Apple Device Management: A Unified Theory of Managing Macs, iPads, iPhones, and AppleTVs

Working effectively with Apple platforms at a corporate or business level includes not only infrastructure, but a mode of thinking that administrators have to adopt to find success. A mode of thinking that forces you to leave 30 years of IT dogma at the door. This book is a guide through how to integrate Apple products in your environment with a minimum of friction. Because the Apple ecosystem is not going away.

You'll start by understanding where Apple, third-party software vendors, and the IT community is taking us. What is Mobile Device Management and how does it work under the hood. By understanding how MDM works, you will understand what needs to happen on your networks in order to allow for MDM, as well as the best way to give the least amount of access to the servers or services that’s necessary. You'll then look at management agents that do not include MDM, as well as when you will need to use an agent as opposed to when to use other options. Once you can install a management solution, you can deploy profiles on a device or you can deploy profiles on Macs using scripts. 

With Apple Device Management as your guide, you'll customize and package software for deployment and lock down devices so they’re completely secure. You’ll also work on getting standard QA environments built out, so you can test more effectively with less effort.  

Apple is forging their own path in IT. They trade spots with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as the wealthiest company to ever exist. And they will not be constrained by 30 or more years of dogma in the IT industry. You can try to shoehorn Apple devices into outdated modes of device management, or you can embrace Apple’s stance on management with the help of this book. 

• Deploy profiles across devices effectively and securely
  
• Install apps remotely both from the app store and through custom solutions
  
• Work natively with Apple environments rather than retrofitting older IT solutions 
  

Charles Edge is the Director of the Marketplace at Jamf. He holds 30 years of experience as a developer, administrator, network architect, product manager and CTO. He is the author of 20 books and more than 6,000 blog posts on technology, and has served as an editor and author for many publications. Charles also serves on the board of multiple companies and conferences, and frequently speaks at industry conferences around the world, including DefCon, BlackHat, LinuxWorld, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, and a number of Apple-focused conferences. Charles is also the author of krypted.com and a cohost of the MacAdmins Podcast. 

Rich Trouton has been doing Macintosh system and server administration for twenty years and has supported Macs in a number of different environments, including university, government, medical research, advertising and enterprise software development. His current position is at SAP, where he works with the rest of the Apple CoE team to support SAP's Apple community.