[Pao|o]

There isnt a generic Apple hardware forum so I'll put it here instead.

===========

I read it and agree with what most of the things written but I'm in the dark with AMD.

Is AMD's roadmap for future products better than Intel's? I'm only loyal to Intel because they're based here & have the best performance/watt CPUs sold to date.

An Apple for the enterprise? | InfoWorld | Test Center | September 22, 2006 | By Tom Yager

[imitchellg5]

Anything else you want to tell us so that we can help you better?

[jamil5454]

This would go in the lounge.

[tooki]

Quite right.

tooki

[mduell]

AMD's roadmap has a lot of potential on the desktop (4x4, Torrenza, K8L), but it remains relatively bleak for laptops. Also, the fab side of the house isn't up to par with Intel (65nm may not make it out this year and next year Intel is moving to 45nm).

[hayesk]

IT departments are continually fed by "graduates" of IT schools that teach two things:
1. Microsoft is the pinnacle of quality software
2. The only way to solve a problem is to wipe the hard disk and re-image. Any impact on the user's productivity is irrelevant.

When faced with that, it's hard to persuade the people in enterprise that decide on what platform to support (the IT department) to use anything other than Microsoft.
- You have to convince IT managers that their staff can support users without having to erase their hard disk at the first sign of a problem. Remember, IT grads often don't learn how to troubleshoot properly.
- They already know (but won't admit) they'll need fewer IT staff with the more Macs they install. This scares the IT managers who draw their entire corporate power by how many staff they manage. They keep clinging to the false adage "more platforms means more support." Even though that's only true if you choose, as your default platform, the one requiring the least support, it doesn't matter to them. You could try to convince them that rather than laying off staff, their staff, instead of reimaging hard disks all day, could be developing productive corporate applications and utilities, but the problem is that most corporate IT departments don't hire people capable of doing this.
- IT managers often get direct and indirect kickbacks from MS, Hardware vendors, Anti-virus vendors, etc. A lot of that will go away with Macs in use.

As long as IT departments hold platform deciding power within the corporation, they'll turn a blind eye to overall expense of each platform, and serve their own needs.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by mduell

AMD's roadmap has a lot of potential on the desktop (4x4, Torrenza, K8L), but it remains relatively bleak for laptops. Also, the fab side of the house isn't up to par with Intel (65nm may not make it out this year and next year Intel is moving to 45nm).

What the heck does that have to do with an Apple for business

[rickey939]

I've been part of both worlds...having been a part of a completely Apple hardware driven enterprise, as well as, Windows based solutions and my opinion is that you need a hybrid of both.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

What the heck does that have to do with an Apple for business

Did you read the original post?

Originally Posted by Pao|o

Is AMD's roadmap for future products better than Intel's? I'm only loyal to Intel because they're based here & have the best performance/watt CPUs sold to date.

[bleee]

Originally Posted by hayesk

IT departments are continually fed by "graduates" of IT schools that teach two things:
1. Microsoft is the pinnacle of quality software
2. The only way to solve a problem is to wipe the hard disk and re-image. Any impact on the user's productivity is irrelevant.

When faced with that, it's hard to persuade the people in enterprise that decide on what platform to support (the IT department) to use anything other than Microsoft.
- You have to convince IT managers that their staff can support users without having to erase their hard disk at the first sign of a problem. Remember, IT grads often don't learn how to troubleshoot properly.
- They already know (but won't admit) they'll need fewer IT staff with the more Macs they install. This scares the IT managers who draw their entire corporate power by how many staff they manage. They keep clinging to the false adage "more platforms means more support." Even though that's only true if you choose, as your default platform, the one requiring the least support, it doesn't matter to them. You could try to convince them that rather than laying off staff, their staff, instead of reimaging hard disks all day, could be developing productive corporate applications and utilities, but the problem is that most corporate IT departments don't hire people capable of doing this.
- IT managers often get direct and indirect kickbacks from MS, Hardware vendors, Anti-virus vendors, etc. A lot of that will go away with Macs in use.

As long as IT departments hold platform deciding power within the corporation, they'll turn a blind eye to overall expense of each platform, and serve their own needs.

Don't you mean "You can't get fired for going Microsoft" ?

Also there are allot of holes that Apple needs to fill in in terms of software and compatibility for example for example an enterprise system for scheduling like the MS Exchange calendar, iCal is great for 1 person but what if you need to book a meeting with other people? Also Mail connectivity to exchange requires work arounds and specific options to be turned on, on the Exchange side right now I'm using 2 mail clients Apple Mail for personal and Entourage for work because of exchange compatibility. Apple needs to work on improving connectivity with Ms Products so that "It just works" right now "it kind of works" I remember during one of the keynotes when Steve announced now Mail can talk to exchange and I was like "great" it wasn't till 2 years later when I actually had to try and connect Mail to exchange that these little gotchas came up.

You might argue that it's Microsoft's fault for not opening up their software more but that isn't doesn't solve the problem.

In a pure Mac environment things work great flawless, I can log in to any mac anywhere and things just work with roaming profiles although I strongly suggest gigabit ethernet if you plan to use roaming profiles on Mac. Although you still don't have an enterprise solution for meeting booking, another thing is SLA for their Xraid and Xserve products with Dell at my current company we have a 4hour turn around for replacement parts does Apple have anything remotely close?

