Government Technology - September 2007 - (Page I3)

Virginia’s Next Watershed Virginia’s secretary of technology advocates remote manageability as a critical tool in achieving the state’s ambitious telecommuting goals. Dramatic changes are happening in Virginia’s work force. In 2006, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine asked 20 percent of the state government work force to start telecommuting by the time he leaves ofﬁce. The change aims to promote a family-friendly public policy. It will also protect environmental quality by reducing trafﬁc congestion and vehicle emissions, said Kaine, in a statement. When it comes to supporting this distributed network of employees, remote desktop management tools will be critical to a successful transition, said Aneesh Chopra, Virginia’s secretary of technology. “It means ensuring the desktop units being used, not directly on the state’s secure network, can be managed securely,” Chopra said. “The change is an opportunity, as well as a security risk. Thankfully we’ve been ahead of that discussion, so we’ve been looking at market solutions to mitigate the risk.” Tools that allow state IT staff to push updates and security patches to dispersed users and remotely troubleshoot problems are key to reaching the state’s telecommuting goal in an efﬁcient and effective manner. “The key metric for us is the speed of problem resolution in the sense that the capabilities and remote management enable us to make the end-user more productive, faster,” said Chopra. “We consider that to be the top priority.” Our current initiatives allow for tools to be deployed within our infrastructure to remotely manage desktops, streamlining the support process. “In academic theory, one should be able to increase support to ﬁeld and ofﬁce staff by using remote management to manage a higher ratio of PCs. Our help desk and ﬁeld support teams will gain efﬁciencies by design and deployments of tools and current programs already under way, but just gaining efﬁciencies is not the key driver of our investment or strategy,” Chopra said. The driver, he said, will be increased security and simpliﬁed problem resolution in the state’s changing workplace. Governments lose hours, and sometimes days, of productivity when viruses penetrate agency IT infrastructures. Many government help-desk technicians tell users to disconnect from the network if they suspect a PC virus. Then the help desk usually dispatches a technician for a desk-side visit to reboot the user’s PC, run a secure version of a virus scan on the system and clean the virus from the PC. The Intel/Windows solution lets IT workers resolve those challenges without leaving their desks. This reduces end-user downtime, producing immediate productivity gains. It also cuts support costs by eliminating technician travel time and expense. Built-In Security Intel vPro processor technology improves PC security and manageability because it’s embedded in the machine’s processing hardware and operates independently of the rest of the computer. If malicious trafﬁc corrupts the operating system or a hardware failure occurs, the technology remains functional. It continues to run and record system status, and maintains a secure communications link to the IT administrator. So even PCs that have been completely disabled by a worm or virus can be recovered remotely using the technology. Intel vPro processor technology keeps tabs on a PC’s security software and alerts IT staff when the software has been disabled. The solution checks the “heartbeat” of security applications every second to conﬁrm that those applications are still active. If malevolent software does infect a PC, the Intel technology immediately notiﬁes the IT department, empowering technicians to kill that activity and instantly isolate the PC from the network, and deactivate ports and USB connections if necessary. Windows Vista complements Intel’s remote management technology by adding another layer of security features. The operating system is programmed to know what kinds of data packets should ﬂow in and out of the PC’s application stack. If an unusual packet passes through the ﬁlter, Vista immediately alerts IT personnel. It also can be conﬁgured to automatically trip a threat containment “switch” to capture malicious software threats before they do extensive damage. Furthermore, Windows Vista includes integrated anti-malware and anti-phishing technology designed to protect PCs against trafﬁc that masquerades as trustworthy. Built-in diagnostics warn users of impending hardware failure. Bitlocker, part of the Windows Vista platform, keeps organizational data stored on a PC from falling into the wrong hands if a computer is stolen, lost or retired. Power Seat According to industry studies, desk-side and service center calls make up only 20 percent of PC problems in a typical organization, but they consume 80 percent of the support budget. The cost of a desk-

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - September 2007

Contents Point of View Big Picture ESRI Insert The Last Mile GT Spectrum Profile Nuclear Revival Way Back Machine Intel Insert Tale of TIERS Joining Forces Saving Seniors Site Seeing Quarter Miles Two Cents Products Signal: Noise Digital Communities Contents Our Road Ahead Course of Action Shared Interests Special Report: Foundation for the Future Using Wireless to Save Lives Smart Grids for Energy Conservation Community Governing and Wizards

Government Technology - September 2007

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