Are there many establishments using Mac Servers instead of Windows or Linux?

[speckytecky]

I'm curious are many educational establishments running Mac Server in preference to Windows or Linux domains?

Talking to an Apple enthusiast today he told me that it surprised him that schools were not running Mac server set ups in preference to Windows Domains. He reckoned that a Mac Server could do the job far better - and cheaper?

[FN-GM]

With respect, i think that guy is living in a world of his own. It doesnt do the job better and hardware is just expensive. Infact they dont even make any server hardware anymore.

[Michael]

Windows Server and Active Directory are easily the number one choice.

[speckytecky]

Thanks FN and Michael - that was my thinking as well but in case I'd missed something I had to ask and I'm still curious to discover if any of the Educational establishments have abandoned MS / Linux and gone further down a whole Mac route.

[Serving]

Since the opening of the school we have been Mac based workstations and servers. I changed us over to AD when apple said they were moving out of the enterprise realm. When I seen 10.7 server in beta I was just shocked what they now call a server. RIP Xserve...

After dealing with open directory freezing every other week I'm glad I changed over. Our AD server hasn't been rebooted for anything other then updates. I am looking into resara server though I like where they are heading...

[FN-GM]

I would like to point out before someone neg reps me. I am not anti mac at all. Infact i have a Macbook Pro for home use.

[Abaddon]

Even the big Mac houses now (like CanCom etc) are recommending using HP servers and Windows AD to manage Mac environments. Your Mac chap is in cloud cuckoo land..

Oh, and I have a MacBook Pro as well as a 27" iMac..

[BKGarry]

I have one question, and one question only, how can the Mac Server dictate your windows "GPO" settings, the same as how can your Windows server dictate similar (Workgoup) settings for the macs?

That should be simple enough, we use a mac server here to intergrate with Active Directory, Manage the applications and docks etc.

[Dos_Box]

Thanks FN and Michael - that was my thinking as well but in case I'd missed something I had to ask and I'm still curious to discover if any of the Educational establishments have abandoned MS / Linux and gone further down a whole Mac route.

TBH, there are only a select few wholly Mac based schools in the UK (less than 5 IIRC). When I visited the Essa Academy in Bolton just before Christmas (article soon!) it was very impressive, with only Apple desktops, laptops and handheld devices in use by end users, and it all worked seamlessly. However they used AD for authentication, Exchange for email and SIMs at the back end. Apple has never traditionally gone 'enterprise' and I think they are quite happy to stop at the magic triangle method of AD/Mac integration. They get to sell lots of end user devices at a premium rate whilst all of the really hard technical server side stuff is done by companies whoes bread and butter in this field.

[Abaddon]

There are solutions out there for Windows - Centrify is one, and we'll be using that to move the Apples we have over the the main network over Summer. Basically adds GPO's etc Mac OS Desktop Management

[CyberNerd]

I have one question, and one question only, how can the Mac Server dictate your windows "GPO" settings, the same as how can your Windows server dictate similar (Workgoup) settings for the macs?

Various ways. GPO settings are just registry keys. If you open up an ADM or ADMX file you'll see they are essentially a bunch of registry keys with descriptions, a non-windows server could supply a windows workstations with registry values through scripts depending upon the group they are in. Samba 4 they use windows protocols to supply admx group policies in the same way windows does. There is a OSX port for samba4 as well as linux and other unixes, but it is still an early release.

[BKGarry]

I stand corrected, my own ignorance has me here, I just prefer to manage like for like on OS's, well most of the time.

I am all up for using free solutions over windows, as some of them seem to achieve this easier and better, FOG vs WDS for example. But I cannot see how you could justify the cost of the mac solution over windows or *nix?

[3s-gtech]

We have a number of Macs here happily integrated with our Windows domain, running 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. Management is with a 10.6 Mini Server. I am loathe to even touch 10.7 server, so management will be a bit trickier as I can't centralise the 'per machine' settings. It's all pretty easy though, and I can't see any advantages in building in more Mac integration. Linux on the other hand, for server roles, is widely used here - exclusively for anything web-based.

[Soulfish]

We do have two new XServes here that we use, but they're bound to our AD domain along with all the macs.

[rh91uk]

Same as @Soulfish (but only one, he is greedy )