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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Upgrades Apple

Mac OS X "Tiger" Server Previewed 355

Posted by pudge from the sans-turtleneck dept.
Remaining unmentioned in Steve Jobs' keynote speech at WWDC today are the many updates to the Server cousin of Mac OS X. As with the Panther Server release, Tiger Server will focus on open source, Windows, and ease of use. A preview DVD was, as with Tiger client, given out to WWDC attendees.
Tiger will include some new content server options, including blojsom, a Java-powered "blog" server, which was inspired by Rael Dornfest's bloxsom.

It also adds a Jabber server that provides the option of serving iChat. SSL/TLS and Kerberos can be added for security. A single Tiger iChat client can have chats running on multiple servers, so a user can be on the main iChat server, while having private chats on a company server. Because it is Jabber, non-iChat (and non-AIM) clients can participate too.

Tiger Server also works to make network setup even easier with Internet Gateway Setup Assistant. In Panther Server, setting up a network with DNS, DHCP, NAT, firewall, and port mapping was easier than most other platforms, but still required a good deal of manual configuration, and separate configuration of each service. The Setup Assistant will provide single-button setup of it all.

A Software Update Server can cache and control Apple software updates. So once you're satisfied that the new OS update won't delete home folders, you can OK it for your users to download; and they won't take up your Internet bandwidth, because the server cached it.

Mobile Home Directories allows a mobile user to sync his home directory with a central server, backing it up and allowing an admin to manage it.

A new Windows migration tool will allow Windows admins to migrate from Windows-based servers. Tiger Server can act as a Primary Domain Controller for a Windows network, and the tool will migrate user and group account from an existing Windows PDC into Open Directory 2 and Samba 3.

Tiger Server will retain the pricing structure of the previous versions: $500 for the 10-client edition and $1000 for the unlimited client edition (the number of clients referring only to simultaneous file sharing clients).
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Mac OS X "Tiger" Server Previewed More

Mac OS X "Tiger" Server Previewed

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  • Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

    by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <chris DOT travers AT gmail DOT com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:04PM (#9556184) Homepage Journal
    I find it interesting (and cool) that Apple seems to be throwing their weight behind Jabber.

    But one question I have is this: What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers? I see some posts on all the general email lists I am on (PostgreSQL anyway), but not too many, leading me to conclude it is a niche market. Any thoughts?

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:15PM (#9556273)
      What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers?

      Life sciences, for one. Apple has always had a stronghold in that area (at least academics) and I know of several companies that are selling server based products which initially ran on Linux or a unix variant that are now running on OS X.

      • Market: Academics, education (Score:5, Informative)

        by tbo ( 35008 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:47PM (#9556491) Journal
        We use an XServe G5 as a single sign-on and file server for a "lab" of about 14 FreeBSD and Windows XP machines. The computers are used as workstations (and occasionally for light numerical work) by theorists working on quantum information and quantum computation.

        Macs seem to be quite popular among the quantum computing community. Ray Laflamme's group (U. of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute) uses them (although maybe they don't have an Xserve), and about 40% of the laptops at a recent quantum information conference I was at were PowerBooks.

      • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bluepinstripe ( 637447 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:58PM (#9562394)
        As the parent post said, life sciences. I work for a large government life sciences research institue, and about half of our total computer base is Macs. There are a lot of labs that use older G4s as if they were servers, and will probably upgrade to X servers over time. Given the general level of ease of use and "reliablity" of our Microsoft equipment--which mirrors my experience pertty much everywhere I have ever worked--these labs would never accept a Microsoft solution.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Informative)

      by stilwebm ( 129567 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:45PM (#9556478)
      What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers?

      Someone else mentioned life sciences. They also seek the K-12 Academic markets where it's hard to employ a full time network admin to set up Active Directory, Exchange Server, etc. The same applies for small businesses, those who are likely to prefer the idea of one server does all (or most) of the services they need, especially email and file sharing. Another big market (almost the cliche Apple niche) is the creative market, from media agencies to smaller publishers to design/creative departments at larger companies. Often these organizations don't employ a full time admin, leaving that to outside companies and a designated person within the group. In the case of a creative department within a larger company, they often have a disconnect between the rest of the company (being on Macs while the rest of the company is on PC, for example) along with different needs.

