The Licensing for Microsoft Windows requires a CAL for each user to connect to any MS server. So if the goal is to eliminate _all_ windows servers, you can eliminate the costs of the CALs.
My experience with OSX server as a Domain Controller is limited to Mac OS X Server 10.4, but I doubt it's changed much for windows clients: You get the same amount of functionality as you would running a Windows Domain controller on a Samba server. That equates to some very basic settings: Profile paths, Home folder paths and drive letters assigned, login scripts. Basically, a Windows NT level of functionality. There's nothing wrong about that, but you'll loose Active Directory and all it brings to the table (Group policy is the big one, really). If I were to recommend between a Windows server and an XServe for 150 windows clients, I'd go for a Windows server. The CALs are expensive, but the cost saving in hardware nearly catches up... and the functionality you gain from Windows Server is worth the difference. If you can, I'd wait for Windows Server 2008 R2... buy two copies and build 2 servers. Redundancy is your friend! --Matt Ross Ephrata School District ----- Original Message ----- From: Shawn [mailto:sh...@loprestohome.com] To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:ntsysad...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com] Sent: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:01:17 -0700 Subject: Apple vs Microsoft? > Does anyone here have any experience, good or bad, regarding the Apple > XSERVE being utilized to host email, data storage, open directory, etc as an > equivalent replacement for Microsoft Server? We are currently running SBS > 2003 and have 40 users, but will soon be upping that number to 150. My boss > insists that moving everything over to a Mac environment will be a better > long term move, but I am a bit hesitant without having some outside data to > back that up. > > I have been told that 150 users can be better managed on two XSERVE's than > on a Windows Active directory network, yet I have had a rough time finding > any direct comparisons. > > If any of you have experience running either a mixed environment with both > OS X Server and Windows Server or just a pure OS X environment w/ Mac > clients as well, I would be interested to hear what your take on this is. > > I would also be very interested to here from anyone that has done a > migration from Active directory to Open directory, along with any challenges > on the user end. What challenges did you face? Are there any specifics that > you can offer regarding stability, administration, etc? > > Thanks in advance for any input you can provide. > > Shawn > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
