Prowess evaluated supply-chain solutions from Dell Technologies and HPE to determine which tool delivers the most value to enterprise teams when verifying server hardware as it arrives from the manufacturer.
The supply chain can be a point of security vulnerability. For organizations purchasing servers, bad actors can replace genuine parts with counterfeits or can breach security by introducing malicious components.
Server manufacturers address these security risks by providing verification tools. These supply-chain tools allow IT or security teams to confirm that servers are genuine, unaltered, and will work according to specification upon arrival.
With supply-chain security threats on the rise, Prowess Consulting evaluated two supply-chain security tools with the goal of determining which one adds the most value for enterprise users. Prowess tested the Dell Technologies Secured Component Verification (SCV) Tool for Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers and the HPE Platform Certificate Verification Tool (PCVT) for HPE® ProLiant® servers.
Prowess determined that the Dell SCV tool offers more value. It is faster; the Dell SCV tool completes a verification test of a single server in 95 percent less time than the HPE PCVT while requiring 43 percent fewer steps. The SCV tool can also verify a Dell PowerEdge server without the operating system yet installed on the server and with power off which increases efficiency. Prowess found the user interface of the SCV tool to be more intuitive. Additionally, the SCV tool offers support for Windows and Linux operating systems whereas the HPE PCVT supports only Linux. The Dell SCV tool also provides the ability to verify servers both locally and remotely and in a one-to-many configuration, and, finally, it provides more detailed test reports. This research study details these findings.