[hayesk]

[QUOTE=bleee]Also there are allot of holes that Apple needs to fill in in terms of software and compatibility for example for example an enterprise system for scheduling like the MS Exchange calendar, iCal is great for 1 person but what if you need to book a meeting with other people? Also Mail connectivity to exchange requires work arounds and specific options to be turned on, on the Exchange side right now I'm using 2 mail clients Apple Mail for personal and Entourage for work because of exchange compatibility.

- snip -

Although you still don't have an enterprise solution for meeting booking,

In a previous job we used Meeting Maker that ran on pretty much every platform you can think of. It was much nicer to work with that Exchange. I don't believe that it has to be the responsibility of the OS vendor to also provide all of the enterprise software. There are plenty of providers of enterprise software that run on MacOS.

another thing is SLA for their Xraid and Xserve products with Dell at my current company we have a 4hour turn around for replacement parts does Apple have anything remotely close?

Apple does have SLAs for their XServe and XRaid lines. I don't know if it's 4 hours, but it's much more than the standard AppleCare level service that consumers get.

[Salty]

I think within the next couple of years we'll see Apple start taking the enterprise more seriously as they begin to gain even more respect and credibility in the home and edu markets. Already at school we've probably got as many people with Apple laptops as we've got dells in dorm.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by hayesk

In a previous job we used Meeting Maker that ran on pretty much every platform you can think of. It was much nicer to work with that Exchange. I don't believe that it has to be the responsibility of the OS vendor to also provide all of the enterprise software. There are plenty of providers of enterprise software that run on MacOS.

Yep, before we were forced to switch everyone on our network from Eudora/Meeting Maker (good!) to Exchange (bad!), things worked great, and cross-platform compatibility was perfect. Now, there are all kinds of issues with incompatibilities between Entourage and Outlook, certain features are missing in Entourage, adding calendar items to remote calendars in NOT seamless. People generally hate us for switching them over, and we hate that we were forced to do it, because it created tons of extra problems for us.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by bleee

another thing is SLA for their Xraid and Xserve products with Dell at my current company we have a 4hour turn around for replacement parts does Apple have anything remotely close?

Yes. They have a 4 hour turnaround. That's the basic service. You can also sign up for an advanced service which includes extra service parts (a motherboard, RAM, HDDs, fans, etc.) and a 24/7 direct line support to an Apple Engineer (you don't have to call the 1800 number and wait, it's a direct line and instant help with a real engineer, not an intern at a call center in India... like Dell.)

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Gossamer

Yep, before we were forced to switch everyone on our network from Eudora/Meeting Maker (good!) to Exchange (bad!), things worked great, and cross-platform compatibility was perfect. Now, there are all kinds of issues with incompatibilities between Entourage and Outlook, certain features are missing in Entourage, adding calendar items to remote calendars in NOT seamless. People generally hate us for switching them over, and we hate that we were forced to do it, because it created tons of extra problems for us.

Oh dear gods. Cisco just moved their internal mail/schedueling from Meeting Maker to Entourage and Outlook. Everyone hates it. The problem is that IT is all Microsoft-Happy. They've migrated everyone from Macs and Suns to Windows-only. Not too many people were happy with that.

[Gee4orce]

As far as I'm concerned, the IT department is there to serve the business. NOT the other way around. Making life easier for themselves should not be their agenda, unless it also makes like easier for everyone else.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by hayesk

IT departments are continually fed by "graduates" of IT schools that teach two things:
1. Microsoft is the pinnacle of quality software
2. The only way to solve a problem is to wipe the hard disk and re-image. Any impact on the user's productivity is irrelevant.

When faced with that, it's hard to persuade the people in enterprise that decide on what platform to support (the IT department) to use anything other than Microsoft.
- You have to convince IT managers that their staff can support users without having to erase their hard disk at the first sign of a problem. Remember, IT grads often don't learn how to troubleshoot properly.
- They already know (but won't admit) they'll need fewer IT staff with the more Macs they install. This scares the IT managers who draw their entire corporate power by how many staff they manage. They keep clinging to the false adage "more platforms means more support." Even though that's only true if you choose, as your default platform, the one requiring the least support, it doesn't matter to them. You could try to convince them that rather than laying off staff, their staff, instead of reimaging hard disks all day, could be developing productive corporate applications and utilities, but the problem is that most corporate IT departments don't hire people capable of doing this.
- IT managers often get direct and indirect kickbacks from MS, Hardware vendors, Anti-virus vendors, etc. A lot of that will go away with Macs in use.

As long as IT departments hold platform deciding power within the corporation, they'll turn a blind eye to overall expense of each platform, and serve their own needs.

Apple does not have enterprise offerings. They have small business offerings.

OS X Server is a joke for the enterprise. The XServe is okay, except it is not in the league of actual enterprise class hardware.

As far as the enterprise world's love affair with Windows, this isn't true. Linux/Unix fares far better in the enterprise world. Microsoft technology is generally only used when some specialized or financial type app needs to be run. Otherwise, when you need more flexibility or security you probably aren't going to be Windows Server.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by bleee

Don't you mean "You can't get fired for going Microsoft" ?

Also there are allot of holes that Apple needs to fill in in terms of software and compatibility for example for example an enterprise system for scheduling like the MS Exchange calendar, iCal is great for 1 person but what if you need to book a meeting with other people? Also Mail connectivity to exchange requires work arounds and specific options to be turned on, on the Exchange side right now I'm using 2 mail clients Apple Mail for personal and Entourage for work because of exchange compatibility. Apple needs to work on improving connectivity with Ms Products so that "It just works" right now "it kind of works" I remember during one of the keynotes when Steve announced now Mail can talk to exchange and I was like "great" it wasn't till 2 years later when I actually had to try and connect Mail to exchange that these little gotchas came up.

