Mac management

This Fall Brings Tons Of Ways To Become A Mac And iOS IT Expert

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This week's MacSysAdmin 2012 Conference in Sweden kicks off a line of Mac/iOS conferences and training oppotunities for IT professionals.
This week's MacSysAdmin 2012 Conference in Sweden kicks off a line of Mac/iOS conferences and training opportunities for IT professionals.

While many Apple fans and IT professionals that support iOS devices in the workplace are eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s Apple announcement, a group of Apple in the enterprise experts are meeting at MacSysAdmin 2012 – a conference for European IT professionals tasked with managing Macs and iOS devices in business, education, and other workplace settings. The annual conference traditionally posts videos of its sessions online for free (as does the Penn State MacAdmins Conference that was held in the U.S. this spring).

That isn’t the only major conference for Mac and iOS IT professionals, however. October brings two other major events (one of them free) and there are a number of excellent smaller events scheduled throughout the fall.

MacTech Conference 2012 Registration Opens With Early Bird And Education Discounts

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Pre-registration open for this fall's MacTech Conference 2012.
Registration is available for this fall's MacTech Conference 2012.

Registration is now open for MacTech Conference 2012. The annual conference, which is a great learning and networking experience for IT professionals and developers, will be held October 17 – 19 in Los Angeles. A pre-registration discount is available for anyone who registers by the end of August.

The conference is sponsored by MacTech magazine and was launched in 2010, the year that Apple chose to focus its annual Worldwide Developers Conference solely on iOS. Since then, the conference has grown into a major event for IT professionals that need to support Macs and/or iOS devices in business, enterprise, and education environments. The conference has also become a serious event for Mac and iOS developers.

Enterprise Device Alliance Announces Mountain Lion Support

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The enterprise integration vendors of the Enterprise Device Alliance have announced universal support for Mountain Lion.
The enterprise integration vendors of the Enterprise Device Alliance have announced universal support for Mountain Lion.

The member companies that make up the Enterprise Device Alliance announced earlier this week that all of their products have either been updated already with support for Mountain Lion or will be within a few weeks.

The Enterprise Device alliance is a consortium of companies focused on integration Apple technologies in the business and enterprise environments. The solutions offered by those member companies include Active Directory integration, Mac and iOS device management, advanced file and print integration options, mobile backup, Windows virtualization, and help desk operations.

Apple’s Profile Manager And The Future Of Mac Management [Feature]

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Mountain Lion Server's Profile Manager illustrates the future of Mac and iOS management.
Mountain Lion Server's Profile Manager illustrates the future of Mac and iOS management.

Since the release of Snow Leopard Server three years ago, Apple has been steering its server platform away from large enterprise deployments. Instead Apple has redesigned OS X Server to meet the needs of the small to mid-size business market as well as the needs of Apple-centric departments or workgroups in larger organizations. That focus is very clear if you download and install Mountain Lion Server or look through the Mountain Lion Server documentation from Apple.

One of the transitions that Apple began in Lion and Lion Server, which were released last summer, was a move away from the traditional Mac management architecture that Apple has provided in OS X Server since it launched the platform more than a decade ago. In its place, Apple has built a management system for Macs that is very similar to the mobile management features available in iOS.

Is There A Reason Apple Only Provided Minor Additions In Remote Desktop’s Latest Update?

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Apple continues to update Apple Remote Desktop without issuing a major new feature-laden upgrade.
Apple continues to update Apple Remote Desktop without issuing a major new feature-laden upgrade.

Apple released a range of updates to the its Mac applications last week along with the release of Mountain Lion on Wednesday. Most of those updates were to integrate new Mountain Lion technologies and provide general compatibility with the new OS.

Among them were updates for  Apple Remote Desktop, Apple’s extremely powerful and flexible remote management solution for Mac systems. In addition to offering support for Mountain Lion, the update also added a couple new features focused around some of Apple’s latest hardware, but no major changes. In fact, one has to wonder why this amazing Mac IT solution has gotten so few updates over the past few years.

