Verdiem SURVEYOR - Bring the Full Power of PC Power Management to SCCM 2007

8/7/2019 Verdiem SURVEYOR - Bring the Full Power of PC Power Management to SCCM 2007

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Verdiem SURVEYOR:Bring the Full Power of PC

Power Management to System

Center Configuration Manager2007February 2011

www.verdiem.com


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Verdiem SURVEYOR: Bring the Full Power of PC Power Management to ConfigMgr 2007 Page 2

Contents

Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

How System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and Verdiem SURVEYOR Work Together ...................... 3

Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Key Benefits........................... 5

Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Product Features ................... 5

Easy Setup and Configuration ................................................................................................................... 5

Enforce Maintenance Windows ................................................................................................................ 6

Throttle Wakeup of the PC Network ........................................................................................................ 6

Automatic Policy Refresh on Wakeup ...................................................................................................... 6

Real-time Control of PC Power States ...................................................................................................... 7

Success/Failure Reporting Within the ConfigMgr Console ....................................................................... 7

Enterprise-class Wake-on-LAN .................................................................................................................. 8

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 and Verdiem SURVEYOR: Better Together ...................... 8

SURVEYOR Power Management Key Differentiators.................................................................................... 9

Automatic Synchronization of PC Wakeup for Patch Management. .................................................... 9

Wake-on-WAN ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Wake-on-Web. .................................................................................................................................... 10

Sustainability Dashboard .................................................................................................................... 10

Multiple Intra-day Power Policies ....................................................................................................... 11

Only Wake PCs for Scheduled Events ................................................................................................. 11

Solutions for Common PC Sleep Disorders. ........................................................................................ 11

Protection of Open Applications and Data ......................................................................................... 12

End-user Opt-out. ............................................................................................................................... 12

Real-time Control of PC Power States. ............................................................................................... 12

Historical Data and Reporting ............................................................................................................. 12

Support for Non-Microsoft Client Lifecycle/Desktop Management Solutions ................................... 13

Support for Mac OS ............................................................................................................................. 13

Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 13


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Verdiem SURVEYOR: Bring the Full Power of PC Power

Management to System Center Configuration Manager 2007

OverviewVerdiem SURVEYOR is a client/server application that enables organizations to centrally manage and

reduce PC energy consumption within their IT infrastructure. This management can yield 30 to 60% in

energy savings without adversely impacting PC users. Over 500 corporations, government agencies and

universities have implemented SURVEYOR to save $20 to $60 per PC annually. In many organizations the

ROI can be achieved in six to 12 months, and in some cases less time.

Verdiems Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007is an integrated

solution that enables IT organizations to leverage the capabilities of SURVEYOR from within the System

Center Configuration Manager console, and helps them to achieve 100% success rates for PC patching

and software updates while reducing PC energy waste and the organizations carbon footprint.

And for organizations deploying System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3, SURVEYOR extends the

basic power management functionality now included with R3, and provides additional value and

benefits to companies that deploy it - including:

Zero administration PC wake and patch synchronization Bullet proof Wake-on-LAN solution that work right out of the box Remote wakeup of power managed PCs for remote user access and business continuity Out of the box resolution of PC sleep disorders

Support for additional daily power policies for increased power saving opportunities

When used together, Verdiem SURVEYOR brings the full power of PC power management to System

Center Configuration Manager 2007.

How System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and Verdiem SURVEYOR Work

Together

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is used by organizations to deploy business

critical software updates and security patches. To minimize the impact these updates have on user

productivity, many organizations schedule them outside of normal business hours. Historically, IT

departments have advised users to leave PCs on at full power at all times so they are available to receive

updates and patches. However, this strategy does not allow organizations to save energy wasted on idle

computers.

By combining ConfigMgr with Verdiem SURVEYOR, organizations have more flexibility to put computers

into low power states when not being actively used, bring them back up to full power when a software

update is ready for distribution, and put them back to sleep when updates are complete. Desktop


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administrators can reliably, securely and efficiently support business needs without impacting end-users

or critical processes.

The Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007automatically monitors

for pending advertisements and updates and, in combination with SURVEYORs enterprise Wake-on-LAN

wakeup solution (Wake-on-WAN), targeted PC are reliably woken up for network updates.

How ConfigMgr 2007 and SURVEYOR work together

ConfigMgr 2007 and Verdiem SURVEYOR deployment architecture


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Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Key

Benefits

Wake-on-WAN technology safely and reliably wakes computers across subnets without specialhardware, network configuration, or additional management overhead

Automatic coordination of power management with ConfigMgr events so that power savingscan be achieved within enterprise environments while actually improving success rates of

ConfigMgr deployments and updates

Easy Set It and Forget It integration with the ConfigMgr console with no additionalmanagement burden since SURVEYOR activity is logged as ConfigMgr status messages

Manually wakeup, shutdown or restart individual machines or collections on-demand fromwithin the ConfigMgr console regardless of the network topology or subnet location

Improves efficiency of desktop management processes and reduces IT operating costs

Enables end-users to remotely wake sleeping PCs for remote access Maximizes PC energy savings without impacting desktop management activity or critical

business processes

Extends the basic power management functionality of System Center Configuration Manager2007 R3

Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Product Features

The following are key features of the Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration

Manager 2007. For a more in-depth look at Verdiem SURVEYORs overall features and benefits visit

www.verdiem.com.

Easy Setup and Configuration

One-time setup offers seamless set-and-forget integration with ConfigMgr 2007. Integration can be

configured to obey mandatory schedules, work with child sites, enable policy refresh after wakeup, and

control timing of how early machines should be woken up prior to the start of an advertisement. With

SURVEYORs ConfigMgr 2007 integration, administrators can rest assured that PCs will be automatically

woken up for their patch and update tasks. PCs will automatically go back to sleep and conserve energy

once the maintenance tasks have completed.
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Easy, one-time configuration of the Verdiem Power Management Pack

Enforce Maintenance Windows

If ConfigMgr 2007 maintenance windows are specified, SURVEYOR can override advertisementschedules and only wake up systems with the specified maintenance window for events such as WSUS

and anti-virus updates.

Throttle Wakeup of the PC Network

SURVEYORs enterprise Wake-on-LAN solution is designed for large PC environments that demand high

performance wakeups for rapid software updates. To prevent power surges, power ups are

automatically spread out in batches. This throttling function, together with the automatic policy refresh,

can minimize the time a PC needs to stay awake for a successful update or patch.

Automatic Policy Refresh on Wakeup

Optionally, after PCs are woken up, the Verdiem Power Management Pack can trigger the ConfigMgr

2007 agent for a policy refresh. In concert with the batch wakeup described above, this capability can

help accelerate patches and updates without loading the ConfigMgr site server. In environments where

server-initiated (remote) policy refresh can suffer due to the typical reliability and performance issues of

remote WMI, SURVEYOR also offers a more reliable solution via a client-side policy refresh where the

ConfigMgr agent is triggered by a command local to the PC.


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Real-time Control of PC Power States

In addition to the automatic wakeup of PCs that have pending updates, an administrator can control the

power state of any PC running the SURVEYOR client software from within the ConfigMgr console.

Wakeup, shutdown or policy refresh commands can be executed in real-time for PCs or collections.

Real-time PC power-state control within the ConfigMgr 2007 console

Success/Failure Reporting Within the ConfigMgr Console

The Verdiem Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 offers statusreports on the success/failure of wakeup, shutdown and policy refresh commands. Reports can be run

for specific PCs or for certain advertisements. All of these reports can be accessed from within the

ConfigMgr 2007 console.

ConfigMgr 2007 reports for PC power-state changes tied to advertisements


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Enterprise-class Wake-on-LAN

SURVEYORs Wake-on-WAN extends ConfigMgr 2007 with enterprise-class Wake-on-LAN capabilities.

