OSX Server.

[wfoster]

Hello,

I have a got a ton to talk about and a lot of questions to ask, sorry if some of my questions are brief. I am in a dilemma, my Dad is going to be starting his own company and wants me to deal with the whole IT side of things.

He would like to have a Mac as a server which can handle all information like his colleagues contacts, mail messages and calendar. But he would possibly like to be able to access all this information from a Windows machine if he needed too. Would he be able to access it all from Windows in a program like Microsoft Outlook?

If I were to run OSX Server on my MacBook, can I then buy a Mac Pro a few months down the line then put the OSX Server on my Mac Pro then put normal Leopard back on my MacBook but without buying another OSX Server disc for the Mac Pro?

With the OSX server, can everything that is on the different client workstations get automatically saved to the server?


Thank you, more questions may arise soon so make do with these. Thank you again in advance.
~Wesley

 

[steviec]

answers in italic/bold below

Hello,

I have a got a ton to talk about and a lot of questions to ask, sorry if some of my questions are brief. I am in a dilemma, my Dad is going to be starting his own company and wants me to deal with the whole IT side of things.

He would like to have a Mac as a server which can handle all information like his colleagues contacts, mail messages and calendar. But he would possibly like to be able to access all this information from a Windows machine if he needed too. Would he be able to access it all from Windows in a program like Microsoft Outlook?

Yes you can, once you are running the mail process any computer running any OS would be able to access the mail store

If I were to run OSX Server on my MacBook, can I then buy a Mac Pro a few months down the line then put the OSX Server on my Mac Pro then put normal Leopard back on my MacBook but without buying another OSX Server disc for the Mac Pro?

Yes, you could use your Server disk on the Mac Pro - and reinstall your MacBook with the disk that it came with -

With the OSX server, can everything that is on the different client workstations get automatically saved to the server?

If you mean that you want to backup the clients to the server then yes - Server comes with a utility called Mobility - In theory this backs up your clients to the server at predefined times and/or during logon/logoff. However many people have experienced issues so your mileage may vary.


Thank you, more questions may arise soon so make do with these. Thank you again in advance.
~Wesley

 

[wfoster]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I have another question

With the Remote Desktop feature, can I remote desktop Windows computers or only Macs?

 

[Sky Blue]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I have another question

With the Remote Desktop feature, can I remote desktop Windows computers or only Macs?

You can only add clients that are running the ARD client, which is OS X only. However, both Windows and OS X support VNC (10.5 does right out of the box), so if you've only got a couple computers, I'd skip the cost of ARD.

 

[wfoster]

Ah I see now.

Say I wanted to add a file to a Windows PC desktop through Automators workflow, would that work? So would Automator commands still work on Windows PC? Like being able to shut them down or able to send them files.

 

[Sky Blue]

Well, you could share out a folder on the PC and copy files to it from OS X, but you wouldn't be able to shut them down without connecting to the desktop with vnc.

 

[wfoster]

Can I still use Automator to do stuff with the computer though?

Also, how do I connect all these computers to the server?

 

[Sky Blue]

Can I still use Automator to do stuff with the computer though?

with Windows? No.

 

[wfoster]

So what can I do with the OS X server and a Windows PC?