XServe and OS X Server

A proper mac and Windows server solution

For a long time Apple’s server solutions have been fairly half-baked. Appleshare IP really wasn’t a high-performance, high-availability system at all, due to the inherent instability of OS 9. However all this changed with OS X Server. Because its based on a BSD unix core, it has rock solid reliability. File-sharing performance is massively improved for both Mac, Windows and Unix clients. OS X Server provides file sharing via Appleshare, Samba, NFS and FTP, web services via Apache, WebDAV, MYSQL, email via Postfix, and Directory Services via DNS, DHCP, Open Directory and Kerberos.

Xserve – serious server iron

Xserve is a fully dedicated rack-mount server, featuring hot-swap drive bays, dual ethernet, PCI expansion for fibre-channel, quad ethernet, or a hardware RAID controller.

The Xserve was the last Apple machine to move to Intel processors, and it brings huge benefits. Now sporting 4 or 8 Core Nehalem processors it flies even faster. It also includes a built-in video card, so no more struggling to configure it remotely out of the box. The 3 drive bays now support 2TB drives for up to 6TB internal storage, it supports up to 48GB of RAM and includes two 16x PCI Express 2.0 slots as well.

With appropriate network hardware you can get 6Gb ethernet performance, more than enough for the busiest print or video production environment. What’s more, OS X Server can be configured for use in high-availablility environments via server redundancy, server failover, ethernet connection bonding and more.

Mac mini – for small workgroups and home offices

The Mac mini is tiny, but don’t let that fool you. It makes a more than competent file server for small offices and creative businesses. With 500GB of mirrored RAID storage out of the box, it provides a good grounding to build on. Add to it an external RAID like a Drobo and you have a fantastically cheap, powerful and expandable server solution.

XSAN – Serious SAN, sensible money

Used in conjunction with XSAN software, an Xserve, XRAID and fibre-switch can be used as a massively fast SAN, perfect for video-editing suites or high-bandwidth content creation industries. The combination of Xserve, XRAID and XSAN can also be used to create fault tolerate systems for critical data and processes.

OS X Server configuration services

Sweet-Apple can assist in determining hardware requirements for server installations, provide the hardware, and most crucially, install, configure and remotely manage your Mac OS X Server installation. Everything from basic file sharing configuration, through to DNS, DHCP, Mail, OpenDirectory, Kerberos, network home folders for hot-desking, high-performance network tweaking, backup and disaster recovery planning. We will support and troubleshoot existing installations providing adequate existing documentation is available.