BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Parallels® today unveiled Parallels Mac Management 6 for Microsoft SCCM (www.parallels.com/mac-management), which extends Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) (www.microsoft.com/sccm) functionality and enables IT managers to use one pane of glass to manage both PC and Mac® computers with ease, increased efficiency, and higher productivity.
SCCM 2012 SP1/R2 and newer. Microsoft Windows: All versions of Windows supported by System Center Configuration Manager. Mac OS X: 10.7 and later. To be managed, each Mac must have Parallels Mac client installed. Mac OS X Server: 10.8 or later is required to create and edit OS X configuration. To upgrade Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM to a newer version, you need to uninstall the current version and then install a new one. To run the uninstaller, go to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program and uninstall the Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM program. Search titles only; Posted by Member: Separate names with a comma. Newer Than: Not Older Than: Search this forum only. Display results as threads.
Remote Wipe/Lock, which allows IT managers to lock a Mac or erase all data in the event it is lost or stolen, is a new data security compliance feature of Parallels Mac Management 6 for Microsoft SCCM, and now provides full Mac lifecycle management.
Parallels Mac Management 6 supports Microsoft SCCM’s software metering, which enables IT managers to monitor and collect software usage data from Mac clients and make money-saving business decisions based on that data. For example, now IT admins can determine how often Mac end users use each software application, which applications are used most frequently, and which licenses should be discontinued or renewed.
From an efficiency standpoint, Parallels Mac Management makes it easy for IT personnel to schedule software deployments and maintenance so they can minimize the impact on end user productivity, network bandwidth software deployments and maintenance in their organization. IT managers can also schedule application installations and software package deployment when a Mac is not in use.
“The highest levels of data security are critical for businesses today,” said Jack Zubarev, Parallels president. “With the increased penetration of the Mac into the enterprise, IT admins need a quick and effective method to securely manage both Mac and PC computers through Microsoft SCCM. Parallels Mac Management 6 provides IT departments a variety of tools that make it simple to manage and control Mac computers and Mac applications.”
Parallels Desktop
Customer feedback inspired many efficiency improvements associated with the new task sequence steps, which strengthen on-screen display (OSD) features including:
- Install SCCM Application – Ability to re-use SCCM applications for macOS image deployment
- Format and Partition Disk – Formats and partitions a specified disk on a target Mac
- Join to Domain – Improved support with an additional setting requiring mobile confirmation
- Copy-Paste Task SequenceSteps – Allows IT admins to copy and paste task sequence steps between task sequences
- Modeless Task Sequence Properties Window – Edit multiple task sequences simultaneously
- Custom Settings Payload – Add a custom settings payload to a configuration profile via the built-in editor
- Duplicate Profile Prevention – Checks if configuration profile has already been applied as part of a baseline and all settings are correctly enforced
Mac Client Sccm Current Branch
“Slalom is a rapidly growing organization with 4,500 employees in 25 markets, and we have seen our Mac footprint grow to almost 25 percent of all devices in a short period of time,” said Anthony McGinnis, Operations Engineer for Slalom (slalom.com). “This has presented us with unique challenges that Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM has consistently been able to meet. The ability to manage Mac and PC computers within the same platform has allowed us to easily address our increasingly stringent security, reporting, and administrative needs without requiring an increase in staff or further infrastructure.”
Parallels Mac Management 6 for Microsoft SCCM empowers IT admins and system architects, as well as CIOs, to quickly and cost-effectively extend their current Microsoft SCCM infrastructure to control Mac and PC computers through one interface. IT departments now have more tools at their disposal to increase security, efficiency and even help drive business decisions without the cost of an additional infrastructure.
Resellers of Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM can receive a variety of free benefits when they visit the enhanced Parallels Partner Portal; it provides them with free dealer registration, usage-based pricing, waterfall discounts, and a host of resources to help them succeed. To learn more, please visit parallels.com/partners.
Availability and Pricing
Parallels Mac Management 6 will be available on July 27 at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time and starts at $30 annually per Mac.
About Parallels
Parallels is a global leader in cross-platform solutions which make it possible and simple for customers to use and access the applications and files they need on any device or operating system. Parallels helps customers take advantage of the best technology out there, whether it’s Windows, Mac, iOS, Android™ or the cloud. Parallels solves complex engineering and user experience problems by making it simple and cost-effective for businesses and individual customers to use applications wherever they may be—local, remote, in the private datacenter or in the cloud. Parallels has offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Visit www.parallels.com/about for more information.
Parallels and the Parallels logo are registered trademarks of Parallels International GmbH in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Last week I had a call with Parallels, which was my first briefing with them in quite a while. I'm a Parallels Desktop user on my Mac, but besides that Parallels rarely comes up in the desktop virtualization space outside of that (other than a few 'what if' scenarios from time to time). What I learned was that earlier this year they released a product called Parallels Management Suite for Microsoft System Center, the main feature of which is to allow you to manage Mac endpoints via Microsoft SCCM.
The product works by installing an agent on the Mac endpoint that is either deployed manually or via a network discovery install. In the latter scenario, SCCM is directed to discover macs on the network, establish an SSH connection to them with predefined admin credentials, and install the software. After the agent is installed, admins are able to deploy software and scripts, inventory software and hardware, and take advantage of SCCM's native reporting functionality. Many of the tasks available to Windows admins are also available to Mac admins.
The only caveat to application deployments that I was made aware of is that the application must support silent installs. I'm not sure how many applications this eliminates from consideration, but I did confirm that you can package Automator scripts that can be used to automatically install applications that require user interaction.
This sounds great, but it isn't the only product on the market that integrates Macs into SCCM. In fact, it's not even the only product from a vendor in our coverage area. When Dell acquired Quest, they also acquired QMX, which is as close to the same product as possible. There are some key advantages that QMX has at the moment, though. First, QMX can deploy OS images to the endpoints. Second, QMX also features management extensions that support iOS and Android devices. Both of these features are on the road map for Parallels Manage Suite, but are not yet part of the product.
What sets it apart from QMX, though, is the ability to manage the hypervisor component and deploy virtual machines, too. I don't mean to imply that it's not possible for QMX to do this via scripts, but Parallels has specifically added functionality to manage Parallels Desktop Enterprise from SCCM (not the cheaper Parallels Desktop). This includes both managing the hypervisor configuration itself and deploying virtual machines. Parallels Management Suite also adds remote support, which I don't believe is a feature of QMX (although I could be wrong).
Still, the only way to de-provision a virtual machine is with scripts. That, combined with the fact that the management agent must live on the host (so the entire device is managed by SCCM) means that this is probably not a comprehensive BYOC solution yet. Future updates, I hope, will bring the ability to manage the hypervisor on machines that are not domain-joined, like contractor laptops. Parallels doesn't have a Windows client hypervisor product, so it would be welcoming to see that or to some other integration with VMware, VirtualBox, or Client Hyper-V, if only for the sake of VM portability.
Still, it's interesting to see some movement in this space beyond Dell QMX, and I think that centralized management of Macs has value in many organizations, especially when you combine that with centralized management of VMs. Prior to this product, you'd have to have multiple solutions (like MokaFive Suite + QMX), but Parallels is trying to bring it all together into one solution. You can argue that QMX + MokaFive gives you more features, but that also brings added complexity. Don't forget, too, that VMware is making waves in the Mac BYOC/Client Virtualization space with VMware Fusion Pro and Horizon Mirage, so I expect to see some back and forth here.
Parallels Management Suite is available today, and retails for $30/user. It works with System Center 2007 and 2012.