{"id":41667,"date":"2017-07-12T11:29:38","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T16:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=41667"},"modified":"2018-01-31T11:35:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T17:35:43","slug":"mastering-macos-server-part-7-two-alternatives-to-running-your-own-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41667-mastering-macos-server-part-7-two-alternatives-to-running-your-own-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering macOS Server, Part 7: Two Alternatives to Running Your Own Server"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39749 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon.jpg 300w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon-132x120.png 132w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon-284x257.png 284w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon-190x172.png 190w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/osservericon-132x120@2x.png 264w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><strong>[Update 01\/31\/18:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a title=\"macOS Server Will Lose Many Services this Spring: Here Are Alternatives\" href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/43626-macos-server-will-lose-many-services-this-spring-here-are-alternatives\" rel=\"bookmark\">macOS Server Will Lose Many Services this Spring: Here Are Alternatives<\/a><strong>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the final&nbsp;in a series of articles&nbsp;about <a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?s=%22macOS+server%22\" target=\"_blank\">macOS Server<\/a> and how to set up the many services it can provide for small to medium-sized workgroups. What you may have discovered during the series is that there are a lot of decisions to be made and hidden costs to setting up and maintaining your own server. In this last post, I\u2019ll discuss two alternatives that can provide nearly equivalent services but without some of the issues that can make server setup and maintenance a hassle.<\/p>\n<p>In case you\u2019ve missed them, the previous posts in this series include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/39748-understanding-macos-server-part-1-background-and-setup\" target=\"_blank\">Part 1: Background and Setup<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/39838-understanding-macos-server-part-2-setting-up-macos-server-for-a-small-business\" target=\"_blank\">Part 2: Serving a Small Business<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/40910-understanding-macos-server-part-3-router-configuration-and-open-directory\" target=\"_blank\">Part 3: Router Configuration and Open Directory<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41025-mastering-macos-server-part-4-setting-up-file-sharing-and-wikis\" target=\"_blank\">Part 4: Setting Up File Sharing and Wikis<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41090-mastering-macos-server-part-5-mail-and-calendar-services\" target=\"_blank\">Part 5: Mail and Calendar Services<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41613-mastering-macos-server-part-6-contacts-and-time-machine\" target=\"_blank\">Part 6: Contacts and Time Machine<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Alternative 1: Colocation<\/strong><br \/>\nThe first alternative we\u2019ll talk about here is using Mac server colocation. What that means is that someone else can set up and maintain a macOS Server for you at another location, usually a secured data center. That location can be local, regional, or even international; I personally know of several Mac-based businesses that are based in Europe but use colocation services in the US.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41668\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41668\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41668\" src=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w.jpg\" alt=\"Mac minis and SAN storage at a Macstadium data center. Photo courtesy of Macstadium\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w.jpg 630w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-180x120.jpg 180w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-284x189.jpg 284w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-190x127.jpg 190w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-180x120@2x.jpg 360w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-284x189@2x.jpg 568w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Mac-mini-san-storage-630w-190x127@2x.jpg 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41668\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>(Mac minis and SAN storage at a Macstadium data center. Photo courtesy of Macstadium)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you\u2019ve already built a server and just want it in a more secure location than your own office or home, there are plenty of companies that can take your server and place it at their facility. Between 2005 and 2011, I had a number of <a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/search\/headless\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cheadless\u201d Mac mini servers<\/a> with which I ran a podcast hosting service, and those servers were 750 miles away from my office. To me and my clients at the time, it was as if the servers were sitting right next to me, and I could use screen sharing and Terminal commands to perform tasks.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the advantages of colocation include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Unlimited Internet bandwidth at the remote data center<\/li>\n<li>Customer support from macOS Server experts<\/li>\n<li>Better security (usually with guards, biometric entry to the data center, and data security appliances on the incoming Internet) and fire protection<\/li>\n<li>Conditioned and emergency power<\/li>\n<li>Dedicated static IP addresses<\/li>\n<li>Shared SAN storage<\/li>\n<li>Dedicated and expandable NAS storage<\/li>\n<li>24\/7 onsite support<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are actually several different \u201cflavors\u201d of colocation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your own server(s) in a data center<\/li>\n<li>A leased server(s) in a data center<\/li>\n<li>Space on a Mac Virtual Machine (VM) in a data center<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Who are the big providers in the Mac colocation world? For quite a few years, it has been Macminicolo, a company that basically came up with the idea of hosting racks of thousands of Mac minis. The company recently merged with MacStadium, which means that there are now three data centers jam-packed with Macs around the world \u2014 in Las Vegas, NV; Atlanta, GA; and Dublin, Ireland. The company apparently also looking at opening a fourth data center in Southeast Asia soon.<\/p>\n<p>Another provider is Mac Mini Vault, with Mac data centers in Milwaukee, WI and Phoenix, AZ. The company can also provide dedicated Mac Pros if you need a bit more power for your offsite server. In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, you can colocate one of your Mac mini or Mac Pro servers with Green Mini Host, or rent one.