Help me sell XServe to my boss and our client.

June 11, 2007 1:33 PM

Help me recommend XServe to my boss and our client. Please share your personal experience with the XServe hardware and software, particularly the GUI tools for service management.

I work for a small business that provides technical support for a local school. They have a very small IT budget, and no IT staff (except for select volunteer students).

Currently, they have two 7-10 year old NT 4.0 servers. One is running Exchange, and the other is just used as file storage.

I have no personal experience with the XServe, but reading their specifications, it seems to fit what this school is looking to do. For the most part, I'd like to know about any caveats with recommending this system and software to my boss, and to the school, that otherwise aren't obvious from reading the specs and reviews.

I'm a bit concerned that it doesn't yet have iCal Server built in, but could I install some web-based software while we wait for the release?

What won't this server be able to do for them? The biggest hurdle I need to overcome is the momentum generated from my boss' sole experience working with Exchange and Windows servers. He's open to the idea, but seems to only vaguely understand that Macs aren't locked-off in some proprietary realm apart from Windows machines anymore.

Personal opinions, experiences, and thoughts on such a recommendation?

Thanks!

posted by odinsdream to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I should add that the reason I'm doing this is because the school recently decided to replace one or both of their servers. The default will be a Dell Small Business Server with Exchange, unless I convince them otherwise. The main potential advantage I see to the XServe is that the price is low when you consider that it'll be able to host both their websites, and all of their e-mail accounts, including students and staff, along with an LDAP address book. Combine that with regular file server operation, and it's doing way more than their current implementation. Doing the same thing with Windows would cost several thousand dollars more, due to Exchange licensing per client.
posted by odinsdream at 1:38 PM on June 11, 2007

I run 4 of them with a couple of XServe RAIDS. Yes they are less expensive, and tha Apple Admin tools are great, unless you are an XServe Admin, or they have one, it will be a hard sell, since "everyone" runs Windows servers, and there will be more of them should you decide to leave or get hit by a truck, or get whacked and get your head run over by an SUV...
posted by Gungho at 1:55 PM on June 11, 2007

I've had some bad experience with Apple's Server Admin software. Specifically, it will overwrite httpd.conf directives it doesn't understand, and it will also save settings without any request to do so. Also, the updates on server software are few and far between. That said, if you're not doing anything fancy, it's usable. Kerio sells a mail server that can run on XServe and can be used with their "Outlook connector" to pretty much replicate the functionality of an Exchange server. I haven't actually seen it in action with Outlook, but it seemed to work well enough on the Mac and the web interfaces I've seen.
posted by scottreynen at 3:37 PM on June 11, 2007

I administer an Xserve on a mac network. It works well enough, but I'd have a hard time recommending it for this situation, particularly if they are cost sensitive.

File serving to windows clients via samba can be problematic. I don't know what Apple has done to Samba on their servers, but it routinely chokes and needs to be restarted at best and locks the machine up at worst. (It's worth pointing out that the Mandriva box hasn't had the same problems with Samba that the OSX box has).

The web serving stuff is pretty straightforward. I don't think that the admin tools are as robust as the MMC in IIS, but if the admins are comfortable setting up apache they should be OK. The fact that it is apache 1.3 something may be problematic, but upgrading is possible if necessary.

What I would recommend - Google Apps for email hosting (It's free!), a Linux box running a samba for local file serving - which will be far cheaper than either OSX or Windows. Even if you have some antipathy for google, offsite hosting is probably the way to go, IMO.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 4:14 PM on June 11, 2007

Also, I would note that Apple's webmail solution is that ultra dreadful SquirrelMail. Now, it's a neat free solution for dreamhost and whatnot, but compared to Outlook Web Access, it, well, blows nuts..

There isn't any educational pricing you can take advantage of? I'm not in the loop anymore, but I thought Microsoft had some serious discounts for primary schools.
posted by PissOnYourParade at 4:19 PM on June 11, 2007

The biggest hurdle you might run into is Exchange. If you're just using it for e-mail, then it's easy to replace. But if full Outlook compatibility is a must, the more Exchange features you use, the more of a hurdle it is to find a replacement.

We have a OS X server 10.4 box as a file server serving to 8 Macs and 30 Win XP clients via samba and have no problems.

Seconding the use of Google apps for e-mail. It's very nice and easy to manage.
posted by edjusted at 4:45 PM on June 11, 2007

I think there's an apple for every shoe, but as a consultant, I have a hard time recommending that someone switch away from Microsoft just because the sysadmin (usually me) has a wild hair up his ass.

If you're not good at administering (manually) email servers, then I wouldn't go for the XServe, as cool and shiny as they are. With 8 years of linux and BSD experience, I would have no problem ... but not even Apple has managed to make it nuts-easy to administer email and calendaring installations.

Plus, you've got the issue of having to migrate everyone away from Exchange/Outlook, stability issues ("The old one just worked!!! Bring it back! Apple SUCKS!") during the transition, and the eventual shooing out the door of the sysadmin with the wild hairs.

As much as it pains me (a Mac user and linux nut) to say it, I'd backpedal a little bit and take a hard look look at the numbers for all the servers and all the "shit happens" cases.
posted by SpecialK at 5:06 PM on June 11, 2007

I support and work with xserves in windows and mac environments. Mostly Mac obviously. If you are looking for a 10-20 seat replacement with exchange functionality, I would look at Kerio Mailserver. It has a killer webmail interface, supports activesync, and beats the pants off of the cyrus / postfix scripts for the OS X server.

It excels working with entourage on the mac side, and Kerio is on the CalDAV group also, so all those nice new fancy features you just saw in Leopard Mail client will work with Kerio in the future, such as the free / busy server, etc.

It also runs on Linux / Windows 2003 / OS X, so you don't have to deploy an xserve for it.

As someone who just did a windows network hosted by an OS X Server domain controller, it is not an easy task, you serious have to consider the path of the computers will be for the rest of the school. If they have decided to make this the switch off point for going to a mac setup, then I would definitely suggest an xserve, it makes administrating a lab of macs much easier.

I suggest whatever solution you go with, you get a contracted IT person to come in and set it up, train a point person, and go from there. (as a shameless plug, my company does this in the Seattle and Portland area, www.irisink.com ). We also do presales calls and demonstrations for clients.

Apple also has a try and buy program where you can get the xserve for a 30 day trial, and if you like it you can just buy it. I suggest any model should have atleast dual power supplies, applecare, apple maintenance ($1000, gets you leopard automagically, and any other OS updates in the next 36 months from purchase, pricing different for education) and dual drives in a raid 1.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:01 PM on June 12, 2007

Squirrelmail works just fine. There's also RoundCube Webmail.

The problem that I see will be the clients - if they're running Outlook & Exchange, that's one thing. Outlook SUCKS as an IMAP client.

An OS X Server isn't a bad choice. There's also Communigate Pro for email. It's a popular option and well supported.

I don't think that Google Apps is a good solution for a school. If your link goes down, you're dead in the water. If the box is local, you can still get work done and the staff can email each other.

Having a local iChat server might be nice.

Oh, and if this can wait a little while longer, 10.5 is supposed to have a nice iCal server built into it.
posted by drstein at 1:47 PM on June 12, 2007