Wake-on-WAN overcomes network vulnerabilities of traditional Wake-on-LAN providing secure remote

wakeup across varied network topologies. To do this, SURVEYOR automatically elects two clients in

each numbered IP network to act as Wake-on-WAN proxies. SURVEYOR sends Wake-on-LAN Magic

Packet data only to these proxies, and the proxies then send the packet to other devices on their

networks. These Wake-on-WAN proxies are normal SURVEYOR clients, and the SURVEYOR Server

automatically and ensures that two proxies are always available on each network subnet. Setup is as

easy as selecting a checkbox and requires no special hardware, network configuration or administrative

overhead.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 and Verdiem SURVEYOR: Better

Together

Recently, Microsoft released System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 as an update to theirpopular System Center Configuration Manager 2007 client management platform. A key feature of this

release is a basic set of power management tools that can help organizations save on energy costs with

minimal effort and expense.

While ConfigMgr R3 does provide core PC power management capabilities that are necessary to

centrally set and configure Windows power policies on clients in order to put them into lower power

states after a period of inactivity, Verdiem (a pure play software company with more than 10 years

experience in the PC power management space) provides IT organizations a set of features that

enhances the core functionality of ConfigMgr 2007 R3, including:

Zero administration PC wake and patch synchronization Bullet proof Wake-on-LAN solution that works right out of the box Remote wakeup of power managed PCs for remote user access and business continuity Out of the box resolution of PC sleep disorders Support for additional daily power policies for increased power saving opportunities Power management historical data retention for easy and comprehensive reporting and

comparison across time

Sustainability Dashboard for high level reporting on energy consumption, cost savings, andcarbon equivalent savings over time across the enterprise

A virtually invisible, low impact end-user experience that does not trade accessibility for energysavings

The ability to manage power for Mac OS-based computers, and PCs under management of non-Microsoft client management platforms


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SURVEYORs Power Management Key Differentiators

Automatic Synchronization of PC Wakeup for Patch Management When used together,SURVEYOR monitors ConfigMgr 2007 for advertisements and automatically synchronizes wakeup of

PCs with scheduled patching or software update events, and then puts machines back in to lowerpower states when updates are complete. This significantly simplifies the patch/update process for

IT, helps them to achieve 100% success rates for patching/updates, shortens the window of

vulnerability to malicious forces, and helps the company to maximize power savings. Without

SURVEYOR, IT needs to manually synchronize wake windows with ConfigMgr advertisements. If

advertisements change, then wakeup windows need to be manually changed as well. In large

environments, this can add significant time and effort to the process. SURVEYOR eliminates manual

synchronization issues by providing an elegant and effective set it and forget usage experience for

IT which increases patching success rates and lowers the total cost of ownership.

Wake-on-WAN, a Verdiem patented technology, improves Wake-on-LAN technology used inConfigMgr 2007 R3 by providing a reliable and practical method for waking computers over a typical

large-organization network that contains multiple network segments or subnets without the need to

configure routers to accept broadcasts among other network segments or breaking your network

broadcast security model. Wake-on-WAN eliminates both the complexity of getting Wake-on-LAN

to function in your environment, as well as the problems of broadcasting over multiple network

segments by recruiting two SURVEYOR Clients in each numbered IP network to act as Wake-on-WAN

proxies. SURVEYOR sends Wake-on-LAN magic packet data only to these proxies, and the proxies

then send the packet to other devices on their networks. These Wake-on-WAN proxies are normal

SURVEYOR Clients, and the SURVEYOR Server selects each proxy automatically and ensures that two

proxies are always available on each network subnet.

SURVEYORs Wake-on-WAN Architecture


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Wake-on-Web Wake-on-Web provides a mechanism for employees with SURVEYOR-enabledmachines to wake their PCs so that they can remotely connect to them, rather than leaving them on

as an exception to your power management policies. This happens through visiting a published

webpage where users can enter their machine name and then select to initiate a wakeup of their PC.

This action triggers the SURVEYOR server to wake the selected PC so that the employee can use the

established remote access mechanism to continue with the login procedure, ensuring minimal

impact on the end-user. Wake-on-Web can also be initiated via any web browser, including smart

phones, so that users can wake their PCs remotely before scheduled wakeups. Verdiem

recommends bookmarking your Wake-on-Web page for faster, more convenient access.

