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besson3c · Mar 10, 2007, 12:00 PM

I haven't really been following the reviews of the latest Leopard seeds that closely, mostly because they seem to revolve around screensavers and other things I don't care about. Has anybody seen anything which might represent Apple's interest in becoming a bigger player in the enterprise market?

What I had in mind, for instance, was the ability to store Time Machine revisions on a server so that large deployments don't have to rely on an external drive being tethered to each and every Mac. Has anybody seen evidence of this? If so, does that server have to be a 10.5 Server?

I've been playing around with iCal Server, and have noticed that it includes LDAP support. It seems evident that at least with this product, Apple has their eyes set on large businesses and/or education.

Finally, I know of propaganda that says that 10.5 will be more suitable for large education deployments, don't have anything I can quote though.

So, I'm wondering if any of you Leopard detectives have noticed a shift in Apple's decisions as to who to target/appease?

lpkmckenna · Mar 10, 2007, 12:45 PM

RoughlyDrafted has some great articles on Leopard Server.

Leopard Server
Leopard Calender Server vs MS Exchange

besson3c · Mar 10, 2007, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

RoughlyDrafted has some great articles on Leopard Server.

Leopard Server
Leopard Calender Server vs MS Exchange

Thanks man, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for!

hmurchison2001 · Mar 10, 2007, 09:09 PM

I'm pretty pumped about Leopards abilities for SMB work.

Finally a Calendar Server that should integrate very well with Mail.
A Wiki Server sound like a nice start to setting up Intranets.
Spotlight server for searching (across domains I believe)

By the time it's ready to ship there should be some more surprises.
I'm certainly looking forward to discussing a potential move to Apple for my mother's Law practice.
we can run the PC only items she needs in Parallels/VMware whilst all the email/calendar and network
management stuff can be done using OS X tools. It'd be much cheaper than a Windows server with Exchange and the CALS plus the extra expense of security products

Time Machine is great. I'm sure there will be some growing pains at first but having snapshot capability with an easy user interface impresses me. I also want to see Sun's ZFS filesystem continue to get attention. I'd love to eventually run pooled storage for all the data. No corruption, high fault tolerance and easy setup make ZFS a natural fs for a Mac system.

Then I simply wait for Apple Remote Desktop 4 for easy management of assets and control and I'm set. No more trips to fix her crappy and misbehavin' PCs. With the advent of capable email/calendaring there is no reason not to choose a Mac for a business now. We have everything we need. It may not sound as nice and glossy as Sharepoint or other MS tools but everything should be fairly open (source) and configurable.

Virtualization seals the deal.

Simon · Mar 11, 2007, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

What I had in mind, for instance, was the ability to store Time Machine revisions on a server so that large deployments don't have to rely on an external drive being tethered to each and every Mac.

No offense but no enterprise needs to "tether an external drive to each and every Mac". It's called Ethernet. It's fast, cheap, and it works.

That said, I like your idea of having Time Machine use a dedicated TM server to store data.

Big Mac · Mar 11, 2007, 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by Simon

No offense but no enterprise needs to "tether an external drive to each and every Mac". It's called Ethernet. It's fast, cheap, and it works.

That said, I like your idea of having Time Machine use a dedicated TM server to store data.

I think that's what he meant, Simon. He wants to use Time Machine on network storage.

Simon · Mar 11, 2007, 04:51 AM

D'oh! Need more coffee. Sorry.

himself · Mar 11, 2007, 06:50 AM

I'm sure Apple has that in mind, especially when looking at the the new Airport base station with USB storage connectivity.

memory-minus · Mar 11, 2007, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by himself

I'm sure Apple has that in mind, especially when looking at the the new Airport base station with USB storage connectivity.

Uhm, it's mentioned on Apple's public Time Machine page.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.html

Backup Disk: Change the drive or volume you’re backing up to. Or back up to a Mac OS X server computer.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 12:24 PM

Yes, but will it automatically mount this volume as needed?

I'm also hoping that Apple will kill off afp as the default Finder connection method and build in support for sshfs... Don't know how realistic this is in light of the long list of weaknesses with the current finder.

TETENAL · Mar 11, 2007, 12:37 PM

The Finder doesn't handle, know or care about the mounted file systems.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

The Finder doesn't handle, know or care about the mounted file systems.

Was that in response to my post? I'm confused as to how this applies and what you mean.

Peter · Mar 11, 2007, 02:19 PM

I wonder if TimeMachine will be a viable network backup solution for computers in an enterprise business...
Can you restore the entire OS?

