Company Server Advise

kilvano · 20 Jun 2008 at 20:39

Ok so here goes....

I work for a design studio in Vancouver which has a growing marketing team and run all Mac hardware. We have about 10 MacBooks, 8 iMacs and a couple of MacBook Pros with Apple Cinema Displays.

We use an XServe server for internet sharing and file storage with ext hard drives for back up.

For email...everyone uses the ISP pop server and email remains on the server for 30 days. This means if someone loses a laptop....the emails are gone too. Also mean no sharing of email and stuff.
For calendar...well everyone keeps a local copy and so no sharing of that either.
For contacts...the same. Local copy and no LDAP or anything like that.

Everyone has Office 2008 and the managers have blackberry's which i assume use the pop server too. We are all moving to iPhones on July 11th.

What we want:-

[*]Calendar Sharing
[*]Sync mail, contact and calendar on Mac & iPhone without cables
[*]Remote access as lots of our guys work from home and other offices
Web access to mail would be nice but not a priority
Company contact directory
Backup of email/calendar/contact in case laptop is stolen/damaged

I guess what I'm asking is, if i want an exchange server or something like that would we need to put in a windows box and will the macs/entourage operate correctly with it?

Is there a mac alternative (not mobileme as it doesn't allow custom domain names)?

Thanks
Chris

Doug · 21 Jun 2008 at 00:15

Go to apple.com/server/macosx and look through the tutorials. And check the Apple podcast "Apple Quick Tour of Leopard Server" on iTunes.

iCal Server will sort out your Calendar sharing, you should be able to set up an IMAP Mail server, and Directory should sort out your company-wide contacts.

That said, I don't think you'll be able to set up over-the-air iPhone synching without MobileMe or an Exchange server.

MagicBoy · 22 Jun 2008 at 01:26

Doug said:
That said, I don't think you'll be able to set up over-the-air iPhone synching without MobileMe or an Exchange server.

Sounds about right. Entourage 2008 still doesn't use proper Exchange connectivity (and probably never will as they are part of the Windows MAPI), however it uses WebDAV (as used for Outlook Web Access). It's improved over previous versions as essential stuff like out of office is now supported.

I don't think MobileMe is an option as it doesn't do shared calendars

wij · 22 Jun 2008 at 11:22

For webmail you could run something like roundcube http://roundcube.net/ on the xServer that would give you a web mail client.

LordSplodge · 22 Jun 2008 at 12:31

OS X Leopard Server should give you what you need with a few tweaks and third party apps.

Calendar Sharing - built in.
IMAP/Pop3 - built in
Web Server - Apache - Built in, so Web Mail isn't a problem nor is having a company contact directory.
VPN - built in
Push email and Calendars are a problem for the short term as you would have to wait until Snow Leopard Server for this functionality to be built in. Until then you could either go with having to plug in when near a computer or use the web/imap front end whilst out and about or knock up a Linux box that will push your email out.

You really don't need Exchange and all the associated costs, especially in a Mac only environment. Just fudge the push requirement for a while until Snow Leopard.

Also MobileMe has not be confirmed either way with regards to your own Domain. Seeing as .Mac did it I am placing my money on MobileMe doing it too.