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Discover Mac desktops in Microsoft SCCM with Parallels Management
Along with its presence here at Macworld/iWorld and MacIT this week, virtualization heavyweight Parallels has a new offering to help big businesses and other large-scale enterprises wrangle their growing (and sometimes unpredictable) Mac populations in the context of the Windows-centric management tools they already have in place. Launching today, Parallels Management is a suite of plugins and agents that allow OS X machines to be audited and managed inside Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) console. The Parallels plugin delivers visibility of Macs on corporate networks, while also giving administrators the controls they are accustomed to on the Windows deployments in their environments. For OS X machines with Parallels Desktop's enterprise edition installed, those virtual machines can be controlled and locked down in compliance with the organization's overall security and IT policies, just like the hardware PCs are. If your organization already has an investment and internal expertise on SCCM, an approach like the Parallels Management setup makes a lot of sense. Of course, if there's not an installed management platform and you have a heterogeneous OS profile or a BYOD plan for your users, platform-agnostic options like Absolute Manage (formerly LANrev) might be more fluid. Even if you prefer to manage the Mac deployments with a platform-specific tool like JAMF's Casper Suite, that doesn't mean that SCCM admins in corporate IT must remain forever ignorant of what's going on in Mac-land. The SCCM plugin for Casper provides real-time audit data to the SCCM database from JAMF's inventory of installed Macs on the network. Parallels Management is offered as a US$30/year/Mac subscription license, providing all the audit and management access to SCCM. The enterprise edition of Parallels Desktop, which provides single license key installs and mass deployment of VMs (and which you can deploy using JAMF's tools, if you like), is $100/year/Mac.
LANrev 5.0 adds power management to workstation admin tools
Managing the power consumption of your Macs just got a little easier with the latest version of the LANrev cross-platform client management tool. In the new 5.0 build, the headline feature is bright green: you can assign power saving preferences to machines, including toggles based on whether a user is logged in and new reporting fields to monitor energy savings. For government users, the new FDCC SCAP component helps Windows clients meet Federal Desktop Core Configuration standards for 300-odd security settings on XP and Vista (yee-ikes).LANrev's sometimes-confusing UI has been simplified, bringing many of the server-oriented functions (software distribution, license monitoring, etc.) under a single window; machines can now be categorized for ease of searching and organization. Software deployment has been jazzed up with new metapackage/multi-payload options and Adobe Creative Suite CS3 direct deployment for installers and updaters (no word yet on CS4 support). LANrev still offers one-click Mac reimaging without setting up a Netboot server, which is a big plus in large deployments.Pricing for LANrev starts at about $50 per seat for corporate buyers ($40 for education markets) with tiered discounts for larger installations.
LANrev releases free version of InstallEase
Who can take some software, bundle it for you? Make a free installer and then seal it up with glue? InstallEase can (with apologies to Sammy Davis, Jr.). The packaging utility, long part of the LANrev crossplatform management & audit tool, is now available free of charge -- making it very complementary to other no-cost packaging tools such as Apple's PackageMaker and the freeware Iceberg, and it compares in functionality to the $99 Casper Composer tool (also available as part of the comprehensive Casper Suite).The idea behind both InstallEase and Composer is simple: suppose you want to install a new application on 20 computers, complete with plugins and pref files. Rather than walking around to each one, you snapshot your pre-install state on a prototype machine using InstallEase, then install the software; finally, take an 'after' picture. Just like that, you've created a package installer that can be run by the individual users, pushed out with ARD, LANrev, Casper etc., or triggered to run from a remote server. It's a great timesaver, especially for programs that don't leverage Apple's .pkg installer format for standardized deployment -- Office 2004, for example.If you've got a passel of Macs to manage and you haven't tried InstallEase yet, give it a download and check it out.
Ted and Gadget weep as MAST tether project fails to deploy
While a number of recent space-based experiments have proven quite successful, it must not have been Ted nor Gadget's day. The daring duo that made up the MAST project was supposed to "test the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space," but due to a glitch in the restraint system that "kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool," the once hopeful mission has come to an ill-fated close. Rather than reaching a full kilometer, the tether was only able to reach a few meters before coming to a stop, but the team at Tethers Unlimited aren't calling it quits just yet. They did admit to not knowing precisely what caused the costly mishap, but the crew also suggested that they'll try to use the small amount of data they did gather to analyze "how a short tether behaves in microgravity." Don't worry fellas, there's always next time.
Horizon partners with Navini to spread WiMAX across Northeast US
Following up on Sprint's announcement to spread the WiMAX love to Chicago and Washington, D.C., Horizon is looking to broaden that area of coverage out just a bit by partnering with Navini Networks. This news comes after the FCC approved Horizon's purchase of the WCS A Block spectrum previously owned by the diminishing Verizon, and now the firm is looking to deploy the wireless goods in "Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Richmond, and Cincinnati" for starters. Horizon has selected Navini's 802.16e equipment to get things up and running, and states that its objective it to "provide wireless last mile access to residential, business, and emergency restoration markets," but folks in rural areas will seemingly get shunned for now. Horizon isn't wasting any time getting this thing started, either, as it plans to start building the network in Q1 of this year, with hopes for "ongoing expansion and additional network deployments in the latter part of 2007."[Via TheWirelessReport]
