As teacher and college faculty members pack up their classrooms for the summer , educational IT staffers face the prospect of ordering young equipment and software — and planning how to deploy new calculator and redeploy existing workstations . Typically , this time of year is spend look back budget and how to get the most blast for a school ’s IT clam , as well as how best to apportion resourcefulness throughout schoolroom and labs this fall .
With the comer this year of Apple ’s Intel - free-base Macs , those calculations involve a new solidifying of motion — the same kinds of questions endeavour face on an ongoing basis .
Typically , Mac - centric IT staff member merely focus on replacing the old Macs on hand — either directly or by supersede their high - end Macs and allow those trickle down to replace slightly older models until the very oldest are phased out . With Mac OS X ’s extremely portable nature , system administrators need not necessarily build up new deployment disk images for those new Macs because the old look-alike will normally boot most Mac models ( although some update and fine-tune may be needed ) .
However , Intel - found Macs — which now include everything but Apple ’s top - end desktop systems — mystify two problems . First , they will expect a separate set of platter epitome for deployment . Apple has yet to release a Universal variant of Mac OS X ( though the company has say that this is an eventual goal , most likely to be insert next year in Leopard — Mac OS Adam 10.5 ) . As a result , Mac OS X prototype are no longer portable between sr. PowerPC Macs and and the New harvest of Apple hardware .
Some users and administrators have handle to craft universal Mac OS X configurations and images . However , the potential problem of this unsupported Mac OS X constellation ( which does n’t function decent with Software Update ) should keep them out of a alive production environment . While maintaining multiple simulacrum sets may be a lot of workplace , it is by far the in effect approach in price of constancy , security and troubleshoot any operating system or software problems — no matter of whether the problems are a solution of the menage - grown configuration .
That mean extra sentiment needs to go into any allocation of Intel Macs or any decision to postpone a Mac upgrade until 2007 in the hopes that a ecumenical Mac OS X release will be uncommitted . Delaying upgrades present its own problem as PowerPC - based Macs become scarce . It may be hard by then to locate PowerBook G4s , iBooks , iMac G5s and Mac miniskirt . Older miniskirt have pretty much disappear from Apple ’s social club Word of God and even though eMacs are still available to didactics , they ’re reportedly in myopic supply and could soon be replaced with a likewise designed Intel eMac .
So , what should sysadmins keep in mind when allocating new Macs in an educational substructure ? There are two major approaches .
First , see coalesced surrogate . While distinctive buying decisions ( particularly for K-12 districts ) might see unexampled Macs distributed throughout various grade stage , classrooms or departments , this glide path will create extra headaches for administrator because it will demand two disk images that are more or less monovular . Focusing hardware replacement in specific areas , where an entire gamey schooling or department get all new computers , is much more good because the executive only needs to have a individual look-alike for that batch of ironware . That yields a substantial time savings in a hardware rollout — as well as a saving in the resources to maintain that image .
This also gives you the chance to look at section or schoolroom that might gain from extra change in the process . You may notice that one lab could also do with the introduction of Apple Remote Desktop for monitoring , or that a middle or that a high school art class that works with picture taking could profit from iPhoto for class projects .
Another option is identifying which grades or section get Intel Macs . Typically , newfangled computers are give to those classrooms that will get the most usance out of the increased baron and features . Media research lab and art design classrooms in college are often first on the list for new Macs . However , if these labs will be working with program not yet available as cosmopolitan binary , then installing new Intel Macs might not offer much addition in performance and could even thread up decelerate things down . While a absolute majority of non - Universal applications may be in use throughout schools , those that require more computation force , such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator , will be the ones hit intemperately by relying on Rosetta emulation .
This is also an ideal metre to expect at the applications in use . Several may not be available as oecumenical binary star or may still require the “ classical ” Mac OS to run . This is particularly true of lower elemental alum that be given to stick around with older educational game yr after year . However , there may be new options that you may offer that are oecumenical . This can give you a fortune to sour with teachers to not only acquire a strategy for integrating novel Macs but adding newer tools in the classroom as well .
Yet another opening is whether to tender a combine Mac / Windows lab using Apple ’s Boot Camp or Parallels ’ virtualization software . There persist unresolved issues about using these tools : Boot summer camp is still in beta , and Parallels ’ final release only egress recently . However , the power to make a research lab or classroom all scotch platform with a individual purchase is potential to be an attractive selection .
make the routine of issues involved in deploy Macs that bid both Mac OS X and Windows , you may want to expect for better tools — as well as last releases of the computer software needed . It ’s proficient to make this pick part of a longer condition technology architectural plan . In fact , it can mean choosing between grease one’s palms a modified number of Intel Macs this twelvemonth to meet basic demand ) — or a larger number next yr , when threefold - political program Macs and a universal Mac OS X release could offer the best of both humankind .
