Enhancing Wi-Fi Visibility with 7SIGNAL’s Endpoint Agent and Jamf

As the 7SIGNAL team prepares to attend the Jamf User Conference in Nashville, the first week in October 2024, we reflect on the advantages of our joint solution.

As organizations continue to rely on wireless connectivity to support mission-critical operations, ensuring consistent and optimized Wi-Fi performance is more important than ever. In today's enterprise environments, this need extends beyond traditional access points to the individual devices employees use daily. To address this, 7SIGNAL’s endpoint agent, a module of the 7SIGNAL platform, provides unprecedented visibility into Wi-Fi performance on macOS endpoints. When deployed through Jamf, a trusted leader in device management, the combined solution delivers powerful insights into both the network's health and the performance of devices in the field. This blog will explore why 7SIGNAL's endpoint agent is deployed using Jamf for macOS, the value the integration brings, and how both solutions together create a compelling case for improving network and endpoint visibility. 

Why Deploy 7SIGNAL with Jamf for macOS? 

Deploying the 7SIGNAL endpoint agent through Jamf on macOS endpoints creates a seamless integration that addresses the growing complexity of enterprise Wi-Fi environments. Jamf is widely regarded as the go-to solution for managing Apple devices in corporate settings, particularly in environments where BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies and mixed fleets of devices are commonplace. 

Here are a few reasons why this deployment model is valuable: 

1. Device Trust and Security: Jamf’s Trusted Access program ensures that only secure devices gain access to network resources. By deploying 7SIGNAL’s endpoint agent through Jamf, enterprises can maintain high levels of security while optimizing Wi-Fi performance. The 7SIGNAL agent works within Jamf's robust security ecosystem, ensuring that all macOS devices, whether they are corporate-owned or personal BYOD, remain secure while offering insights into Wi-Fi health. 

1. Scalable Deployment: Jamf’s deployment model is highly scalable, allowing organizations to push the 7SIGNAL endpoint agent to all macOS devices quickly. This level of automation reduces IT overhead and ensures that the necessary visibility tools are installed on every endpoint within the network. Whether the organization has hundreds or thousands of macOS devices, Jamf simplifies the deployment process. 

1. Real-Time Visibility: By leveraging Jamf’s centralized management capabilities, IT teams can ensure that every device is equipped with 7SIGNAL’s agent to gather real-time Wi-Fi and endpoint performance data. This empowers IT teams to proactively monitor and resolve network issues before they impact the end-user experience. The agent’s data collection spans across both passive and active testing, providing a holistic view of network performance from the user’s perspective. 

1. Enhanced BYOD Management: With Jamf’s ability to manage both corporate and BYOD devices, enterprises can ensure that employees’ personal macOS devices are equipped with the 7SIGNAL agent. This is critical in today’s hybrid work environment, where employees frequently use personal devices to access corporate networks. By using Jamf, organizations can extend visibility and performance monitoring to all endpoints, regardless of ownership, enhancing the overall network performance. 

1. Consistent User Experience: Organizations are continually looking for ways to ensure that end-users, particularly in remote or hybrid settings, experience seamless and fast Wi-Fi. By deploying 7SIGNAL with Jamf, companies can take a proactive approach to Wi-Fi troubleshooting and performance optimization, making sure that users experience fewer disruptions and better connectivity across the macOS fleet. 

The Value of 7SIGNAL’s Endpoint Agent 

The 7SIGNAL endpoint agent is designed to provide visibility into the Wi-Fi experience directly from the end-user’s device. Unlike traditional Wi-Fi monitoring solutions that rely solely on data from access points or controllers, 7SIGNAL focuses on the device’s perspective, which often reveals issues that are missed at the network level. 

Here are key benefits that the 7SIGNAL endpoint agent brings to macOS endpoints:  

1. End-to-End Visibility: 7SIGNAL’s platform enables IT teams to understand the Wi-Fi performance from the device outward, offering an “outside-in” perspective. This view is critical for troubleshooting issues that may not be immediately visible from the network side, such as weak signals, interference, or poor device connectivity. With this data, IT can pinpoint problem areas more quickly and resolve them before they impact users. 

1. Passive and Active Testing: The 7SIGNAL agent provides both passive and active Wi-Fi experience testing. Passive testing collects data without initiating any actions on the network, while active testing involves performance measurements such as download and upload speed, latency, and packet loss. These tests enable IT teams to troubleshoot specific issues and provide immediate solutions for performance degradation. 

