Who uses Mac OS X Server and why? [closed]

Edit, as this post still gathers the occasional vote: All of the points below are now irrelevant. With no real Mac Server hardware and the Server software being just a cheap add-on to the client OS X with dramatically limited usability and functionality, newer OS X server versions (10.7+) can't be reasonably used beyond small workgroups, preferentially in Mac-only shops.

I was about to write an endless essay about the pro's and con's, but let's make it short instead.

• MacOS Server offers major advantages if you use Mac clients in you network. It allows for an extremely easy creation of features comparable to Win group policies for Mac clients, much more easy then to do the same for Win clients on a Windows server.
• Naturally, it also has full support for all the small Mac client specifics like resource forks, finder attributes and stuff like that which all have the potential to become a real PITA if you use a Win or Linux server instead. Telling your users you don't support these might be possible, but it also might break some applications.
• In my experience, general administration is much more easy than on any Linux system and also than on Windows, at least for smallish groups. Scaling out is another thing, but this requires detailed knowledge on any platform. At least with simple requirements, the promise of not needing a pro admin is much more realistic for a Mac only shop than for any other platform.
• Even if you plan to run a Win clients only or mixed Win/Mac environment with a Linux server and Samba in a 10 to 20 user environment without a pro admin, I would recommend using MacoS Server in many cases, as it shields all those implicit complexities behind an really easy to use GUI.
• While this is not the subject of the question, even being more expensive than Windows clients for the initial purchase, Macs have a much lower TCO in many environments, if users would stop thinking in brands and reputations and instead start to learn what the real differences and pros/cons are, beyond the logo and the more or less fancy GUIs.

That said, MacOS Server has some drawbacks, of course.

• First, while certainly possible, it is not really cut out to scale to the enterprise, and doing so will require intimate knowledge of the system.
• Also, while Apple used many standard open source software packages to create the system, they often decided to do things a little bit differently than others, sometimes for no apparent reason. This might require working around some issues (not storing the password in the LDAP database being a prime example).
• If you know your way around Linux, have more Win/Linux than Mac clients and can live with some restrictions on the Mac side, a Linux server might indeed be cheaper.
• Integrating MacOS Server into a larger environment can sometimes be quite difficult.
• Often, software/hardware packages are not certified for MacOS, leaving you without support if needed. I currently experience this while planning a SAN.

All in all, I can only recommend to really learn what the different architectures offer and what your requirements are and make a decision based on that. A boss who just wants to add a few Macs to the network for no other reason that to be hip and have a Mac, without thinking about the consequences is the same kind of idiot than the admin who shuns everything Apple because "Apple is for fanboys only", without knowing anything about the platform.

I work at a university and we use it to run Deploy Studio for imaging our Mac labs, as well as for netboot, which works hand in hand with Deploy Studio. It is also our Open Directory server so that the Macs can be bound to AD and OD. AD will do credential verification and issue Kerberos tickets, and OD controls those pesky Mac-only settings that Group Policy doesn't apply to.

To add an answer about the groupware functionality asked in the comment by Marie:

This is still a very new development, and honestly something I really don't understand where Apple is heading with.

First, I have to admit that I don't yet really use MacOS iCal server, and also have very limited experience with any other groupware solution, both as user and admin. Nevertheless, my impression from toying around:

• Mail is offered by Postfix/Cyrus on 10.5 (switching to Postfix/Dovecot on 10.6) with SquirrelMail as web interface. With the standard admin tools, all you can do is adding a mail account to a user and decide wether this is forwared to another address. Everything beyond is hand work, like aliases, sieve filtering, shared mailboxes and folder ACLs for IMAP.

• There is only a very thin layer of integration between Mail.app and calendaring, basically limited to sending invitations. Squirrelmail stands completely on its own, without any integration into the system at all, also featuring a hopelessly outdated and clunky UI.

• Calendaring is pretty basic as well. The system offers some standard features like invitation of other users on the server, free/busy checking for invitees and resources and the like. This is offered on two different levels, for users and for workgroups. Integration with the iCal desktop app is pretty tight for the user calendaring, but for groups, its difficult and completely unintuitive to add, and restricted to read only (and I am not sure if it is used at all in free/busy scheduling). Calendar sharing and delegation is possible, but has a somewhat broad permission scheme.

• The web interface is quite nice to use (much better than Squirrelmail), offering basic calendaring, blogs and wikis, again on two separate levels for users and workgroups, with little integration between the two levels.

• Contacts are handled exclusively by the desktop adressbook app, with no sharing at all between users. 10.6 will offer an adressbook server, but as far as I understand it, this is about syncing addressbooks between different computers, like iSync, not about sharing. Adressbook can read LDAP trees, but has no way of modifying entries in there.

All in all, groupware in OS X Server is a collection of loosely integrated pieces. It doesn't offer very much, but what is offers is mostly easy to use and administer, and might be just enough for what Apple appears to consider it's typical server customers: Small creative agencies and the like. If you want more, every major groupware suite (Exchange, Zimbra, OX etc) will put Apples solution to shame.

We have one where I work, installed before I started there. It's used only as a file server for the graphic artists, who of course use Macs. While it's a magnificent machine it's also a complete waste of resources as there is no reason the files couldn't be stored on the main Windows file server (I've been overruled). I'm sure there are those who use a Mac server to advantage but I'm sorry to say we don't.