Hands-On Report--Apple iServices Training, Mac OS X Server Essentials

Last week we had the opportunity to take this course at Apple's Market Center in Reston, VA. Our instructor was Tor Manders, Vice President of Masslight, who is under contract to Apple iServices. He is a former NeXTStep developer, a specialist in object-oriented design and engineering for software to support business and scientific applications and very knowledgeable about Mac OS X Server.

The course itself did not require one to know any Unix. However, a very good familiarity with Mac OS X was needed. There is a companion course on Mac OS X Administration that provides everything that is needed if one os not already intimately familiar with Mac OS X. That course covers use of Mac OS X's Terminal, NetInfo Manager, ProcessViewer and Console applications which is very useful information but not essential for the Mac OS X Server course. We are intimately familiar with Mac OS X but have only passing knowledge of those applications and were able to follow the course with little difficulty. However, we recommend the Mac OS X Administration course to get the most out of the Server course.

Each student was assigned a Power Mac G4 for the server and an iBook (Dual USB) as the client. The three-day course covered everything about Mac OS X Server: Installation and setup, Network services, Users and Groups, File systems and services, Web services, Mail services, Printing services, Processes, Macintosh Manager, NetBoot, NetInfo and Directory services. Each section consisted of a lecture, lab exercise and discussion. There was plenty of time to complete each lab exercise and to receive personal attention from the instructor as needed.

We were surprised at how easy it was to learn all of these functions. Except for creating DNS tables, setting up and administering each service consisted mostly of just clicking the right tabs and buttons. Mac OS X Server's fabulous GUI interface has taken almost all of the mystery and heavy labor out of setting up and administering a Unix server and its clients. We came out of the course with the ability to set up and run our own server operation.

We highly recommend Apple's Mac OS X Server Essentials course. Mac OS X Server is so easy to use that it just may take over the Unix world.