Casper Suite, Internationally

[dpertschi]

I will be consulting with JAMF directly, but in the meantime I'd like to hear real-world experience feedback from anyone here…

I'm managing 1 Master JSS with 9 apple server distribution points across the US, supporting 500 clients. I'm being asked to bring 200 more clients into the fold, residing in several different countries in Europe. I've never done international systems admin before.

The question at hand is, is it possible/feasible/advisable or not, to maintain one master JSS here in the states, and then configure distribution points in Europe as desired. Or, does this sort of thing beg for a Master JSS over there?

I have no idea what to expect with time zones, bandwidth, language localization and so forth.

(and yeah, I think Asia and Latin America offices might be knocking on my door next)

thanks in advance,

Darrin

[nessts]

I have a master in NJ, and distribution points in UK, France and Spain,
seems to work fine, first replication can take a while, and CS master
suite packages, and images take a while to propagate but it works
wonderfully.
you just have to get good about remembering not to expect to push
something out as soon as you upload it to the master without waiting for
the replications to occur.
-- Todd Ness
Technology Consultant/Non-Windows Services
Americas Regional Delivery Engineering
HP Enterprise Services

[donmontalvo]

Hi Darrin,

Might want to look at having multiple instances of Tomcat, one per geographical region (with a DP in each region that has Macs).

JAMF can help with this...also upcoming CJA certification course should cover this.

Don

[talkingmoose]

We have about 250 client machines internationally. Our setup is just one
On 10/6/11 9:37 AM, "Darrin Pertschi" <dpertschi at mac.com> wrote:
JSS for all of them with distribution points in each location. Works fine.

For 700 clients I'd certainly pay attention to server sizing and phone
home times but I'd think one JSS server would be fine.

JAMF has introduced a new administrator course tailored to those who need
to manage the JSS infrastructure. They support multiple Tomcat instances,
which means you could have one instance (not a master) to handle certain
locations and another instance for the other locations. Or however many
instances you feel you need. All these instances can talk to the same
MySQL database residing on centralized server.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

[Jak]

I'm currently in dev with a global casper project.

We are looking to use a hybrid cloud instance to run the internet facing
tomcat.

We will have local POPs for distribution and SUS, also via cloud.

Let me know if you have any specific questions on this method.

[bentoms]

Similar experiences to Todd.

Previous environment had master jss in London, with a further 3 in London too.

Another in paris & another in brussels.

Biggest issue was replication & link speed. As in, hitting go on a policy too soon.

MPLS wasn't configured then, so was using a mesh VPN with massively different bandwidth (1gig to 10meg for instance).

I've a feature request with jamf to allowing staging of failover & replication (so you can set which point to replicate from & failover too dependent on your nw infrasture).

But short answer, yes it works.

Also I've not managed more that 300 macs in one go... But those 300 might be over 3 countries & in 30 companies!

Regards,

Ben.

[dpertschi]

Thank you to all who replied. I very much appreciate it. Fantastic resource here.
Cheers,

Darrin

[nessts]

I have access to the Apple factory image, but regardless you should be
able to use something like instaDMG to create a non-booted OS that starts
at language chooser, then delete/hide sections of setup assistant so that
it only asks what country, keyboard, language etc, if you don't want your
users to be able to create a new admin account for instance. As far as
licensing make sure you have all your ECCNs in place

or you could do multiple base OS images, and then have your Casper apply
alternate packages based off of group membership etc.

-- Todd Ness
Technology Consultant/Non-Windows Services
Americas Regional Delivery Engineering
HP Enterprise Services
Telephone +1(720) 475-6358

Email todd.ness at hp.com
applewebdata://854A2179-8596-47BF-AD43-6E291368E743/todd.ness@hp.com
5268 E. 118th Pl. Thornton, CO 80233

[bentoms]

Here's how i did it:

I created 1 base OS dmg.

This then went into a standard configuration with my base os & any multi-localized apps (cyberduck, ilife etc)..

the i had smart groups per departments etc.. & set the os language using dmg's of certain files as outlined below.

http://macmule.com/2011/03/02/setting-user-os-language-post-install-from-casper/