| Friday, October 24, 2003 |
15:45 - Hella cool
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/
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I've managed to miss out completely on what the real big news with 10.3 is: Panther Server. While the consumer OS is definitely very much souped-up, I've just been looking through the various pages for Panther Server, and it's way more impressively redeveloped. In fact, it's now apparently to the level where Apple is pushing it as a total replacement for Windows and UNIX servers-- even in a totally Windows-based network.
It's got complete Windows-network functionality, with primary controller abilities, single sign-on, roaming network home directories, and desktop access control for all your machines; account management for Windows, Kerberos, directory replication, Active Directory compatibility, and diskless NetBoot.
And they've taken all the other UNIX-y stuff and wrapped it all up together into a single big, rich "Server Admin" application, which used to have just the big five major server functions (Web, E-mail, FTP, and so on). Now it's got dozens of services, all GUI-fied. Mailman. Tomcat. Apache (1.3 and 2.0). MySQL. PHP. Postfix with RBL and SSL and spam/virus filtering. Webmail. And all the QuickTime streaming stuff.
Then there's all the GUI-fied networking functions. Firewall (IPFW). VPN. DNS. DHCP. NAT. And this is all unified into the same Server Admin app, which looks from the screenshots to be an absolute joy to use. If I were in IT, I'd be wiping drool out of my lap right now. ...Wait. Be right back.
This is designed to be a better Windows server than Windows, and a better UNIX server than UNIX. I don't see much that they left out.
Someone told me a while ago that "Panther Server is the first Mac OS X Server version that really surpasses traditional UNIX in functionality and robustness." If these screenshots are any indication, it's showing them what its heels look like.
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Brian Tiemann
