Apple OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server

A tidied up version of a collection of posts on MacTalk.com.au. This thread, for reference. 

I’ve been trying to find info on Snow Leopard Server for a while, as it seems pretty interesting from a few perspectives, even for individuals.

My main interest is as to whether Snow Leopard Server is a possible replacement for the pair of Mobile Me memberships in our house (maybe more), used mainly to keep a few Macs and some iPhones in sync. 

I’m happy to be proven wrong here, but to my mind an investment of ~US$500 for Snow Leopard Server (10 client licence, to be run on an existing Mini, so no HW cost) compares favourably with a 2x ~US$99 / year recurring cost. The simple maths is that for the two of us, it’ll pay for itself in 2.5 years. Add my brother, plus my sister in law and my Dad with their iPhones and multiple Macs, and that cost is run down in a year. Oh, and this works if I value my time at no more than AU$0/hr…

Fine, fine, sure …as long as SLS can do the important bits of what Mobile Me can do. It doesn’t have to do everything Mobile Me does, just the important bits.

From what I’ve found through Googling, trawling through various Mac-focussed sites (including Apple), Apple is pitching Snow Leopard Server with features such as (the following are cribbed from from the aforementioned Apple site link, which is caveated “All features on this page are subject to change.”, of course.).
Bolded emphasis is mine.

Mail Server
Mac OS X Server’s open standards-based mail service is the ideal server for small businesses or companies looking to bring email in-house. Snow Leopard Server dramatically increases its performance and scalability with an overhauled engine designed to handle thousands of simultaneous connections. Mail services have been enhanced to include server-side email rules and vacation messages.

iCal Server 2
iCal Server, a calendaring and scheduling service based on open standards, was the first commercial CalDAV calendar server. Snow Leopard Server follows up with the next major release of iCal Server, which includes group and shared calendars, push notifications, the ability to send email invitations to non-iCal Server users, and a browser-based application that lets users access their calendars on the web when they’re away from their Mac.

Remote Access
Secure remote access to your business network has never been more critical than in today’s increasingly mobile world. Snow Leopard Server delivers push notifications to mobile users outside your firewall, and a proxy service gives them secure remote access to email, address book contacts, calendars, and select internal websites.

Address Book Server
Introducing the first open standards-based Address Book Server, Snow Leopard Server makes it easier than ever to share contacts across multiple computers. Based on the emerging CardDAV specification, which uses WebDAV to exchange vCards, Address Book Server lets users share personal and group contacts across multiple computers and remotely access contact information without the schema limitations and security issues associated with LDAP.

Addressing just the bits I’ve bolded, this suggests to my fevered imagination that SLS might be ‘Mobile Me For Enterprise’? I’m not the one who coined that phrase, but it kinda fits. 

 

Mail Server – ‘bring email in-house’

So, perhaps I can host my own mailserver, using my own domain(s), and not have to have an @me.com email address to get push email to my iPhone? I know, I know, there’s no mention of Push mail in the Apple blurb, but…

 

iCal Server – ‘push notifications’

…there you are!

 

Remote Access – ‘delivers push notifications to mobile users outside your firewall’

…and there we have the ‘p’ word again. In conjunction with ‘mobile users’, forsooth!

 

Now, a little more generally:

 

Push Notification seems to be tied to Snow Leopard Server

See Apple Insider’s commentary and analysis here, with page 2 here. The article also makes some interesting (YMMV!) incidental points regarding Push Notification Server and “Snow Leopard’s Mail, iCal, and Address Book … gaining high profile support for Exchange Server messaging, they’re also being updated to support open push messaging with Apple’s own Snow Leopard Server. Rather than being based on EAS, Apple’s own server push products are based on interoperable, open standards, the same as PNS.”.

 

It looks like ZFS support will initially be integrated into Snow Leopard Server

…and not the desktop OS X. Whilst Apple Insider seems to make sense at first with their point that Apple has a tendency to introduce some things in the Server version of the OS first, and then trickle them down later to the more consumer-oriented desktop version, I must admit to wondering how many server admins would be happy being guinea pigs…

 

For a different take on things, take a look at AppleInsider | Snow Leopard Server to ramp up scalability and performance.

 

Key points (much snipperage, read the full article for the details):

Migration to Dovecot for email services
In Snow Leopard Server, Apple will now be using Dovecot for POP and IMAP email services.    

According to the Dovecot project’s web site, the software is also “among the highest performing IMAP servers,” using self optimizing, transparent indexing of mail folders that support modification by multiple concurrent users. The software also supports IMAP extensions including IDLE push notifications, and provides plugins for handling ACL support and quota limitations. Apple is also expect to tout improvements of its own, including support for server side email rules and vacation messages.

OK, sounds like that’s covered an inbuilt Push Email server. Next…

Address Book Server strips contacts from LDAP   While Apple uses LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) in Open Directory for managing network users, a new Address Book Server in Snow Leopard Server is reported to employ a different system to allow users on the network to share their personal and group contacts across multiple computers on the network. 

Similar to iCal Server, which debuted in Leopard Server, the new Address Book Server will make use of extensions to WebDAV, a protocol developed to make web servers accommodate both read and write operations. Both iCal Server and Address Book Server act as specialized web servers handling specific types of files, with iCal Server using CalDAV to manage event data, and Address Book Server using the CardDAV specification to manage contacts.

This enables Snow Leopard Server to support the rich contact records supported in Address Book without running into the schema limitations and security issues related to LDAP. Along with iCal Server and the mail services Apple provides using Dovecot, this will give Snow Leopard Server the integrated email, contacts, and calendar of Exchange without the cost of Exchange, or its steep resource demands related to its massive, specialized email database architecture.

OK, an all-encompassing third party statement, that I read as “Woohoo, Exchange for the rest of us”. Next!

iPhone-savvy Wiki services and remote access   

Along with sending push notifications to mobile users outside the company’s local network, Snow Leopard Server also enables mobile access for setting up secure incoming connections to remote users, providing them with proxy service access to their corporate email and intranet websites.

Keepin’ the dream alive for a Mac Mini-based Snow Leopard Server to replace a few Mobile Me accounts and act as a file server. Now all I need some some skills so I can run it…

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