I'm taking a certification course this summer for Mac OS X Server, but I know very little about it at the moment. Is there an option to limit the amount of space users get (although hard drive space is not a problem for me), am I able to set up additional emails for my domain (every time I want a new email, I have to pay about a dollar to my hosting company), etc. Thanks for your help!
Mac OS X Server-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.7)
"Cloud" is an increasingly generic phrase, and can cover most anything that a marketeer can manage to stretch the term to reference.
What might you be looking to host?
The mail service within Mac OS X Server can maintain mail storage quotas, and you can also use Server Admin to enable a generic disk quota system within HFS+ itself.
As for costs, a dollar an email address? Compare that with US$1,000 for an entry-level Mac Mini Server plus power and cooling, plus static-IP networking and the requisite public DNS services, plus hardware maintenance, plus backups and related hardware, plus the usual on-going monitoring and the occasional hassles? (How many addresses are you looking to add?)
I mean allowing users to access movies and stuff from their Mac... In the "cloud". I need the server anyway to power the network side of my iOS apps, but I'd much rather have the Mac Mini Server used for everything it offers instead of just having a MySQL database and running simple PHP scripts. Thanks for your help!
Jack Humphries wrote:
I'm taking a certification course this summer for Mac OS X Server, but I know very little about it at the moment.
Then maybe you should put that off.
Is there an option to limit the amount of space users get (although hard drive space is not a problem for me)
Yes: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.6/en/fse71f91e6.html
I able to set up additional emails for my domain (every time I want a new email, I have to pay about a dollar to my hosting company), etc.
MacOS X Server and hosting companies have nothing to do with each other. You could setup a co-location service (for around $100/month) and send them your MacOS X Server machine, but then you won't haven't have to pay them any additional money.
I mean allowing users to access movies and stuff from their Mac...
That's largely constrained by your available Internet network bandwidth.
In the "cloud".
I've heard that term to mean...
"Cloud" = "client-server computing"
"Cloud" = "Service Bureau"
"Cloud" = "JSON or AJAX"
"Cloud" = "Co-Lo"
"Cloud" = "Amazon-like Hosted Services"
Again... The term is largely and unfortunately meaningless in a discussion, because everybody has their own definition of what it means (to them). The marketeers will particularly prefer to surround it with what can be rather magical thinking, unfortunately.
I need the server anyway to power the network side of my iOS apps, but I'd much rather have the Mac Mini Server used for everything it offers instead of just having a MySQL database and running simple PHP scripts.
It'll work for that. Co-lo is a good option here, too, as that can avoid network bandwidth constraints.
Stuff like typical mail services and iChat text chat don't need much bandwidth, either.
If you're hosting small stuff for a few folks and maybe one or two dinky-window video streams, then a typical DSL connection can work. If you're hosting a whole lot of video (as is common with some definitions of "cloud" services), then you'll tend to slam into the network pipeline. A Mac Mini Server can run three or four full-HD video streams over Gigabit Ethernet reliably, but'll hit the wall if you tried that same transfer over a DSL link. (And with DSL (ADSL), the uplink bandwidth can be low, and sometimes the associated latency can be large.
I've had a single iChat video session and a parallel screen sharing session get really choppy on a mid-grade DSL line, too.
Is Mac OS X Server ideal for hosting cloud services?
