Ask HN: What's my best option for managing Macbooks in my organisation?

10 points by racontour 11 years ago | 6 comments

I've currently been tasked with the management of a small number of Macbooks. I just need to be able to enforce policies and full disk encryption, and limit user rights. Does anyone have any suggestions of what could suit my needs?

mtmail 11 years ago |

A Google employee gave an overview of the tools they use to manage their (1000s of) staff Macs. https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa13/managing-macs-googl... For example he points to https://github.com/google/macops

racontour 11 years ago | |

They have quite the suite that you can host on GCE. If I can eek out the time to deploy it, this looks like a winner, thanks.

opless 11 years ago |

Windows</sarcasm>

In all seriousness, I'm not sure that Apple supply anything remotely close to the functionality of windows policy manager, though I've heard some good mumblings about centrify and their offerings.

http://www.centrify.com/mac/group-policy-for-mac-os-x-deskto...

cromulent 11 years ago |

Profile manager?

https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/4.0/#/apd0E2214C6-50F0-...

bashinator 11 years ago | |

I've had pretty mixed-to-bad experiences with profile manager. It doesn't seem to be a product that Apple puts much care into. On the other hand, I've had very good luck with Casper from JAMF.

bigbossman 11 years ago |

You can use AirWatch to manage Macs, although this may be too much for your needs.

http://www.air-watch.com/solutions/macos