How Apple is updating cell system administration
At final week’s WWDC, Apple rolled out a slew of modifications that have an effect on system administration total or apply to declarative administration used on particular person units. Here’s a rundown of the modifications and why they matter.
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As anticipated, Apple at WWDC introduced a collection of great modifications to how Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Apple TVs are managed in enterprise and schooling environments. These modifications largely break into two teams: those who have an effect on total system administration and those who apply to declarative administration (a brand new sort of system administration Apple launched final yr in iOS 15).
It’s necessary to have a look at every group individually to greatest perceive the modifications.
How did Apple change total system administration?
Apple Configurator
Apple Configurator for iPhone acquired a major enlargement. It’s lengthy been a guide technique of enrolling iPhones and iPads in administration quite than utilizing automated or self-enrollment instruments. The device initially shipped as a Mac app that might configure units, however it had one main draw back: units needed to be related by way of USB to the Mac operating the app. This had apparent implications by way of the time and manpower in something apart from a small surroundings.
Last yr, Apple launched a model of Configurator for iPhone that reversed the workflow of the unique, which means an iPhone model of the app could possibly be used wirelessly to enroll Macs into administration. It was major used to enroll Macs that had been bought exterior of Apple’s enterprise/schooling channel into Apple Business Manager (Apple merchandise bought by the channel might be auto-enrolled with zero-touch configuration).
The iPhone incarnation is extremely easy. During the setup course of, you level an iPhone digicam at an animation on the Mac’s display (very like pairing an Apple Watch) and that triggers the enrollment course of.
The large change this yr is that Apple expanded the usage of Apple Configurator for iPhone to help iPad and iPhone enrollment utilizing the identical course of — eradicating the requirement that units be connected to a Mac. This enormously reduces the effort and time wanted to enroll these units. There’s one caveat: units that require mobile activation or have been activation locked will want that activation to be accomplished manually earlier than Configurator can be utilized.
Identity administration
Apple has made helpful modifications for id administration in enterprise environments. The most important: it now affords help for added id suppliers together with Google Workspace and Oauth 2, which permits an expansive set of suppliers. (Azure AD was already supported.) These id suppliers can be utilized together with Apple Business Manager to generate Managed Apple IDs for workers.
The firm additionally introduced that help for single sign-on enrollment throughout its platforms will likely be applied after macOS Ventura and iOS/iPadOS16 arrive this fall. The aim right here is to make person enrollment simpler and extra streamlined by requiring customers to authenticate solely as soon as. Apple additionally introduced Platform Single Sign-on, an effort to broaden and streamline entry to enterprise apps and web sites every time they login to their system(s).
Managed per-app networking
Apple has lengthy had per-app VPN capabilities, which permit solely particular enterprise or work-related apps to make use of an energetic VPN connection. This applies VPN safety, however limits VPN load by solely sending particular app site visitors over a VPN connection. With macOS Ventura and iOS/iPadOS 16, Apple is including per-app DNS proxy and per-app internet content material filtering. This helps safe site visitors for particular apps and capabilities the identical as per-app VPN. And this requires no modifications to the apps themselves. DNS proxy helps system-wide or per-app choices whereas content material filtering helps system-wide or as much as seven per-app cases.
E-SIM provisioning
For iPhones that help eSIMs, Apple is making it attainable for cell system administration software program (MDM) to configure and provision an eSIM. This can embrace provisioning a brand new system, migrating carriers, use of a number of carriers, or configuration for journey and roaming.
Managing Accessibility settings
Apple is well-known for its expansive set of Accessibility options for folks with particular wants. In truth, many individuals with out particular wants additionally use a number of of those options. In iOS/iPadOS 16, Apple is permitting MDM to allow and configure a handful of the commonest options robotically, together with: textual content measurement, Voice Over, Zoom, Touch Accommodations, Bold Text, Reduce Motion, Increase Contrast, and Reduce Transparency. This will likely be a welcome device in such areas as particular schooling or hospital and healthcare conditions the place units could also be shared amongst customers with particular wants.
What’s new in Apple’s Declarative Management course of?
