Apple's Xserve migration PDF

[HodgeHi]

Apple has a PDF to assist in users migrating from their XServes after the service agreements run out or can't buy one after January.

http://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L...erve_Guide.pdf

I post this link because there is also some quite handy numbers and info in there that may help some of us making purchasing decisions on which option to go for (Mac Mini Server, Mac Pro or XServe (for now anyway))

[Roberto]

I'm probably going to move away from OS X server in the long term given that both apple's options for it are pretty mediocre. If they can't be bothered to support their OS in proper server room environments then I certainly can't be bothered either - never bet against the banker.

Dell have an interesting package - their KACE tools apparently support netboot deployment of Mac OSX images as well as PXE boot deployment of Windows images, so depending on affordability and other stuff we may look at moving to that... it's the only thing our OSX servers do that couldn't be done to some degree on our Windows servers.

[torledo]

I'm probably going to move away from OS X server in the long term given that both apple's options for it are pretty mediocre. If they can't be bothered to support their OS in proper server room environments then I certainly can't be bothered either - never bet against the banker.

Dell have an interesting package - their KACE tools apparently support netboot deployment of Mac OSX images as well as PXE boot deployment of Windows images, so depending on affordability and other stuff we may look at moving to that... it's the only thing our OSX servers do that couldn't be done to some degree on our Windows servers.

good points...12U of rack space to accomodate a mac pro isn't exactly space efficient.

, but would you also be looking at third party tools to emulate somethign like managed preferences for your os x clients if you were to move away from os x server ?

[Roberto]

That is a good question torledo - a mac mini "toy server" might do for that - god knows it won't handle the deployments and storage requirements we have but it could probably cope with being a OD domain controller and applying preferences.

The other thing we could do is simply not bother - we don't do a lot of locking down on our mac workstations so we can maybe just look at other ways to deliver the two or three settings we do want without too much impact.

At the end of the day this is all down to Apple - I have a rule when it comes to professional IT that has served me well over the years: Never bet against the bank. If Apple aren't bothered to maintain a decent presence in the server side of things then who am I to bet against them. If we ultimately decide it isn't worth the bother at all and start to retire our mac workstations along with the servers then that's their loss. my boss and I need to do a lot of thinking about what the college is trying to do with the macs and whether macs are still the best way to deliver that given Apple's preoccupation with consumer toys these days.

[iSteve]

That is a good question torledo - a mac mini "toy server" might do for that - god knows it won't handle the deployments and storage requirements we have but it could probably cope with being a OD domain controller and applying preferences....

We are using a previous generation Mac Mini Server to do this. It handles prefs for 350 odd Macs, as well as our machine images (using Deploy Studio). It copes fine.

We have 5 XServes (3 Intel, 2 G5) here which at some point we will replace. A Mac Pro is too big for our racks, but we'd need one of those to utilise our Fibre Channel cards to connect to our XServe RAIDs. That, or many thousands of pounds to replace our storage infrastructure - something that I can't see happening any time soon at all.

[Oops_my_bad]

Couldn't believe it when I read about this. Farcical.