[UniMacTech] Opinions on Casper Suite

Tue Aug 26 11:41:09 EST 2008

I'm not aware of any technical limitation that would prevent you from setting up your own Casper server. It is my understanding that each server is a standalone, self-contained system; that is, your Casper system and IT's Casper systems would be no more related than UTAS' and Deakin's. The Casper client is configured to look at a particular Casper server, which provides all services to it. No services are delegated to, or trumped by, another server. Presumably the Casper server listens for the same license code being used on the network, however if you have purchased your own separate license, this obviously wouldn't be a problem.

However, it may not be as much of a technical issue as something else.

JAMF may have their own policy regarding selling the Suite to the same institution twice. Their education price is substantially discounted over the standard (corporate) price, and it's possible the discount is applied only once to each institution.

As someone from a central IT division, I would encourage you to talk to IT about what their plans are for their Casper server first, and look at participating and contributing to their system rather than setting up a separate island and working in isolation. The Casper license is based on the number of client seats, so they may already be factoring workstations across the various faculties and divisions into their own purchase. We went through the process some time ago of standardising our environment across all areas and providing a University-wide managed desktop solution. It is about 25% technical, 75% political. If they're planning on offering a managed desktop environment, it's better not to duplicate everything: the equipment, the service, the R&D, the packaging, the administration, the testing, etc.

Obviously I'm not privy to the details of your environment, so this should be accompanied by a Google search for a grain of salt.

Cheers,
David.

David Whiteley
Senior Desktop Infrastructure Engineer, Information Technology Services Division

Deakin University Geelong Victoria 3217 Australia
Phone: 03 5227 8914 International: +61 3 5227 8914
Fax: 03 5227 8866 International: +61 3 5227 8866
E-mail: deej at deakin.edu.au
Website: http://www.deakin.edu.au

Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code 00113B

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On 25/08/08 1:51 PM, "David Wikeley" <David.Wikeley at utas.edu.au> wrote:

David,
    Can an institution have more than one Casper server running, with different management roles. Our central IT has purchased Casper and have told us that only one Casper Server can run within the University. Therefore Central IT will not allow us to setup another. Can the Casper client be set to look at a particular Casper Server.

On 25/08/08 1:29 PM, "David Whiteley" <david.whiteley at deakin.edu.au> wrote:

Casper is definitely beyond what ARD can do, as it encompasses everything from imaging to SOE deployment, patching, compliance, auditing, inventory and maintenance, with Windows machines also participating in the auditing/inventorying part. We have been very impressed by the suite. From a small Casper 5.1.3 test playground, I discovered some things about our network and managed SOE of which I was not previously aware.

The imaging portion extends our layering approach (base image with updates, mods, etc applied + SOE app layer + non-SOE app layer) to make the base image itself layered, reducing image build time.

Have so far not experienced any issues with Composer that were not operator error; we have been building software packages manually for years so any templates would be considered gravy rather than SOP. We were particularly impressed by the Adobe CS3 support (both installers and updaters), which allows CS3 apps to be deployed silently, pre-configured and serialized in about 3 clicks, instead of writing install scripts and configuring application.xml.override.

http://jamfsoftware.com/libraries/media_library.php

Cheers,
David.

David Whiteley
Senior Desktop Infrastructure Engineer, Information Technology Services Division

Deakin University Geelong Victoria 3217 Australia
Phone: 03 5227 8914 International: +61 3 5227 8914
Fax: 03 5227 8866 International: +61 3 5227 8866
E-mail: deej at deakin.edu.au
Website: http://www.deakin.edu.au

Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code 00113B

Important Notice: The contents of this email transmission, including any attachments, are intended solely for the named addressee and are confidential; any unauthorised use, reproduction or storage of the contents and any attachments is expressly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and any attachments from your system immediately and advise the sender by return email or telephone.

On 22/08/08 1:01 PM, "Mark Szota" <mark.szota at infotech.monash.edu.au> wrote:

Hi

I've tried to use Casper Composer for package creation in our student
environment but I'm not a huge fan of it. Seemed buggy under Leopard and
their pre-made 'templates' for packages don't seem to be kept up to date
by themselves or the community of users. Maybe there are newer versions
as I haven't used it for over 6 months.

Haven't used the rest of the suite though so I can't comment on that. I
would think most would suggest using Apple Remote Desktop over Casper,
unless there's some extra bits in Casper that ARD doesn't have.

Cheers
Mark

Carrie Osborne wrote:
>
> Hi everyone
>
> Apparently there are a few Australian uni's using JAMF's Casper Suite
> to manage their macs. If anyone on this list is using Casper (for
> staff and or student environments) - what are your opinions and
> experiences with the product, support, integration, etc?
>
> Kind regards,
> Carrie
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carrie Osborne
> Senior Computing Support Officer  |  Element IT Services  |  GRIFFITH
> UNIVERSITY
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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> unimactech at auc.edu.au
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--
Mark Szota

Campus IT Co-ordinator
Berwick School of IT
Monash University
Clyde Road, Berwick, Victoria, Australia, 3806

Tel: +61 3 9904 7122
email: Mark.Szota at infotech.monash.edu.au

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