Apple unveiled Declarative Management final yr as an enchancment over its unique MDM protocol. Its large benefit is that it strikes a lot of the enterprise logic, compliance, and administration from the MDM service to every system. As a outcome, units can proactively monitor their state. That eliminates the necessity for the MDM service to continually ballot for his or her system state after which challenge instructions in response. Instead, units make these modifications based mostly on their present state and on the declarations despatched to them and report them again to the service.
Declarative administration depends on declarations that include issues like activations and configurations. One benefit is {that a} declaration can embrace a number of configurations in addition to the activations that point out when or if the configuration needs to be activated. This means a single declaration can embrace all of the configurations for all customers, paired with activations that point out to which customers they need to apply. This reduces the necessity for giant units of various configurations because the system itself can decide which of them needs to be enabled for the system due to its person.
This yr, Apple has expanded the place Declarative Management can be utilized. Initially, it was out there solely on iOS/iPadOS 15 units that leveraged person enrollment. Going ahead, all Apple units operating macOS Ventura or iOS/iPadOS/tvOS 16 will likely be supported, no matter their enrollment sort. That means system enrollment (together with Supervised units) is supported throughout the board, as is shared iPad (an enrollment sort that enables a number of customers to share the identical iPad, every along with his or her personal configuration and information.)
The firm has made it crystal clear that Declarative Management is the way forward for Apple system administration and that any new administration options will likely be rolled out solely to the declarative mannequin. Although conventional MDM will likely be out there for some unspecified time, it has been deprecated and can ultimately be retired.
This has main implications for units already in use. Devices that may’t run macOS Ventura or iOS/iPadOS 16 will ultimately be dropped and any that stay in service will should be changed. Given the swath of units dropping help, this might make for a pricey transition for some organizations. Although it isn’t rapid, you must start to find out the scale and value of the transition and the way you’ll handle it (notably since it is going to probably require a transition to Apple Silicon, which doesn’t help the power to run Windows or Windows apps, within the course of).
Beyond increasing what merchandise can use declarative administration, Apple additionally prolonged its performance, together with help for passcode configuration, enterprise accounts, and MDM-governed app set up.
The passcode choice is extra complicated than merely requiring a passcode of a sure sort. Passcode compliance is historically required for sure security-related configurations, similar to sending the company Wi-Fi configuration to a tool. In the declarative mannequin, these configurations might be despatched to the system earlier than a passcode is about. They are despatched together with the passcode requirement and embrace an activation that may solely allow it as soon as the person creates a passcode that complies with that coverage. Once the person units a passcode, the system will detect the change and allow the Wi-Fi configuration with a number of connections to the MDM service, enabling Wi-Fi instantly and notifying the service it has been activated.
Accounts — which may embrace issues similar to mail, notes, calendar, and subscribed calendars — operate equally. A declaration can specify all of the varieties of accounts supported throughout the group in addition to all of the subscribed calendars. The system will then decide — based mostly on the person’s account and position(s) throughout the group — to activate and allow.
MDM app set up is probably the most vital addition to declarative administration, since app set up is without doubt one of the duties that places probably the most load on an MDM and the largest bottleneck throughout mass system activations (similar to a big onboarding of recent staff, new system rollouts, or the primary day of faculty). A declaration can specify all of the potential apps to be put in and despatched to a tool at activation, even earlier than it has been handed to its person. Again, the system will decide which app set up configurations to activate and make out there, based mostly on the person. This avoids every system having to repeatedly question the service and obtain apps and their configurations. It additionally simplifies and hurries up the method of enabling (or disabling) apps if a person’s position modifications.
These are vital enhancements and it’s simple to see why they’re the primary additions to Declarative Management after its preliminary rollout. There are nonetheless MDM capabilities that haven’t made the leap to declarative use, however it’s apparent that ultimately – maybe as quickly as subsequent yr – they are going to.
This is without doubt one of the most important WWDC bulletins for enterprise and it’s good to see that Apple has been considerate in deciding which options so as to add or replace since most of them sort out areas that have been troublesome, time consuming, useful resource intensive, or tedious. Apple isn’t just addressing enterprise buyer wants, however demonstrating that it understands these wants.