Another Newbie, how can Mac OSX Server help my School?

Question

Hi all, the school where i work has just taken delivery of 11 brand new macs. 8 iMacs, 2 MBP's and a mini. What i'm interested to know and if anybody is just prepared to bullet point, is how we can really benefit from this software.
Clearly it's going to be tricky administering 11 macs individually, so maybe sacrifice the mini to become the server. Heres some basic questions and if anybody has any other comments they can add from experience i can approach the school with my findings?
1) Can multiple third party software installations be initiated. i.e. we have Adobe CS3 can a multiple install be initiated over the network or would all machines have to be updated individually.
2) A big concern is storage, if a server is used can files be stored locally on the machines or would they have to be stored on the server, Xserve isn't on the cards unfortunately. Is it like a windows server where the profile is stored on the server and then just downloaded to the appropriate machine. For the meantime we ideally need to store locally or on firewire drives to keep storage issues to a minimum. It's no problem making students stick to the same mac if we can make this happen.
3) Could backups be initiated from all machines to some sort of storage facility.
4) I'm guessing it's easy to lock machines down, it seems very easy to do on standard OSX so i'm guessing it would be even easier on server.
Being a school i would be grateful for any advice or recommendations on how administering this small network would be easiest done. I'm an experienced mac user but no in a network scenario, i am however keen to learn.
Thanks in Advance

Answer 1

Hi, I'll give a go at answering your questions.
First, how tricky it will be to administer 11 macs individually truly depends on your users. I've setup offices where the employees were intelligent people who weren't interested in hacking around on their machines, they just did their work. All their user accounts had admin privileges (along with an admin account on each machine that only the appropriate people knew the password for) so they could easily change preferences and do updates, etc. I barely had a problem with them. If you have a group who are all into surfing naughty bits and bittorrenting and other things, then you'll need to lock them down. If you are going to lock them down, you can still do it without the aid of a server by having an admin account on each machine, but you will have to touch each machine periodically to install updates and such. If you do go with server, then you can manage a lot more centrally. By the nature of you having 11 machines and the limit of OS X client of only 10 file sharing connections at a time, you're almost forced into OS X Server and the Unlimited version at that.
1) Yes you can initiate software installations simultaneously, but it will require you to capture and package those installations, and use something along the lines of FileWave, radmind, Apple Remote Desktop, etc. to perform the push. For the number of users you're dealing with, it's probably much easier to host the installer on the network, and screen control each system and run the install (along with entering the serial numbers for each one). Any future updates could be easily performed with a terminal script and access to the updater files.
2) You can store your files anywhere you want, locally or on the server (or even on a NAS). Obviously it makes sense to host them on the server (or other central location) if they are collaborative files (ie., everyone works on them or needs to see them). Your question about the windows profiles doesn't make sense with the storage part, but you can choose how to run your server/client model. You can have roaming profiles where the users' home directories are stored on the server and they can login from any machine. Or you can have individual machines and the server only authenticates the user for access to mail/file/whatever services.
3) Yes. Either by using Time Machine if it gets fixed in 10.5.2, Retrospect (which I don't trust and haven't for years), rsync (which is free and built into the OS and is cross platform so you could even back up Windows clients), or some other commercial client like PresSTORE.
4) Yes, as I stated above you can lock down the client machines and of course server can be locked down to avoid people from messing it up.
I know you mentioned an Xserve isn't an option, but how about a MacPro tower? In your situation, I would setup a MacPro with a single 2.8Ghz Quad core chip, Unlimited MacOS X Server, 2GB RAM, and 2 x 500 GB SATA drives for $3648 (cheaper if you get the drives from elsewhere). If there's the chance you could migrate other school services to the new server (email, websites, shared calendar, jabber server, etc.) you could upgrade the processor and memory (RAM can also be had cheaper from a 3rd party). You setup the two drives in a mirror RAID for fault protection and it would contain your OS and your file shares. Then get 2 external firewire drives, at least 500 GB each. Configure your network backups (and the server itself) to backup to an external drive, leave it attached for a week, and at the end of the week, eject the drive, disconnect it, and plug in the other drive (both should be named the same). Then take the first drive off-site (to another building on campus, etc.). Repeat every week. This gives you a rotating off-site backup. If even that is not an option, the mini could be the server, but you definitely want to max the RAM, and buy one of those nice mirrored RAID enclosures from OWC as your main drive, along with the 2 externals for rotating backup.
I hope that's answered some of your questions, feel free to ask more if need be. May I ask where you are located? If by some amazing chance we're close by, I might be more of a help. Take care and good luck.
Jeff