Proactive Management and Supervision Solutions for intelligent POS systems: which technological advances for the point of sale and service?
By Christophe GUNTZ – Technical Manager – AURES Technologies
The operating, supervising and maintaining costs of POS IT equipment have become a constant concern for the related IT departments; implementing tools that will enable centralised, remote and proactive management of the POS equipment will make it possible to reduce them, offering maximum return on investment and optimising performance and security infrastructures.
The integration of technologies such as INTEL®vPro™, which AURES is gradually deploying on its range of POS systems (EPOS, mobile POS, tablets and kiosks) is totally in line with this trend.
INTEL®vPro™ technology has opened the way and secured remote control operations over the POS.
In the retail and point-of-sale world, the demand for increasingly intelligent and autonomous POS equipment, entirely connected and remotely controllable, is growing fast. It is driven by the trend towards mobility (mPOS), towards self-service and the desire to better inform customers and make their experience on the POS more fluid.
In this context, INTEL®vPro™ technology enables IT and technical support Departments to fully manage and supervise the functionalities of their POS IT assets, even when the related POS and systems concerned are not in operation ( for example when they are switched off, during maintenance operations or breakdown, or when operating systems such as Windows no longer respond).
Automatic multi-site configurations and deployments
The INTEL®vPro™ technology allows you to automatically configure all your POS systems, remotely and in real time, on all your sites.
Centralized and proactive management
Recharging the Bios or operating systems, scheduling software updates, anticipating possible interventions or maintenance operations, automating actions to remedy them – centrally and without human intervention at each point of sale – are among the many advantages of INTEL®vPro™ technology.
It is no longer necessary to switch from one POS to another because the whole system is accessible at a glance; now, you can plan your interventions on hundreds of stations (POS, kiosks, Mobile POS…) and you can even schedule and execute them outside the opening hours of the points of sale concerned.
This technology will therefore enable a company that operates under different time zones to schedule interventions at any time, on any point of sale, even when the shop is closed and the POS is switched off.
Supervision and preventive maintenance
Thanks to a specific alert system, INTEL®vPro™ technology allows you to anticipate and deal with possible risks, problems or failures, whatever their nature, hardware and/or software; you can also plan all your preventive maintenance tasks automatically, on all your operating POS systems.
Remote control and rapid diagnosis and execution
With INTEL®vPro™ and its platform, you quickly and efficiently take remote control of all your management and till systems at the POS.
Increased security
The security of your POS and of your systems is increased because your technical or IT departments have full real-time access to the entire installed computer system, even in the event when Windows or a disk drive (HDD or SSD) does not start.
Consequently, most operations including resets, operating system reloading and software reinstallation become possible, remotely, without hardware downtime, for increased security and significant time and cost savings.
This access to the whole POS network is of course extremely supervised and secured, thanks to very complex encryption tools which prohibit the access to the possible hackers or to the personnel and the entities which are not authorized.
Automatic inventory management
Built into the processo, INTEL®vPro™ management technology sets the bar very high in terms of ease of system management, advanced security and energy-efficient performance.
It can speed up the inventory of your hardware resources (processor type, partitions, serial numbers, network card, beeps, etc) and software (review of installed applications and their versions, QFE, GDR and LDR, etc) by 94% compared to a manual inventory, for each POS hardware or POS management system.
Significant time and budget savings
The studies carried out estimate the average cost of an on-site intervention (all IT sectors combined) between 150 and 350 euros (180 to 415 USD approx.) – for a maintenance or repair operation.
Performed remotely with INTEL® technology vPro™, the same operation is estimated at less than 10 euros! (or 12 USD).
(source : INTEL – https://www.intel.fr/content/www/fr/fr/retail/solutions/vpro-technology-in-retail.html)
AURES Technologies today offers INTEL® technology on some of its integrated point of sale terminals, on the YUNO with i5 processor for example.
vPro will gradually be available on most of the systems developed and marketed by the Group and on all the new hardware in its POS and KIOSK ranges.
In addition to INTEL®vPro™ technology, AURES integrates and offers its customers other POS system management and supervision solutions, compatible with all its ranges of POS equipment and terminals.
These platforms – WanPulse ProVconnect for example – will be the subject of a future post in our online section “Expert Voice”.