Deploying JMP in an enterprise environment?

[#1]

We use JMP as single install on user PCs. We have developed a JMP add-in that we would like to deploy to a larger group of users. Since the add-in would require each user to be individually setup for ODBC connectivity (for database queries), our IT dept would like an alternative option. 

IT were surprised that JMP don’t have an Enterprise Edition for large deployments and (being unfamiliar with JMP) are concerned around security, scalability, integration with Databases, etc. We have spoken to JMP and they say that we should just setup a server, install a single instance of JMP on same, and enable access to large groups that way.

Our IT Team are still not comfortable with this as they say this would require a terminal server farm, with a broker to manage/direct connections to a server, purchase MS RDS licenses for each user, and that they'd have to manage it all. Their view is that putting it on a server basis is really just trying to make an enterprise managed solution out of something that is not.

So my questions are:

Has anyone out there rolled out JMP to large business groups in a way other than single client install? 

If so, how does the business use it? How is it supported? Any watchouts you'd advise on?

Many thanks for your input.

[#2]

Many thanks for your respons @ih. I hadn't heard of SCCM before now, but I'll definitely pass this along also as an option.

[#3]

I guess SCCM is now Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, but essentially you would write powershell scripts to handle all of the configuration which would then be ran on individual PCs using the endpoint configuration manager.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Endpoint_Configuration_Manager

[#4]

@dieter_pisot and I presented a paper on deploying JMP Pro using non-persistent application virtualization, which might be something to investigate for your use-case here. We used AppStream 2.0, but other technologies are available. Notable, this helps address the problem of building a fleet of standard compute assets with standard configurations that are available on-demand to users. Basically, set up the deployment and configuration once and then scale to the needed user population without having to configure individual PCs.

Besides the gains in efficiency in scaling, you set up JMP for individual user success by automatically installing the software, ODBC drivers, configuring connections to databases and automatically setting up the parameters to publish to JMP Live. If you have any organization-specific add-ins or scripts those could be automatically deployed too.

The recording of the paper is here. We are repeating the paper at the upcoming Discovery Summit Americas.

From our customer reference program NXP has talked about deploying JMP Pro to 1,600 of the company's data experts. Another good example is Murata Finland.

[#5]

Thanks Daniel. I had seen this insightful video previously, and although we're not an 'AWS house' I had also sent it to IT for their perusal. Additionally, our JMP support were kind enough to introduce us to Dieter, and organised for a meeting between him and our IT team. I wonder whether the lack of customer reference recommendation by JMP (from a customer privacy perspective) may have been incorrectly seen as a 'red flag' (and possibly an excuse) for IT to not want to progress the server route - something seen as extra work to 'setup/maintain/manage'. 

[#6]

Depending on what you're using you might be able to use chocolatey or winget. This doesn't work for JMP but I've used it for other required installs for drivers, etc before. That would require running in admin (which might not be what your IT wants)