Apple at Work is brought to you by Jamf: Get comprehensive management and security solutions for your organization that are secure for the business, simple for the consumer, and protect privacy with Jamf. Plus, you’ll get same-day support for the latest Apple operating system upgrades. Today, more than 62,000 organizations trust Jamf to manage and secure more than 27 million devices.
Apple recently released macOS Ventura on all eligible Macs. Typically, home users rush to upgrade to the latest version to enjoy the latest features of a new operating system. It’s also understandable – Apple has a long beta cycle for new versions of macOS with developer and public betas. At this point, the new operating system is stable. The problem is that not every other developer or accessory maker is ready. So it’s quite common for enterprise customers to use the major update delay feature to give themselves 90 days before it’s available. An organization announced on the macOS Ventura release date that they were ready to go. SAP’s IT staff didn’t block macOS Ventura, so I spoke with Harald Monihart of SAP about their process.
About Apple@Work: Bradley Chambers managed a corporate IT network from 2009 to 2021. With his experience deploying and managing firewalls, switches, mobile device management system, Wi- Fi enterprise, hundreds of Macs and hundreds of iPads, Bradley will highlight the ways Apple IT managers deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, stories from the trenches of IT management and ways Apple could improve its products for IT services.
Why was it so important to be ready from day one for SAP and macOS Ventura?
In a business context, security is crucial. The best and easiest way to secure a Mac is to have all the latest security vulnerabilities patched with the latest minor and major macOS updates. SAP Mac users obviously want to benefit from the latest productivity announcements from Apple. So there is of course huge interest among our Mac users to get their hands on Stage Manager or Continuity Camera. Since we provide apps and tools to our customers on macOS, we also want to make sure they are supported as soon as possible. And zero-day in-house support is a key part of making that happen.
Did you encounter any major bugs during the certification process over the summer/fall?
The new way macOS handles login item notifications was a challenge as MDM capabilities on how to handle these were being developed during the bootstrap phase. AppleCare for Business and AppleSeed for IT are key elements of our immediate support strategy.
With AppleSeed for IT, we can ensure that we have centralized information throughout seeding on issues reported by team members. With AppleCare for Enterprise, we were able to ensure that the most important who ended up being stars receive the right attention within Apple. A big shout out to our dedicated Technical Account Manager and System Engineers, and all AppleCare Enterprise Technicians.
When did your testing at SAP start?
Right after the WWDC keynote. The SAP IT team knows the benefits of giving feedback early in the bootstrap cycle. Some people on my team have been running the betas on their main device since the WWDC keynote to provide the necessary feedback. If I may give a shout here: Laura Rösler coordinated all of my team’s readiness efforts across SAP units and with Apple. Whether it is a success is above all its accomplishment.
Apple at Work is brought to you by Jamf: Get comprehensive management and security solutions for your organization that are secure for the business, simple for the consumer, and protect privacy with Jamf. Plus, you’ll get same-day support for the latest Apple operating system upgrades. Today, more than 62,000 organizations trust Jamf to manage and secure more than 27 million devices.
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