Here’s one thing that’s become painfully clear in the past few years: macOS generates a lot of data, but wrangling that data into something usable isn’t always easy. Apple’s Mac Evaluation Utility is a free tool from Apple designed to generate reports to see what’s working, what’s enabled, and what can be made better. It can help determine if your internal network is ready to communicate with Apple’s long list of servers in order to process iCloud data as well as check for macOS updates.
What kind of data can the Mac Evaluation Utility gather?
The subhead of this section is the key part to know about this app. It cannot make changes to your macOS deployment, device management configuration, or anything on your network. Think of it as a “guide” to help you scale up your deployment. If you’re starting with a beta test of Apple users during a Windows to Mac migration program, this app is helpful to run once that beta group is up and running. Here’s some sample information it can gather:
How does Bonjour traffic flow? Can macOS connect to my VPN? How are my devices connecting to Apple’s servers for iCloud and macOS updates? Is my device management system able to talk to my device? Are the apps on my devices secure? How are my users authenticating to their devices? Is FileVault enabled?This app is designed to help you build a “readiness” action plan as you look to go from 4 to 400 devices. Especially with network communication to Apple’s servers, this app can help ensure all the data can flow normally – whether the employees are working remotely or in the office.
How can you download the Mac Evaluation Utility?
Because the app is aimed strictly at IT professionals looking to optimize their macOS fleet, Apple doesn’t make the Mac Evaluation Utility freely available. It is free, but it requires access to AppleSeed for IT, which in turn requires a Managed Apple ID to access. There’s no reason not to use it a few times a year to have Apple check the health of your fleet in terms of settings and communications.
Wrap-up
Apps like this are a great move by Apple to meet IT professionals where they are. It’s a proactive way for Apple to guide IT teams to success with their fleet by pointing out how things work and where they can be improved. As Apple becomes a larger part of every IT environment, gathering the right data is a critical step to success.