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Inside Apple's Leopard Server OS
An anonymous reader writes "Mac expert John Welch, author of the widely read OS X versus Vista comparison, delves into Apple's Leopard Server OS. He and Information week have on offer a deep dive into what's known so far about OS X Server 10.5, which will be showcased at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Welch weighs in on Leopard's iCal, Wiki, file, Quicktime, and mail services, along with Xgrid 2, Open Directory 4, and 64-bit capabilities. What does it all add up to? His assessment: Apple probably isn't aiming at 'big' enterprises; just the same, Leopard Server is shaping up to be a great SMB (small and mid-sized business) product. Welch writes: 'For about a thousand bucks on existing hardware, or for the cost of an Xserve, you get a really solid server, able to support Web services, collaboration, groupware, IM, and file services. You can run it with its own directory service, or as part of an Active Directory implementation out of the box. It provides some features that due to pricing and/or setup requirements, have traditionally been reserved for big enterprises — in particular clustering of both email and calendaring servers.'"
A comparison between Leopard Server and Linux would've been better, IMHO.
Tell me how fast it copies files...
Thanks
--Bill G.
The one thing that has really helped MS in the enterprise has been that the sell an entire solution that all works together. Windows desktops sign into Windows Active Directory run by Windows Servers. Outlook connects to Exchange running on Windows servers with Kerberos AD logins. Office and Sharepoint getting along to create and maintain intranet content.
Apple has made huge inroads with solving the desktop issues of running Unix on the desktop. For the most part though I have seen either Linux or MS solutions on the server for file sharing and web serving and NIS/NFS and such. Even on the mac I would imagine that Entourage connecting to an Exchange server makes up a large portion of the Enterprise mail community.
If Apple can provide a cheaper end-to-end solution from the server to the desktop with LDAP directories, email, calendering, intranet etc - all preloaded on their server hardware and ready to go - then they have a real winner. Hell the cheaper licencing costs they can offer from basing on open-source can help subsidize their higher hardware margins to make this a comparable, if not cheaper, solution compared to something MS from the likes of Dell or HP.
If they really wanted to twist the knife in they should release some client software/drivers for Windows that make it just as easy to connect that to their servers and services as Macs to accomodate the need for having some PCs in a newly mac office.
Now is the time to do this as companies are faced with upgrading to Vista on the desktop, a new version of Office, and soon a new server platform. Most of this means new hardware purchases anyway. They might be able to just swoop in and offer a complete solution the likes of which linux has been unable to - all bundled with and guaranteed/supported on their own hardare as well.
Actually, it would be a Ferrari compared to a Lambourghini with a shitty paint job.
*nix (In my case, FBSD) lets me run a solid multi-service server on a box Apple would tell me to throw in the dumpster.
'all you need is newer hardware'. Now, where have I heard that one before...
I just bought my son an iMac and playing Lego Star Wars on it can throw it into a loop that only a power-off can break. OSX is pretty, and waaaaay better than anything from Redmond, but Cupertino shouldn't pat themselves on the back just yet.
Apple's infamous closed-mouthed approach to major OS releases, while great for marketing purposes, isn't always so great for the IT world.
The thing is, they don't wanna be great in the IT world. They wanna show the Mac fans "see? we can do it" and simulatenously provide something to tie together Mac based little networks, where it's not the cheapest or more powerful option, it's the EASIEST option. "It just works" - you know, this is Apple.
While certainly possible (and being done in some datacenters), Apple based server for public facing sites is a terrible idea, though unless you have money to waste and don't care for industry-grade support, so don't confuse the one kind of servers with the other.
You see, the IT world is boring and predictable, it's like the PC guy. The PC guy will put out public betas years in advance and listen to feedback.
The Mac guy will keep quiet and at the last moment, wow the audience with the latest gimmick.
But he's not the kinda guy you'd normally hire in your company. You'll hire the boring and predictable guy, who delivers.
