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The Macbook®, slowly but surely, is becoming a mainstay in the modern IT organization. As more Macs® infiltrate the enterprise, IT admins are being challenged in how to manage them both from a user and system perspective. This challenge is being addressed by innovative identity and access management (IAM) solutions for Mac.
Mac Management Through the Years
Of course, the IAM space has been around for a long time, but has historically been focused on the Microsoft®Windows® platform. Case and point, take Microsoft Active Directory® (MAD or AD), which has been the market share leader for on-prem directory services for almost two decades. MAD is solely optimized for Windows users, applications, systems, and networks. In IT’s early days, Active Directory was all a sysadmin needed to control their IAM needs. In those days, however, finding a Mac in the workplace was akin to finding a unicorn in the wild; it just didn’t happen.
Today’s IAM space is drastically different. Long gone are the days of homogeneous, Windows-based environments. With organizations leveraging more Mac systems than ever, and cloud adoption reaching an all-time high, it’s a completely different IAM ballgame. The result has been that IT organizations have struggled with addressing Mac management for a long time now. Some solutions can be used to manage them manually if there are only a few Mac systems that need management, while others offer enterprise grade, on-prem identity bridges and Mac management solutions, but all of these siloed tools are only partial solutions to the problem.
Mac User and System Management
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a unified solution for both user and system management for Macs for years. The good news is that a next generation identity and access management solution for Macs is emerging to help solve this problem and a number of others. This cloud IAM platform, called Directory-as-a-Service®, is securely managing and connecting not only Mac users and systems, but also Windows and Linux® systems, cloud and on-prem servers, web and on-prem applications, physical and virtual file servers, and wired and WiFi networks.
JumpCloud® Directory-as-a-Service features a Mac-specific app, aptly called the JumpCloud App for macOS®, which can be used to simplify Mac IAM. With the App for macOS, JumpCloud end users can swiftly and efficiently update their passwords, directly from their systems. In practice, the App for macOS reduces friction for both end users and IT admins alike, taking the burden of frequent password reminders off both parties and (practically) automating the entire process.
IAM for Mac with JumpCloud
The App for macOS isn’t the only feature IT admins can take advantage of through the JumpCloud Directory-as-a-Service platform. To learn about more of these features, be sure to check out our blog and YouTube channel. Not already a JumpCloud customer? You can try Directory-as-a-Service completely free, with ten free users forever to get you started.
