Software

JNUC 2022: Improve Interoperability with Software Management Solutions

Manage and secure your organization’s devices with these Jamf and Microsoft software integrations.

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Rebecca Torchia is a web editor for EdTech: Focus on K–12. Previously, she has produced podcasts and written for several publications in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and her hometown of Pittsburgh.

With more than 90 percent of organizations today using multiple platforms, IT administrators need efficient ways to manage and secure them, said Vince Kasparian, technical architect at CDW, in a Jamf Nation User Conference 2022 session Wednesday.

The session, titled “Building a Full Stack Management Solution,” covered strategies for businesses managing a combination of Apple and Microsoft devices.

“How do we get the best management and security capabilities out of both platforms without having to perform the same process multiple times with an ecosystem environment like this?” Kasparian said. “With Jamf and Microsoft products, we can get the best management capabilities and feature sets that eliminate time and effort.”

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Visualize and Manage Every Device in Your Organization

IT admins must be able to see all the devices they’re managing, regardless of their operating systems.

“Jamf Pro is the engine that manages Apple devices. With integration capabilities from Jamf Pro, we can connect directly into Microsoft Intune,” Kasparian said. “One of the most common capabilities is unified base reporting. Jamf sends data directly to Microsoft Intune to provide you a list of all devices, whether Windows, MacOS, iOS or Android.”

This will provide IT with a list of the devices being managed and a small amount of data. For more powerful integration and data visualizations, Kasparian suggested Microsoft Power BI.

“Power BI is an enhanced data visualization utility that can not only view Jamf Pro information in an interactive format but can also combine your Windows data to provide a single-pane-of-glass view,” he said.

The software also allows IT professionals to view data in the format that best works for their organization. It could be formatted as charts, graphs, tables or percentages.

With Jamf and Microsoft products, we can get the best management capabilities and feature sets that eliminate time and effort.”

Vince Kasparian Technical Architect, CDW

Ensure Mac and Windows Devices Are Compliant

Using these interoperability tools, IT admins can see which devices are not in compliance with the organization’s policies and security standards.

“If you want to take it a one step further, we can even stop that device from accessing corporate data,” Kasparian said. “For instance, we can stop them from accessing email or utilizing any web application that has a single-sign-on utility.”

Businesses can set up conditional access policies that process user data and activity against compliance policies and automatically stop anyone that does not meet the requirements. This can protect companies from employees who click on phishing emails or engage in other risky behavior.

MORE ON BIZTECH: Secure your organization’s Internet of Things devices.

Other software solutions, like Jamf Protect, an endpoint detection and response utility for Apple users, can help IT leaders see if malware is running on any MacOS device. Together with tools such as Microsoft Sentinel, which gathers security logs from the Microsoft side, IT can unlock interoperability for security monitoring.

Additionally, with the integration of Microsoft Sentinel, organizations can access utilities such as remediation playbooks. “Playbooks can set up automation rules to help you triage incidents in Microsoft Sentinel,” Kasparian said. “You can use them to automatically assign incidents to the right personnel, close noisy incidents or known false positives, change their severity, and add tags.”

Rely on the Expertise of a Partner to Set Up Full-Stack Management

The integrations, amount of data and number of technologies to connect might sound overwhelming to an inexperienced IT manager.

“This is where CDW can step in and streamline that process for you,” Kasparian said. “We have multiple services to help combine these capabilities together, doing it in a quick and efficient way where your IT will understand, at the end, how to move forward and utilize these capabilities for the future.”

CDW’s combination of Microsoft and Apple engineers can help business leaders integrate Jamf Protect with Microsoft Sentinel and Jamf Pro with Microsoft Intune. They can help set up conditional access and compliance policies, as well as unified base reporting with Microsoft Power BI.

The team at CDW can even run a discovery assessment to analyze an organization’s environment and help IT leaders determine what solutions will work best for their teams.

To follow BizTech’s coverage of this event, follow us on Twitter @BizTechMagazine and use the conference hashtag, #JNUC2022.

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