3. • Parallels Mac Management vs. SCCM 2012 R2
• Deploying Parallels Mac Management
• Packages / Applications
• OS X Patch Management
• OS Deployment
Agenda
4. Parallels Mac Management vs. SCCM 2012 R2
Parallels
SCCM 2012
R2
Discovery and Enrollment
Network discovery and automatic enrollment
Manual enrollment
Inventory
Hardware and software inventory
Collect AppleCare warranty status
Compliance
Deploy Mac OS X Configuration Profiles
Easy to use OS X Configuration Profile editor
Push scripts as SCCM Configuration Items
Enable FileVault 2 encryption
Escrow and retrieve FileVault 2 personal keys
5. Parallels Mac Management vs. SCCM 2012 R2
Parallels SCCM 2012 R2
Software and Patch Deployment
Deploy software via SCCM Package Deployment
Deploy software via SCCM Application Deployment
Self-Service Application Portal for Macs
Silent & interactive deployment modes
OS X Image Deployment
Deploy OS X images via SCCM
Support for SCCM Task Sequences and Task Sequence steps
Remote Assistance
Remote Assistance via VNC and SSH
Configuration
Works without PKI infrastructure
6. • Parallels Proxy
a service app that acts as a proxy between SCCM
and Macs.
• Parallels Mac Client
enables communication between the Mac
computer and the Proxy.
• Admin Console Extensions
extend the Config Manager console to provide a
graphical UI enabling you to manage Macs.
• NetBoot Server
optional component needed for OS X imaging
• OS X Software Update Point
a service app that publishes Apple Software
Updates to Config Manager
Deploying Parallels Mac Management
7. Parallels Mac Client Auto-upgrade
When a new version of PMM is installed, PMM automatically creates a SCCM package
with the latest version of Parallels Mac client.
• Reduces workload and increases productivity of SCCM admins by automating upgrade
package creation.
• Eliminates a chance of unsuccessful PMM client deployment due to incorrectly created
SCCM package.
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8. Automatic Upgrade of Parallels Mac Client
Starting with v4.5 it has become extremely easy to upgrade Parallels Mac Client on
managed Macs to a newer version. All the needs to be done is to enable the upgrade
option under SCCM site settings.
10. How to repackages .dmg to .cmmac
Download SCCM
client for Mac OS X
“macclient.dmg”
Extract: CMAppUtil
Run : ./CMAppUtil
-c ./filepath/file.dmg
–o ./filepath
11. OS X Patch & Update Management
Extends SCCM with OS X patch and update management functionality.
• By far the most requested feature at Ignite’15.
• Automates the process of downloading patches and updates from Apple Update
server and creating SCCM update packages.
• An easy to market feature.
Patch
Notification
Receive
Patch
Import
Create SCCM
Package
Publish
Report
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12. OS X Patch Management
Parallels Mac Management v4.5 adds “Apple”
category to the properties of
Software Update Point Component (located under
Administration Overview Site Configuration
Sites
13. OS X Patch Management
Apple updates appear under All Software Updates folder
14. OS X Patch Management
Just like with PC updates, you
need to create a Software
Update Group and then deploy it
to a collection with Macs.
15. Capture OS X Image Task Sequence Step
Continuous improvements to the OSD functionality. The v4.5 introduces support for the
following task sequence steps:
• Capture OS X image: significantly simplifies process of preparing OS X “golden” image.
Removes requirement to create second HDD partition on a Mac used to create
“golden” image.
PARALLELS CONFIDENTIAL
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16. Capture OS X Image
Capture OS X Image task sequence step
significantly simplifies and shortens the
process of creating OS X images.
As the first step, you need to create task
sequence with Create OS X Image step
and publish the task sequence.
17. Capture OS X Image
And then execute the task sequence on
a Mac.
Upon completion the Mac’s image will be
copied to a Windows file share.
This slide is very popular among people who hear about Parallels Mac Management for the first time. We often hear this question: “what are the differences between Parallels Mac Management and SCCM’s native Mac management capabilities’. Some of you probably know that starting with SCCM 2012 SP1 Microsoft implemented some basic Mac management capabilities. For Microsoft Mac management is really a checkbox feature, they are not interested in promoting and supporting Macs. So we created two slides to showcase differences between Parallels Mac Management and the native Mac management in SCCM. As you can see, there are lots of red dots in the Parallels column, and not that many dots in the SCCM column.
And continuing to the second slide, same story Parallels Mac Management is clearly offers a lot more Mac management capabilities comparing to the Microsoft’s implementation.
I want to highlight the last item: Parallels Mac Management works without PKI infrastructure. One of the most common complains about Microsoft’s Mac management implementation is that it requires PKI infrastructure in order to be able to manage Macs. In case of Parallels Mac Management we support both: HTTP-only mode and HTTPS / PKI SCCM
Fig: Sample deployment diagram in multi-site SCCM environment
Let’s get technical for a moment. Parallels Mac Management consists of three core components:
Parallels Proxy – this is a Windows service that acts as proxy between SCCM and managed Macs.
Parallels Mac client – it enables communication between the Mac, the Proxy service and SCCM infrastructure. Note, we do not use native SCCM Mac client we have our own.
And last component is SCCM Admin Console Extensions – the extensions add UI to the Admin Console that enables Mac management.
As I said previously, Parallels Mac Management integrates with existing SCCM infrastructure and doesn’t require you to deploy any new servers. In most of the cases you will be installing Proxy on a server that already hosts one or several SCCM components. And, of course, the Admin Console Extensions must be installed on a computer the has SCCM Admin Console installed.