Integrating Macs in our Environment

Integrating our new Macs into our existing AD environment has presented some challenges.

Within the past few months we have installed nine new, 30-user iMac labs total.  One in each of our elementary and middle schools.  The labs went in with very little trouble and have generated a terrific buzz in our buildings.  Many teachers were quick to sign up for a time slot.  The response has been tremendous.  The children and teachers are all thrilled with the new labs.  One teacher commented that she brought her class to the computer lab more times in the past month (since the lab was installed) than she had in the previous 3 years.

The students took to the new iMacs, without any apprehension.  They just went in, sat down and got straight to work.  There have not been any technical issues that have prevented the students from working.  The brilliance of the screen, coupled with the speed at which the new iMacs operate, have really appealed to the students and teachers.

The Macbook Pro laptops slated to be distributed to all professional staff members has been another matter.

The laptops are sensational, sleek & sexy, and perform extremely well.  We have encountered some issues, however, with regards to taking them off of our network (home, for example.)

We have found that in order for the Macbook Pros to work effectively outside of our schools, we need to provide the staff members with administrative rights to the local machines.  This will allow the staff members to connect to home wireless access points, add printers and install software.

At this time, we are still struggling to find out why, once they are off our network, they lose their administrative rights.  We have worked tirelessly with high level engineers at Apple, who have assured us that we have everything set up properly, yet we continue to experience this problem.

At this point, we have deployed about 30 of the laptops to our administrators.  Thankfully, they have been extremely patient and willing to work with our tech staff to resolve this problem.  The administrators want to assist us in tweaking the laptops before we distribute them to our teachers in September.

The problem seems to have something to do with our new OD integrating with existing AD.  My tech staff and the Apple engineers, are confident will resolve this issue within the next few days.

Once this issue is resolved, all that remains is working out the logistics of deploying the laptops and providing a basic training to the 600+ staff members that are anxiously awaiting them.