A new integration between Datto RMM and the Intel vPro platform lets Datto partners use Datto RMM to fully control offline devices remotely. It parallels relationships Intel already has with other RMMs.
Datto and Intel have extended their strategic partnership with a deepening of the integration between Datto RMM and the Intel Endpoint Management Assistant [EMA], which is part of the Intel vPro platform. It enables the Datto partners to use Datto RMM to remotely control devices Intel terms ‘out-of-band, where the hardware is powered off or the operating system is unresponsive.
“vPro has always let you reach a machine that is turned off, but Intel EMA now provides more tools to support those devices that are turned off so you can now properly manage the device,” said Ian van Reenen, Datto’s VP, Software Engineering, RMM. “For the MSP, this means that using Datto RMM, they can connect into that device and service it when it is offline.”
Van Reenen said that the ability to do this through Datto RMM is important, because even though vPro is now mature and well over a decade old, many MSPs still don’t fully leverage its capabilities, or for that matter, use them at all.
“There are so many markets which can be enabled by the tool, but which aren’t yet realizing it,” van Reenen said. “From a product perspective, our focus here is the provision of a tool for service providers to fully support remote devices – to order the environment, manage it to the desired baseline state, monitor it for exceptions, fix those remotely with automation, and then report on it.”
Ian van Reenen, Datto’s VP, Software Engineering, RMM
Van Reenen has been working on this product for a long time. He was one of the founders of CentraStage, the cloud-based remote monitoring and management company that originally designed the management solution that became core to Autotask when they acquired CentraStage. When Datto acquired Autotask, which became Datto RMM, van Reenen continued to run the Datto RMM engineering, buoyed by the much greater resources available that came from being part of a large company like Datto.
Van Reenen emphasized that the new integration’s benefits start with enabling the MSP to easily determine which devices are EMA-enabled in the first place.
“It provides the MSP with an audit of that site to highlight devices that are EMA enabled,” he said. “Many MSPs don’t use it because they aren’t aware of it or haven’t done an audit. We can produce a report which raises awareness for them, and gives them a great way to understand if their customer environments support vPro.
“After an MSP discovers all vPro compliant devices in their client base, from there they can then use Datto RMM to provide a link to connect to the offline devices using Intel EMA technology,” van Reenen continued. “They can then deploy EMA and connect with Datto RMM and use the link that we provide in the Datto RMM interface to connect to the EMA interface, and remediate that vPro-compliant device.”
This capability around vPro is not exclusive to Datto.
“We aren’t the first RMM to have this kind of integration with Intel, but we feel that it’s an important tool for our MSPs to have,” van Reenen stated. “It fits within our broader RMM strategy of having world class integrations.”
This integration follows up on an earlier collaboration between Datto and Intel that was announced in June 2019. That involved SIRIS 4, the next generation of Datto’s flagship BCDR appliances, containing several advanced, high-performance, Intel processors.
