Airwatch

[psmac]

Hi All,

I've been asked to compare Casper against Airwatch for a client for OS X management, has anyone any experience of Airwatch's latest Mac OS X offering?

It seems to me to that it is still nowhere near Casper, but it would be great if anyone has any "real world" experiences, so I can go back and present some solid arguments as to why they should pick Casper.

Thanks,

Paul

[gachowski]

Paul

Check out this thread,

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=9628

There is a google doc link that has a lot of data and great starting point, it's out of date but it will get you started. I have used AW but I am biased. (I am a big time Casper fanboy) : )

C

[RobertHammen]

Went through this with another client recently.

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

AirWatch has a subset of Casper features (no imaging, and software deployment was weak), and is just starting to get into the market to compete with JAMF. Casper Suite is THE dominant commercial OS X platform management tool for a reason - it's been around since 2002 and developed and refined over the years. Other commercial tools like FileWave and Absolute Manage and SCCM and AirWatch exist and may have some subset of Casper features, but...

[davidacland]

From our use of both, Airwatch falls behind casper on software deployment capabilities, general reliability and technical support.

We've had customers with a few hundred devices and several thousand using Airwatch. We found those with smaller device numbers have a particularly hard time with performance, reliability and support when using Airwatch.

[nzmacgeek]

It is very easy for this community to be biased, but I can't blame them.

AirWatch also falls behind like many MDM products as it is yet another product that tries to do EVERYTHING for EVERY platform. That's great if you're wanting to tick the 'one size fits all' box, but then you try to use the product, and it is clunky and poorly engineered.

If you're in the market to manage Apple-branded devices using best practice, and a product that does things properly, you can't go past Casper. JAMF just know Apple - they know how Apple works, they know how to work with them. That comes from (JAMF) doing this for over ten years, and doing their own R&D and listening to their customers.

[gachowski]

I always forget... None of the "other" Mac management solutions come close to JAMF's support of new Mac OSes.

I think publicly JAMF says two weeks, but they last 3 major upgrades 8,9 and 10 were day of. I know AW is on their own internal release and MS said 6 months for SCCM.

I don't don't understand any company supporting Macs and thinking that they can release on their schedule not Apples. We all have to march to Apple's drum. : )

C

[don_cochran]

How about Airwatch MDM, specifically the ability to individually manage apps on iOS?

[Chris_Hafner]

For what it's worth Aruba has been touting some form of integration with Casper for those of us who have both. Actually (assuming that they're not purchased by HP) their techs are supposedly coming by to sit down with me and discuss the possibilities available to us. In short, it's sounding like if you've got Casper don't bother with Airwatch as direct MDM. At least, that's the impressing I get from Aruba themselves.

[ifbell]

We are a bit new in the AIrWatch MDM and we have not had any real issues with managing iOS apps with AirWatch. For us using Casper and AirWatch has been a great way to deal with the miriad of devices. If you are in a multi device situation like we are it has been a good. AirWatch tech support on the other hand has been lack luster and not as good as I have received from JAMF. If I was Apple only then I am not sure I would have implemented AirWatch.

[don_cochran]

So how are apps managed individually on iOS by Airwatch? Is there a policy you can create or some other means?

[RobertHammen]

From an iOS perspective, Apple holds the cards with what features they allow the MDM providers to perform on the devices. So they are all pretty much similar.

Some of the MDM providers did things like set up separate "boxed" environments (i.e. Good) where corporate data could be held. JAMF, for example, pushed Casper Focus for single-app mode for edu/classroom environments.

My advice on MDM is to figure out what you want to do with the devices (making sure what you want to do is possible with Apple's MDM capabilities), then take a look at the features of each MDM provider (I think there's a table on EnterpriseiOS: http://enterpriseios.com/wiki/Comparison_MDM_Providers). Be sure to trial each product before you buy, and try out all of the important stuff before you sign off. Also be sure to try their support and make sure that they have qualified staff to help you achieve your goals with MDM. Nothing worse than purchasing the wrong product... #beentheredonethat

[bentoms]

@psmac, we have some 800 devices on an AirWatch SaaS & have nothing but problems with them.

On the past 2 weeks we've logged 4 calls with them, all due to the instability of their platform.

Overall, it's been a hard 3 year relationship & one we're reviewing.

Also, since the VMWare acquisition we're now being asked to pay for support. There are 3 tiers, each with their own SLA's & cost: £0, £16k & £32k pa.

The support experience at any tier doesn't compare with what you get from JAMF, even when it's something that they have broken or haven't maintained.

[psmac]

@bentoms and all that have responded thus far - thank you!

So, in summary I see that Airwatch for OSX management has the following limitations;

- No client imaging
- Poor software distribution (any examples of this?)
- Difficult and costly support

Does anyone know if Airwatch has the ability to query devices for custom items in the same way Casper has extension attributes? I see this as a major benefit of Casper over its rivals.

