Jamf

Jamf acquires NoMAD to assist IT departments with Active Directory integration

Bradley C | Sep 20 2018 - 9:14 am PT

I’ve written a lot about identity management when it comes to Apple deployments here on 9to5mac. A popular identity management solution is Active Directory (AD) from Microsoft. Mac IT admins have loved the syncing of credentials between AD, but have long hated the process and frustration of binding Mac to AD. NoMad was built to solve that problem. I was actually discouraged by a systems engineer from Apple years ago against binding to AD.

Jamf announced yesterday that they were acquiring NoMAD:

“There is strong desire to eliminate the need to bind a Mac to Active Directory (AD), but maintain account security. NoMAD makes this seamless by keeping the account credentials in sync between the identity provider and the Mac,” said Dana Williams, president, Orchard & Grove, the makers of NoMAD. “Our goal has always been to design and deliver products that make life easier for Mac admins and their users.”

Jamf’s first commitment is to customers and delivering value for the time and resource investments they have made. As such, the NoMAD team will join Jamf, and Jamf will continue to develop, enhance and support both the open-source and commercial products. The open-source solution will remain branded NoMAD, and Jamf will start to offer free chat support for this open-source product. The commercial versions of NoMAD, including NoMAD Pro, NoMAD Login+ and PKINIT, will be folded into a single solution, and rebranded Jamf Connect. Customers of both the open-source version and Jamf Connect will benefit from Jamf’s global, world-class support and services team.

I know the community around NoMAD is active, so I am certainly glad to see that the open-source products will still be enhanced. Working in the Apple IT world for the past nine years has been amazing. I’ve been so impressed by the community, and open-source products like NoMAD are a perfect example.

I spoke with representatives of Jamf and NoMad, and they were both excited about the future of Mac IT management. I specifically asked about the future of Jamf and identity management, and their vision of the future is to work with every identity management provider. They don’t want to be a full stack provider for IT. They want to focus on what they do best. Their goal is to create the best onboarding experience for new devices and new users so that IT can create seamless workflows. They also want to develop predictable systems that aren’t dependent on a single IT person who knew how to write AppleScript. I am sure they’ll have more to say at JNUC in October.