Server Admin & SNow Leopard

Question

I recently updated my Macbook Pro to Snow Leopard. We have a Mac OS X server (10.4.8) and when i try to connect with Server Admin i get this message " Received an unexpected authentication failure. This may be caused by trying to connect to a server prior to version 10.5.8. If this is the ase, please install the latest ipdate of Mac OS X Server software and try to connect again."
We are unable to buy the software and update. And I need to manage the Server with Server Admin. Help!!

Answer 1

While the cost of upgrading hardware and software configurations is widely recognized, there are also costs involved with staying on older gear and older software.
If a site is planning to lock onto older software releases, then it is generally considered the site's responsibility to purchase enough hardware (servers, spares, etc) to maintain those requirements, or to make arraignments with a supplier or the vendor to provide services and support for duration of the installation; to reserve enough spare parts.
I regularly deal with enterprise-class computing gear that's a dozen or more years old, acquired from a well-known enterprise vendor, and newer hardware and component upgrades there are regularly not supported on older platforms, or newer platforms require newer software releases, or requires site-local customization work, or some combination of these. (I had problems a week or so ago simply because the mountings within the older 19" rack-mount cabinets differ, and the necessary rail-mounting kits simply aren't available.)
The deployments here can go for ten or twenty years and with few or no modifications, and that requirement requires acquiring and monitoring available spare parts and spare servers, and watching and resolving for failure patterns that might burn through the available spares.
Extending hardware support back a generation or three for newer gear also increases the testing and support matrix, and the associated costs. The vendor has more to test, is constrained around what can be upgraded, and there are the usual costs with maintaining the older gear. Those costs can and do get passed through to the customer, too, whether as vendor overhead costs or as reduced feature-sets, or both.