What is our primary use case?
In my highly secure government infrastructures, Jamf is an absolute must for staying in tune with continuous monitoring (critical patching, STIG application, and reporting), especially from a central location.
When we were in pursuit of our authority to operate, we were almost shut down by a Windows-specific IA group until I explained what Jamf was and how it would help implement and prove how secure Macs can be. After that, it was a requirement for our ATO to even be considered, much less approved.
How has it helped my organization?
I am now able to easily manage all of my systems and patch when necessary, with little to no interruptions to the customer. It has saved me tons of time, as well as the IA team when I gave them rights for reporting.
Jamf Pro has helped me educate a Windows-centric agency with an Information Assurance team that is also strictly experienced with Windows. Everyone was fearful of Macs and their integration into a Windows infrastructure and domain. Jamf Pro’s similarities to Microsoft’s SCCM for Windows assets helped me prove that Macs can be as useful, if not more than Windows in some cases, and very easy to secure and keep secure, even with major upgrades.
What is most valuable?
The Smart Groups have been very beneficial for quick reporting when a critical, out of cycle patch is required.
Reporting is obviously an essential tool for any Information Assurance team and if I couldn’t provide it with Jamf, it would have been a show stopper. It is able to provide quick, dynamic, and accurate reports that helped put my department on the map within our agency and other DoD agencies nationwide.
It has allowed us to move further with our additional networks without the fear of being shut down.
What needs improvement?
Sadly, my environment is closed off from the internet so I cannot benefit from all the tools, but with what I can use, I can only say that I would love to see a more customizable dashboard.
In my agency and department, I use tons of tools for scanning, remediation, and reporting. Tools like ACAS and McAfee HBSS have very detailed dashboards if you wish to view more. As stated prior, with reporting being vital, having more detailed, customizable reports that offer graphs, percentages, etc can be useful when looking for quick glance of status when you may not have the time for generating a detailed report.
I would love a bit more of government customer support and reach out. There is a ton of support for the educational fields, understandably, but I would love to see a small team also dedicated to government support.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Jamf Pro for a little over a year in production, and almost two years in development.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
With the simple database requirement, upgrading or rebuilding is very simple. Running my servers on Macs so far, I have had very little setup or crash issues. Those few were likely caused by a bad package but again easily fixable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I love the flexibility of platforms this can be installed on. It provides ease of upgrades and migration when necessary.
How are customer service and support?
So far, every team that is assigned to my account has been very supportive and reaches out often just to check-in. I have sent emails late at night when testing and still got quick responses with an eagerness to help.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used a previous solution for Macs. I also have Windows experience and have worked with SCCM. This allowed me to easily explain Jamf Pro and how it works to my Windows-centric agency.
How was the initial setup?
The engineer that came to help with setup adapted to my skill level. Parts that were complex were necessary based on the task at hand. Most of the setup was straightforward and easy to follow. We only had a development system during the initial setup, so when I was required to repeat the steps for our production, it went very smoothly.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented basically on my own aside from the Jamf admin that came to assist with the initial setup of my dev environment.
What was our ROI?
Not being the numbers cruncher guy in the office, I couldn’t say with numbers. However, I can guarantee based on the time saved and no longer needing overtime to complete upgrades, alone, we have already made our money back and then some.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
With respect to pricing, I would suggest reaching out to a sales rep and discussing all of the options. I would advise them to evaluate their infrastructure and what is required. For example, whether an on-premises or cloud-based deployment is more suitable.
Don’t go into a sales call without knowing all the details of your system because Jamf has a ton of tools outside of Jamf Pro to offer and knowing them ahead of time is a must.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not evaluate other solutions prior to this one. I was thrown into the job and told about Jamf from a colleague. After researching what it was and what it did, I knew it was the solution I needed to assist my department in their Mac system success.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
*Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