1. Improved Connectivity and Performance: By deploying the agent across all macOS devices, organizations can collect granular Wi-Fi performance data that helps to improve overall connectivity. Whether it's identifying problematic access points or discovering areas with signal interference, the 7SIGNAL agent makes it easier to pinpoint issues and optimize the Wi-Fi experience across the board. 

1. Historical Data for Trend Analysis: 7SIGNAL's agent provides long-term performance data, allowing organizations to track trends in Wi-Fi performance over time. This information can be invaluable for long-term planning, helping organizations determine when to upgrade hardware, adjust network configurations, or even rethink infrastructure layout to better support users. 

1. Proactive Troubleshooting: Instead of waiting for end-users to complain about Wi-Fi issues, the 7SIGNAL platform allows IT teams to take a proactive approach to network troubleshooting. This is especially important in organizations where poor Wi-Fi performance can lead to lost productivity and frustrated employees. By identifying potential issues before they escalate, IT teams can keep users connected and working efficiently. 

How Jamf Complements 7SIGNAL for macOS 

Jamf's strength lies in its ability to manage macOS devices across large-scale enterprises, ensuring that security, compliance, and performance are maintained. When paired with 7SIGNAL, Jamf becomes a powerful tool for not only managing devices but also ensuring those devices experience optimal connectivity, regardless of where they are being used. 

Here are ways in which Jamf adds value to 7SIGNAL’s deployment: 

1. Security Integration: Jamf's Trusted Access program ensures that only compliant and trusted devices connect to the network. When combined with 7SIGNAL’s Wi-Fi monitoring capabilities, organizations can maintain secure access while also optimizing Wi-Fi performance, providing a seamless experience for users without compromising security. 
2. Centralized Management: Jamf allows organizations to manage thousands of macOS devices from a single dashboard, making it easy to ensure that all devices have the 7SIGNAL endpoint agent installed. The centralized management also allows IT teams to monitor which devices are experiencing connectivity issues and address them quickly. 
3. Enhanced Compliance: With Jamf, organizations can enforce security and compliance policies across their entire macOS fleet. The integration with 7SIGNAL ensures that devices not only meet security standards but also benefit from enhanced Wi-Fi performance monitoring, providing a complete solution for endpoint management. 
4. Reduced IT Overhead: Jamf automates many of the deployment and management tasks, freeing up IT resources for more critical issues. With 7SIGNAL’s agent deployed on all macOS devices, IT teams have fewer help desk tickets related to Wi-Fi performance, as they can proactively address issues before users even notice them. 
5. Improved User Experience: Ultimately, the combined power of Jamf and 7SIGNAL leads to a better experience for end-users. With both solutions in place, users enjoy secure, reliable Wi-Fi, whether they're working in the office, from home, or on the go. 
6. Click here to follow the step-by-step Jamf deployment guidelines   

Real-World Impact: Transforming Enterprise Wi-Fi 

For organizations, the ability to monitor and optimize Wi-Fi performance across macOS endpoints is transformative. By deploying 7SIGNAL through Jamf, companies gain deep visibility into the health of their wireless networks and the performance of their endpoint devices. This level of insight ensures that IT teams can respond to issues quickly, keeping users connected and productive. 

Here are some examples of how this integration can benefit enterprises: 

• Hybrid and Remote Work: As more employees work remotely, maintaining a consistent and reliable Wi-Fi experience is critical. With 7SIGNAL and Jamf, IT teams can monitor performance for remote workers just as easily as for those in the office, ensuring that connectivity remains strong regardless of location. 

• BYOD Environments: In BYOD environments, managing personal devices can be challenging. With Jamf, organizations can extend 7SIGNAL’s monitoring capabilities to employee-owned macOS devices, ensuring that even these devices benefit from proactive Wi-Fi optimization. 

• High-Density Wi-Fi Environments: In environments such as offices, schools, and healthcare facilities where large numbers of devices connect to the same network, maintaining optimal Wi-Fi performance is essential. The combined solution from 7SIGNAL and Jamf helps to ensure that even in high-density environments, users experience consistent and reliable connectivity. 

The integration of 7SIGNAL’s endpoint agent with Jamf for macOS endpoints brings significant value to enterprises looking to optimize their Wi-Fi networks. By providing real-time visibility into Wi-Fi performance from the user’s perspective, 7SIGNAL helps IT teams address issues before they impact productivity. When deployed through Jamf, the solution becomes even more powerful, offering scalable, secure, and compliant deployment across large fleets of macOS devices. Together, 7SIGNAL and Jamf create a robust solution that ensures enterprises can deliver reliable, high-performing Wi-Fi experiences to all users, regardless of their location or device ownership. 

Click here to download the Jamf / 7SIGNAL datasheet!