I think that might be the game itself, I've played call of duty 2, as well as NWN. Jedi KNight 2. When they crash, sometimes it was more serious then others, occasionally it took a saved game with it. But they always crashed back to the desktop. It could be because most of these games are being played through Rosetta, which is what I gather, that pesky layer so that programs believe that its still aG5, not the slick new dualcores, of which I have. I love it. and for the GTFO anonymous fan-boi-zealot, i run mac, windows, and linux. Enoughs enough.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
The Windows guy ain't delivering.
He's not Dilbert, he's Wally. Look at Vista... it's got a few improvements, but most of what's new in Vista is the business it's running out of its cubicle selling music and movies for the entertainment industry.
The Mac guy, maybe he's the guy in sales with executive hair, but luckily there's a better choice for the server room.
The employees you really want are in the Tron suit and devil costume.
Okay here's my comparison.
If you are going to have anything less than 20 computers, and you actually have a bussiness in which time is valuable and you don't have IT-class people with time on their hands, then Linux is insanley expensive to maintain. Get the apple even if the cost per node is higher.
Okay now you say you have 50 to 100 nodes. most of these are behind a cluster router so don't have to be locked down. They all don't have to be running services or what they do run is identical. Well then get Linux. There's zero need to get the apple cost per node. And to boot they will probably reun just a tad faster since you can strip out all those services you don't need. At 100 nodes, having a machine run 10% faster is like 10 extra nodes, so it's worth the optimization at that level of use.
People who claim different, must consider their time has no value, the risk to their bussniess from uncertainty about the patch level of their system has no value, or they have free access to high level sys admin.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yeah, cause almost every fucking Mac application actually DOES maximize when you press "zoom". Woooow, supaaaaaar greaaaaat feature. Yawn.
I switched back to Linux. It's not perfect, but at least gives me more freedom.
I manage the modest network of a facility with 900 Macs and 120 WinPcs, 1800 users, 3 mail servers, 2 webservers, etc. All servers except one anti-virus server and one Linux mail server, are Mac Xserve running Tiger 10.4 server. All the computers are in a single OpenDirectory domain with all users, including Windows users, authenticating off OpenDirectory. All have roaming home directories which users can access from Macs or PC, managed printer and workstation access... The fact is, we use OS=X server because we have easier fine grain control over desktop applications and resource acces than we do from Windows servers. We find the Mac servers very adequate for our needs. The management software is superb and much more logical than Server 2003 and older and far more coherent and centralized than I have seen so far Linux or BSD
It takes one full time person to run the network and maintain the network and computers, largely due to Apple's remote desktop and net boot reimaging services and the fact that all the Macs can run off two install images: one for Intel, one for PPC. The WinPCs take roughly twice the maintenance time per cpu than the Macs largely be cause of differing drivers.
Oh.. The facility is a public k-12 school. Mac server are also very common in colleges, law offices, large and medium printing companies, greeting card companies, scientific research, and newspapers.
Mach is hardly a microkernel, or if it is, so is NT.
:) :) :)
Yes, OS X has a lot of unnecessary overhead, and where kernel performance is important you're better off with a traditional UNIX kernel rather than a high overhead modularized one (OS X *or* NT). But it's unfair to tar microkernels with the Mach brush while you're pointing that out.
Anyway...
Why anybody wants it on a server is a mystery.
Same reason they want NT on a server, despite it only being a decent desktop OS (albeit one that's been increasingly screwed up as it's been targeted more as a game console and video player by Microsoft). It's a trade-off between computer processing time and human processing time.
Linux users make the same tradeoff when they use glibc instead of building a custom Gentoo around uLibc.
It's running my network at a VERY rapidly growing printing company. Not just the creative group, either. Every desktop (and laptop) in our company is a Mac, and so is the entire back-end. The only things in our environment that aren't are the production web servers (Debian on cheapie Dells) and our Exchange (puke) server, which we had to put up so our salescritters could have Blackberries to show off at their cocktail parties.
