Administering Adobe Creative Suite with the Casper Suite

The Casper Suite provides a complete solution to administering Adobe products on a large-scale in the enterprise.

In the past, Mac administrators have used the Casper Suite in combination with the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE) to administer Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 and 5.5. With each new release of Adobe Creative Suite and AAMEE comes the demand for an updated solution. A similar workflow can now be used to administer CS6, CS5.5 or CS5 using the Casper Suite and AAMEE.

Using these workflows, administrators can package and provision Adobe CS6, CS5.5 or CS5 for mass deployment. They can also automate Adobe's custom serialization method by deploying the Adobe command-line tool along with a serialization script. Coupled with the Casper Suite's reporting capabilities, serialization can help administrators deploy and track product licenses more effectively.

Mac administrators also have more options when deploying Adobe Creative Suite updates with the Casper Suite. In addition to deploying Adobe updates using Adobe's silent installation technology, updates can be installed as they become available by setting up and deploying an internal Adobe update server.

These guides provide step-by-step instructions for deploying, serializing, reporting on, and updating CS6, CS5.5 or CS5 with the Casper Suite. Be sure to review the information in the "Requirements" section of each document before using the instructions.

Key principles:

• Deploying Adobe CS6, CS5.5 or CS5
• Serializing Adobe CS6, CS5.5 or CS5
• Reporting on Adobe CS6, CS5.5 or CS5
• Updating Adobe Adobe CS6, CS5.5 or CS5

Requirements (Adobe CS6)

To deploy, serialize, report on and update Adobe CS6, you must be running the Casper Suite v7.3 or later in your environment.

The following components are required to complete the instructions in this guide:

• Adobe Application Manager, Enterprise Edition 3.0 for Mac
• Adobe Provisioning Toolkit for the Mac platform
• Adobe CS6 installer media
• Access to the JAMF Software Server (JSS)
• Casper Admin
• Composer

Requirements (Adobe CS5 or CS5.5)

To deploy, serialize, report on and update Adobe CS5 or CS5.5, you must be running the Casper Suite v7.3 or later in your environment.

The following components are required to complete the instructions in this guide:

• Adobe Application Manager, Enterprise Edition 2.0 for the Mac platform
• Adobe Provisioning Toolkit for the Mac platform
• Adobe CS5 or CS5.5 installer media
• Access to the JAMF Software Server (JSS)
• Casper Admin
• Composer
• (Optional) Server for the Adobe Update Server
• (Optional) Adobe Update Server Setup Tool (AUSST) 2.0 for Mac

You should also be familiar with the following sections in the Adobe Creative Suite 5 and 5.5 Enterprise Deployment Guide:

• "Deployment Tools"
• "Deployment Packages"
• "Adobe Provisioning Toolkit Enterprise Edition"
• "Adobe Update Server Setup Tool"