OS X Server Profile Manager vs Meraki MDM

[Shadow_Walker]

I am going to be setting up iPads at my new job and was wondering what you guys would recommend me using. At my old place I was using Lightspeed MDM but even though it had its benefits I don’t think I will be using at my new place. I have been looking at meraki mdm from cisco but also had a look at profile manager on os x server. What would you guys recommend going with?

[Sibrows]

We've moved away from Meraki to Profile manager due to the cost for updates and support.

 

Profile manager hosted onsite works for what we've asked it to do thus far.

[aidenbran2000]

I have been using Meraki MDM but with limited success recently. Was thinking about moving over to the rocket and there mdm but now not to sure. Can you elaborate on what problems have come up? Never used profile manager but heard good things about it.

[jamiehill1231]

Could someone explain what's the problems people have had with meraki ?

[Shadow_Walker]

We've moved away from Meraki to Profile manager due to the cost for updates and support.

 

Profile manager hosted onsite works for what we've asked it to do thus far.

 

Do you just run it from a mac mini?

[Shadow_Walker]

I have been using Meraki MDM but with limited success recently. Was thinking about moving over to the rocket and there mdm but now not to sure. Can you elaborate on what problems have come up? Never used profile manager but heard good things about it.

 

 

With version 1 of the lsmdm everything was made simple andwas easy but when they released version 3 (They didn’t even release version 2due to overload of problems) our iPad management became 10x harder once we migrated to version 3. First offthere is no search box to search for a group or device so if it syncs your mybig campus groups you have to search through all the groups until you get thegroup that you want. Then if a setting like passcode is turned off at thehighest admin point you can’t turn it on for each individual group it stays onor off and mould your settings around it. Then you have the problem with theinterface where you have to turn a setting on to turn it off which confused meat the start as I couldn’t understand why setting were not pushing. Overall Ilost patience with it after the update as it just became a struggle.

 

[Sibrows]

Yep at the moment I have 200 devices enrolled and as yet no issues. We had already enrolled 500 devices into Meraki before they asked us for some money so we have to migrate them across over the next few months.

[Shadow_Walker]

Yep at the moment I have 200 devices enrolled and as yet no issues. We had already enrolled 500 devices into Meraki before they asked us for some money so we have to migrate them across over the next few months.

 

How come they asked you for money?

[Sibrows]

Essentially I started to ask why they had been rather slow in making available some of the features Apple introduced with iOS 7 (iBooks distribution and previously VPP app distribution) the explained that now they were part of Cisco they had a far more rigours testing to go through (fair enough).

 

They then explained that in order to receive any further feature updates or any further support they wanted a per device subscription.

 

While this isn't unreasonable to ask for a subscription thus far they are more expensive than a number of other vendors.

[Shadow_Walker]

Essentially I started to ask why they had been rather slow in making available some of the features Apple introduced with iOS 7 (iBooks distribution and previously VPP app distribution) the explained that now they were part of Cisco they had a far more rigours testing to go through (fair enough).

 

They then explained that in order to receive any further feature updates or any further support they wanted a per device subscription.

 

While this isn't unreasonable to ask for a subscription thus far they are more expensive than a number of other vendors.

 

Seems like they are going down the lightspeed MDM route charging per device so this is swaying me more towards profile manager now.

 

thanks

[Sibrows]

A couple of bits we've found thus far:

• Profile manager isn't anywhere near as easy to extract information from.
  
• Backing up profile manager seams to change between versions and I'm yet to have to find out if the backup works.
  
• I've not been able to locate anyone documenting what kind of performance hit 1,000+ devices connected.
  

[Edu-IT]

To be fair to the v3 MDM from Lightspeed, there are issues with the UI not always making sense but as soon as you get your head around that it's pretty obvious. On the plus side Lightspeed know of these UI quirks and are receptive to customer feedback and there's lots of stuff logged and regular changes coming out. There is a search function coming for finding groups.

 

I never knew a v2 even existed? Do you have any information on that?

 

The support guys at Lightspeed are fabulous. Nothing is ever too much trouble and responses are super quick. Not many companies are like that now and that alone is worth the few quid MDM license cost! The cross over between having UK and US support means you can speak to someone most hours of the day.

 

Oh, and the fact its web based means you can delegate a lot of the management to somebody else if need be as all they need is a browser. :-)

Edited May 28, 2014 by Edu-IT

[Sibrows]

To be fair to the v3 MDM from Lightspeed, there are issues with the UI not always making sense but as soon as you get your head around that it's pretty obvious. On the plus side Lightspeed know of these UI quirks and are receptive to customer feedback and there's lots of stuff logged and regular changes coming out. There is a search function coming for finding groups.