You might argue that it's Microsoft's fault for not opening up their software more but that isn't doesn't solve the problem.

In a pure Mac environment things work great flawless, I can log in to any mac anywhere and things just work with roaming profiles although I strongly suggest gigabit ethernet if you plan to use roaming profiles on Mac. Although you still don't have an enterprise solution for meeting booking, another thing is SLA for their Xraid and Xserve products with Dell at my current company we have a 4hour turn around for replacement parts does Apple have anything remotely close?

I think we'll see some of this addressed with iCal Server in Leopard, not to say that I disagree that Apple doesn't have a ton of holes to fill in becoming a serious enterprise player. This is only scratching the surface.

They may have 4 hour hardware replacement, but their service in general at this level just sucks, in particular not being able to get some real answers from their techs. Their problem is that OS X Server is just a bad idea, IMHO. Apple cannot be held accountable for all of the open source products they don't develop themselves that are shipped with the OS, and then on top of this, an (often limited) GUI that tries to interact with the underlying OSS parts in ways that are rather concealed from the user.

[besson3c]

I've read that the heat consumption numbers are calculated differently between AMD and Intel. Intel only measures the actual heat consumption of the chip itself, whereas AMD measures the chip and bus/board if I'm not mistaken.

Sounds to me like Intel's measurements make Intel look better, but are not necessarily what you'd want to act on.

Despite what Apple may tell you, for Desktop machines, the research our group did illustrated to us that AMD has a sizable lead over Intel in performance.

[Y3a]

Unfortunatly, the "REAL WORLD" of MS "IT" types is that they don't keep up with the bug fixes, reading about work arounds and almost as a rule they don't see the impact of the "knob twiddling" they do to fix a users problem, while impacting hundreds more. The problems of applications and operating systems not working as advertised in the MS world seems to fall on deaf ears both at Redmond, and at most local IT departments. Often, 3rd party apps are used instead of MS ones when reliability is REQUIRED (Active Directory). MCSE types aren't even taught about the inter-relationships with other platforms, and most are clueless with Macs and UNIX and LINUX systems, and have no idea what kind of applications exist on these platoforms.

[Angus_D]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Apple does not have enterprise offerings. They have small business offerings.

OS X Server is a joke for the enterprise. The XServe is okay, except it is not in the league of actual enterprise class hardware.

[mitchell_pgh]

IMHO, Apple hasn't been in a position where they could take on the enterprise environment.

My only complaint is... I wish Apple would embrace the geeks out there a bit more from a hardware perspective.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

IMHO, Apple hasn't been in a position where they could take on the enterprise environment.

My only complaint is... I wish Apple would embrace the geeks out there a bit more from a hardware perspective.

The software side ain't no picnic either.

I don't really know what Apple gets out of OS X Server in terms of sales. If I was a small business, I'd probably have an easier time finding somebody who knows Linux or Windows, and certainly Ubuntu and its variants do pretty well in the easy-to-use server department.

Not really sure what the point of OS X Server is. It seems like a joke in many ways. Why would it push iPod and Front Row updates and the like through Software Update for instance if it were serious about "enterprise" computing

I guess the answer is that it isn't, which is cool too, I guess... I guess I'm just not a big fan of "training wheels" systems.

[hayesk]

Originally Posted by besson3c

OS X Server is a joke for the enterprise. The XServe is okay, except it is not in the league of actual enterprise class hardware.

As far as the enterprise world's love affair with Windows, this isn't true. Linux/Unix fares far better in the enterprise world.

Given that most Linux software is also available on MacOS X, I'm not sure I understand your comment that OS X Server is a joke for the enterprise.

But I agree that it's aimed at the small business. The differences between MacOS X and MacOS X Server are not the serving capabilities, but the friendly management tools that ship with it.

But I have to disagree that if Linux is up to the enterprise task, MacOS X server is somehow not.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by hayesk

Given that most Linux software is also available on MacOS X, I'm not sure I understand your comment that OS X Server is a joke for the enterprise.

But I agree that it's aimed at the small business. The differences between MacOS X and MacOS X Server are not the serving capabilities, but the friendly management tools that ship with it.

But I have to disagree that if Linux is up to the enterprise task, MacOS X server is somehow not.

Reasons OS X Server is a joke, IMHO:

1) Software Update is dumb. A Unix server should never have to be restarted unless the kernel is modified (and even then, you can apply the update and continue to operate normally, rebooting at your leisure). I don't want to reboot for a stupid Quicktime update if I'm running a web or database server, for instance, and I don't want to see dumb stuff like iPod updaters pushed at me.

2) Having to wait for Apple to push out point updates, plan to apply them, and hope things don't break in a production environment is a PITA because a) things do break, Apple is often rather sloppy about the QA and documenting things thoroughly, informing users in advance of changes, etc. b) there is no easy way to rollback c) you can't pick out the parts of the update you want. In a regular Unix server, you can update invidual components at your leisure.

3) The GUI is dumb. It's somewhat handy to have up to a point, but once you hit that wall in which you want to do more than it was designed to handle, you're on your own. At this point, it becomes an awkward layer of abstraction and another point of failure. The stuff being managed was not designed to have a GUI controlling it, so these GUIs have hit and miss track records in not only feature set, but also reliability. Some are rather flakey and do things you don't expect, and conceal what is actually going on.

4) If I want to run a specialized server, I want it to essentially be an appliance where I can devote my machine's resources accordingly. If I'm running a database server, I don't want to devote resources to F-ing Dashboard or something and the memory footprint it requires. Sure you don't have to use Aqua, but if you need to do this what is the point of running OS X Server at all? What benefits does it offer at this point?

