[Optic]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the reply – I appreciate it.

I’ll try and address a few of your points!

I didn’t mean to imply that we would not be introducing any Mac OS X Server based systems. We have several Mac Xserve machines on order (3 or 4) to perform various roles – including the full Casper Suite, ARD, kerberized printing, Wiki and podcast servers, Final Cut server etc. I totally agree that using native Mac stuff is the way to go and that is why I am not that interested in things like ADmitMac, Centrify etc. I do not want to force the Macs to work with Group Policy or anything like that. I want them to do their own thing natively. I’m not scared of learning new things. 🙂

My question was specifically about whether to use OD or whether to update the schema in AD to store the MCX XML data. As far as I can tell, both are really still “native” in the sense that I’d still be using Workgroup Manager to create the MCX XML blobs – the only difference is where they are stored. From a technical point of view, it seems like both methods essentially do exactly the same thing. I’m not sure that OD “adds any value” – it just seems to be a second directory to store the MCX XML blob when it could be in AD. If there is other value that OD adds then please point it out to me as that is exactly what I am looking for!

We already have a good relationship with Apple and we’ve spoken to “solutions architects” and all the fun that goes along with that. 🙂 They do say “install OD” and of course I knew that they would – and I’m sure Microsoft would tell me not to install OD. 🙂 It doesn’t hurt to ask a wider community like this to try and get a more unbiased technical appraisal. I was already leaning towards using OD anyway but I am still not sure “why”. I’d like to be able to say “I chose to use OD instead of extending my AD schema because it gave me X” but so far I am not exactly sure what X is!

As I’ve said – I totally agree that the Mac people will be asking for various services and I have no interest in forcing them to use the Windows boxes if Mac OS X Server makes more sense. The AD/OD question is a separate question and I’m looking for solid technical reasons why I should introduce OD (which I’m already pretty sure that I will do).

Incidentally – I’ve already done both in my lab environment (AD schema extension and dual directory) and have so far found both to be much the same. When you said you would use OD because it gives me some “flexibility on services” what do you mean by that? Were you referring to things that I can actually do with OD specifically (and if so, what)? Or were you just referring to the fact that I would have an OS X Server system which I could use for other things (which I will have anyway)?

Thanks again!

Cheers,
David

[Author]

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