What I'm actually beginning to wonder is, will Jamf open up Jamf Cloud Distribution Service (JCDS) to all customers, even on-prem? So then you can upload packages directly from the Jamf Pro UI like cloud customers? They are actually in the process of switching over to an updated version of JCDS in the coming weeks, which seems like it aligns with their proposed deprecation of Jamf Admin. https://learn.jamf.com/bundle/jamf-cloud-distribution-service-release-notes/page/Release_History.html

March 15th for the upgraded/reworked JCDS. March 19 for removal of Jamf Admin. Hmmm. Related? I wonder.

Edit: though the article I linked above only mentions Jamf Cloud customers, so, I don't know. I may be way off on that guess.

I hope that's not the solution... I work in government and would not be allowed to use Jamf Cloud, even for the distribution points. They have to know that is not possible for all users...

Until Jamf gets FedRAMP approval, I can't even begin to ask for permission to do that...

I would love to know what your jamf customer experience rep would have to say about that. I mean they can’t just leave people in the dark and say this is it or go buy another product, right?

Good point on gov customers not being able to use that. I forgot about those. I'm in the financial sector, and it took us a while to get approval to go with Jamf Cloud from our previous on-prem installation. Lots of red tape to get through. And I can imagine its a lot more difficult for a government customer.

Yeah, I'd love to know his response, as well LOL! I put in a ticket when this all came up and was told the basics that they'll have a replacement, but I haven't heard a word from him on any of this, or really any of our recent questions/issues.

This is the response I got from Success:

---

I would like to provide you with some updates that I have from the Product team on the functionalities in question

Thanks for your patience,as there are different sub teams working different products, we had to take updates from different people.

* Printer creation -- The team is working out a solution for handling this function and there will be a new utility coming from the Consulting Engineering team.
* Package Indexing -- We believe this is a legacy workflow and doesn't fit with our vision for modern management.
* Package Upload. There are lots of options for this. If you use JCDS, they can look at the new JCDS 2.0 APIs and script on this.
* Package Sync -- We have a tool that is in development that should support this. JamfCPR is another existing alternative.
* Jamf Composer -- I am following up with the team that owns this product but I hadn't heard anything about Composer getting deprecated anytime soon , how ever I will come back with a sure informatuon.
* Package sync and upload- there are some alternatives that are coming soon and we will send out the notification as soon as it is live.We do not have a clear timeline at this moment, for either deprecating the legacy systems or the arrival of the new alternatives, however I will keep you abreast of the developments.

Thank you for sharing that! 

So, interesting. JCDS 2.0 is mentioned as a possible option. But to @elsmith's point, this is NOT an option for all customers. Especially ones who need to stay with an on prem solution because they cannot use cloud services. But it sounds like Jamf has some other tools they are looking at or working on. Interesting they mentioned JamfCPR. I've used that. It's fine for what it is, but it's really not a Jamf Admin replacement. Hopefully that won't be the final solution.

As for package indexing, I'm not surprised that won't make the cut. It's a legacy option that really was only useful if using the old uninstall process. I personally haven't used that in several years now. That process become more unreliable as time marched on, and application installs became more complex. So no surprise there that Jamf doesn't see value in bringing that function over. Hopefully that won't cause too much disruption for others.

Thanks for posting those details @mark_mahabir 

One other thing I keep forgetting to ask... How do I delete a package from my DPs now? There's nothing in Jamf Sync that I can find that does that for you, meaning I think the answer (sadly) is to go to one of the DPs, physically delete the file, and THEN open Jamf Sync to sync to the others. Am I missing something?

Admin may not be the best tool in the world, but it does everything I need it to do. Even now, with Jamf Sync, adding packages requires me to open multiple things... 1) the local folder where I put the package I want to "upload"/sync, 2) Jamf Sync program, and then 3) Jamf Pro > Packages to edit the category, etc. Admin required ONE app that did everything.

I found this thread after seeing the alert about Jamf Admin being removed in the future when I was about to update my onprem install. I'm beginning to wonder what am I really paying for with Jamf Pro? They're cutting out all of the stuff that made Jamf a unique solution to manage Macs, and it's slowly becoming just yet another web-based MDM frontend. I know some removals, like Imaging, were forced by changes in Apple's platform, but this is not the case here. I literally don't even know how to upload a package outside of Jamf Admin. Can I figure it out? Sure, but.. why? Why is this needed? So we can dedicate more resources to yet another needless GUI overhaul? I'm starting to get a little frustrated with this direction and the regular loss of features for the price we are paying. 

It's also so they can dedicate more resources to their cloud solutions and leave their on-prem customers in the dust... just my two-cents.

My management is constantly asking me why we need Jamf since we get Intune as part of our MS licensing... and it's getting harder and harder to convince them Jamf is better.

Now four months further along and Jamf Admin no longer connects to our on-premises JSS. We're, if not dead in the water, then have a leaky bilge. Anyone heard a word on this?

- Scott

I was a victim of a massive corporate lay off right before the Jamf Sync “solution” hit the streets.  I have not had the ability to look at it in action but the bits and pieces of info and screenshots I’ve managed to see tell me that Jamf flat out lied to us. This is in no way a viable replacement for Jamf Admin. It looks like they spent maybe a week on developing this tool and then said “meh…good enough.” 

To deploy all the non ".pkg" applications

Someone correct me I Im wrong and misunderstand Jamf Sync. We're still on-prem. I've got the login credentials saved in the infrastructure settings in the JSS so when I used Jamf Admin, it used those settings from the JSS to connect to the DP. Now in Jamf Sync it seems to ignore those (except to find where the DPs are) and require that I provide creds to connect to them. Some of our Jamf users don't even have creds to log into the DPs but never needed them with Jamf Admin. Now we've got to convince our network security team that those support people need additional server access.

I already have a day job and don't need this additional admin task.