NEIT16+Open+Space+2B+-+Study+(off+Lake)

Hey guys! For the seven of you who came to the Mac Admin / MDM session this morning, over the next couple of days, I ([|AP Orlebeke from The Masters School]) am going to try to gather some resources together and post them here, as well as consolidate some of my experience and knowledge that gives you some helpful details of what Casper / the JAMF Software Server is, can do, and how it works. If you have questions related to managing Macs or iOS devices, whether Casper related or not, please add them to the discussion below.

SO, here goes my brain dump ... = = =Helpful Starting Places:= 1) Join the [|MacAdmins] Slack community. Incredible community of over 3,000 people with 280+ channels (topics) covering specific areas of Mac administration: systems, tools, Apple programs, etc. Lots and lots of active and helpful people who can help you get started or just get answers to specific questions you may have. Real-time chat. Check. it. out.

2) If you're interested in the Casper Suite, check out [|JAMFnation] . Another active and vibrant community of Mac admins using Casper to manage Macs & iOS devices. Discussion board format. Even if you don't have Casper, you can search and create a free account to ask questions and contribute to the ongoing discussion.

3) Check out [|Clayton Burlison's Blog post] on deploying Microsoft Office 2016. Recently, there has been a lot of positive changes on Microsoft's engineering and development side of things as it relates to supporting Mac admins. There are many different ways now to deploy Office 2016, or a subset of Office 2016 applications, given your environment and needs. A lot of credit needs to be given to Paul Bowden, a Microsoft Software engineer, who joined the Mac admin community and through a lot of feedback has worked and successfully implemented positive changes and improvements in subsequent versions of Office 2016 to make our lives easier. Additionally, Paul manages [] which is a one-stop shop allowing anyone to grab the latest installers and updates. You still need a license though.

4) Check out the [|Macmule blog] & [|derflounder blog]. Ben Toms & Rich Trouten, two big names in the Mac admin community, have given presentations at many Mac admin conferences and have very helpful and extensive instructions on their blogs for a LOT of different things, including their thinking and thought processes on Mac management. They're also very active in the Mac Admins Slack community, so you'll likely rub shoulders and interact with them there.

=Casper Basics=

What is Casper?
The Casper Suite is an MDM solution, arguably the best out there, for imaging, deploying, and managing Macs and iOS devices. The full suite includes 5 pieces of software - Casper Admin, Casper Imaging, Casper Remote, Composer, and Recon. More info on the individual components of the Casper Suite software later.

The kernel, if you will, of Casper is the **J**AMF **S**oftware **S**erver - referred most often to as the JSS. This is the software that runs on a server on-site or in the JAMF Cloud which distributes your software, pushes your configuration profile, monitors your Mac inventory and hardware statuses, etc. For more info on using Casper on-site vs. in the JAMF Cloud, check out the section further down.

Casper Admin, Imaging, and Remote
These are the 3 administrative

Composer
Casper's package building tool. Composer can build DMGs (formatted specifically for use with Casper and can't be deployed or installed outside of Casper) and PKGs. PKGs have the benefit of being able to be installed independently of Casper, so if you wanted to use them with Apple Remote Desktop for example, you could. DMGs made with Composer have the added benefit of being able to utilize two options that PKGs can't, Fill User Templates (FUT) and Filling Existing Users (FEU). FUT changes Apple's default User Template. For example, if you want all users on a set of machines to get the same Dock, FUT ensures that your custom Dock replaces the default User Template. FEU allows you to make live changes to //all// users that have already logged in to machines, so if you install additional software and then want to change the default dock to include the new icon, FEU allows you to make this change for everyone.

The challenge with Composer comes when building packages through Snapshots. If your software comes in the form of an application you just drag into the Applications folder or a PKG, you don't need to do anything with Composer. It's already in a format that you can use to deploy with Casper. If it's //not// in one of these formats, or includes Library files for example, you'll need to use Composer's snapshot method. You take a snapshot of the computer before you install your software, install your software, open the application and set your preferences, and then take an after snapshot with Composer. It then compares the two snapshots, copies the added files to a temporary location for package building, and then package up the captured files. The challenge comes in when your software when your snapshot captures more than just the software you want to package and deploy. Especially if the software installer requires you to restart, you're going to get a lot more than just the software you're trying to package and consequently will have to delete those unwanted files and folders. This manual process can introduce human errors if you miss something you don't want, or accidentally remove something you need. Additionally, you'll need to test deploying this software to machines and as well as do user testing in the event there are permissions issues with the folders and files you packaged. Definitely a potential pain point ...

Community
As mentioned in Helpful Starting Places, there is a large and supportive Mac admin community only too willing to answer a question or lend a hand. Being proactive can only help you identify potential pain points //before// you go into production.

Customization & Flexibility
Whether you are a 1:1 school, BYOD, a hybrid, etc. however you want to deploy and manage your Macs and iOS devices is possible.

Casper On-Site vs. JAMF Cloud
="Pain Points"= Like all great software tools, it's not always perfect or seamless. There are unfortunately a number of different pain points that create challenges, forces certain best practices, or even make it more challenging to use. Without going into a TON of detail, I wanted to acknowledge a few of them below: = = =Notes=

Scott Adamson: sadamson@friendsseminary.org We have been using Casper for the last few years. The system is working well with a few hiccups from time to time. We have a total of about 2000 devices (Mac and iOS devices) in our MDM. I have also worked with Casper to deploy Windows PC (bootcamp) with the help of WinClone Pro. If you have questions about Casper, let us know and would be happy to discuss Casper further. JAMF support is really good - responsive and thoughtful. We are working with onsite VMs running Ubuntu for our JSS and Database locally. I am also wondering about a hosted solution. From time to time I will spin up a EC2 instance for testing and troubleshooting and that works smoothly in those environment and is a option to work with... I would also recommend the JAMF Support Pass annually to train a team and keep the skills and access to the latest updates current.