Looking for an MDM solution

[techie211]

hey ppl, just took on the roll of Network admin in a new school district and they are using both Windows and Apple devices. We have quite a few ipads and all teachers have macbooks. I would like an MDM solution that would make it easy to manage the ipads and macbooks with policies and apps push. Just wondering what everyone out there is using and how many devices are you supporting? Basically pros and cons of the solution you went with. Any help on this is appreciated

 

-J

 

PS. I was looking at....MaaS360, Casper and Lightspeed as possible solutions for our district.

[Sylv3r]

Quite happily using Airwatch for 50 iOS devices. It does support Windows but I haven't tried it.

[Haptic]

+1 for Lightspeed

 

 

Chris

[Brimstone]

If you've got both Macs and iPads I would go with Casper, it can do more than Lightspeed at the mo....

[Markcun28]

Some of our customers use Good MDM which supports most devices Edited August 13, 2014 by Markcun28
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[Jwzg]

How much can you spend? Casper at the top and Profile Manager at the bottom.

[djm968]

I’ve used Meraki, and considering it is a free product it is very good.

 

https://meraki.cisco.com/products/systems-manager

 

I have also used LightSpeed and personally didn’t see any advantages over Meraki. I have also just installed Casper at a site and as others have said, you get more functionality but you have to pay for it.

 

All depends on your budget.

[ITTony]

+1 for meraki

we support multiple ios devices and this seems to do the trick and its free.

Not supporting macbook's though.

[techie211]

Thanks for the replys. I'm looking into Meraki and Airwatch but will also look into Casper and find out if it's a good for for our environment, including cost. Do any of you have any problems pushing down apps with any of these solutions? Jwgz mentioned "Casper at the top and Profile Manager at the bottom". I guessing you're using Casper for the apps push?

[rdaniel3383]

+1 for meraki

we support multiple ios devices and this seems to do the trick and its free.

Not supporting macbook's though.

 

I am looking through documentation for using Meraki, and see that I need to set up Apple Device Enrollment and authorize MDM. Once I enroll in Apple MDM, do I need to proceed with creating Administrators and "creating a virtual MDM server with Apple?

 

Thanks in advance,

[SchoolsBroadband]

+1 for Lightspeed here. it's great and very education friendly

[Jwzg]

+1 for Lightspeed here. it's great and very education friendly

 

I see you like adding devices one at a time to groups. They force you into using their CMS for group management which sucks for anyone not using My Big Campus. I rate LS below profile manager for that reason alone.

 

Not trying to flame here, but "friendly" is not the word I'd use to describe their MDM.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Jwzg

[Jwzg]

Thanks for the replys. I'm looking into Meraki and Airwatch but will also look into Casper and find out if it's a good for for our environment, including cost. Do any of you have any problems pushing down apps with any of these solutions? Jwgz mentioned "Casper at the top and Profile Manager at the bottom". I guessing you're using Casper for the apps push?

 

Yes. Sorry for the double post, but I'm on the iPhone.

[ITTony]

I am looking through documentation for using Meraki, and see that I need to set up Apple Device Enrollment and authorize MDM. Once I enroll in Apple MDM, do I need to proceed with creating Administrators and "creating a virtual MDM server with Apple?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Apologies for the delay in reply ! a few months late but hey just in case.

 

Yes you will need to provision out administrative users but you wont need to setup a virtual server with Apple.

We have just 2 Administrators setup. You will need to create an MDM push certificate through apple and also create a VPP account to enable the purchase of paid apps.

All is relativley straight forward and Meraki have a wealth of information on how to do everything within their support pages. (basically on every item there is a help section which walks you through)

We use seperate apple ID's for each device which is provisioned for that user. This negates the annoyance of having to periodically bring each device back to update the apps.

 

I assume you have moved forwared with your MDM solution. Would be interesting to hear how you got on with meraki if you went down their route.

 

Has anyone used Meraki's Paid MDM solution?