Boston-area JAMF User's Group

[jarednichols]

The Iowa group post got me thinking that having a Boston area group would be really great. Myself, I focus in high-security environments but I wouldn't want to limit to any particular user area. Depending on size, we can have sub-groups and areas of interest.

Being Fidelity, we have loads of meeting space and we've hosted things like this in the past (sometimes with the help of Apple) and I could likely kick off something pretty easily.

[mm2270]

Just completed my registration for the event, so I'll be there.

[Munkeee]

Just signed up.

[dgreening]

Not going to be able to make it, sorry. I was looking forward to it, however, the wife and I will be heading out of town on this day.

[Chris_Hafner]

I'm in 100%. Though I've been registered I just wanted to confirm ;-) See you there!

[ctangora]

Sorry I won't be able to make it. Meetings got shifted around at last minute.

Looking forward to the next one!

[mm2270]

Sorry some of you can't make it today. I hope very much not to get waylaid by anything last minute that would prevent me from getting there.
Just curious but is there an estimate of how many attendees there may be?

[simbimbo]

It looks like we have ~20 people attending.

[Eyoung]

minus one more... Little one is not feeling well. next one :-)

[Chris_Hafner]

Good first meeting! In case anyone wanted my email and didn't get it it's
chris_hafner@brewsteracademy.org

[mm2270]

Indeed, good first meeting. it was cool meeting a small segment of the "Nation" in person last evening. And hats off to @simbimbo for a great first hosting of this regional meeting. Looking forward to seeing everyone (and more!) next month, or whenever the next one is scheduled for.

[simbimbo]

It was great to meet all of you last night. I am planning to host the next meeting on Wednesday December 11th at the same place and the same time of day 4:30pm to 6:30pm (or later if we decide). Please respond to this list if you're ok with that. I will begin the process of reserving the room and securing the food.

[Chris_Hafner]

Thanks again @simbimbo for arranging all this with both your offices and JAMF. Dec 11th is good for me.

[simbimbo]

I have scheduled the room and set up the EventBrite page for the next meeting. It will be held at the MathWorks campus in Natick, MA on Wednesday December 11th at 4:00pm until 7:00pm. I have set aside 35 seats, but if the tickets sell out, I will get more seats! Please respond to this thread with any topics for discussion. I look forward to seeing you all there.

[mm2270]

Thanks @simbimbo][/url][/url! I'll be attending. I see the event is up and registration will be open on the 11th of this month. Just one kind of funny thing I noticed. The map on the event page seems to think its being held in the middle of the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Africa. That's going to be one helluva trip to make it there! :-D

[simbimbo]

LOL. I couldn't figure out how to get the map to represent the address I entered into the form??? I'll have to spend some more time on that tonight. Rest assured it's definitely being held in Natick, MA ;-)

[clifhirtle]

Cool. Hope to make this next one. Anyone interested in a Boston-Natick carpool? I can supply wheels if needed.

[Chris_Hafner]

I'll be driving south from NH. Same offer if anyone needs a carpool.

[Cataldo]

Greetings,

Has there been a follow-up gathering and date yet suggested from this initial recent meeting?

Regards,

Robert

[clifhirtle]

Hi Robert. Yes. See the following link for dates/registration info:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/userGroup.html?id=9163633675

[Cataldo]

Thanks so much Cliff!

Best Regards,

Robert

[Munkeee]

The first meeting was a good one. Steve, thanks for setting that up (and the next one). I'll plan on being at the next one.

[Munkeee]

Just thinking it may be good to come prepared to cover certain topics. Anyone have any topics they want to discuss?

[Chris_Hafner]

There were questions regarding net boot issues on large scale highly vlan'ed networks. A licensing question about Office and general hubbub over 9.x as I remember. Then we all turned on the Apple rep. So one way or another I'm interested in whoever anyone knows about Apple's new licensing schemes (I've yet to grab my Apple rep).

