We need to support 20K+ iPads and the web page: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4780
"The table below lists the total time it takes to serve individual signed profile updates, as tested using Profile Manager 2 on a Mac mini (Mid 2011) with 8 GB RAM running OS X Server (Mountain Lion) with up to 5000 clients."
Will the new MacPro with all the neccessary RAMs etc solve such a problem
iPad Air Wi-Fi, Cellular, iOS 7.1.1, MDM and Profile Manager 2
I believe Profile Manager 3 will be faster than 2 as well. I could not find any specific figures but logically a faster computer like the new Mac Pro will be able to process requests faster.
However for the quantity you described I personally would not regard Apple's Profile Manager as suitable, not due to speed issues but due to the fact it has no failover capabilities. You might therefore want to consider alternative MDM solutions which do include failover capabilities.
Dear John,
Thank you for your suggestion. We have a limited budget and only realised the issue in the last few days. If it can sustained the number 20K+, we beilive for the MDM to be off air up to 24 hrs is acceptable, as it has not direct impact on the teaching.
We obviously would like to go for a MDM that can do all the funcionalities as well as redundancy, but we may need to take a tempory solutions this coming academic year.
At a deployment of the scale of 20,000 iPad devices, I'd contact and ask the folks from Apple for assistance — directly.
See what they tell you about this, since the core of your question here is as much about what Apple recommends and about what Apple considers supported.
If Apple tells you "go for it" or not, then you've then feedback directly from the vendor. Apple might also be able and willing to point out sorts of issues or limits might arise within a deployment of this scale, too.
As John Lockwood states, you're also probably headed toward a somewhat larger server or toward a commercial MDM package — possibly at a storage array and external backups and some other features, as losing the data associated with a 20K iPad deployment configuration Would Be Bad.
With a deployment of that size i think Mrhoffmans advice is prudent, get some assistance/advice from Apple if you have not already done so
What are you going to do about certs?
I think currently once the certs expire there is no way to push new certs to iOS devices
You have to reenrol, which is bad enough with a few hundred,....20k ouch
Thank you, MrHoffman and IToaster. Indeed, we have been in contact with Apple Rep on this and related issues. However, a commercial MDM is something that we have not budgeted for as we were led to believe earlier that Apple Profile Manager was a viable solution.
With Apple's help we are now talking to a commercial MDM
Have you thought about any of the free MDM solutions such as meraki
I Don't know if they are capable of supporting 20k ipads, but it might be worth investigating
https://meraki.cisco.com/products/systems-manager
Scaling Profile Manager 2 to 20K iPads