 

I never knew a v2 even existed? Do you have any information on that?

 

The support guys at Lightspeed are fabulous. Nothing is ever too much trouble and responses are super quick. Not many companies are like that now and that alone is worth the few quid MDM license cost! The cross over between having UK and US support means you can speak to someone most hours of the day.

 

Oh, and the fact its web based means you can delegate a lot of the management to somebody else if need be as all they need is a browser. :-)

 

We are using a Lightspeed Rocket for our web filtering so we'd have the option of using their MDM solution but at the moment Profile Manager is fulfilling our requirements.

[Shadow_Walker]

To be fair to the v3 MDM from Lightspeed, there are issues with the UI not always making sense but as soon as you get your head around that it's pretty obvious. On the plus side Lightspeed know of these UI quirks and are receptive to customer feedback and there's lots of stuff logged and regular changes coming out. There is a search function coming for finding groups.

 

I never knew a v2 even existed? Do you have any information on that?

 

The support guys at Lightspeed are fabulous. Nothing is ever too much trouble and responses are super quick. Not many companies are like that now and that alone is worth the few quid MDM license cost! The cross over between having UK and US support means you can speak to someone most hours of the day.

 

Oh, and the fact its web based means you can delegate a lot of the management to somebody else if need be as all they need is a browser. :-)

 

Yes but is it usable now? For me to many problems and to much time setting up chat windows and speaking with support

 

Here is version 2: Solving issues when upgrading your MDM software to Apple's iOS 7 - Innovate My School

 

Can't knock Lightspeed support but when you seem to call them everyday with problems you know something is wrong.

 

With it being web based it does make it easier to manage but with schools and SLT not realising how much time it takes to set them up, you end up managing them instead of delegating it as you don't have the people with technical knowledge to pass the job onto.

[Edu-IT]

Ah, V2 and V3 are one and the same. They've combined 2 into 3 because Apple changed the VPP stuff it seems.

 

It all comes down to preference with these products.

 

At the end of the day all the MDM's do the same thing; they can only do as much as Apple let them do.

 

Let us know how you get on with profile manager as I'd be interested to hear particularly with the VPP stuff which is a nightmare on the whole. :-(

[Edu-IT]

Does profile manager still need individual Apple ID's for VPP?

[Shadow_Walker]

Let us know how you get on with profile manager as I'd be interested to hear particularly with the VPP stuff which is a nightmare on the whole. :-(

will do:D

[Sibrows]

Let us know how you get on with profile manager as I'd be interested to hear particularly with the VPP stuff which is a nightmare on the whole. :-(

 

Does profile manager still need individual Apple ID's for VPP?

 

We have 200 devices enrolled thus far and 96% of those user are enrolled in our VPP scheme. Thus far we've been able to distribute apps purchased through the VPP Scheme and three apps developed inhouse without issue.

 

As a very sweeping statement enrolling users into Apple's VPP scheme using Profile manager is a piece of cake when compared to Meraki (I can't talk about the other systems as I haven't tried to use them).

[Edu-IT]

Do you still need individual apple id's? Do you let your users make them?

[Sibrows]

Do you still need individual apple id's? Do you let your users make them?

 

We insisted that all users had an Apple ID before the day of issuing the iPads (while there were 5 or 6 students who didn't bother thats a manageable number) then the user's receive a notification on their iPad when you send it out after which point the user signs in accepts the EULA and then its done. Simple.

 

Bare in mind that we are using authentication with AD within Profile Manager this helps us keep track of all of who's who as the Students are able to rename all of their iPads.

[Manuelpl]

Meraki does NOT support enrolling AppleTV.

Meraki does NOT support VPP push invitations, they only support email Invitations.

 

Now they want to charge! , I'm glad I did not go with them.

[Jasbo]

Where are you getting that from? Link?

[Edu-IT]

Meraki does NOT support enrolling AppleTV.

Meraki does NOT support VPP push invitations, they only support email Invitations.

 

Now they want to charge! , I'm glad I did not go with them.

if that is true, then not good.

 

Edit: Seems to be the case with VPP. https://kb.meraki.com/knowledge_base/deploying-vpp-apps-to-ios-devices-using-apples-managed-distribution-model

Edited May 31, 2014 by Edu-IT

[Simcfc73]

Where does it say they are going to charge? Love to have Meraki running without the need for a mac mini sat gathering dust.

[Sibrows]

Where does it say they are going to charge? Love to have Meraki running without the need for a mac mini sat gathering dust.

See post #7

 

Its a very good way of getting you hooked before you realise the whole story.