Obviously profiles through the generic MDM structure provided by Apple are fairly static between providers, but does Airwatch have an equivalent to Policies?

Thanks again

Paul

[bentoms]

@psmac, from when I last looked no EA like stuff.

All scripts & PKGs/DMGs required re-wrapping JN their own format.

Couldn't really see much in the way of polices scoped to a trigger. Seemed a deploy once deal.

Honestly, don't... Just don't.

[psmac]

@bentoms believe me, I really don't want to! Just need to demonstrate a reasoned argument to the differences between the two. Casper is hands down the winner for me!

Paul

[bentoms]

@psmac, I'm guessing this is a management want for that "single pane of glass", well you'll then get a jack of all trades.

AirWatch seems to spend more money on Gartner & marketing than the end product.

JAMF on the other hand have only really seemingly started to market themselves more, the product comes 1st.

As such, you'll find lots of documentation from AirWatch promising this & that.. But it cannot deliver.

Good luck!

[davidacland]

@psmac on OS X software distribution, we found that Airwatch couldn't do proper package installations. It could handle drag and drop installers like Firefox, but nothing more. The success rate of the installs was very low. When we quizzed AW support on the functionality they sent is the iOS app deloyment PDF.

We have one client with just over 2000 OSX devices in Airwatch and we had to supplement the system with Munki to get deployments working properly.

[psmac]

@davidacland that's really useful - thank you!

Do you have any idea how software distribution works on Airwatch? What I mean is, are there localised http or afp/smb points or is it all servered from Airwatch's servers?

Paul

[davidacland]

Airwatch didn't appear to have anything like a distribution point from what I could tell. You can give it an app like Firefox to deploy immediately but you couldn't have a share point with a load of software to deploy as and when you need to.

[psmac]

Hmmm... That's a major limitation then. If I needed to deploy the Office Suite (for example) to hundreds of Macs there would be major bandwidth issues. That and the fact that .pkgs don't play well in the first place!

[bentoms]

@psmac & @davidacland, no DP's afaik, all from console.

So essentially,

1. No Imaging
2. No network scalability (may or may not be a concern)
3. More expensive
4. Can't install "proper packages" or may need re-wrapping
5. No policy scheduling

It does seem to suit more the BYOC model, & I think that is the market that they are targeting. Whereas Casper is an end-to-end Lifecycle Management product.

[brandon_belcher]

I am currently using Air-watch and am looking at changing to Casper

[isradame]

Our company is one of the largest AirWatch client they currently have, and from our experience with the product.

In summary:

1. Enterprise Ready
2. Lots of more features than Casper, but not stable.
3. Great for mobile devices, but not for computers
4. Great tool if you want to manage other platforms other than Apple.

I cannot reiterate enough that AirWatch needs to be more stable. Every time they introduce a new feature, three or more current features fail.
If you are going to only manage Apple, JAMF Casper is the best. Even when they lack some great enterprise features that AirWatch current have.

[brandon_belcher]

My biggest issue with Air-watch i have had is the service for one i think is not good at all and second is it doesn't seem to be reliable you push a lock command or something to a device sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't for example. But the layout i guess the interface you may say is very friendly.

[ImAMacGuy]

@isradame what do you mean Enterprise ready? Imaging? patching? policies? scripts?

[bradtchapman]

I'm reviving this.thread as well as that.thread mentioned by @gachowski.

Parallels has announced version 6 of their Mac management product. They're making very bold claims about using SCCM as "the single pane of glass" to manage and get reporting on Macs via SCCM.

As Macs are still the minority platform in most companies, we need to "know the enemy" in order to understand what it can do (and what it can't).

http://www.parallels.com/products/mac-management/

[gachowski]

Also it looks like AirWatch is trying to work with it's users, they did not work with our phone team.....

http://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2017/03/08/Custom-DEP-Part-1-An-Introduction/

[cainehorr]

No one has really mentioned it... AirWatch documentation is spaghetti documentation...

Example...
Airwatch Document 1 points to Document 3. Document 3 points to Document 2. Document 2 points back to Document 1. No real answers / insight.

Windows 7 Agents... Systems that don't check in lose their agent. Yeah - That's a BIG DEAL. After SEVERAL WEEKS of AirWatch support, I was told "This is by design. I could submit a feature request if I wanted to."

Google Chrome Books - Same problem - if not checking in, agent disabled/uninstalls itself.

AirWatch tech support... Web portal... you MIGHT get a reply within 24-48 hours.
Phone call - you will be told that someone will call you back within 2 hours. Try 4-6 hours later.

And as other's have mentioned, good luck deploying packages!

Yeah - My experience with Airwatch was HORRID! NEVER AGAIN!

[ndeangelis]

This has been my experience as well. Terrible technical support, terrible macOS support / management capabilities. I cant wait to be done with AirWatch.