Cisco offers Meraki Systems Manager (SM), an enterprise mobility management platform supporting the monitoring, provisioning and securing of mobile devices across an enterprise network.
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Jamf Connect
Score 9.1 out of 10
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Jamf Connect is a Mac device authentication solution, that lets a user unbox their device, power it on and access all of their corporate applications and resources after signing on with a single set of cloud identity credentials.
It is very helpful if you need to restrict the apps a student or employee can have on their device. I had teachers using Netflix on the iPads before I brought them under management. Restricting them will make you unpopular with some of your employees, however, I advise them the device is being provided for business use and, therefore we have the right and responsibility to manage it.
Jamf Connect is a nice and customizable tool for password change or password sync and account creation during an enrollment process. The configuration is not very easy to understand at the start. Especially if an iDP comes into play and you don't have an idea with Azure or similar services. With Jamf Connect ad bind is dead on macs.
Limited ability for "command line" functions. For example, we had a laptop that was stolen and showed to be online, but we could not wipe it. We were able to access a command prompt, but it would not accept DISKPART or FORMAT commands to try and make the PC unusable.
The GPS location is not terribly accurate and frequently it "guesses" location based off of an IP address rather than actually activating the GPS on the device. This makes tracking lost/stolen devices very difficult.
Difficulty getting devices to correctly show their status in the dashboard. For example, I can have a PC that is online and connected to the Internet, but shows to be offline in the dashboard. Only after refreshing many times would it indicate that the PC was actually online, thus allowing me to administer it.
the Jamf configuration app for the config profiles looks not really Jamf-like
Why are under "Jamf Connect Deployment and Update Settings" in Jamf Pro all possible configuration profiles listed? We have some and I don't think there had to list every!?
how the Jamf Connect updates work under "Jamf Connect Deployment and Update Settings" is very unclear. i.e. for troubleshooting
It has is easy to use overall and is very powerful. The learning curve for the system is very small and I have found it easy to train members of our team to use it. It can fit any size organization and the support is excellent. The ROI is well worth it. If you have a multiplatform ecosystem, this tool is near perfect.
We have found that Cisco Meraki has always had very good customer support. In the rare case, when we have needed assistance they have always been quick to respond and solve the issue.
The only product I have used that is similar is Apple Configurator. While a powerful solution, it requires physical access to the devices which is not always possible, especially on a large site. Meraki is able to achieve many of the same functions as the Apple configurator but without ever needing to physically access the device, other than initial setup and registration.
It’s scalable up to a point and will scale well from small to a medium business, however, as a business grows and policies get more mature or detailed, you might have to later upgrade to a more appropriate enterprise solution such as MaaS360 or AirWatch. This solution however, will last quite a long tome for a growing business.
Our immediate take away has been a savings of thousands a year in MDM fees. We were paying around $3.00 a device with our previous MDM and our average with Meraki is about $1.88 per device. That while providing far more functionality than our previous provider.
