Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 7th Dec 2006 17:05 UTC, submitted by Ralf.
Mac OS X "Recently, I had a chance to sit down with a few folks from Apple who gave me a guided tour of Apple's upcoming server operating system, which is slated for release sometime in the spring of 2007. Mac OS X Server 10.5, or Leopard, will be the seventh release of the server operating system since 2000 and the second version to run natively on Intel processors."
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Sounds like a good alternative
by brewmastre on Thu 7th Dec 2006 18:02 UTC
brewmastre
Member since:
2006-08-01

Sounds like the new XServe could be a very competitive box in the server market. Especially the pricing. The Server Maintenance package for $999 is pretty sweet when you think about that fact that you could potentially get the next three releases of OSX server for the price of one. Also, that fact that it will now actually be a true Unix, not Unix-based can only help them in the high-end/mission critical server market.

Reply Score: 1

Right
by Xaero_Vincent on Thu 7th Dec 2006 18:30 UTC
Xaero_Vincent
Member since:
2006-08-18

Who here uses OS X on their servers?

Apple employees do not count.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Right
by re_re on Thu 7th Dec 2006 18:37 UTC in reply to "Right"
re_re Member since:
2005-07-06

I recently met a guy through work that uses osx server for about half of the servers deployed in his place of employment (it is a decent size company) and he loves them, he said there were a few odds and ends things to get used to when they switched over but it has been a couple years now and he has nothing but good to say about them.

this is rather ironic really because recently i have been tossing around the idea getting an xserve but i didn't know anybody that had experience with them so i was a little reluctant to take the dive.

Reply Score: 4

RE: Right
by tomcat on Thu 7th Dec 2006 19:08 UTC in reply to "Right"
tomcat Member since:
2006-01-06

Nobody, they're just too pretty for a server room.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Right
by hylas on Thu 7th Dec 2006 19:16 UTC in reply to "Right"
hylas Member since:
2005-07-10

We do.
Beats the hell out of "inst" (IRIX 6.5).
$100k and a PhD.

http://ussg.iu.edu/usail/man/irix/inst.1.html

http://freeware.sgi.com/

http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/6.5inst.html

I went to a OS X 10.5 Leopard Server preview last week and it is finally going to live up to it's hype.
(not that hype is a *bad* thing ;-)

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/more.html

hylas

Reply Score: 4

RE: Right
by godawful on Thu 7th Dec 2006 20:12 UTC in reply to "Right"
godawful Member since:
2005-06-29

we do at my work, granted, we're a pretty small business, but we have 2. one is a host for about 16 TB of xRAIDs, ftp server, and print server. the other is a mail server, file server, web server (with php and sql).

had a problem with the second one (dual xeon), where it would boot into a kernel panic after the firmware upgrade, but a reinstall fixed it, otherwise, everything is running swell.


edit: added a couple things, fixed spelling

Edited 2006-12-07 20:13

Reply Score: 2

RE[2]: Right
by urbanRealist on Fri 8th Dec 2006 01:46 UTC in reply to "RE: Right"
urbanRealist Member since:
2005-12-31

Deleted.

Edited 2006-12-08 01:55

Reply Score: 1

RE: Right
by aGNUstic on Fri 8th Dec 2006 04:05 UTC in reply to "Right"
aGNUstic Member since:
2005-07-28

I work at a university and I run the Xservers on top of my Oracle duties.

My six years as McSoft sys admin was pure hell from NDOS, to NT4 to 2k and then 2k3. Patch - reboot - patch reboot - ... and hope to hell one pacth didn't crap the server.

On the Xserver, once you understand the logic and work flow it is an absolutely sweet system and a breeze to manage.

Some people just talk while the rest of us actually get work done with our X and Linux servers.

Edited 2006-12-08 04:22

Reply Score: 1

where's the small office hardware?
by rhavenn on Thu 7th Dec 2006 18:35 UTC
rhavenn
Member since:
2006-05-12

from the article: Leopard server promises to be an exciting release with many new features for both the enterprise and small-business environments. Keep an eye out for more reports as the release date draws near.

Yeah, it's a gorgeous OS. Question to Apple, where is the "small office" hardware? It's either a dual-proc Xeon workstation or a dual-proc Xserve. A small 10 person office has no need for that. Run it on a Mac mini you say? Not an option. Needs more disk space, more "space" for heat dissipation, the ability for a RAID 1 setup and the option of a internal tape or at least more ports out the back then the Mini has. Not to mention, if you tell the pointy haired types you're going to be running their data storage on a Mac Mini you'll get chucked out the door.

Reply Score: 2

twenex Member since:
2006-04-21

Servers don't need to be gorgeous.

Reply Score: 1

rhavenn Member since:
2006-05-12

Well, gorgeous not necessarily in the sense of looks, but pure application strength. My aterm sure isn't gorgeous ;)

Reply Score: 2

twenex Member since:
2006-04-21

Heh. Fair enough.

Reply Score: 1

Xaero_Vincent Member since:
2006-08-18

No, aterm can be made gorgeous too.

Try a custom theme and translucent console background. ;-)

Reply Score: 1

ThanhLy Member since:
2006-03-14

Buy a low-end MacPro tower and OS X Server separately and install it yourself. Done deal. A small office wouldn't have a rack for the XServes anyways.