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by Peter

I wonder if TimeMachine will be a viable network backup solution for computers in an enterprise business...
Can you restore the entire OS?

I doubt it. I think TM's focus is revision control of individual files (maybe even just user space files).

Big Mac · Mar 11, 2007, 03:06 PM

I hate it when Apple places artificial restrictions on the features of its tools. A file is a file, and if one can be backed up by Time Machine all should be eligible.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I hate it when Apple places artificial restrictions on the features of its tools. A file is a file, and if one can be backed up by Time Machine all should be eligible.

But TM is not a backup tool in the traditional usage of the word, it is a revision control system, AFAIK...

Revision control: Subversion, CVS, RCS, Volume Shadow Copy (I think), etc.
Backup: Disk Utility imaging of drive/folder, rsync, Superduper, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc.

Chuckit · Mar 11, 2007, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

But TM is not a backup tool in the traditional usage of the word, it is a revision control system, AFAIK...

Revision control: Subversion, CVS, RCS, Volume Shadow Copy (I think), etc.
Backup: Disk Utility imaging of drive/folder, rsync, Superduper, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc.

Time Machine is intended to be a backup system.

TETENAL · Mar 11, 2007, 03:43 PM

Originally Posted by Peter

Can you restore the entire OS?

Originally Posted by besson3c

I doubt it.

Why don't you two just read Apple's web page about Time Machine instead of talking at large.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.html

"Right from the start, Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard makes a complete backup of all the files on your system. That includes your system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, documents — everything you keep on your Mac. […] With Time Machine, you can restore your whole system from any past backups and peruse the past with ease."

I think TM's focus is revision control of individual files (maybe even just user space files).

No, Time Machine's focus is backup. It backs up changed files at midnight regardless of how many revisions of a file there had been during the day.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 03:47 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Time Machine is intended to be a backup system.

Do you understand the difference between a backup vs. revision control, as per my distinction?

It would suck if TM handled revision control by keeping complete copies of every single file in its data store. This would require a tremendous amount of disk space, and tossing complete binary files into a database is exactly the problem with MS Exchange that MS would like to be rid of (described in lmpckenna's article he linked to).

I'm hoping that Apple will do better than this. AFAIK, OSes like VMS did exactly what I'm describing...

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Why don't you two just read Apple's web page about Time Machine instead of talking at large.

Apple - Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek - Time Machine

"Right from the start, Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard makes a complete backup of all the files on your system. That includes your system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, documents — everything you keep on your Mac. […] With Time Machine, you can restore your whole system from any past backups and peruse the past with ease."

No, Time Machine's focus is backup. It backs up changed files at midnight regardless of how many revisions of a file there had been during the day.

You're right, just noticed this:

Backup Time: Time Machine will back up every night at midnight, unless you select a different time from this menu.

This is actually quite disappointing, and it proves my theory about it being more revision control in its design wrong. I was hoping it would track revisions, not just be like any other backup system that runs at a scheduled time. What good is going back in time if this only works with stuff that made the midnight backup?

I hope that the historical data is in form of revision control though (i.e. granular) so that complete copies of files are not saved, this would suck even more.

I guess my hopes were a little optimistic. I guess TM is just the same old common incremental backup mechanism with a nice GUI...

goMac · Mar 11, 2007, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yes, but will it automatically mount this volume as needed?

I'm also hoping that Apple will kill off afp as the default Finder connection method and build in support for sshfs... Don't know how realistic this is in light of the long list of weaknesses with the current finder.

What's wrong with AFP?

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 03:57 PM

Maybe the midnight run just updates database indexes? The Keynote emphasized back-peddling so much, I'm surprised that one won't be able to recover something they botched up, say, an hour or two ago...

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

What's wrong with AFP?

Very slow and chatty, has been for years. Also writes those stupid .AppleDouble directories, can't remember off the top of my head what these store.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 04:16 PM

AFAIK, the .AppleDouble directories are a very old school approach to storing OS 9 style resource/data fork information. However, this no longer seems necessary as of 10.4 and its xattr support for HFS+

Extended file attributes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not sure how Apple added this support without requiring a drive reformat, but now that most OSes support xattr, I'm hoping we can do away with littering crap into directories of other file systems.

If the metadata problem is solved this way, I don't see much reason for AFP to exist. There are going to be far more non-Apple machines with SSH/SFTP running than AFP, and with SSH you get a secure tunnel rather than just a hashed password. Fuse/sshfs seems much faster on my Mac than AFP... Ditto for NFS and Samba, so it seems like a winning solution all round.