[clifhirtle]

I would love to chat with folks about:

• Upgrading to Casper 9, as it has proven impossible to upgrade without nuking Tomcat on my Windows 08 JSS dev box. So far the only means of getting to 9 has proven to be fresh install, DB import, and (potential) DNS change (which I was trying to avoid).
• NetBoot across VLANs - yes please! Got the JAMF NB appliance working in our test net, setup expected IP Helpers, but stills seeing clients fail to talk with the server. Leveraging an over-complicated bless command via bash script is the only way to get working. That doesn't help us much for bare metal OOTB setups.
• Software update/patching methodology: How are you enforcing updates? How often are you installing? Are you running internal SUS? Yada, yada.
• Documentation/training: How are your teams structured: sole Mac guy or cross-functional team? How are you guys documenting/training on best practices for OSX/iOS? What have you seen succeed/fail?

[Munkeee]

I'll second Chris's idea of talking about the VPP licensing if anyone has any good details/experience (kind of new, I know).

Cliff's software patching methodology is another topic I wouldn't mind discussing. With Apps always running, it has become more difficult to patch at login, as was my typical way prior to 10.7. I now use scripts to give the users some control, but this hasn't been ideal. I'd like to hear how others are managing this.

[Cataldo]

Greetings, hope it's acceptable that I've posted this here, as it's in part related to the Boston-area JAMF User's Group:

Entirely new to JAMF. Hoping to locate a willing soul in the Boston area open to offering JAMF software tutoring (Casper/JSS, etc.) in exchange for stipend. Slated to participate in CSE training in January, then a CCA session in March-aware of the Boston-area JAMF User's Group, but sadly, due to travel, won't be able to attend until January gathering or later. If interested in this prospect, please post and will look forward to connecting.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Best Regards,

Robert

[simbimbo]

Well fellow New Englander's, Happy Icy Monday!!! We are 48 hours away from the December Boston Area JUG and I only see a couple of handfuls of people have signed up. If you think you may be interested in a couple of hours of Pizza and discussion please visit the User Group page and sign up ( https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/userGroup.html?id=9163633675 ) I'm looking forward to seeing you all on Dec 11th around 4 at the MathWorks Apple Hill campus (3 Apple Hill Drive Natick, MA). If you are visiting for the first time, upon entering the campus follow the driveway around to the second paring garage and check in with security in Apple Hill 3 (they will let me know you are here and waiting)

See you all soon (and keep warm)

Steven I--

[mm2270]

There's a small possibility I won't be able to attend this time as something came up last minute, but I'm working on making arrangements so I can make it there. Hopefully I can make that happen, and see… whoever's there I guess :)

[Chris_Hafner]

I'm in, one way or another!

[clifhirtle]

Good meet. Thanks @simbimbo][/url for graciously hosting (and JAMF for feeding) us! Though small, I got a lot out of this meeting. There is a lot to be said for putting faces to the various screen names we all engage with here on the Nation. Steve's demo of his infrastructure was amazing. Conversations swung quickly between VPP codes/tokens, App Store licensing, NetBoot imaging, hardware-specific image builds, BYOD approaches, MDM strategies, AutoRun imaging, as well as conversation around ARD vs Casper Remote for remote support.

I also did throw out the offer to host an upcoming Boston JUG here in the John Hancock Tower in Boston if it helps bring out some additional colleagues from areas like Providence or longer distance flyers who need a direct transit route from Logan. JHT is directly across the street from the Copley T stop, I can host as many as needed in a conference or dining room (depending on size), and are happy to bribe any one of you with one of the best views of the city from the 40 floors up and free frozen yogurt, Starbucks or Dunkin coffee (depending on your persuasion).

That said, I cannot guarantee nutritional information posted on our beverages dispensers as at MathWorks, which provided the fastest nutritional crash course as I have ever gotten in a 60 second beverage fill up. :-)

[Chris_Hafner]

I'd be in for a Boston trip, bribes or not. It's pretty simple for me to take the train in from a T.