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_41669\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41669\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-41669\" src=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w.jpg\" alt=\"Racks full of Mac Pros. Photo courtesy of Macstadium\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w.jpg 630w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-180x120.jpg 180w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-284x189.jpg 284w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-190x127.jpg 190w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-180x120@2x.jpg 360w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-284x189@2x.jpg 568w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MacProRacks_630w-190x127@2x.jpg 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41669\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>(Racks full of Mac Pros. Photo courtesy of Macstadium.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Just want your Mac server in a data center? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colocationamerica.com\/colocation\/mac-mini-hosting.htm\">Colocation America<\/a> has eight data centers around the USA and will gladly host the Mac mini server you\u2019ve set up. Finally, Mac Mini World\u2019s datacenter in northeast Ohio has a staff that\u2019s very familiar with macOS and macOS Server, and can provide everything from a home for your Mac mini server to those VMs running on Macs I mentioned earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Note that the true \u201cI\u2019ll send my server to your datacenter\u201d services often require that you set up your own macOS Server, then ship it to them. If you or your IT department don\u2019t feel comfortable configuring&nbsp;the server, find a colocation service that can not only install and set up macOS Server, but all of the services you wish to have available as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alternative 2: The All-Cloud Solution<\/strong><br \/>\nNow, perhaps one question has been going through your mind as you\u2019ve read this complete series \u2014 couldn\u2019t I just use cloud-based services from a number of sources as an alternative to hosting my own server? The answer is a qualified \u201cYes\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-41674\" src=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1.png 500w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1-160x120.png 160w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1-284x213.png 284w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1-190x143.png 190w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1-160x120@2x.png 320w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/icloud-1-190x143@2x.png 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/>If you\u2019re looking at a small workgroup and don\u2019t care if your various services (email, calendar, contacts, etc\u2026) have a private domain associated with them that highlights your company name, then using something like Apple\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/icloud\/\" target=\"_blank\">iCloud<\/a> service could be a good solution.<\/p>\n<p>Each employee on your team will have email, cloud storage of documents, calendar, contacts, reminders, and notes synced to the cloud. For other requirements, such as web hosting, there are many providers that can act as web hosts and provide FTP uploads as well as other services like wikis.<\/p>\n<p>For companies and workgroups that wish to have an identity, Google\u2019s suite of services (<a href=\"https:\/\/gsuite.google.com\" target=\"_blank\">G Suite<\/a>) can be set up with a specific domain name and provide a number of different services. Mail, calendar, online messaging through Google+ and meetings through Hangouts, secure cloud storage and file sharing, a full set of applications, and more are available starting at $5 per month per user.<\/p>\n<p>For unlimited storage and archiving, that rate goes up to $10 per month per user. Although it\u2019s not an Apple solution, Google has provided apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad that work well with the Google solutions. As with Apple\u2019s solution, you\u2019ll also need to look at alternative web hosting services for custom websites, although Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/about\/?r=1-null_user\" target=\"_blank\">Blogger.com<\/a> \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/about\/?r=1-null_user\" target=\"_blank\">Blogspot.com<\/a> services can handle small business websites quite nicely.<\/p>\n<p>One other benefit of cloud services is that many of the cloud vendors have built in integrations that make it easy to pick and choose the best \u201cpieces\u201d from a number of sources to create a custom solution. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/?landing=dbv2\" target=\"_blank\">Dropbox<\/a> could be used for storage and file sharing for your group, <a href=\"https:\/\/slack.com\" target=\"_blank\">Slack<\/a> for collaboration and messaging, G Suite for the apps and mail, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s great about using cloud services is that you also have a very scalable solution. If you\u2019re working on a project that has a set lifetime, a team that will vary in size from one to thousands of people, and users using a variety of devices, then it may not make sense to invest in the infrastructure of setting up a server or set of servers. Instead, a combination of cloud services tied together with automation tools like <a href=\"https:\/\/zapier.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zapier<\/a> can grow as large as you need and you\u2019ll only pay during the lifetime of your project.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>That\u2019s all for this series! I hope you\u2019ve found it useful, that you\u2019ve been able to follow along and build your own macOS Server for testing, and that you have found that perhaps having your own workgroup or company server is a good idea. In the future, we\u2019ll provide information about updates to macOS Server and changes to how it operates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Update 01\/31\/18:&nbsp;macOS Server Will Lose Many Services this Spring: Here Are Alternatives] This is the final&nbsp;in a series of articles&nbsp;about macOS Server and how to set up the many services it can provide for small to medium-sized workgroups. What you may have discovered during the series is that there are a lot of decisions to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":41674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"class_list":["post-41667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-tips"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.2 (Yoast SEO v20.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Alternatives to Running Your Own macOS Server<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We discuss 2 alternatives that can provide nearly equivalent services to macOS server without some issues that can make server setup, maintenance a hassle.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41667-mastering-macos-server-part-7-two-alternatives-to-running-your-own-server\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mastering macOS Server, Part 7: Two Alternatives to Running Your Own Server\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We discuss 2 alternatives that can provide nearly equivalent services to macOS server without some issues that can make server setup, maintenance a hassle.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/41667-mastering-macos-server-part-7-two-alternatives-to-running-your-own-server\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rocket Yard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" 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