      leading me to conclude it is a niche market

      As Apple adds more features to OS X server, they hope to please their existing niches while making it apparent to others that they can easily configure a complex server without having to rely on Microsoft. They get the stability and security associated with open source plus the ease of use from Apple.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

      by afish40 ( 774995 ) <marioNO@SPAMdotmatrixwithstereosound.com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @08:53PM (#9556869) Homepage
      I currently administer a private school running 10.3 Server on an Xserve G4. I'm very much looking forward to these new features, such as Mobile Home Directories. Currently, we're going to implement third-party alternatives [qdea.com] for backing up the student's files (they all have iBooks they can take home), but this looks to be a much better solution.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

      by linuxelf ( 123067 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:09PM (#9557247) Homepage
      The Publishing industry has been mostly Macintosh oriented for a long time. I work for a large metropolitan newspaper, and we really love the new G5's, and the stability and ease of management offered by OS X. We used to have quite a few file servers that ran on Windows with Extreme Z-IP for appletalk file sharing. Now, we've migrated all of them to OS X with Samba for Windows sharing.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Johnny Mnemonic ( 176043 ) <mdinsmore@@@gmail...com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:38PM (#9557370) Homepage Journal

      , leading me to conclude it is a niche market. Any thoughts?

      I'd be kidding you if I told you it wasn't. How it's actually being used, of course, only Apple's Sales manager knows--but I can tell you the target market:
      • Graphic dept skunkworks--they need a fileserver for their Macs and some PCs. Apple does fileserving really well; 500MB a minute over AFP.
      • Schools who need management of low needs users, but the security has to be pretty tied down. By "low-needs", I mean no App serving, etc.
      • Designed for SOHO users--have an office of 6? Want business email, brochure-ware web site, some collab share points? Throw an Xserve in and forget the licensing.
      • Also, Apple is trying to get more and more into the HPC space, with Xgrid [apple.com], Xsan [apple.com], XRaid [apple.com], and Cluster Node Xserves [apple.com]. Some sucess with this; I think there's quite a few 12-node clusters sititng in corner someplace, and all IT knows about them is that they have one less IP to give out.

      Still niche, yes: they don't run 10,000 employees with Workgroup Manager, for example. But it serves as a good fileserver when a the extra workstations just can't quite keep up, or when the workgroup uses Macs for whatever reason and needs a server to help them work better amongst themselves (without necessarily involving IT).

      • Re:Jabber (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 )
        Apple does fileserving really well; 500MB a minute over AFP.

        You must be talking about old-fashioned 100BASE-T. Over Gigabit, I usually see about 40 MB/s, and I suspect that the limiting factor there might be the hard drive in our server. (We don't have a RAID attached, just an internal disk for our non-critical day-to-day work.)

    • Re:Jabber (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @05:46AM (#9558622)
      But one question I have is this: What market is currently being targetted by the OS X Servers?

      The zero-fuss-open-source-aware,-non-x86-crappiness, fully-unix-compliant all-top-notch-reference-grade-quality open-source-goodies-preinstalled and operational out-of-the-box-with-two-mouseclicks-maximum market.

      Gues how long it takes me to have phpCMS or Typo running on Mac OS X? Or any other MySQL/PHP/Apache Webapp? Something between 30 seconds and a minute. Try that with any other Computer. Now they come with a jabber server and a java based oss blogger and a ton of other features that makes everyone who knows what these features mean drool.

      I'd say the market for OS X Servers is pretty healthy and in for some steep and steady growth.
      All I can say is I'm sold. If there is any project due that requires me to deliver a server, Apple is going to be the first place I'm going to look.

    • iChat has been using the Jabber protocol for their Rendezvous enabled chat since it was released. I keep hoping they'll support external Jabber servers too.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@nOSpAM.etoyoc.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @09:32AM (#9559875) Homepage Journal
      Small, overworked, data centers.

      I run an IT department with 4 people to service 200 users, an AS/400 based finance system, 30 ticket stations, 4 MSSQL databases, a retail store, 2 remote locations, in-house email, web services, and NT domain services. And when we aren't doing that, we are setting up a network for a traveling show that's coming in, or a for a rental.

      We just bought a bunch of them to take over for our gaggle of Dell boxes that are EOL. We wanted 24 hour warm-body support. We wanted to be able to pre-buy spare parts. We wanted something off the shelf that pretty much used all the software we use today. (Postfix, MySQL, Samba.)

      We will still use Gentoo on x86 for all our front-line stuff. (DNS, firewall, web serving) but we have 2 servers that have to be up, rain or shine, and stay running with a minimum of disruption for 3 years at a time. Gentoo is great, but new versions of stuff breaking our site configurations almost cost me my job on a few occasions.