5) Apple's included OSS is often quite (I mean QUITE) outdated, and it is often difficult to update these components. The best solutions to date include Fink and Macports, which replace Apple's installed parts with their own sandboxed versions. This works reasonably well, but neither is as strong as something like FreeBSD ports or Gentoo emerge, where the entire OS is built around these essential components.

6) I don't know if this is still the case on x86 hardware, but there were performance issues with either high traffic web or database servers

7) It used to be the case that some things wouldn't compile on OS X. This is often more of a BSD vs. Linux issue, but I still find that binaries and OS X support in general are an after-thought. For instance, it took the MySQL team a long time to come out with a binary 10.4 compatible installer, and there still isn't a build of Cyrus IMAP that will build on Intel Macs, last I checked.

8) Apple's Enterprise support is weak


OS X is essentially a client OS, where some hobbiest and developers use it to install stuff for testing. I cannot recommend in good faith using OS X in a production environment as a web, database, or email server. It pretty much sucks.

It is great as a file server since its LDAP user management thing works pretty well, that's about it.

Apparently, the OS X Server is different than the OS X Client kernel too, just to correct that assertion.

[itai195]

I'm not hugely familiar with OS X Server and Xserve. But as far as enterprise IT goes, Microsoft just offers an easy answer for any need. They're pretty much a one-stop shop, and even if their products are not best of breed that has a lot of appeal for some people. If Apple has a shot anywhere within the enterprise, it's on the desktop and not in the server room. Where I am, many of our applications and services are becoming web-based, utilizing web services and other standard technologies that usually work as well on Mac OS as Windows.

Additionally, a lot of companies used to be Mac based, at least on the client side. I work in a large corporation that completed a full transition to Windows over a period 5-10 years ago. At the time, Apple made no real effort to capture the enterprise market. Now that the money is invested in Windows as a platform, it's going to be difficult to change course.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by itai195

I'm not hugely familiar with OS X Server and Xserve. But as far as enterprise IT goes, Microsoft just offers an easy answer for any need. They're pretty much a one-stop shop, and even if their products are not best of breed that has a lot of appeal for some people. If Apple has a shot anywhere within the enterprise, it's on the desktop and not in the server room. Where I am, many of our applications and services are becoming web-based, utilizing web services and other standard technologies that usually work as well on Mac OS as Windows.

In Enterprise IT, Microsoft servers are decent portals to applications built around MS technologies. They make lousy appliances, and generally aren't used accordingly.

[itai195]

Originally Posted by besson3c

In Enterprise IT, Microsoft servers are decent portals to applications built around MS technologies. They make lousy appliances, and generally aren't used accordingly.

BTW, did I mention that I hate working in IT

[Chuckit]

If you want to jump through five thousand hoops and highly customize your server, go Linux.

If you want a convenient and easy-to-use package, OS X server is a good choice.

If you want a virus, use Windows.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

If you want to jump through five thousand hoops and highly customize your server, go Linux.

If you want a convenient and easy-to-use package, OS X server is a good choice.

If you want a virus, use Windows.

What is OS X Server a good choice for?

[Chuckit]

It's a very good choice for office networks (file sharing and all that), particularly ones that already include Macs. It's a good choice for Web serving relative to Microsoft's offerings.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

It's a very good choice for office networks (file sharing and all that), particularly ones that already include Macs. It's a good choice for Web serving relative to Microsoft's offerings.

It's fine for serving simple low traffic sites in environments where security is not a great concern, but so is Ubuntu, and it would probably require only slightly more effort to setup, and you'd end up with a much better server where you wouldn't have to contend with many of the issues I have listed.

I agree that it's also fine for a file server on a LAN, but this is extremely basic capability that isn't terribly difficult to expect of just about any modern operating system, including OS X Client.

[Chuckit]

There is a difference between being able to serve files and having a good interface for it. Setting up AFP sharing on Ubuntu was reminiscent of having a door slammed on my hand and then having it slam into my head on the way back. Setting up AFP sharing on OS X Server is dead simple.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

There is a difference between being able to serve files and having a good interface for it. Setting up AFP sharing on Ubuntu was reminiscent of having a door slammed on my hand and then having it slam into my head on the way back. Setting up AFP sharing on OS X Server is dead simple.

Of course it is, for one because it is an Apple technology and built into the OS, it is probably very easy to get Java running on a Solaris machine. Netatalk is an open source implementation of AFP that is not a part of the base install of most Linux distros.

But I understand your main point about user friendliness. Why do our conversations always seem to come back to this area? I won't argue that Unix in general was not designed to be user-friendly by common standards.

Apple's UIs for other functions of OS X Server are friendly up to a certain point, and then they become a pain in the ass. If you want a reliable server that works well, performs well, etc. in a perfect world it would be nice if it were easy to setup, but creating "cookie cutter" servers that are flexible enough for most specialized environments is just not something I think can be accomplished, as I feel that one trades off simplicity for additional features and flexibility, and almost all servers have very particular needs to operate within a very specific workflow.

Apple tried to make OS X Server a "just add water" server, but its success in doing so was very limited, and includes a number of tradeoffs.

[Y3a]

Using MS Servers, and Exchange and all that it implys still lacks because of all the poorly meshed technologies, and the flakeyness of the features supported by the servers and infrastructure. Access really doesn't work as advertised, either does Exchange. You have to constantly fiddle with settings and perform many manual procedures to keep a windows environment going. There are registry issues, Active Directory problems, and a host of problems of desktop applications not running properly when accessing the servers. Is the problem lack of knowledge and experience, or crappy software?

