MAC Golden triangle alternative

[Shadow_Walker]

Currently we have got roughly 20 macs set up using the golden triangle method. In the summer we have got 5 more MACS for the room to replace the older machines. Myself and the Network Manager are going to set the Golden Triangle up from scratch again and update the old machines to mavericks. Just wondering if there was an alternative way of setting them up as currently the older machines binding is causing problems and pupils work is not saving properly or corrupting especially in iMovie.

 

Thanks

[Brimstone]

Currently we have got roughly 20 macs set up using the golden triangle method. In the summer we have got 5 more MACS for the room to replace the older machines. Myself and the Network Manager are going to set the Golden Triangle up from scratch again and update the old machines to mavericks. Just wondering if there was an alternative way of setting them up as currently the older machines binding is causing problems and pupils work is not saving properly or corrupting especially in iMovie.

 

Thanks

 

There are other solutions that allow you to manage the Macs using your Windows server, though bear in mind these can be fairly expensive, see below..

 

Unified Identity Services Across Data Center, Cloud and Mobile

 

I wouldn't touch Mavericks at all if I was you yet, there are some major headaches with ACL's and other networking/filesharing problems with 10.9.1 and above

 

MacWindows: Mavericks breaks ACLs in Active Directory, 10.9.2 made it worse

 

If you can't go backwards and need the additional Macs then you may want to look at the product below, this implements proper AFS file sharing, rather than Apple's SMB2 which is broken for the time being

 

Mac Windows File Sharing - Connect Mac to Windows Server - GroupLogic

[gtg93]

AFAIK, the Magic Triangle is the only free "off the shelf" soution...

 

As Brimstone has said, steer clear of Mavericks for now - we're having major issues with users logging on correctly. If they're part of an AD group, that's added into OD they won't work. Each user has had to be added to OD manually otherwise there are issues authenticating for network shares and the internet.

[seawolf]

We haven't used triangle method for a couple of years. We just bind then to AD and use Profiles and scripts to manage them. Options to to this are Profile Manager, manually pushing profiles via ARD, Casper Suite, Absolute Manage, or Puppet/Munki. We are currently using Casper and toying with Puppet/Munki - the combo is looking very powerful.

 

p.s. ExtremeZ-IP Does work very well, and you could also look at AdmitMac or Centrify to manage the Macs within your existing AD using GPOs.

Edited July 2, 2014 by seawolf