Apple’s Xserve is a very popular choice of server for Mac workgroups. However, it is not always the preferred (or indeed right) choice for everyone. 

If you find yourself in this category and want/need to keep your servers Windows-based then I recommend you take a look at ExtremeZ-IP from Group Logic.

ExtremeZ-IP is a great product; you install it on Windows Server (works with clusters and 2008 too) and it instantly removes the pain of collaborating with PC users.

It’s 150x faster than Services for Macintosh (SFM), which in itself is quicker than the (seriously slow) Mac OS X SMB Client.  It uses the latest version of the Apple File Protocol (AFP) enabling 10.5 users to retain all of their permissions and, most useful of all, it gets rid of all those AppleDouble (._) files.

If you administer an Active Directory (AD) Domain you will be interested to hear that it fully supports AD Authentication and Security.  This includes Disk Quotas, Home Directories Access Control Lists (ACLs) and password expiration.

If you’re lost in all this jargon then you can read exactly what ExtremeZ-IP does in Group Logic's whitepaper, but take it from me, if you have to share data amongst Macs & PCs on a Windows Server this product is a godsend.

The best news is that ExtremeZ-IP is a real bargain at only £916.95 for a 10-user Client File & Print Server (exVAT).

Click here for a trial version of ExtremeZ-IP.