[X4U] X-serve vs. Mac Pro as server

[Craig A. Finseth]

	...
   As we purchase hardware to accomplish this, one issue is what we need as a
   server computer. My limited understanding is that major advantages of
   Apple's X-serve hardware include the ability to administer it remotely
   (which I likely would be called upon to do), as well as auto-recovery after
   power failures. The X-serve computers are EXPENSIVE; I'm wondering if the
   major reason they're expensive is because they come bundled with OS X server
   software.

X-serves have remote hardware management (e.g., power on) and extra
monitoring (e.g., temperature) over MacPros.

The OSX Server software is identical and you can install OS X server
on pretty much anything that can run OS X.

You can remote into pretty much any OS X machine these days using VNC
(Chicken-of-the-VNC is a free client).  You enable it under Sharing >
Apple Remote Desktop and there's a VNC area.

   Can an X-serve also function as a routine workstation? In other words, could
   I use one of those as my routine workstation as well? I think we have
   adequate network and hardware (all cabling is cat-5e, and we have gigabit
   switches, 4 static ip addresses from our ISP, and an 802.11n (draft)
   wireless router.

Sure.  I don't recall what X-serves have for display, but you can
access it remotely.

   Most of the clients for the appointments program will be on Windows. I'm
   told that the server can be Mac OS with no problems because FMP is truly
   cross-platform. Anyone know of real issues there? It might make sense to use
   a windows box as the server because future network applications may well be
   Windows only; However, we're still a year or two away from implementations
   such as electronic medical records because the solutions that WORK are
   horrendously expensive ($50,000 to $100,000 per physician), and there's as
   yet no viable model regarding who should or can pay for this. So, as long as
   we're starting with a web-accessible FMP database, I think it makes sense to
   use a Mac as the server because I can get up to speed more quickly on the
   platform I understand the best.

And it's a lot easier to administer, not to mention administer so as
to be secure.

   At the moment we're in the earliest phases of considering this, so I'm
   basically just looking for general information regarding hardware/server
   OS/use of the server simultaneously as a workstation/FileMaker
   cross-platform issues, etc.

We just bought a MacPro with 2, 500GB disks (mirrored) for my son's school.

I would be inclined to go with a similar configuration and buy an iMac
for your workstation rather than an X-serve.

Craig