    • Re:Jabber (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:24PM (#9563402)
      Panther Server makes an excellent general-purpose small business server. I set one up for a friend a few weekends ago. It's their directory server, provides DHCP, runs a web server, hosts the company's mail (installing SpamAssassin was the usual pain in the ass, but I see now that it's included in Tiger Server), is their FTP server, supports VPN connections via IPsec, and provides file services via AppleShare, NFS, and SMB. It's also their database (with FileMaker Pro, but Oracle or PostgreSQL or Sybase would work too) and their scheduling hub (MeetingMaker).

      And it's all running on a 500 MHz Power Mac G4.

      I don't know about targeting that market, but it's a great solution for that market.

  • Licensing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fubar ( 1615 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:09PM (#9556224)
    (the number of clients referring only to simultaneous file sharing clients)


    To further refine this explanation, the licensing is based on the number of AFP (Apple's filesharing protocol) connections. Unlimited web, ftp, and in previous versions unlimited windows SMB connections. I haven't noticed if this changes with 10.4.

  • Namig Convention (Score:5, Interesting)

    by someguy456 ( 607900 ) <someguy456@phreaker.net> on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:10PM (#9556234) Homepage Journal

    Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, etc

    How many felines are left? Even including "cat" and others, they are bound to run out, aren't they?

    Maybe for OS 11 (OS X1?) they will start doing canines or something... Wolf, Coyote, Bear?

  • Not the same. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Apiakun ( 589521 ) <tikora AT gmail DOT com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:15PM (#9556263)
    Did you catch the first few words of the blurb? "Remaining unmentioned".

    As much as I'd love to jump on the "dupe" bandwagon, the previous slashdot article did not mention these Tiger 'server' updates (comments notwithstanding.)

    Thanks for the update.

  • Important part of any Windows migration (Score:3, Informative)

    by LittleLebowskiUrbanA ( 619114 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:24PM (#9556337) Homepage Journal
    Can I migrate Exchange onto OSX Server? oh please god, please Mr Jobs

    There's a company that claims to be able to migrate Exchange to Linux or an OS X server in few easy clicks. [das.com.tw] However they don't seem to want my business since they won't respond on their own forums and emails to every address of theirs I could find remain unanswered after a month.

  • Active Directory (Score:5, Informative)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:30PM (#9556374) Homepage
    Tiger Server can act as a Primary Domain Controller for a Windows network, and the tool will migrate user and group account from an existing Windows PDC into Open Directory 2 and Samba 3.

    Does the author mean a NT4 style PDC or an Active Directory Domain Controller? My guess is NT4 PDC. However, if it is a Windows 2003 Native Mode compatible Domain Controller/Global Catalog, WOW! If it is NT4 PDC, yawn. Not too many folks are running those in the Enterprise, however, I do see the benefit of creating a migration path from Windows to Mac for old, small NT4 networks.

  • Areas I hope are improved (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:30PM (#9556376) Journal
    Documentation. OS X Server 10.3 ("Panther Server") is nice, but there are just too many areas that are poorly documented. My setup time would have been a quarter what it was if they had really excellent documentation. It's surprising, because Apple's docs on the consumer side are quite good. A lot of Apple's market is relatively inexperienced admins in SOHO or educational settings, and more HOWTO-type documentation would be wonderful.

    VPN setup. This one needs some serious help. I (and a lot of other people on Apple's OS X Server Discussion Board) have had a great deal of difficulty getting PPTP working in Panther Server. I also managed to stump Apple's Premium support with a problem with L2TP. Still waiting to hear back, more than a week later.

    Firewall setup. The Panther Server GUI interface for setting up firewalls is somewhat broken. Server Admin times out on trying to load mildly complicated rule-sets (say, a group of twelve IP ranges with 15 ports open). The default configuration doesn't make use of ipfw's stateful capabilities, and doesn't block UDP packets. They could really have a better interface and a better default ruleset, or at least an option to set up some stateful rules via the GUI. The setup they have for XML editing of the GUI's port list is cool, though, as is the ipfw.conf setup.

    Windows Services / SAMBA. SAMBA still has some bugs and issues which make it annoying to use as a replacement for a Windows-based PDC. Apple should help out the open source community here. In particular, find a good solution to the problem where visible .INI files show up in weird places in a user's roaming profile--having one of these suckers pop up upon login every time a user logs in is annoying. (This happens because SAMBA does not store the "Invisible System File" windows file attribute that would keep these files from being visible. There's a work-around but it's ugly and only partially effective). Also, more GUI-based control of security for Windows file sharing would be good--I don't want to have to dig into the bowels of samba just to learn how to disable LANMAN passwords.