Apple Continues To Support Traditional Mac Management In Mountain Lion Server

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Workgroup Manager and Managed Preferences are alive and kicking in Mountain Lion Server.
Workgroup Manager and Managed Preferences are alive and kicking in Mountain Lion Server.

In addition to launching Mountain Lion Server last week, Apple rather quietly released a Mountain Lion Server version of Workgroup Manager – the traditional Mac management tool included in previous releases of OS X Server. The move was unexpected after Apple released the Advanced Administration guide for Mountain Lion Server, which implied that administrators would need to begin an almost-immediate shift to Mountain Lion Server’s Profile Manager.

The move is good news for many organizations that have an existing investment in OS X Server and Mac clients. Although Mountain Lion Server’s Profile Manager is arguably a more modern and enterprise-friendly solution, it only supports Macs running Lion and Mountain Lion. Any schools or businesses with clients still on Leopard or Snow Leopard would be out of luck if Profile Manager were the only available option.

These Mac Utilities And Enterprise Tools Are Ready To Roll With Mountain Lion

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Some Mac security and Mac management tools already support Mountain Lion, but there are many that haven't gotten their yet.
Some Mac security and Mac management tools already support Mountain Lion, but there are many that haven't gotten their yet.

Many Mountain Lion apps will function normally under Mountain Lion, but many won’t. Of particuar concern are the various utilities that help keep Mac systems secure, scan for viruses and malware, integrate with enterprise systems in businesses and schools, and dianose and repair problems.

These tools often require much deeper integration with OS X than other apps. That means that developers need to ensure they function as intended and don’t damage any documents, files, OS X system components, or other apps. That can sometimes delay releases of key utilities.

Here’s a list of Mac utilities and enterprise tools that have confirmed Mountain Lion Compatibility

How To Deploy Mountain Lion In Business And Education The Right Way [Feature]

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Deploying Mountain Lion across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of Mac can be easy and efficient if you do it the right way.
Deploying Mountain Lion across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of Mac can be easy and efficient if you do it the right way.

Among Mountain Lion’s more than 200 new features are many that have distinct appeal for business users. AirPlay Mirroring, the ability to share items with colleagues, secure and unified messaging across Macs and iOS devices, one-step encryption of hard drives and flash drives, Reminders, Notification Center, VIP prioritization in Mail, and dictation are just handful of the Mountain Lion features that are poised to become great business and education tools.

With so many great features, IT departments big and small are likely to hear requests for Mountain Lion from employees, managers, educators, and even students. While Mountain Lion may be an easy and painless upgrade for consumers, any major OS upgrade poses challenges and concerns for technology professionals and Mountain Lion is no different. In this guide, we’ll show you how to prepare for Mountain Lion, test it for compatibility issues, and plan a successful roll out.

Apple’s iCloud and Gatekeeper Make Businesses Choose One Security Risk Over Another

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Mountain Lion's consumer security and cloud features conflict in schools and workplaces.
Mountain Lion's consumer security and cloud features conflict in schools and workplaces.

In putting together the various features of Mountain Lion, Apple may end up encouraging business and enterprise customers to actually make their Macs less secure instead of ratcheting up security as some key Mountain Lion capabilities are intended to do.

There are a handful of technologies involved, but they center around iCloud and Apple’s requirement that apps sold in the Mac App Store support Apple’s application sandboxing technique.

Mountain Lion Server May Look Limited, But It Still Has Enterprise Bones [Feature]

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Appearances can be deceiving. Mountain Lion Server still has solid enterprise capabilities.
Appearances can be deceiving. Mountain Lion Server still has solid enterprise capabilities.

Apple has released two documents about Mountain Lion Server ahead of this month’s Mountain Lion (and Mountain Lion Server) launch. The first, a 25 page product guide, offered a some insights into the changes and new features that Apple wants to highlight for customers. The second is Apple’s Advanced Administration guide, an in-depth document that would be nearly 400 pages is it were printed or packaged as a PDF. This guide is the full documentation for Mountain Lion Server and it offers a lot of information about all the changes that Apple has made since Lion Server shipped last summer.