[hayesk]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Reasons OS X Server is a joke, IMHO:

1) Software Update is dumb. A Unix server should never have to be restarted unless the kernel is modified (and even then, you can apply the update and continue to operate normally, rebooting at your leisure). I don't want to reboot for a stupid Quicktime update if I'm running a web or database server, for instance, and I don't want to see dumb stuff like iPod updaters pushed at me.

You don't have to restart. Run software update, force quit it instead of restarting. Then restart the appropriate daemons.

2) Having to wait for Apple to push out point updates, plan to apply them, and hope things don't break in a production environment is a PITA because a) things do break, Apple is often rather sloppy about the QA and documenting things thoroughly, informing users in advance of changes, etc. b) there is no easy way to rollback c) you can't pick out the parts of the update you want. In a regular Unix server, you can update invidual components at your leisure.

Such as? You generally know within a few days of an update coming out if you need to roll back.

3) The GUI is dumb. It's somewhat handy to have up to a point, but once you hit that wall in which you want to do more than it was designed to handle, you're on your own. At this point, it becomes an awkward layer of abstraction and another point of failure. The stuff being managed was not designed to have a GUI controlling it, so these GUIs have hit and miss track records in not only feature set, but also reliability. Some are rather flakey and do things you don't expect, and conceal what is actually going on.

Then use the command line. Having a GUI that is optional to use is not a disadvantage. Once an IT person told me that they won't put a PowerMac G4 on their network because it came with a gigabit ethernet card and they only supported 100BaseT traffic on their network. Having an extra feature is not a disadvantage.

4) If I want to run a specialized server, I want it to essentially be an appliance where I can devote my machine's resources accordingly. If I'm running a database server, I don't want to devote resources to F-ing Dashboard or something and the memory footprint it requires. Sure you don't have to use Aqua, but if you need to do this what is the point of running OS X Server at all? What benefits does it offer at this point?

You don't have to start dashboard, or anything else wasteful. Unless you feel the Login prompt is wasteful.

5) Apple's included OSS is often quite (I mean QUITE) outdated, and it is often difficult to update these components. The best solutions to date include Fink and Macports, which replace Apple's installed parts with their own sandboxed versions. This works reasonably well, but neither is as strong as something like FreeBSD ports or Gentoo emerge, where the entire OS is built around these essential components.

I don't know what you mean by "strong." If it works, it works. It's the end result and the means to get there that are important.

6) I don't know if this is still the case on x86 hardware, but there were performance issues with either high traffic web or database servers

You don't know if this is still the case then why bring it up?

7) It used to be the case that some things wouldn't compile on OS X. This is often more of a BSD vs. Linux issue, but I still find that binaries and OS X support in general are an after-thought. For instance, it took the MySQL team a long time to come out with a binary 10.4 compatible installer, and there still isn't a build of Cyrus IMAP that will build on Intel Macs, last I checked.

These are transient issues.

8) Apple's Enterprise support is weak

I can't comment on that because I've never experienced it. But they do have support contracts. There are also Apple Consultant Networks where you can hire third party consultants. After all, that's what you would do with Linux support.

OS X is essentially a client OS, where some hobbiest and developers use it to install stuff for testing. I cannot recommend in good faith using OS X in a production environment as a web, database, or email server. It pretty much sucks.

OS X is a BSD based UNIX with a very good client UI on it. Many organizations are using OS X in a production enterprise environment today.

I'm not claiming it meets all needs, but there are several enterprise environments where OS X server can and does perform just fine.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by hayesk

You don't have to restart. Run software update, force quit it instead of restarting. Then restart the appropriate daemons.

That's a pretty dumb solution, no offense. For starters, with Launchd keeping many processes running, it is a pain in the ass as it is to restart services that are not GUI controlled. Secondly, why should an administrator have to force quit an app to get it to work in a sensible manner?

Such as? You generally know within a few days of an update coming out if you need to roll back.

What is your point here? I don't understand what you are trying to say. You are saying it's cool to have to go online and peruse forums to find out whether other people are having problems before you muster up the courage to apply an update? Sorry, this sort of thing may work in small environments, but in in large environments this sort of solution is totally unacceptable.

Then use the command line. Having a GUI that is optional to use is not a disadvantage. Once an IT person told me that they won't put a PowerMac G4 on their network because it came with a gigabit ethernet card and they only supported 100BaseT traffic on their network. Having an extra feature is not a disadvantage.

If I'm just going to use the command line anyway, what is the point of running OS X Server?

You don't have to start dashboard, or anything else wasteful. Unless you feel the Login prompt is wasteful.

What is the point of running OS X Server if you aren't going to start Aqua? There are a lot of processes that are necessary to load into memory to use a GUI environment on any operating system.

I don't know what you mean by "strong." If it works, it works. It's the end result and the means to get there that are important.

MacPorts and Fink are both pretty inconsistent compared to FreeBSD ports, yum, apt-get, etc. They were designed to test apps, not to be used in a production environment. I've spent many hours using MacPorts and even developing ports for it, I don't think any MacPorts developers would claim otherwise.

You don't know if this is still the case then why bring it up?

Because I've heard nothing that provides any evidence that OS X Server can match other Unix distributions in performance when functioning as an "appliance". Have you?

These are transient issues.

