#JNUC - Don't Get Schooled by Your One-to-One iPad Deployment

[Smalstig]

1000 students walk into a gym… It's not a joke; it's an iPad rollout! Do you have questions about deploying a large number of iOS devices to students? How should the network be prepared? Will the JSS hold up? If your mind is spinning just thinking about what will happen on day-one, join us for a panel discussion with administrators who have been through the whole process before. They'll know how to ease your mind and help get you ready for that big day.

[John_Wetter]

Anybody have any other questions we didn't get through today? Great discussion!

[DVG]

We're getting ready to roll iPads to all our 8th graders next year (~650 Students). We missed the discussion @ the JNUC, is there anything posted online or can I pick your brain for a bit on this one? We already have 2200 laptops in place at our HS campuses, but we've not done any JSS managed iPad rollouts. We've used Apple Configurator to deploy most of our iPads, but we need to integrate the app deployment from Casper to make it really work. I'm curious as to the processes you've put in place and how you went from box to student? If you have any info to offer, it's greatly appreciated. TYVM!

[damienbarrett]

If you're using Configurator to set up your iPads, are you using VPP codes to install the applications on each one?

As yet, there is no way to actually "push" a purchased App Store application to an iPad (other than syncing in iTunes where all iPads are clones of each other; not recommended by anyone, but it works on small scale iPad rollouts). All App Store apps are pulled from the App Store after your MDM server does the handoff using VPP codes. The MDM can be JSS, or 10.7 server or higher, or even Configurator.

The only way I've really seen iPad 1:1 rollouts work cleanly is the following:

1) Tech Dept. receives all the iPads. Unboxes. Labels. Inventories. Puts back in box.
2) Students come into the Distribution space, receive their iPad and power it on.
3) Each student powers on iPad and joins a Wi-Fi network that's setup, for enrollment purposes only. It's a temporary network and is shut down when Distribution phase is completed.
4) The Distribution Wi-Fi network is setup with a captive portal that forces the user to an enrollment page hosted by your MDM (like JSS). The enrollment page contains instructions for over-the-air (OTA) enrollment of each iPad. After enrollment steps are done, a few things have occurred.

• Each iPad is enrolled into JSS, which is a great way to keep inventory fresh
• Each iPad has received a set of profiles from the MDM (JSS) that include things like which WiFi network to join with which password, VPN settings, email server settings, and more.
• Each iPad will have installed on it the Self Service Web clip, which can be loaded up with links to all the applications you want your end-users to install. Again, JSS will handle the hand-off of VPP codes to the App Store, but it's seamless and transparent to the end-user. You simply instruct them to install "these 10 apps", all listed in Self Service. It can also be scoped to different groups, so if you want different grade to have different apps, this can be done easily. Also, the end-users can do it at home, so as to relieve strain on your broadband connection. Imagine several hundred users all trying to simultaneously install GarageBand on their new iPads...

A few caveats in this.

- All users will need their own AppleID. Trying to share an institutional AppleID with all your users is a recipe for disaster. It only works in lab environments where the iPads don't change and where an Tech Person (who knows the password for the Institutional AppleID) handles all the updates. Users need an AppleID so that the Apps can be associated with their AppleID during the "purchase" process, as they click on the "install" button in the Self Service Web clip.
- If you have younger students (under age 13), be careful about COPPA regulations regarding the creation of accounts like Apple ID accounts. You may have to get parental approval or sign-off (always a good idea anyway).
- You must start to think of the Apps that are being installed on the iPads as "disposable" items, like pencils or paper. Because the purchased app will be associated with each student's unique Apple ID, you are essentially gifting them that app. Build these numbers into your budget. If a student leaves your school, the app will go with them. (There are ways to manage check in/check out of Apps and codes in Configurator, but honestly, I've never bothered to investigate it much. It clearly doesn't fit most 1:1 iPad environments and seems built for lab or Library environments where the Institutional Apple ID is the only Apple ID on the iPad).

I would *love* see a way to "package up" an iOS app and push it out to and iPad (as we've been doing with Macs forever), but it's never going to happen. Apple has built their App Store ecosystem to not allow this kind of functionality, and so every MDM provider out there (JAMF included) has to write their software against the SDK Apple has released. Apps are installed and updated only from the App Store (there is a new caching server in 10.8.2 server that supposedly will capture iOS app updates so you can serve them locally, but I've not been able to look at how it works yet).

I hope this helps. There's actually a great deal more discussion about this topic. Please feel free to contact me off-list if you'd like to have a more detailed conversation.