    Open Directory. Fix the bugs in Open Directory or Workgroup Manager that prevent entry of "City" (and certain other attributes) in user LDAP records. Set up a better means of storing contact information in the LDAP directory, and document how to configure Mac OS X clients to access it via Address Book.

    Backup Solution. There are lots of third-party backup solutions out there for backing up an OS X Server, but none I completely trust to do a bare-metal restore and give me a bootable system. Carbon Copy Cloner? Had issues with it when backing up an iBook via Firewire, so I don't trust it. Rsync? Doesn't handle resource forks. RsyncX? Slower than rsync (too slow for network backup). This would probably be pretty simple for Apple to implement and integrate into Server Admin.

    All in all, Panther Server is pretty good, and Tiger Server looks even better. I just hope Apple fixes these things so others are spared the trouble I went through.

    • Re:Areas I hope are improved (Score:5, Interesting)

      by imac.usr ( 58845 ) * on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:45PM (#9556476) Homepage
      Carbon Copy Cloner? Had issues with it when backing up an iBook via Firewire, so I don't trust it.

      I've seen the same thing with CCC and FireWire drives, where eventually the process times out and you have to force-quit CCC and start over. I have found that there is a workaround of sorts that generally prevents this from happening:

      • start the clone operation as normal
      • open the Terminal
      • cd to the root directory of the target drive for the cloning operation (i.e.
        /Volumes/whatever
        )
      • do an ls -l of the directory every 4-5 minutes or so

      This usually works on my drives. My theory is that something in either CCC or Apple's FireWire implementation is screwy and it causes ditto (the unix tool that forms the basis of CCC) to flip out.

    • ...but none I completely trust to do a bare-metal restore and give me a bootable system.

      The 60G Toshiba failed in my 12" PB last week, a perfect test of my SuperDuper based backups. I booted off the external backup with no problem once my PB was returned and just backed up, in the other direction. Two hours and a reboot later, it's like nothing happened.

      I've been pleased with SuperDuper [shirt-pocket.com] since the start, and now that it's passed a big test I'm even more so.

      Just mentioning because it wasn't in your li

    • Re:Areas I hope are improved (Score:5, Informative)

      by Durandal64 ( 658649 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:26PM (#9557317)
      Apple has added Darwin-level support for resource forks in Tiger, and have recompiled their Unix tools (including cp, mv, et cetera) to properly handle resource forks. So rsync will work properly with resource forks now.
  • IIRC, there was a 'image & link' here [apple.com] to the 2004 WWDC. but now, it`s gone missing (it appears, so, anyway). anyone know what happened to it? (cause I don't)

  • Best joke I've heard in weeks... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:36PM (#9556419)

    Tiger Server will focus on open source, Windows, and ease of use.

    Kinda reminds me of the old joke: Good, cheap and fast, pick any two.

  • Mobile Home Directories... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:47PM (#9556489)
    This is their new service so you can chat with people who live in a double-wide trailer. Kudos to Apple for finally making their technologies accessible to the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum!

  • I think I just wet myself. (Score:5, Funny)

    by csoto ( 220540 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @08:00PM (#9556591)
    Someone pass the kool-aide! I'll drink anything Jobs is serving!

  • Java application middleware (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sys49152 ( 100346 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @08:34PM (#9556765)
    Currently OS X Server ships with JBoss, and opinions about Mark Fluery aside, that's a good thing. However, there's a ship about to leave, and Apple should do what they can in the next 12 months to be sure and get on it. That ship is the "tiny container" (for lack of a better name). Those frameworks that aim to compete with J2EE by introducing a simpler, lighter container for hosting your Plain Old Java Objects. They do not provide persistence (you get that from Hibernate, for instance), they do not provide transactions (you get that from a JTA provider), etc. What they do provide is a lightweight container and an integrtated AOP framework for glueing it all together.

    There's no argument that these containers are getting a lot of attention (so much so that the latest J2EE spec does what it can to emulate them -- not enough). Apple can win some serious street cred among app server developers by adopting one of these frameworks, enhancing the code, hiring the developers (maybe away from BEA -- hint, hint) and integrating it with X-Code.