No, they are major headaches. System admins choose a platform/OS that is going to work the best for them with minimal hassle. When support is not as readily available (because OS X Server is not a serious player in the server market), this is a problem.

I can't comment on that because I've never experienced it. But they do have support contracts. There are also Apple Consultant Networks where you can hire third party consultants. After all, that's what you would do with Linux support.

I've never heard of an Apple 24/7 4 hour contract myself, and I know that our Mac enterprise team and various Mac-based departments on campus has been less than impressed with Apple's Enterprise responsiveness and helpfulness. It takes a lot of resources for a company to offer bang-up service in this area. If Dell, HP, and IBM struggle with these sorts of challenges, I'd imagine that Apple would too, since I'm willing to bet they put even fewer resources into this area of their business.

OS X is a BSD based UNIX with a very good client UI on it. Many organizations are using OS X in a production enterprise environment today.

Please name some large organizations doing so on a large scale?

I'm not claiming it meets all needs, but there are several enterprise environments where OS X server can and does perform just fine.

I take it you speak from personal experience? Just wondering, not trying to sound combative...

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c

That's a pretty dumb solution, no offense. For starters, with Launchd keeping many processes running, it is a pain in the ass as it is to restart services that are not GUI controlled. Secondly, why should an administrator have to force quit an app to get it to work in a sensible manner?

On the subject of software updating, Ubuntu's updater would constantly bug me about an update to Netatalk that would completely **** it up and require me to reinstall the old version. I find that much more troublesome than seeing an iPod updater in the listing.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Please name some large organizations doing so on a large scale?

Apple?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

On the subject of software updating, Ubuntu's updater would constantly bug me about an update to Netatalk that would completely **** it up and require me to reinstall the old version. I find that much more troublesome than seeing an iPod updater in the listing.


Apple?

My beef with the Software Update is far more than simply seeing iPod updaters.

Can you downgrade packages in Ubuntu? I don't expect a package manager to be perfect, but at least you can test individual components at your leisure and downgrade when you want to or need to with software like this (despite the fact that Ubuntu is not a server OS, although I think it simply piggybacks off of Debian's apt-get system, which is very much a server OS).

Sure one could run a large scale computer operation off of OS X, you could run off of just about anything if you had a lot of resources to maintain this infrastructure.

In Apple's case, assuming they are running off of XServes, they are not only using a crippled server OS X, but they also aren't using Enterprise class hardware. When you aren't paying for hardware, you can simply have several backup servers and throw more at problems as they arise (staff and equipment). Must be nice, but Apple is certainly in a very rare position.

[Angus_D]

OS X Server kind of sort of works and can create the illusion of magic if you stay within the (rather limiting) lines that Apple boxes you in to... Stray outside, and you're very quickly exposed to the messy internals - which really are quite messy.

OS X Server is fine for small workgroups for file & printer sharing. Open Directory is great when it works, but it's a bit... flaky. And if you do something more elaborate than clickety click user accounts, it's an absolute bitch to configure and debug.

Also, besson3c's arguments regarding security updates are very compelling if you're running an internet-facing server.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by besson3c

What is the point of running OS X Server if you aren't going to start Aqua? There are a lot of processes that are necessary to load into memory to use a GUI environment on any operating system.

Yeah, you need to start a bunch of stuff to run a GUI, but you were complaining about things like Dashboard which don't run unless you start them. You could quite easily use OS X Server without having any resources at all used by Dashboard - simply by not invoking it.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Angus_D

OS X Server kind of sort of works and can create the illusion of magic if you stay within the (rather limiting) lines that Apple boxes you in to... Stray outside, and you're very quickly exposed to the messy internals - which really are quite messy.

OS X Server is fine for small workgroups for file & printer sharing. Open Directory is great when it works, but it's a bit... flaky. And if you do something more elaborate than clickety click user accounts, it's an absolute bitch to configure and debug.

Also, besson3c's arguments regarding security updates are very compelling if you're running an internet-facing server.

Exactly.

I wonder how many people have defected from OS X Server once they've needed to stray outside its boundaries?

The "here's a server, just add water" approach just seems to be bassackwards to me. I don't know anybody that has "just add water" needs within a company, almost everybody has some unique workflow and specialized needs that need to be accounted for.

OS X Server ought to simply focus on providing the cleanest and most reliable mechanisms, and not worry so much about how users will be using these mechanisms. However, this is essentially the approach that some other OS vendors have taken (e.g. Redhat, SUSE, etc.), so Apple will have some competition here.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Yeah, you need to start a bunch of stuff to run a GUI, but you were complaining about things like Dashboard which don't run unless you start them. You could quite easily use OS X Server without having any resources at all used by Dashboard - simply by not invoking it.

Point well taken. Dashboard was the first thing that came to mind. How about interchanging it with Quicktime, Aqua as a whole, the Finder, various Aqua related services, in addition to Aqua itself?

[Chuckit]

Until you get why our conversations always come down to user-friendliness, I think perhaps you should just accept that you'll never understand anything Apple does. You apparently believe that being straightforward and easy in some respects has zero value, and that making everything moderately difficult a la Linux is the only possible route. Apple takes a different approach and seems to be doing all right for itself.

And yes, many places have "just add water" needs. If you need to stray outside that, yes, it does become as unfriendly as Linux, but oh well. You can't please everybody all the time.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Until you get why our conversations always come down to user-friendliness, I think perhaps you should just accept that you'll never understand anything Apple does. You apparently believe that being straightforward and easy in some respects has zero value, and that making everything moderately difficult a la Linux is the only possible route. Apple takes a different approach and seems to be doing all right for itself.

