Abstract: A peer-to-peer IT (Information Technology) backbone. The system includes at least one IT server and a plurality of client computers arranged in a peer-to-peer IT backbone. Each of the client computers includes an in-band processor, an out-of-band (OOB) microcontroller, and a storage device coupled to the in-band processor and OOB microcontroller. The storage device includes a reserved area for the OOB microcontroller to enable an IT-administration to push IT payloads from the at least one IT server onto the reserved area of at least one of the plurality of client computers. The IT payloads are disseminated throughout the peer-to-peer IT backbone by the OOB microcontroller of the client computers.

Abstract: Various characteristics of a hard drive may be analyzed in order to determine the nature of an operating system stored thereon. For example, an operating system indicator and/or a boot record may be identified which may enable operating system identification. Alternatively, checksums may be used to disambiguate the stored operating system. Other disk characteristics may be utilized to enable a determination of operating system and operating system version. This information may be provided to the user in a graphical user interface indicating the correspondence between operating systems and drives, or a desired operating system, once identified, may be automatically used without analyzing all drives.