American Megatrends Announces Launch of AMI Provisioning™ Pre-Boot Management Utility at IDF 2010 San Francisco

Monday: September 13, 2010

Editorial Summary:

• American Megatrends (AMI) announces the launch of AMI Provisioning™ – robust pre-boot management powered by UEFI
• AMI Provisioning integrates firmware configuration, firmware update, hardware diagnostics and pre-OS applications in a Unified EFI (UEFI) environment
• When combined with AMI’s Aptio® UEFI firmware and AMIDiag™ for UEFI diagnostics, AMI Provisioning greatly simplifies system maintenance and configuration
• AMI will demonstrate AMI Provisioning as part of a joint demonstration with Intel and Dell during IDF San Francisco as part of Track Presentation Session EFIS004 entitled "Zero-Touch Platform Manageability with UEFI" in Room 2006 of the Moscone Center West on Monday, September 13 at 3:20pm

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - American Megatrends (AMI), a leader in storage and computing innovations, is pleased to introduce its new robust pre-boot management utility, AMI Provisioning®. AMI Provisioning integrates firmware configuration, firmware update, hardware diagnostics and pre-OS applications in a Unified EFI (UEFI) environment.

AMI Provisioning has a number of noteworthy attributes that leverage its compatibility with the UEFI specification. At its core, AMI Provisioning allows developers to embed utilities together with the system, effectively replacing the standard recovery DVD shipped with most devices with an "always available" pre-boot management tool. AMI Provisioning can be executed from the BIOS flash ROM, NAND flash, on-board USB devices, protected hard disk partitions and OEM proprietary storage.

AMI Provisioning also simplifies pre-OS configuration by taking advantage of UEFI standards. It features a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) that allows for a move away from text-based "legacy BIOS" setup menus typically associated with the pre-boot environment. The GUI is easily customized for OEM branding, and includes support for multiple languages along with context-sensitive help.

One of the key benefits of AMI Provisioning is its ability to provide OS-independent firmware updates for all firmware components of the system. The advantage of executing BIOS and firmware updates in pre-boot is the elimination of OS compatibility issues, allowing customers to recover in situations where the OS cannot boot. Its network support allows for updates over the network via FTP and HTTP, in addition to network shares or locally-stored files. AMI Provisioning also guarantees the security and integrity of firmware updates with its support for digital signatures, to verify the authenticity of firmware images and avoid using tampered or outdated updates.

When combined with AMI’s Aptio® UEFI firmware and AMIDiag™ for UEFI, AMI Provisioning greatly simplifies system maintenance and configuration. AMIDiag™ for UEFI integrates neatly into the AMI Provisioning utility and makes system diagnostics readily available to the user, enabling full system tests even when the OS is not functional.

Because AMI Provisioning is built on the latest version of the industry-backed UEFI specification, users experience a management interface consistent with AMI’s Aptio® firmware solution and other UEFI implementations and platforms. Finally, AMI Provisioning is easily extensible, empowering developers to extend the framework and create and integrate new applications that leverage the same GUI and customized OEM themes.

Speaking about this new product, American Megatrends President and CEO S. Shankar commented that "the power and extensibility of AMI Provisioning is possible thanks to AMI’s commitment to UEFI standards. AMI Provisioning allows AMI to provide the full spectrum of UEFI and pre-boot support to system developers, with diagnostics, updates, system recovery, and pre-boot applications. AMI strongly believes that AMI Provisioning will be of great benefit to manufacturers, in part by helping them avoid needless system returns due to trivial issues that can be corrected in the pre-boot environment."

AMI will demonstrate AMI Provisioning as part of a joint demonstration with Intel and Dell during IDF San Francisco as part of Track Presentation Session EFIS004 entitled "Zero-Touch Platform Manageability with UEFI" in Room 2006 of the Moscone Center West on Monday, September 13 at 3:20pm. To learn more about the new AMI Provisioning™ robust pre-boot management utility from AMI, Aptio® UEFI firmware, AMIDiag™ for UEFI and more, please visit www.ami.com or contact an AMI Sales Associate at 1-800-U-BUY-AMI.

About AMI : Founded in 1985 and known worldwide for AMIBIOS®, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) supplies state-of-the-art hardware, software, and utilities to top-tier manufacturers of desktop, server, mobile and embedded systems. AMI’s industry leading Aptio® V UEFI BIOS firmware, innovative StorTrends® Network Storage hardware and software products and MegaRAC® remote server management solutions continue to garner industry acclaim and awards around the world. In line with the diversity of its technology and product line, AMI is a member of a number of industry associations and standards groups, such as the Unified EFI Forum (UEFI), the Intel® Intelligent Systems Alliance and the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, AMI has locations in the U.S., China, Germany, India, Japan, Korea and Taiwan to better serve its customers.

For more information on AMI, its products or services, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit www.ami.com.

Statement of Liability: © 2013 American Megatrends Inc. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Products mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. All rights reserved. No warranties are made, either express or implied, with regard to the contents of this work, its merchantability or fitness for a particular use. This publication contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. American Megatrends reserves the right to update, change and/or modify this product at anytime.

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