And yes, many places have "just add water" needs. If you need to stray outside that, yes, it does become as unfriendly as Linux, but oh well. You can't please everybody all the time.

I don't agree that I lack understanding and appreciation of user-friendliness, and I think you don't know enough about me to assert this.

What I'm trying to say is that I haven't experienced nor can I logically reason why or how a server would benefit from being on the sliding scale of upmost user-friendliness at the expense of flexibility, capability, power, and security. I won't argue about this in the context of the Desktop (any argument I've ever made has been specifically directed towards power users).

This warrants a whole other conversation, but I also disagree with user-friendliness at the expense of security. I'm of the mind that if a designer gives a user a gun, he/she will shoot themselves. Therefore, you can either take away the gun, or educate the user.

For example, while it used to be easy (i.e. user-friendly) to install programs via IE in Windows, this was a very bad trade-off in the security problems it has created. In this case, yes we can teach users all about what they have to do to secure their systems, but this doesn't work well. In this case, it would be better to take away the gun. However, there are circumstances where users really do need a feature or mechanism that can be potentially dangerous.

It's a constant balancing act, but I guess my point is that user-friendliness shouldn't *always* be absolutely paramount.

[Chuckit]

User-friendliness at the expense of security is a completely different issue than user-friendliness at the expense of flexibility. Being very good at a certain set of things and not at others is definitely useful to people who need that set of things. This is the way tools aside from the Swiss Army Knife have traditionally worked.

As for why "power users" could benefit from ease of use — the same reason as anybody else. I can use the command line and compile and configure stuff from there, but I prefer it the easy way, and that's why I use OS X instead of Linux.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Reasons OS X Server is a joke, IMHO:

I don't agree... I think it has a place and you simply aren't seeing it. If I need the fastest or most customizable server OS, sure... it's probably easier and cheaper to use something else, but in many medium to small organizations, I think OS X Server can do rather well, and here is my response to your comments.

Originally Posted by besson3c

1) Software Update is dumb. A Unix server should never have to be restarted unless the kernel is modified (and even then, you can apply the update and continue to operate normally, rebooting at your leisure). I don't want to reboot for a stupid Quicktime update if I'm running a web or database server, for instance, and I don't want to see dumb stuff like iPod updaters pushed at me.

Many server situations don't require a system that is up 24/7/365. Our office server routinely has scheduled downtime (usually over the weekend), and it's no big deal.

Originally Posted by besson3c

2) Having to wait for Apple to push out point updates, plan to apply them, and hope things don't break in a production environment is a PITA because a) things do break, Apple is often rather sloppy about the QA and documenting things thoroughly, informing users in advance of changes, etc. b) there is no easy way to rollback c) you can't pick out the parts of the update you want. In a regular Unix server, you can update invidual components at your leisure.

If there were only OS X Server and Unix systems, I would agree, but that being said... there is also Windows out there. Windows has many of the same issues you are describing here.

Originally Posted by besson3c

3) The GUI is dumb. It's somewhat handy to have up to a point, but once you hit that wall in which you want to do more than it was designed to handle, you're on your own. At this point, it becomes an awkward layer of abstraction and another point of failure. The stuff being managed was not designed to have a GUI controlling it, so these GUIs have hit and miss track records in not only feature set, but also reliability. Some are rather flakey and do things you don't expect, and conceal what is actually going on.

I see your point, but I don't think OS X Server was meant for people that need extreme customization. Many people that need such a server would never "hit the wall" regarding the customization that they needed.

Also, there is little stopping a user from breaking down and going to the command line to edit applications.

Originally Posted by besson3c

4) If I want to run a specialized server, I want it to essentially be an appliance where I can devote my machine's resources accordingly. If I'm running a database server, I don't want to devote resources to F-ing Dashboard or something and the memory footprint it requires. Sure you don't have to use Aqua, but if you need to do this what is the point of running OS X Server at all? What benefits does it offer at this point?

You mailed it... "If I want to run a specialized server." I don't think this is Apple's target audience.

Originally Posted by besson3c

5) Apple's included OSS is often quite (I mean QUITE) outdated, and it is often difficult to update these components. The best solutions to date include Fink and Macports, which replace Apple's installed parts with their own sandboxed versions. This works reasonably well, but neither is as strong as something like FreeBSD ports or Gentoo emerge, where the entire OS is built around these essential components.

Yes, many of the components are outdated, but you are assuming the person using the server needs the latest and greatest over what Apple has included.

Originally Posted by besson3c

6) I don't know if this is still the case on x86 hardware, but there were performance issues with either high traffic web or database servers

I don't think the OS X Server will ever be a "high performance server." I think it's meant to be a turnkey server for small to medium sized offices. If a person needs raw power, there are too many alternatives to list here.

Originally Posted by besson3c

7) It used to be the case that some things wouldn't compile on OS X. This is often more of a BSD vs. Linux issue, but I still find that binaries and OS X support in general are an after-thought. For instance, it took the MySQL team a long time to come out with a binary 10.4 compatible installer, and there still isn't a build of Cyrus IMAP that will build on Intel Macs, last I checked.

I don't think this is any surprise.

Originally Posted by besson3c

8) Apple's Enterprise support is weak

How so?

Originally Posted by besson3c

OS X is essentially a client OS, where some hobbiest and developers use it to install stuff for testing. I cannot recommend in good faith using OS X in a production environment as a web, database, or email server. It pretty much sucks.

It is great as a file server since its LDAP user management thing works pretty well, that's about it.

