The Jamfs are coming

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How to manage Macs in your environment

“The Jamfs are coming” is the title of a Johnny Griffin jazz-tune, but Jamf Pro is also the standard when it comes to managing the Macs in the Enterprise. And with more and more users who wants to choose their device and platform, the Macs are certainly coming to be present in the Enterprise.

This presents a problem to many IT departments, who are used to the standards of managing a Windows environment with global images, group policies and locked down active directory environments. Having multiple platforms puts pressure on the helpdesk, the application readiness teams, and the security and compliance teams. It also typically requires a new management platform for the IT department to implement and understand.

Managing Macs is very similar to the way smartphones and tablets are managed using a mobile device management tool. The built-in management framework allows IT to build configuration profiles that manage various settings in the operating system. These profiles are delivered to the device using Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) and a mobile device management tool.

And this is where the Jamfs come in

Jamf Pro has become an industry standard when it comes to managing larger numbers of Macs. Larger in this context means more than the handful of Macs an IT department will be able to handle manually, to installations of several hundred thousand like we do at IBM. The Choice Program at IBM where the user can choose from a number of different platforms where he or she feels most comfortable, has moved the end user platform from being primarily Windows to being one of the largest MacOS install bases in the world.

For managing this environment, we use Jamf Pro

The flexibility for the users combined with the extended use of self-service portals is the basis for how we do IT for a large number of users using very few resources. We share this experiences with our customers. IBM Global Technology Services offer Managed Mobility Services for Macs based on our experiences and best practices. This service plugs in to traditional IT department and is most likely to be substantially more cost effective than managing a current Windows environment.

For a quick demonstration of the end user experience of un-boxing a new Mac and setting it up to corporate standards within minutes, please watch the video below:

For any further questions do not hesitate to contact me at vittrup@dk.ibm.com