Reply Score: 3

Promising solution
by tarpit on Thu 7th Dec 2006 19:10 UTC
tarpit
Member since:
2006-10-16

I would look to install one of these in the SMB enviroment. When you look at the cost of purchasing a similar server and SBS Premium 2003 R2 through Dell, the apple prices seem to be pretty competitive.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Promising solution
by macisaac on Thu 7th Dec 2006 22:20 UTC in reply to "Promising solution"
macisaac Member since:
2005-08-28

just don't expect to be able to hear yourself talk in that smb office of yours once you setup of these puppies...

we have a few of them in our network, but they're fairly limited in their use, basically dealing with the public computing mac clusters, software licensing and such from what I understand. not really that great for real server usage though, particularly if you're using something that requires a decent file system on it. HFS just doesn't cut it for that type of usage. what you're getting is basically a bsd/unix-like OS, with the option of a pretty gui on a machine that'll likely be running headless anyhow. not a bad thing, but you can easily get much the same deal with a cheap linux box instead, and one might say with higher quality (I'm talking server usage here, not desktop) e.g. better file system's support, easier to get X random package working and running (apt-get install whatever, or yum install foo), etc.

Reply Score: 3

Sun Servers Prettier
by iiifrank on Thu 7th Dec 2006 19:53 UTC
iiifrank
Member since:
2006-05-18

Personally, I think the new Sun servers are prettier. ;)

http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/x4100

Reply Score: 3

RE: Sun Servers Prettier
by BlackJack75 on Thu 7th Dec 2006 21:07 UTC in reply to "Sun Servers Prettier"
BlackJack75 Member since:
2005-08-29

Yes, but you can't run garageband to play your creations when the disk is full.

Reply Score: 1

RE[2]: Sun Servers Prettier
by cozby on Fri 8th Dec 2006 00:48 UTC in reply to "Sun Servers Prettier"
cozby Member since:
2006-03-08

Suns always had beautiful hardware.

Reply Score: 1

spspsp
Member since:
2006-12-07

Can anyone tell me if its possible to securely (ie at least password protected) expose services like the wiki server, ical server, spotlight server, file server and so on? (I'm presuming the email server can use authenticated smtp)

thanks!

Reply Score: 1

StephenBeDoper Member since:
2005-07-06

There should be support for .htaccess at the very least.

Reply Score: 2

kev009 Member since:
2006-11-30

Best handled over the network using a VPN. Look into OpenVPN and PPTP.

Reply Score: 1

intel
by arielb on Thu 7th Dec 2006 20:30 UTC
arielb
Member since:
2006-11-15

now that mac is on intel I would like Apple to have the same kind of variety that you have with HP or Dell. I don't want a mac mini and I can't afford a mac pro. More power than I need but what a nice box! Can't we have a mac pro form factor with mac mini specs?

Reply Score: 1

RE: intel
by Chicken Blood on Thu 7th Dec 2006 20:49 UTC in reply to "intel"
Chicken Blood Member since:
2005-12-21

Why would you want a box 20x bigger than a Mac mini, but with Mac mini specs?

Unless you want to change the graphics card...

Reply Score: 1

RE[2]: intel
by Adurbe on Thu 7th Dec 2006 21:19 UTC in reply to "RE: intel"
Adurbe Member since:
2005-07-06

"Why would you want a box 20x bigger than a Mac mini, but with Mac mini specs?

Unless you want to change the graphics card..."

so you can fit in more hard disks and a tape drive, how much better a graphics card do you need? i dont want it for games! its a server!

Reply Score: 1

RE[3]: intel
by Chicken Blood on Thu 7th Dec 2006 21:35 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: intel"
Chicken Blood Member since:
2005-12-21

No one said anything about games. All those things you can add to a Mac-Mini with Firewire. If you can't tolerate the slower speed (after all you are running a server) you probably don't want a Mac-mini in the first place.

Reply Score: 1

RE[4]: intel
by Hoss on Thu 7th Dec 2006 21:42 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: intel"
Hoss Member since:
2006-12-06

"All those things you can add to a Mac-Mini with Firewire."

can you get an eSata card for the mini? That is a lot fast than firewire 400.

Reply Score: 1

Long time coming
by milles21 on Thu 7th Dec 2006 22:35 UTC
milles21
Member since:
2006-11-08

I have been like most people waiting to see them in some networks but after having them in action I can say that I prefer them over any windows 2k3 system and look forward to Leopard now I still run Linux as my spam filters and gateways. I have to admit that OSX server on the backend is something to noted.

I know that you can install ldap and install a gui makes a huge difference when it comes to our MS-babies who have had the unfortunate experience of a MS only world. The unix certification will open doors for Leopard, and the potential for 3 possible upgrades in the support contract is great because unlike microsoft 5 year gap apple actually delivers OS's

Reply Score: 2

v RE: Long time coming
by NotParker on Thu 7th Dec 2006 23:12 UTC in reply to "Long time coming"
RE[2]: Long time coming
by milles21 on Thu 7th Dec 2006 23:31 UTC in reply to "RE: Long time coming"
milles21 Member since:
2006-11-08

No R2 was more like a service pack far from a new OS! don't mistake the 10.2 10.3 for service packs. Which is truly what r2 was service packs all rolled into what is known as R2

Reply Score: 1

upgradability
by arielb on Thu 7th Dec 2006 22:38 UTC
arielb
Member since:
2006-11-15

something we PC users are used to.

Reply Score: 0

RE: upgradability
by tryphcycle on Fri 8th Dec 2006 19:46 UTC in reply to "upgradability"
tryphcycle Member since:
2006-02-16

something we PC users are used to.

what is your point?

Reply Score: 1

tshehan
Member since:
2006-12-08

Just as a thought for those of you who would like a cheaper box to run the software; keep in mind that in another year or so the 10.6 software will require more from the hardware, so buying a cheap box now will not help to future-proof your investment. So that XServe you think is 'too much' for your needs now will end up 'just right' 18 months from now, AND you won't have to buy another box.

If you are worried about your server sitting idle or being under utilized for the time being - let it run one of the @Home modules in its idle time and contribute to the global good. (albeit this isn't, strictly speaking, good practice on a server, but in a low load environment... why not? (there are a hundred reasons, i know))

Reply Score: 1