Ask HN: What's my best option for managing Macbooks in my organisation?

[racontour]

I've currently been tasked with the management of a small number of Macbooks. I just need to be able to enforce policies and full disk encryption, and limit user rights. Does anyone have any suggestions of what could suit my needs?

[mtmail]

A Google employee gave an overview of the tools they use to manage their (1000s of) staff Macs. https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa13/managing-macs-googl... For example he points to https://github.com/google/macops

[racontour]

They have quite the suite that you can host on GCE. If I can eek out the time to deploy it, this looks like a winner, thanks.

[opless]

Windows</sarcasm>

In all seriousness, I'm not sure that Apple supply anything remotely close to the functionality of windows policy manager, though I've heard some good mumblings about centrify and their offerings.

http://www.centrify.com/mac/group-policy-for-mac-os-x-deskto...

[cromulent]

Profile manager?

https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/4.0/#/apd0E2214C6-50F0-...

[bashinator]

I've had pretty mixed-to-bad experiences with profile manager. It doesn't seem to be a product that Apple puts much care into. On the other hand, I've had very good luck with Casper from JAMF.

[bigbossman]

You can use AirWatch to manage Macs, although this may be too much for your needs.

http://www.air-watch.com/solutions/macos