How many Mac's are you managing?

[jllewis]

I recently took over this position managing 16,000+ macs with a staff of two. Just wondering if this is typical since we seem to be constantly behind.....

[franton]

The guy who used to admin Google now works for Puppet Labs. Fairly sure they're using that. (ick).

[rockpapergoat]

google uses puppet for most config management and simian (munki) for updates, i believe.

an old interview with luke (ceo, puppetlabs) and nigel (ex-google, now puppetlabs): http://redmonk.com/cote/2008/06/11/puppet-at-google-redmonk-radio-episode-48/

google engineer talking about using puppet at scale during his talk at puppetconf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mbMjlr_b0

they've never published numbers of managed clients, but it's well into the thousands, globally distributed.

remember that outside of this market, casper is basically unknown. during a recent job interview, the interviewer asked "what's jamf casper suite?" the job's not related to mac admin, so i should have removed it from my résumé.

regardless, don't knock puppet. it's a powerful tool. i know this audience is biased, but try to keep an open mind about tooling.

[donmontalvo]

@rockpapergoat wrote:

i know this audience is biased, but try to keep an open mind about tooling.

Great point, it's more about standards than tools. Example, we loathe Composer (sorry JAMF!) since it lacks the ability to easily add logic (HW/SW requirements, etc.), so we use Packages or PackageMaker since they both follow Apple's guidelines. Can't let yourself get "locked in" or your continuity goes out the window because you've limited your flexibility going forward. So whether Casper or Puppet or whatever, I'd worry less about tool/framework and focus more on following Apple standards.

http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html

PS, I really wish JAMF would swing a deal with Sudré to roll Packages into the Casper Suite. :)

Don

[rockpapergoat]

@don

on a broader scale, i'm interested in fostering the adoption of a lingua franca for configuration management. every group handles these problems in its own way. this applies to groups managing windows, linux, os x, solaris, etc. it's not unique to platform. any tools that help provide a common language to describe systems and configurations are more valuable than ones that aren't portable across platforms or lock you into the vendor's particular way of doing things.

this is a bigger topic and also off-topic in this thread.

related: roll os x packages with fpm: http://macops.ca/rolling-os-x-packages-with-fpm-and-homebrew/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_camp...

[MARL]

Good to see that some sites are using Casper to manage 22,000+ OS X devices. We are currently past our evaluating of Casper and on to Pilot. If all goes well we will start off managing 30,000 Macs and expect that to double in 2 yrs time.

[jllewis]

@clarkml
How many people do you have helping with Mac management?

[Sean_M_Harper]

~400 Macs, ~1800 iPads (at time of post, who knows after they multiply like bunnies tomorrow...), 1 Apple Admin (myself), and 2 0.5 FTE techs.

So roughly I am at a 600 machine ratio per person (assuming each tech counts as one, regardless of their 0.5 status)

[spotter]

I'm currently only managing 130+ Macs which i expect to grow rapidly once they get approved as a standard device. I am lucky enough to have a group which handles imaging and deployment of new Mac device and another group which handles re-imagining.

[Stubakka]

Hello Guys, im new to JAMF and do not currently have Casper suite, I type this as sit in my hotel room after the JNUC party at aria, anyways, We currently have roughly around 400 or so macs in my environment, managed by myself and another service desk technician for about 5 years now. Mostly using ARD, some use of composer, but mostly, mom and pop support , putting out fires ect. The PC base is most likely around 3,000

[jhbush]

@Gabriel.Duff you don't need JAMF to manage your Macs effectively. If cost is a concern at the moment look into things like Deploy Studio http://www.deploystudio.com/Home.html
, Munki http://code.google.com/p/munki/
, and many others.

[Stubakka]

@jhbush1973 thanks. I have used deploy studio before. We have been budgeted to start with 50 seats of Casper suite as a pilot. My co worker has used Munki before so I will touch base with him to compare with Casper suite.

[dgreening]

Just over 8000 Macs under Casper management, another 3000 under OSX Server management. 2000 iPads under Casper management, another 1000 iPads unmanaged. I manage the environment by myself, with help from one other Apple support professional for some of the lower lever support. Our technicians do not work on Macs (which is beyond me), and we use a third party vendor for all warrantee repairs.

[easyedc]

Approximately 150 Macs with an expected ramp up in 2014. Compared to the ~55,000 WinXP/7 workstations we have, the Macs are sort of an afterthought for us. However, they are trickling down through the executive bling method.

[jwojda]

we're at about 900 macs and mac 10 servers. I'm the only admin, though there is a whole support group to handle the individual tickets from users. We are mostly a wintel environment with approx 60,000 PC's using BigFix. I guess pretty similar to easyedc :)

Oh we also have about 20,000 ipods and about 5000 ipads managed through airwatch, plus whatever corporate provided phones people want, not quite BYOD though.

[dpertschi]

Since it seems I resurrected this thread by asking where it was, I'll add my two cents...

I solely manage all aspects of Casper for 800 Macs, with 14 Apple DP servers spread across North America. Various numbers of field staff handle end user support.

[Lincoln]

OK it's an old thread but I'll jump in just for the fun of it.

I manage ~80 Macs and ~300 iPads in a K-12 school environment. I am part of a team of three who manage everything in our network with around 500 PCs running W7/8 and the supporting infrastructure including networking, servers and peripherals such as interactive boards and projectors. I am the go to guy for all things Mac but I am also responsible for our SCCM deployment to PCs including imaging and application deployment. I am involved in all aspects of client facing support for all our infrastructure as well as involved in back end maintenance etc. Basically with just the three of us for everything I have my hands in almost everything, that includes AV support for things like the sound system in our Performing Arts Theatre. :)

Varied is the word.

Lincoln