Apple Mini Server: Some IT Expertise Required

Just before the hol­i­days I invested in Apple’s new server offer­ing for small firms and work­groups, the Mac Mini Snow Leop­ard Server. It’s a sweet package.

For $999 you get a whisper-quiet, energy-efficient server not much larger than a paper­back book. The device comes with 4GB of RAM and a ter­abyte of built-in stor­age, plus an unlim­ited client license to Apple’s pow­er­ful server soft­ware (10.6.x Snow Leopard).

Apple claims this com­bi­na­tion of hard­ware and soft­ware can han­dle up to 25 con­cur­rent users. To han­dle more users would require more pow­er­ful hard­ware. I’ve been using it to serve a hand­ful of con­cur­rent users, and it’s plenty fast.

The server soft­ware comes pre­in­stalled. Sadly, I had to rein­stall the OS with phone-based help from an Apple­Care tech­ni­cian when the device refused to accept my ser­ial num­ber as valid. The 3-year extended war­ranty, which includes tech sup­port, is a very good value.

The device takes up no space at all. As promised, you hear noth­ing when it’s run­ning. It gen­er­ates no heat, and has a neg­li­gi­ble impact on the monthly elec­tri­cal bill. In this regard it’s a won­der­ful set-up for small firms, espe­cially cre­ative firms where peo­ple need to hear them­selves think, rather than be dis­tracted by loud whirring fans.

Great for End-Users

From the end-user’s per­spec­tive the server’s main fea­tures — blogs, wikis, cal­en­dars, etc. — all func­tion with Apple’s leg­endary sim­plic­ity. Com­pared to main­stream wikis I’ve used else­where, Apple’s approach is visu­ally ele­gant, espe­cially the fea­ture that pro­vides a “quick look” at doc­u­ments that are attached to bul­let points or sen­tences within the wiki. Apple appears to be “print­ing” your doc to PDF for­mat while the doc is being uploaded to the server. This means that in addi­tion to the file you can down­load from the wiki, you can zoom and pre­view key doc­u­ments even if their native appli­ca­tion does not run on the server or your end-user’s PC. Insert­ing hyper­links and media files is also very easy.

Hire an Expert to Con­fig­ure It

Be cau­tious. Don’t attempt to set up the device and con­fig­ure it with­out the aid of an IT pro­fes­sional, unless you under­stand all the ins-and-outs of TCP/IP pro­to­cols, DNS, LDAP direc­to­ries, root cer­tifi­cates, etc. Even if you get the impres­sion from Apple’s mar­ket­ing col­lat­eral that this is a “just add water” kind of prod­uct, don’t believe it. Server con­fig­u­ra­tion is not easy.

We needed help to con­fig­ure the port for­ward­ing details on our business-class Com­cast router, so our pub­lic fixed IP address would con­nect reli­ably to the server’s login page. Con­fig­ur­ing the TCP/IP pro­to­cols on the Com­cast router and the var­i­ous net­work­ing and user direc­to­ries on the server is not for the faint of heart. Even with the help of a net­work­ing vet­eran, we’ve had some glitches both inside and out­side our fire­wall. Some of these glitches can be resolved by reset­ting the router peri­od­i­cally, but we still don’t under­stand what’s dri­ving the problem.

I believe a tech­ni­cally savvy client who knows what she wants should expect to pay for at least a half-day of con­sul­ta­tion from a net­work spe­cial­ist who is also an Apple spe­cial­ist. Some­one who is pri­mar­ily a Win­dows server expert will prob­a­bly take even longer, although the details to be con­fig­ured are generic and not spe­cific to the Mac server OS.

If the small busi­ness owner is not tech­ni­cally savvy, even more time is likely to be required to con­fig­ure the server prop­erly — eas­ily a day or more. This sce­nario will occur if the only way the busi­ness owner knows what she wants is by hands-on trial and dis­cov­ery of what doesn’t work for her firm.

The issues I’m describ­ing are inde­pen­dent of the server OS; you’d face the same thing with Linux or Win­dows servers, and would prob­a­bly have to pay for even more hours to con­fig­ure the net­work­ing properly.

My main point here is to man­age expec­ta­tions prop­erly. Just because the device is small, cute and car­ries an Apple logo does not mean you should expect to set up and con­fig­ure this server with­out an expert’s help.

But once you do, it’s very sweet. I love its wiki capa­bil­i­ties in par­tic­u­lar, and look for­ward to shar­ing this form of col­lab­o­ra­tion with clients.

Tagged as: Apple, Comcast, MacMini, Snow Leopard server

Revised on February 7, 2010