Still, wasn't much of an agenda, but there was a lot of plain ol' geekery! Honestly, I loved it because we all ended up gathered around a projector discussing completely random JAMF/Apple/Management stuff! some things that I remember that haven't yet been mentioned:

• Headless JSS in DMZ
• JDS headaches
• Scripting best practices (to replace exploding profiles)
• JAMF Documentation woes (love you JAMF, but we'd really like a "what happened in this update" document.)
• NetBoot development infrastructure (Steve, that was awesome!)
• Coffee Locations (I found 4)
• VDI (Hosted Citrix)

Yea these are general, but it was 'general' geekery.

[mm2270]

@clifhirtle][/url You were apparently taking notes! :) Good overview of everything covered in the meet up. I missed a few in my recollection. It was a good meet despite the small size.

Your Boston location sounds pretty nice, though I will need to see if it would work for me personally since it will be a decidedly longer trip for me. But by all means, if hosting in Boston will bring out a bigger crowd going forward I think we should seriously consider it. I'm very interested in this JUG continuing and thriving.

I vote for alternating the location either every other meeting or maybe every 2 meetings, if that's feasible. That way we can give some other folks a chance to attend if either location isn't convenient for them.
I know you and @simbimbo][/url are the CUGs for this so I'll leave the planning to you guys on that.
(Speaking of CUGs, you should have a badge for that under your name, no?)

[dgreening]

I will definitely attend a Boston-based meet-up!

[clifhirtle]

Wouldn’t it be great if we could pull more area JAMF Nation’rs into the fold on these user group meetings by direct invitations or posts? If you think the addition of a new profile field for location would be useful (for things like connecting with others in your region) please vote up the new location feature request I just posted below. Topics, categories, and product names are great way to search, but being able to quickly connect with your fellow area Casper admins could be a great way to encourage a greater sense of community and connection: from “JAMF Nation:" to “JAMF Region/State/City/etc.”

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=1760

[mm2270]

Hi folks. Just wanted to bump this thread to see if there's been any thoughts on the next meet up for this group, just so we can start looking at calendars.

Any thoughts on moving it to another location? The Natick location at MathWorks is very convenient for me, but I understand it may not be for many others.

I'm thinking for the next meeting it might be good to have a slightly more structured agenda/presentation. But nothing too formal of course since the open discussion style has been received so well.
Thoughts?

[Chris_Hafner]

I'm all in! There was some great geekery last time regarding the netboot development environment that's setup at MathWorks. Who knows. It would be great if we did start listing topics and have multiple on hand ready to go (in case some don't show up). Here's a few suggestions from myself

• Profiles (ever popular and still broken)
• Mavericks Deployment (InstaDMG via Self-Service) and policies. Perhaps various other takes on distribution.
• I'm always a fan of licensing discussions (Apple has given me an official amount of the check that they are writing us regarding our refund for Apple's Software Collection that suddenly became free).

[simbimbo]

I haven't done any planning because I thought we were going to meet in Boston next. Please let me know if that's not the case so I can reserve a room in Natick.

[clifhirtle]

Thanks for resurrecting this one @mm2270][/url][/url][/url][/url. Happy to host for this next one and like the idea of some of rotating regions to ensure folks from different locations can attend the JUGs closest to them and we get a better feel for how we all work.

Given past responses, suspect a Wednesday in February would work best, but I put together quick form to query interest.

Please take a minute for the quick survey on times and topics of interest below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1z-D548wjRnk_3_cJX7YlCV5hc_gI-acUjkdB1hmDqNc/viewform

[mm2270]

I submitted my choices. Thanks for helping organize once again @clifhirtle.

As I mentioned, I'm OK with a Boston location. If its not far from a T station that would be best so I can leave my car back near home and just ride in instead of dealing with traffic in the evening.

[clifhirtle]

Alright, two options here for our next meeting, based on responses I've gotten:

1. Next Wednesday, 2/5 3-6pm
2. Following Wednesday, 2/12 3-6pm

Response-wise Wednesday (2/5) was preferred by most, but given < 1 week notice I want to keep option for the following week (2/12) as an alternative.

Any preference? Reply back here with thoughts by end of day Thursday 1/30 if possible.

Meeting Location: John Hancock Tower, 200 Clarendon St, Boston, MA (across from Copley Square)