Modern Device Management: the future of MDM

Jamf’s new paper “Modern Management: The Future of MDM” tackles the question of what truly modern device management entails.

With Apple, ingenuity races ahead. Keeping up with that pace means laying the groundwork properly.

What is modern device management?

Modern management is the next evolution of endpoint management and security. It’s a holistic perspective grounded in more proactive device actions. This results in enhanced security, faster device management and increased awareness for IT departments. That means IT can turn on a dime if an issue arises. Often, they can automate it.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) has turned a corner

Traditionally, MDM has relied on a management server asking Apple to have a managed device ‘phone home’ to obtain a setting, receive a command or query, or install an app.

This meant a lot of traffic, a lot of waiting, and a lot of back-and-forth. This could leave devices out of compliance until the management server pinged the device.

Not anymore.

Declarative Device Management

Declarative Device Management (DDM) from Apple is the future of device management. With DDM, MDM servers can send far more detailed, up-front instructions that tell the device how to behave under a set of conditions. That set of instructions combines with status reporting to alert the management server when certain values change on a device.

In other words, a device proactively takes action if it falls out of compliance, and can send updated information directly to the server. It doesn’t have to wait for the server to ask for a report, report the issue, and then wait for the server to tell it what to do.

As a result, device information is more accurate and policies that keep a device compliant can apply faster. This also cuts down network traffic considerably, resulting in a marked increase in performance and speed.

Learn more about modern device management

For a more detailed look into how transformative this new technology has been for management, security, performance and provisioning, read “Modern Management: The Future of MDM.”