (the system that would run the SCA app, the SCS or the AMT Director is a separate system other than the AMT system and runs Windows Server 2003.

Watch for updates for the AMT SDK (3.0) and the Intel SCS (3.0) coming soon to our Manageability Community web site!

Categories: Manageability

Comments (7)

June 15, 2007 12:06 PM PDT

Ylian Saint-hilaire (Intel)

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Black Belt

Good post! You are absolutely right Gael. Intel AMT Director was written on top of the SCA and I generally recommend it for enthusiasts and people with small deployments of 20 computers of less. If you run an Internet cafe or have a school computer lab, we recommend using TLS security to communicate with Intel AMT, and Director is the easiest way to get things setup. I have a tutorial video on Director and will try to get it posted soon on the Intel AMT DTK web page.

June 29, 2007 1:27 AM PDT

Brian O'Regan

Thanks, Gael. Yes, good post. FYI, One other restriction with the SCS is that the only supported Certificate Authority is MSFT CA.

July 6, 2007 11:55 PM PDT

Steve Pearson

Gael, you or someone you know may be interested in checking out a US Patent application currently under review in the new "Peer to Patent" pilot project (http://peertopatent.org/). You or your colleagues may know relevant prior art for this patent application, which has to do with presenting a user the option to select a management alert format (such as AMT) via BIOS functions. The page for this specific application is here: http://peertopatent.org/patent/21/overview
Cheers.

July 9, 2007 11:22 AM PDT

Ajay Mungara (Intel)