Plus, all the users that wanted to write to FTP volumes in the Finder would be able to write to SFTP volumes if the Finder gained Fuse/sshfs support, which would maybe encourage people to stop using bloody FTP

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 04:22 PM

Oh, and the other really super annoying thing about AFP: you can only mount one home directory on a machine at a time.

brokenjago · Mar 11, 2007, 04:46 PM

If you watch the State of the Union Keynote from WWDC 2006, you'll see that Time Machine requires very little space above what is used on your TM'd drive.

I can't remember exactly how it worked, but it first makes one complete backup, then uses Hard Links until the end of a day, or period, or whatever, then copies over the changed items. Or something....

I suggest taking a look at them. They're very, very informative, and they're freely available to all levels of ADC members.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

If you watch the State of the Union Keynote from WWDC 2006, you'll see that Time Machine requires very little space above what is used on your TM'd drive.

I can't remember exactly how it worked, but it first makes one complete backup, then uses Hard Links until the end of a day, or period, or whatever, then copies over the changed items. Or something....

I suggest taking a look at them. They're very, very informative, and they're freely available to all levels of ADC members.

So if this is correct, I would imagine that TM tracks revisions throughout the day via the process you've described, and then updates its indexes every night, adding record of your daily revisions to its DB.

If this is correct, running the TM GUI would simultaneously search both your daily revisions as well as the database.

It would also renew my confidence that TM is revision control based, and not simply a nightly incremental backup.

Peter · Mar 11, 2007, 06:27 PM

wish they'd release the release date

I have high hopes that in ~9 months time I'll be able to ditch retrospect for Time Machine.

besson3c · Mar 11, 2007, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by Peter

wish they'd release the release date

I have high hopes that in ~9 months time I'll be able to ditch retrospect for Time Machine.

Do you use Retrospect in a server/client combo, and if so, do you run OS X Server?

brokenjago · Mar 11, 2007, 07:20 PM

So if this is correct, I would imagine that TM tracks revisions throughout the day via the process you've described, and then updates its indexes every night, adding record of your daily revisions to its DB.

If this is correct, running the TM GUI would simultaneously search both your daily revisions as well as the database.

It would also renew my confidence that TM is revision control based, and not simply a nightly incremental backup.

Like I said, I highly suggest taking a look at the movie. It's available on iTunes as a free download, and has a lot more content than just info on Time Machine, like what Apple is doing to significanty improve gaming performance on new Machines.

Chuckit · Mar 11, 2007, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

Like I said, I highly suggest taking a look at the movie. It's available on iTunes as a free download, and has a lot more content than just info on Time Machine, like what Apple is doing to significanty improve gaming performance on new Machines.

Maybe I'm blind, but what movie are you talking about?

TETENAL · Mar 11, 2007, 08:53 PM

Apple Developer Connection - ADC on iTunes

Whether those are available for online members or not, I don't think one can discuss the contents of those movies publicly.

hmurchison2001 · Mar 11, 2007, 09:49 PM

Definitely grab the Mac OS X State of the Union vid once you sign up for an ADC online account. It's IMO the more informative about changes in OpenGL, Developer tools and new stuff like TM and Core Animation. There's also some interesting stuff on iChat Theater.

TM looks better than I thought it would. There's bound to be some weaknesses but I think it will work well for some users needs.

Chuckit · Mar 11, 2007, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Apple Developer Connection - ADC on iTunes

Whether those are available for online members or not, I don't think one can discuss the contents of those movies publicly.

Whoa, I had never seen that. Thanks for the pointer.

Peter · Mar 12, 2007, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Do you use Retrospect in a server/client combo, and if so, do you run OS X Server?

we run retrospect on ~25 macs, ~2 servers (OS X Server) and a few PCs. Dont care about backing the PCs up though (no data stored on them etc).
We use retrospect server edition on an Intel Mac Mini and backup to external Firewire drives.
I can't stand retrospect, its buggy, the Ui is horrible and its generally dog slow. But its never ever let me down when I've been restoring data. When its 5AM on a Sunday night and in 2 hours you'll have the CEO wanting to know why his email isn't working, knowing that Retrospect will restore everything to how it was 6PM on Friday is priceless.
Thats my concern with TimeMachine, the amount of bad reports with the .mac Backup App makes me doubt i'd ever trust TimeMachine that much