Apparently, the OS X Server is different than the OS X Client kernel too, just to correct that assertion.

I think much of your criticism of OS X Server is legitimate, but I think you are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. There are many situations where the OS X server makes perfect sense.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by besson3c

I don't agree that I lack understanding and appreciation of user-friendliness, and I think you don't know enough about me to assert this.

Originally Posted by besson3c

What I'm trying to say is that I haven't experienced nor can I logically reason why or how a server would benefit from being on the sliding scale of upmost user-friendliness at the expense of flexibility, capability, power, and security.

I found those two pieces of information absolutely contrary to one another.

The point is... if you don't need the most flexible or most powerful system... you might be able to get away with a VERY easy turnkey solution from Apple (especially so if you are already in a Mac environment).

P.S. I also don't agree about your assumption that OS X isn't secure. It all depends upon what you are doing.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

Many server situations don't require a system that is up 24/7/365. Our office server routinely has scheduled downtime (usually over the weekend), and it's no big deal.

At what point would you start thinking of this machine as another client machine used for utility purposes? What I mean is, if you Google around the web for stuff relating to servers, you'll find "uptime, uptime, and more uptime" as being an extremely high priority and selling point for servers (and ISPs). Of course, hardware fails on any server, and not everybody can afford hardware redundancies (which can become quite expensive), but software-related causes for loss of downtime are generally avoided.

All this is to say that I see your point in your case, I was speaking to the sort of more general and conventional needs of a server that needs to be accessible outside of a LAN and not blocked off with a firewall, and where uptime is of high importance. This isn't to invalidate what you've said, but how should one talk about the kind of server that only needs to be online at certain times, vs. what I've described?

Perhaps your need to point this out sort of stems from this breakdown in semantic meaning? I should have been more clear in qualifying what I was saying though.

If there were only OS X Server and Unix systems, I would agree, but that being said... there is also Windows out there. Windows has many of the same issues you are describing here.

Yes, which is why I feel that Windows makes an extremely lousy "appliance" type server. These machines can be useful as application portals, but I'd never recommend using Windows for operations such as DNS, DHCP, Mail, web, or database use unless you are prepared to build in a lot of redundancy for more than just peace of mind, or you can block off the machines with a firewall (which can be expensive) thereby limiting attacks to being local.

Also, there is little stopping a user from breaking down and going to the command line to edit applications.

Well, actually, there is. Once you've hit this wall, you sort of have to commit to changing interfaces. I've had problems switching between the two interfaces, it's rather clunky.

You nailed it... "If I want to run a specialized server." I don't think this is Apple's target audience.

I actually think that the "just add water" servers are the specialized servers here.

Yes, many of the components are outdated, but you are assuming the person using the server needs the latest and greatest over what Apple has included.

If the person needs even a little security, being able to have full control over what versions of what services are running is important. Again, this is according to the definition of server I've described above.

How so?

Well, things like not warning people that a software update will disable non-SSL LDAP authentication (I don't think there is an Apple errata or sys admin list to subscribe to, but I could be mistaken), not being able or willing to take the initiative to support some of the OSS infrastructure utilized by some of my colleagues, not providing good and affordable training and on-site support... If you want to include Apple's hardware offerings ignoring the fact that they do not offer an enterprise class server and therefore lowering expectations, you could look into how well they carry out their hardware support service contracts and stuff, what kinds of phone support they offer, etc.

However, please don't pick this apart, I've worked very closely with Mac sys-admins, but I can only relate to several of these by hearsay. Right now, I'm doing Enterprise Linux and Solaris stuff, as well as a lot of web development and using OS X on the client side. I've had to work with an OS X 10.3 and 10.4 based server and was less than impressed, but I wasn't responsible for communicating with Apple and sorting out authentication mechanisms and such.

I think much of your criticism of OS X Server is legitimate, but I think you are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. There are many situations where the OS X server makes perfect sense.

I agree, there are probably uses for just about any IT product out there. I just wonder how big this market really is for Apple, and what people I could comfortably recommend this solution to. Right now, I've come up with small office-folk that need a file server or need other smallish server-type needs, but considering that in many cases they would have to hire a Mac-savvy tech person they may not already have, I'm still coming up a little short in selling this from a business standpoint.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

I found those two pieces of information absolutely contrary to one another.

The point is... if you don't need the most flexible or most powerful system... you might be able to get away with a VERY easy turnkey solution from Apple (especially so if you are already in a Mac environment).

P.S. I also don't agree about your assumption that OS X isn't secure. It all depends upon what you are doing.

Security...

If OS X Server can be used in a very controlled environment, you can cross this off. If it needs to be accessible on the internet or you otherwise have some justification for additional security, my arguments I had in mind related to the sloppy and inconvenient software update mechanism (and having to plan for a reboot in several cases), having to wait for Apple to push out an update to address a new problem (their response times seem mostly good though), the older versions of OSS infrastructure bundled in which may be exploitable (although Apple may retrofit some patches for these older versions they've bundled, I don't know), lack of support for running in a Jail/chroot environment. There are several other security techniques that would require dropping down into the command line, which would make the "Apple GUI experience" a little incomplete, but perhaps this isn't a fair argument except to again ask what the point is if you aren't intending to use OS X Server as that turnkey server you've described?

Yes, I know that many of these things aren't pressing issues for a significant population. However, even if you didn't have a ton of users, if you ever needed a certain degree of security, OS X Server would likely not be my recommendation.

What you may have heard in kudos to Apple is its high out-of-box security. This is quite true, I'm only speaking to areas of security that require some sys admin attention.