Honestly, all fanboi-ness aside, I think you'll be seeing a greater penetration (heh) into the major enterprise markets thanks to the easy licensing terms, bullet-proof reputation, and honestly easier administration. I agree that Apple needs to come up with an answer to Exchange to REALLY compete, and I'm hoping that iCal server in Leopard is the first step in that direction.
That to Apple, SMB is SOHO and the home family structure.
Yeah, enterprise gets the big ticket win, with the follow on support and infrastructure pricing.
However, take a family, each one gets their own laptop (2 kids) and maybe the parents share one laptop or desktop. OK, now throw in the TV and phones, it may be an easy sell for a server in the house for media and file serving.
So now do the math, how many laptops and ipods are out there in the "family" environment? Like I said, it is isn't a big, single win but capturing the home market could start the bleed into the work environment.
The article states that Leopard is for small to medium size businesses. Okay. Apple, where is the small to medium size business hardware? Unless you're doing heavy duty image editing you do NOT need an xserve for a server in the small business environment. It is total overkill and a waste of money. Get a mac mini you say? Umm, no. There is no redundancy in the disks and the disk IO is slow. Where is the headless "Mac" tower that allows for SATA and SATA RAID? You've got mini's, iMac's, Mac Pros, so how about just a Mac? OS X Server is a kick-ass OS that would do wonders in many an office, but the cost of entry is far, far to high for the print / central word doc storage server crowd.
If they get ZFS working, as is the rumour, and it's not buggy, then I think they may have a killer feature on their hands.
Even Microsoft shops might be inclined to test this out for a NAS box. One of the big reasons why people by netapp boxes is for the snapshot and snapmirror capabilities. With ZFS, OSX would have very similar capabilities for a lot less $$.
Can someone translate that into (American) English for me? I swear, some day we'll teach you Brits to speak real English. ;)
I'd guess that John C. Welsh has never laid his hands on, installed, or tried to configure OS X 10.5 server. I installed the developers' preview edition of Leopard server, and, well, someone's got a lot of writing to do.
In particular, I tried to set up the iCal server and test it with various clients. There's essentially no documentation, and what exists is less than helpful. It appears not to work well with the iCal application that ships with Tiger. I had a little better luck with Mozilla calendaring clients, but only a little.
If iCal is going to be the great alternative to MS Exchange that Apple aficiondos and the IT press would like it to be, it's got to a) work with a variety of existing clients (including Tiger's), b) be easy to set up from the client side, c) work with existing authentication databases, and d) have some meaningful documentation. Anything less, imo, and Leopard's iCal server is basically vaporware.
So it's not running in "big" enterprises. Then, in all seriousness, where is it running these days?
Well, are "big" enterprises all that exist? The answer should be hopefully obvious.
For our part, which is that of a large public research university, we have probably about 100 Mac OS X Server systems on campus here, and about 35 in our primary datacenter, not counting systems in compute clusters, which probably adds another 100 or so. (We have about 16000 Macs in general on campus, nearly all on Mac OS X.) Most are used for tasks where an Apple server is required or desired, like AppleShare file service, QuickTime Streaming Server, managing Mac OS X clients, etc. And yes, things like AFP and QTSS can be done on other platforms in various ways, but sometimes you want a seamless commercial-vendor-supported solution. The remainder are used as light to medium duty departmental/workgroup UNIX servers. In the latter case, they're usually picked because they're a lot easier for some folks to run than Windows Server 2003 or Linux; it's sometimes the difference between a small department or workgroup actually being able to reasonably run a server, or not. Some are deployed in departments with many skilled sysadmins who manage hundreds of Mac OS X clients, and use Mac OS X Server-specific functionality to do so.
Without full support for exchange, this is a wanna-be server. The exchange, outlook integration is still way better than the ical approach. With exchange shared adressess books, shared calendars and really good email integration works. The apple server "sort of" supports imap and pop... and a couple of poor open-source web integration alternatives.
Exchange alone is a good enough reason to go with Windows servers (and yes, I know some people have difficulty setting up exchange.)