    And by "lightweight container" I mean Spring, Pico, and, yes, even JBoss (once all the overweight J2EE stuff is tossed). There are others, of course, such as Excalibur, but Spring and Pico have all the mind share. Spring especially, it seems.

    While I'm at it, if Apple really wants a piece of the application server space they should endorse Mono with equal vigor. Imagine, a .NET compatible runtime on OS X supported by Apple. Furthermore, those important Java/.NET sub-projects need full fledged support; Hibernate, Junit (Nunit), Ant (Nant), XDoclet, one of the umpteen MVC frameworks, and so on.

    So there you have it Apple: Proudly ditch the complexity of EJB. Raise the flag of lightweight containers and AOP. Embrace .NET via Mono. Support those all so important tactical projects. And integrate -- fully -- the whole kit & kaboodle into your development environment.

    You're welcome.

  • Server... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by minotaurcomputing ( 775084 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @08:46PM (#9556839) Homepage Journal
    I really dislike the server pricing scheme as a home user. Yeah yeah yeah. I realize the Apple viewpoint of "why would home users need server software"? (I've asked them) But as a person who would like a single license for my G5 with a couple FreeBsd and Windows nodes, $500 for 10 licenses doesn;t work for me. It's unfortunate.

    In a related note, is it possible to acquire certain server extensions (Blojsom or Jabber for example) and plug them into Tiger proper?

    • RE: server pricing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:01PM (#9556900) Journal
      Umm... I can understand not liking a $500 price tag for *any* piece of software. But realistically, what other commercial server type OS are you going to buy for much less than Apple's price on OS X server? (If you're a student, work for the government in any capacity, or even serve in the military, you should already qualify for at least a small discount already - since Apple always offers that.)

      I've never seen Novell offer a copy of Netware real cheap for home users just wanting to try using it for 1 or 2 workstations.... and Microsoft sure doesn't offer Windows 2003 Server at anything resembling "inexpensive pricing".

      I think that's pretty much the reason for the popularity of Unix type open-source OS's in the first place. If you just want to tinker at home, Linux or BSD should do the job for you, and not cost you hundreds of dollars.

      • Re: windows server pricing (Score:4, Funny)

        by beavis88 ( 25983 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:37PM (#9557106)
        Last I checked, a Windows 2003 server license with 5 (FIVE!) client access licenses was about $3700.

      • Re: server pricing (Score:3, Informative)

        by crem_d_genes ( 726860 ) *
        (If you're a student, work for the government in any capacity, or even serve in the military, you should already qualify for at least a small discount already - since Apple always offers that.)

        Servers are the one area where it seems that there is no break for educators, et al. I suppose the potential for someone using it for business applications is too hard to verify.

        • Re: server pricing (Score:4, Informative)

          by JohnsonWax ( 195390 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @02:16AM (#9558094)
          Mac OS X Server pricing for .edu is half price. I bought a 3 year maintenance contract for my unlimited client server a day before 10.3 Server shipped for $499. That covered 10.3, will cover 10.4, and may or may not cover 10.5 - but I'm thinking not unless they ship by Sept. 2006.

          The 10 client license is $249. There *may* be an even cheaper offer for ADC members.

  • Does anyone else find it sinister? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Enlarge Your Penis ( 781779 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @12:47AM (#9557848)
    That Apple are following the naming conventions for Nazi armoured vehicles? Is this Job's final solution to the Microsoft problem?

  • Very excited by Core Video (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gsdali ( 707124 ) on Tuesday June 29, 2004 @01:42AM (#9557993)
    Depending on how exactly it works. Hopefully, in the same way as core Audio it is not just a plugin and interconnect layer for video applications but a complet abstraction layer for hardware as well. Hurry up with some godamned documentation.

    at the same time I was dissapointed not to see distributed rendering using Xgrid for Apples Pro Video Apps.
    • They have Xgrid rendering in Shake already. Runs under under Qmaster, which came first.

      And it makes a certain amount of sense not to have it in Final Cut. The data transfers seem like it would far outweigh the benefits of the extra processor power without some serious interconnect.

      That said, I can't wait for Apple's to actually do it.
    • FYI, If you are ADC member (with a seed key) you can download the latest Tiger related documentation. This documentation bundle is later then the Tiger developer preview DVD handed out at WWDC.

      CoreImage & CoreVideo are rather nice and parallel CoreAudio in many ways from what I have seen so far. Apple is on a strong push to bring in the compute capabilities of modern GPUs for things other then 3D and games, focusing on it as another system compute resource basically. Apple is of course eating its own d

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