Wake Sleeping PCs for Remote Access Using SURVEYORs Wake-on-Web

Verdiems Sustainability Dashboard provides high level (Senior Management-focused) informationon energy consumption, cost savings, and carbon equivalent savings over time across the enterprise.

SURVEYOR also provides a deeper set of built-in operational, usage and savings reports that show

things like daily power states of all PCs across the enterprise and average total hours PCs spend in

each power state on a daily basis and how that usage is trending over time. Detailed power

management reports included with SURVEYOR supplement basic reporting included with ConfigMgr,

and helps IT to gain a deeper understanding of both their PC power management and operational

efficiency. The Sustainability Dashboard can be customized to fit reporting preferences, and

individual dashboard widgets can be incorporated into other web pages and Intranet sites in order

to report energy savings more broadly across the organization.


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Easily analyze and see the impact of SURVEYOR to your bottom line and green initiatives via the Sustainability Dashboardand share results with key internal stakeholders.

Multiple Intra-day Power Policies - ConfigMgr 2007 R3 supports a single 24 hour powermanagement cycle that only allows for one peak and one non-peak power management plan for

PCs, and does not differentiate between weekdays and weekends. Effective power management

over weekends presents the single greatest opportunity for PC power savings in enterprise

environments. By contrast, SURVEYOR supports a 7 day power management cycle than enables the

use of multiple intra-day power management policies that are highly customizable to meet the

needs of complex enterprise environments. Each individual day can have custom policies, enabling

IT to fine tune and optimize PC power management in their environments including holidays andweekends.

Only Wake PCs for Scheduled Events - ConfigMgr R3 relies on Windows Wake Timer for a once-dailyscheduled wake to create a window for software updates and patch management. This is another

significant area where ConfigMgr R3 is not fully optimized for energy and carbon savings. With

Windows scheduled wake, every night every PC powers on regardless of whether or not ConfigMgr

has advertisements pending, and then falls back to sleep after some pre-determined interval of

inactivity. This not only wastes energy unnecessarily, it also creates additional windows of

opportunity for malware and other security concerns. SURVEYOR solves this issue using a

combination of Wake-on-WAN and day-specific power policies that easily enable IT to granularly

manage PC power policies. In this way, IT can schedule a once-weekly window to synch with PatchTuesday without the additional significant waste of turning all PCs on every day in order to hit the

Patch Tuesday target making SURVEYOR a more effective solution for PC power management.

Solutions for Common PC Sleep Disorders Within PC Power Management there are two commonPC sleep disorders - "insomnia" and "narcolepsy" - that create issues for optimization of energy

savings and patching/update success rates. Insomnia occurs when computers fail to enter sleep

mode due to screen savers, flash players, media players, anti-virus agents, or other background


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applications or drivers that may be present, and results in power waste due to an inability to be

remotely powered down. Narcolepsy occurs when computers fall back to sleep after several minutes

rather than staying awake for the duration of a scheduled IT maintenance window for patching and

security updates, and results in patching/update failure. While ConfigMgr 2007 R3 can identify PC

with sleep disorders, it provides no tools for resolution of these issues. This means that PCs afflicted

with either of these disorders need to be individually diagnosed and serviced in order to get them

to comply with their intended power management policies, or they need to be designated as policy

exceptions and forego PC power management altogether. SURVEYOR, by contrast, includes the

SURVEYOR Idletime Manager as part of the client installation. Idletime Manager enforces

transitions by monitoring system idle time and initiating sleep when Windows fails to do so. Since

Windows only looks at the CPU to determine idleness, it is not as effective or reliable as the

SURVEYOR Idletime Manager which uses the CPU, disk and network thresholds to determine

idleness. SURVEYOR Idletime Manager can be enabled universally right out of the box by the

administrator - eliminating sleep disorder issues completely, improving IT operational efficiency, and

adding more PCs to the power management pool to maximize energy savings. It is not enough to

simply identify PC sleep disorders. SURVEYOR helps you eliminate them altogether.