On the surface, these two guides are enough to make longtime OS X Server administrators nervous at Apple’s removal of the advanced admin tools and features that have been in nearly every previous OS X Server release. It’s very easy to look at the contents of the Advanced Administration guide and assume Apple is completing the consumerization of its server platform.

Digging a bit deeper, however, reveals that Apple may actually have a winning strategy in the way that it continues to integrate iOS and Mac management into a single workflow and that not all of the capabilities from previous iterations of OS X Server have been scrapped.

Penn State MacAdmins Conference Videos Available – Great Mac/iOS Resource For IT Pros

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Penn State MacAdmins Conference 2012 videos are a goldmine for Mac IT Pros.
Penn State MacAdmins Conference 2012 videos are a goldmine for Mac IT Pros.

If you’re an IT professional charged with rolling out Macs and iOS devices to employees in your company or students in your school, the Penn State MacAdmins Group has a wealth of new resources for you.

The group puts on an excellent annual conference for Mac and  iOS administrators and IT professionals each year. The sessions cover just about everything you might need to know when it comes to developing a solid strategy for deploying and managing Macs and iOS devices in schools or business. Sessions are led by IT professionals with a solid background in Mac and iOS technologies. Real world experiences with the tools and processes involved are discussed along with tips, tricks, and advice.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference, however, you can view the sessions online.

Mountain Lion Server Preview – It’s All About Small Business [Feature]

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Server app is Apple's current approach to OS Server Installs
Server app is now Apple's primary OS X Server interface

Apple’s 2007 launch of Leopard Server was the beginning of a new business strategy for the company. Leopard Server included a number of new features – shared calendaring with iCal Server, Apple’s wiki-based collaborative tools, and streamlined Podcast creation and hosting through Podcast Producer were some of the highlights. The biggest new feature, however, was the introduction of a simplified setup assistant and Server Preferences – a utility designed to look and feel similar to System Preferences that enabled easy management of key server features for smaller organizations with limited technical knowledge or resources.

Fast forward nearly five years to today and you can see the focus that Apple introduced in Leopard Server has become the core of Mountain Lion Server. You can also see that many features that used to be OS X Server staples are gone (or at least are being handed their hats and coats). What remains is a very inexpensive but still relatively powerful server OS with a focus on easy setup and management as well as collaboration.

Apple Quietly Releases Mountain Lion Server Guide, Previews The Future Of Mac Management

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Apple offers an early glimpse into Mountain Lion Server and Mountain Lion Mac management
Apple offers an early glimpse into Mountain Lion Server and Mountain Lion Mac management

 

Apple has quietly posted an overview guide to Mountain Lion Server. The 25 page PDF document is available from Apple’s OS X Server Resources page, which barely references Mountain Lion at all. The generically named OS X Server Product Overview link in the page’s Documentation section, however, links to the new Mountain Lion Server product brief.

The overview guide is listed as being updated for June. That implies that it was deliberately placed there in advance of next month’s Mountain Lion release (as opposed to going live early by mistake). The guide primarily focuses on introducing the various features in Mountain Lion Server. While not in-depth, it definitely provides a sense of where Apple is going with Mountain Lion Server as well as with Mac and iOS management.

Mountain Lion’s New Security Update Feature – Good For Users, A Potential Headache for IT

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Will Mountain Lion's new security system be a hit or a miss for schools and businesses?
Will Mountain Lion's new security system be a hit or a miss for schools and businesses?

Following the Flashback malware scare this spring, Apple is stepping up its focus on security and malware protection in Mountain Lion. The release notes for the latest Mountain Lion developer preview include references to a “new Mountain Lion Security Updates system” that checks for security updates on a daily basis, uses a more secure connection when communicating with Apple’s update servers, and can install required updates automatically when a Mac is restarted.

Based on the release notes for the system, Apple is making the security update process automatic and has designed it to  runs as a system process rather than a user task. Presumably that means it will function without a user logged in or while non-admin users are logged in. All in all, that’s similar to Microsoft’s Windows update feature and a good thing for users.