"I can't decide witch."
Now that's a beauty of a homophone error. The guy should put that in his sig.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
This has got to be the most effective troll ever. I can't believe how many people actually believe that you are a Mac user. Congrats.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Lego Star Wars: the number one benchmark for enterprise-ready servers!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's interesting to note that ALL Apple computers ship with a functioning enabled TP Module. Microsoft has complied with the TCGs recommendations with respect to TPM. You'll find that Apple has no controls, no oversight and no statement as to the use of the TPM installed in their machines. This is one place where Microsoft has actually been better.
ANY vendor can be more stable by locking its hardware platform and focussing all of its dev dollars into ensuring that its OS operates REALLY WELL on that platform. The key point to consider as an IT buyer is 'What kind of vendor lock in will my company suffer?' Once a firm decides to go with one platform over another they're committing to at least a 3-5 year implementation and support schedule.
Considering Apple's record (or complete lack thereof) of Trusted Computing how confident should any business feel about committing to Apple? Sure it's shiny and works well, but any OSS on a fixed platform could provide the same (if not better) results.
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
Sounds fairly similar to my internship at Central Washington University. There was one full-time Mac guy for all 700-800 Macs on campus. A couple others would poke at them, but they'd toss anything more than a simple problem to the Mac guy. There were about 2100 PCs on campus...and eight guys to cover all of those. Do the math.
And you're right on in saying that OS X Server is so much more intuitive in it's design that 2k3. I had taken several classes in 2k3, but had never touched OS X Server when I first installed it on a test machine. I was absolutly amazed at how much EASIER it was to setup and maintain that 2003. There's no comparison. Microsoft just loves to spread shit all over the system so that you have to know it backward and forward to get anything done and wind up opening five windows/applications. Apple put 90% of everything within two applications. Server Admin for services, Workgroup Manager for Open Directory Management. Then there are a few more little apps for managing other miscellaneous things. If only Microsoft could design something that simple, but they've proven time and time again that they're utterly incapable of it.
...because documentation is available on Apple's developer site and a simple Google search would have gotten you decent instructions on how to get even the earliest versions working under Tiger.
Also, developers know that the shipping version of iCal uses a different file format than the version in Leopard.
I'm guessing that rather than being a legit developer, you got your hands on an illicit copy of the (now ancient and obsolete) Leopard preview from last August's developers conference. Otherwise, you'd know WTF you were talking about.
Get a mac mini you say? Umm, no. There is no redundancy in the disks and the disk IO is slow.
For small business, a mac mini with firewire external disks would handle most of your disk speed problems. It's not SATA, but it's not bad, and the performance boost over the internal (notebook) drive is quite noticeable.
My home desktop is a mini with a firewire drive. I boot and run off the external drive, and only use the internal for backup storage and crash recovery.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
yawn
Web consulting +
SMB was a linux to windows networking protocol... it has NOTHING to do with Apple, duh!
...and it should be known by now
What's Apple using the TPM module in the OS for? To keep open source drivers out of the kernel, to lock down computers so they can't play "protected" content? No, that's what Microsoft uses it for. Microsoft's use of strong DRM is already so draconian that multiple security researchers have called for people to boycott Vista. Apple's using it as a cheap dongle to keep casual users from running OS X on PCs without their module - but with an open-source kernel that's hardly more of a barrier than the DRM in iTunes they *tell* you how to bypass.
I'll take a company with no track record with TPM and a history of undercutting their own DRM to the point where it's basically "honor system" to one who's got an official statement on TPM and a history of locking people out of their own computers.
... as soon as Leopard comes out they'll lose all their customers:
From the article, it says that Apple's introducing an iCal Server, based on interoperability standards from the CalConnect Consortium. From that website, it shows that Google also joined the consortium a couple weeks ago. Leopard's iCal will, no doubt, be a much more groupware-capable client all on its own -- it's not hard to conclude that before long things will be working together quite nicely without the need for third-party syncing tools.