Protection of Open Applications and Data - Checking for open applications, and saving opendocuments before going into standby or shutdown is a critical feature for maintaining business

continuity while saving energy. SURVEYORs Power State Transition Manager enables any script-

based action to be performed prior to a PC transitioning into a lower power state, allowing

administrators to save data in open applications, backup applications or gracefully shut them down.

In addition, computers can be prevented from shutting down if certain applications are active on the

machine. ConfigMgr R3 power management tools do not address this issue, and relies largely on the

automated backup features of Microsoft Office applications to prevent data loss.

End-user Opt-outOccasionallyend-users need the ability to opt-out ofoverly aggressive powermanagement policies in order to perform their jobs without impacting their productivity. ConfigMgrR3 enables user to over-ride power management policies for the current day, but those machines

automatically revert back to the defined policy the following day. Additionally, with R3 the task of

identifying machines and isolating them as exceptions to power management policies is time

consuming and requires significant manual configuration on a per-machine basis. By contrast,

SURVEYOR empowers end-users by providing them the ability to opt out and automates the

process of flagging the computer as an exception improving IT efficiency and satisfying end-users.

Real-time Control of PC Power States - In addition to the automatic wakeup of PCs that havepending updates, an administrator can control the power state of any PC running the SURVEYOR

client software from within the ConfigMgr console. Wakeup, shutdown or policy refresh commands

can be executed in real-time for individual PCs or machine collections. This is a must-have capabilityfor disaster prevention including critical anti-virus patching and non-critical machine power down

during brown out events. ConfigMgr R3 lacks the tools to address these scenarios, and in the event

of a malware attack, ConfigMgr R3 managed systems would need to wait until the scheduled

Windows wakeup before anti-virus updates could be applied leaving systems open to attack.

Historical Data and Reporting ConfigMgr R3 only preserves the last 31 days of detailed datarelated to power monitoring and summarizations of the last 13 months. Microsoft recommends


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that you save or export results from any reports that you want to retain data for later comparison.

This puts limitations on an organizations ability to run reports over any time period, and assumes

that you can forecast now the data and reports that youll want to view and compare in the future.

SURVEYOR, by contrast, preserves historical data indefinitely allowing IT the flexibility and

convenience to run detailed reports over any defined period of time and eliminating the need to

cobble together data from separate summary reports in order to get a complete picture of energy

consumption and savings

Support for Non-Microsoft Client Lifecycle/Desktop Management Solutions - Not every customerhas a Microsoft-only IT shop, and some may be using several different management solutions to

manage desktops across their networks - including Symantec Altris, LANDesk, Novell ZENworks, BMC

Marimba, Windows System Updates Services (WSUS), AntiVirus, and HP Client Automation. Using

two different client management tool sets to measure, monitor and manage power consumption

across different PC estates can be time consuming, offer inconsistent capabilities, and produce

completely different results. SURVEYOR was designed to operate across heterogeneous client

desktop/lifecycle management tools and is in production use today in those environments. No

matter what your environment looks like, SURVEYOR gives you a consistent management

experience with consistent results, together with maximized power management and accurateintegrated reporting.

Support for Mac OSMacs are becoming more common in business environments these days. Ifyoure not managing power on these computers, then you are not maximizing energy savings in

your environment and are treating these unsupported devices as power management exceptions

and tolerating power waste. SURVEYOR now provides a single solution for managing power across

both PCs and Mac devices and operating systems enabling IT organizations to effectively manage

power on all of their PCs.

Summary

Together, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 and Verdiem SURVEYOR provide a powerful

solution that simplifies the coordination of patching and updating tasks with PC power management

events, improves IT operational efficiency, lowers the total cost of ownership, maximizes energy savings,

simplifies more extensive reporting, and pays for itself quickly and repeatedly.

In short, companies that are concerned about their impact on the environment see PC power

management as an easy way to significantly reduce operating expenditures and/or want to improve

operational efficiency of IT for patching and software updates, System Center Configuration Manager

2007 R3 and Verdiem SURVEYOR are better together. Verdiem SURVEYOR helps you bring the fullpower of PC power management to System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

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Verdiem SURVEYOR - Bring the Full Power of PC Power Management to SCCM 2007