Any network engineers using retina MacBook as primary machine?

[seamor0512]

I am really on the fence on getting a retina MacBook. I am a Cisco network engineer that uses programs such as zoc, ms visio or lucidchart, ms office, Google docs, VNC , Remote Desktop etc. A lot of my work requires having 4-5 programs open at a time and spread out between the laptop screen and a 2nd 1080p monitor. I am enticed by the thought of lowering my footprint from my 13 pro to the retina MacBook but that core m is so concerning. I travel a good bit so it could be beneficial. Any IT pro's riding with this beauty as their main machine? Any issues with multitasking programs? Fairly good chance I'd also have to run a win 10 vm in parallels some as well.

Probably just going to grab one for a test run during the holiday return period but looking for some input.

 

[ctyrider]

Any IT pro's riding with this beauty as their main machine? Any issues with multitasking programs? Fairly good chance I'd also have to run a win 10 vm in parallels some as well

I am a network engineer and use rMB as my one and only machine. At home, I connect it to 1440p display and of course the size makes it perfect for travel.

I don't do anything too computationally intensive, but rMB has no trouble handing tools like Wireshark, MS Office and even Visio in a Win7 VM. I recommend it.

 

[seamor0512]

Thanks,

I picked one up just now gonna give it the ole trial run through. So far so good, currently installing my programs on it. Really liking the keyboard and form factor, no slow downs as of yet.

 

[Mattymoocow]

I am really on the fence on getting a retina MacBook. I am a Cisco network engineer that uses programs such as zoc, ms visio or lucidchart, ms office, Google docs, VNC , Remote Desktop etc. A lot of my work requires having 4-5 programs open at a time and spread out between the laptop screen and a 2nd 1080p monitor. I am enticed by the thought of lowering my footprint from my 13 pro to the retina MacBook but that core m is so concerning. I travel a good bit so it could be beneficial. Any IT pro's riding with this beauty as their main machine? Any issues with multitasking programs? Fairly good chance I'd also have to run a win 10 vm in parallels some as well.

Probably just going to grab one for a test run during the holiday return period but looking for some input.

I too am a Cisco Network engineer, running rMB as my primary machine. It works a treat! some window based things, i just run in a Windows 7 or Windows 10 VM via Parallels. I was hanging out for Hub+ for better connectivity options, but as they failed I just went and got the Apple USB-C AV adapter. My USB-Serial adapter sometimes plays up in OS X, but always works flawlessly in Windows VMs.

I run my Work laptop (SOE) as a VM in Parallels, often with Visio, Outlook, several Internet explorer tabs, SecureCRT, Word, Excel.

It has proved to be great little performer.

 

[brentsg]

I purchased one this weekend for this purpose. I'm rarely needing much power on my end, since it's generally just a window into another machine somewhere.

 

[Dwayne82]

I don't do anything too computationally intensive, but rMB has no trouble handing tools like Wireshark, MS Office and even Visio in a Win7 VM. I recommend it.

I run my Work laptop (SOE) as a VM in Parallels, often with Visio, Outlook, several Internet explorer tabs, SecureCRT, Word, Excel.

If you want a native app for OSX doing Visio-Sheets and Graphs, give Conceptdraw (free trial) a chance. In MS Visio you can save your work as a ".vdx" file which is compatible to Conceptdraw (cd). It works for me. Made a lot of complex Schemes in MS Visio, then we changed completely to OSX in my company two years ago, today i work exclusively on cd.

 

[stars_fan]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I'm a CCNP voice guy and need something I can rely on because my 09 MBP is starting to show its age. I think I'm going to pick one up for the holiday test drive myself

 

[maxsix]

While different in specifics, nonetheless my scientific content creation work in Thermal Dynamics via four to six dedicated, always open, memory/cpu demanding proprietary programs ... all deliver exemplary results across multiple monitors driven easily by my fully optioned 15" Mid 2015 CTO MBPr.

 

[ctyrider]

While different in specifics, nonetheless my scientific content creation work in Thermal Dynamics via four to six dedicated, always open, memory/cpu demanding proprietary programs ... all deliver exemplary results across multiple monitors driven easily by my fully optioned 15" Mid 2015 CTO MBPr.

Not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread.. which is use of rMB by network engineers.

 

[maxsix]

Not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread.. which is use of rMB by network engineers.

It goes directly to the excellent flexibility and usefulness of the MBPr within various demanding corporate large scale operations. Many heavy users reading this thread may not be charged with the exact job description you've listed, but end up being quite happy to hear reassuring positive feedback on the full extent of this computers relevance in more than one field.

 

[ctyrider]

It goes directly to the excellent flexibility and usefulness of the MBPr within various demanding corporate large scale operations

Great to hear your 15" MBP is working out well for you. My 22-Core Xeon E5 rackmount is also doing excellent job running a large ESX cluster with over 75 active VMs. However, the original topic is about 12" rMB suitability for network engineers

 

[maxsix]

Great to hear your 15" MBP is working out well for you. My 22-Core Xeon E5 rackmount is also doing excellent job running a large ESX cluster with over 75 active VMs. However, the original topic is about 12" rMB suitability for network engineers

While initially it seems like overkill for you to use a Xeon E5 to manage the temperature and purity of the tepid water in your 5 gallon aquarium filled with guppies, to each their own.

 

[brentsg]

I had a several hour customer crisis while traveling at a family member's house for the holiday. The rMB served me well and any hesitation has been pushed aside. I'm going to swap mine for the 1.3 b/c the BF sales pushed the price down into my work budget, but it was great as-is (1.2 512)