That doesn’t mean that this setup will be great fit for businesses, schools, and other organizations with large Mac populations.

At $19.99 Mountain Lion Server Promises To Be A Great Bargain

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Apple's pricing for Mountain Lion Server is a great bargain for small businesses
Apple's pricing for Mountain Lion Server is a great bargain for small businesses.

OS X Server has always been something of a bargain compared to the various flavors of Windows Server. Unlike Microsoft, Apple never focused on a client access licensing model in which organizations must pay for the server software itself plus additional licenses for users or devices that connect to it. Apple also doesn’t break OS X Server down into multiple variations each with its own features, licensing needs, and upgrade limitations.

When you buy OS X Server, Apple gives you everything from file sharing to Internet and collaborative services like wikis and internal messaging through Mac and iOS device management. If you start as a small business with a single basic server and eventually grow to the point where you need to support and manage dozens or hundreds of Macs, PCs, and mobile devices, there are no limits imposed on licensing or data migration.

Apple Serves Up Mac Business/Enterprise Resources Ahead of Mountain Lion

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Apple release Lion/enterprise docs on its training site 

Apple has added several whitepapers to its training site. All them address enterprise technologies in Lion. While many of the whitepapers have been available from Apple in the past, two of them appear to be new additions. The first of these details the use of Configuration Profiles to manage Macs running Lion as well as iOS device while the second covers 802.1X networking.

The first new whitepaper, which isn’t dated, is definitely the more interesting of the two.  It discusses Mac management as an extension of mobile device management (MDM). As we reported last week, Apple appears to be positioning Macs running Mountain Lion to be managed in the same manner as iOS devices rather than using its long-standing Managed Preferences architecture that has been built into OS X and OS X Server since their initial releases over a decade ago.

Free & Cheap Ways To Become A Mac IT Master [Feature]

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Beyond the classroom, there are some amazing Mac IT training resources
Beyond the classroom, there are some amazing Mac IT training resources

Recently, we’ve done a couple of features on the core tools and skills needed by IT professionals who support and manage Macs and iOS devices in business environments. Knowing what those tools and skills you need is a step in the direction to becoming a killer Mac tech or multi-platform sysadmin, but to really succeed, you need to acquire those skills and learn how to use the appropriate tools.

There are a range of training options available with price points ranging from free online resources to professional IT training companies and Apple-authorized training centers. Which options (or mix of options) are best for you will vary depending on your learning style, the skills and experience that you already possess, and your budget.

In this feature, we’re going to focus on some of the best low-cost (and no-cost) options out there.

Thousands of Macs In The Enterprise – How The Big Companies Roll [Feature]

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Managing hundreds or thousands of Macs in big companies requires the right skills and the right tools
Managing hundreds or thousands of Macs in big companies requires the right skills and tools

 

Last week I took a brief look at how managing a handful of Macs differs from managing dozens or hundreds or even thousands of Macs. Some readers asked how big companies like Apple, Google, Viacom, or IBM actually go about managing large numbers of Macs – both in terms of the tools they use and in terms of how their IT processes differ from supporting Macs in small businesses.

I can’t speak for how Apple manages the Macs of its thousands of employees, but I have worked with several large companies as a Mac IT professional – along with a number of schools and colleges, government agencies, and small businesses. Here’s a look at the tools and processes that they use to configure, deploy, and manage Macs on a grand scale.

OS X Mountain Lion’s GateKeeper: Bad For Businesses, Great For Consumers [Opinion]

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GateKeeper is one of the big new features in Mountain Lion. It’s designed to protect against malware by limiting what kinds of software gets installed on your Mac. GateKeeper offers Mac users three levels of security: Mac App Store purchases (which have been fully vetted by Apple), Developer ID apps purchased outside the Mac App Store that are digitally signed so your Mac can verify their authenticity via Apple, and apps from all other sources.

The GateKeeper model looks great from the perspective of an individual user or family – easy to understand and use while being fairly effective at leveraging Apple’s developer program as a security solution. How it will stack up in business and enterprise environments, where mass deployment are commonplace, may be a different story.