Apple Provides Developers with Mac OS X Server “Jaguar”

Apple and Mac OS X have been in the headlines lately, as the company slowly supplies hints at the next version of Mac OS X, deemed "Jaguar." While the new client features — such as Sherlock version 3 and the company's "Ink" handwriting recognition software have become common knowledge — little has been said about "Jaguar's" Server cousin.

Mac OS X Server "Jaguar" is a major upgrade to Mac OS X Server that has been under development since last year. The new version will reportedly sport a slew of new features, lead by faster performance and improved Network File and Print Services.

Among some of the under-the-hood changes are improved file system read and write times, substantially faster network I/O performance and better scalability of network services on Apple's multiprocessor systems.

With Mac OS X Server "Jaguar," Apple file services can be used to host Mac OS X network home directories and can republish mounted NFS volumes. A new feature called "auto-reconnect" will allow client systems to keep Apple file servers mounted after a system sleep/wake cycle or a long period of inactivity. User's will also have a new encrypt option when sharing files over a network or the Internet.

A new version of Print Services will feature PAP protocol print queue sharing and add support for print quotas, which can be used to limit the number of pages a user can print within a specified period of time. Workgroup management enhancements make it even easier to setup and manage Mac OS X client users in the Jaguar release of Mac OS X Server, sources said.

IP Failover is Apple's new high availability service for certain server and service configurations. With this feature, if one server fails, a second server can take over the failed server's IP address, and assume its workload with minimal interruption.

Jaguar's Mail services are said to be more reliable and robust with improved SMTP relay restrictions, user storage quotas, better mail storage flexibility, and support for multiple user aliases per mailbox.

Mac OS X Server Jaguar will also pack a new Jaguar version of "Server Admin" and will support all the same machine models as Mac OS X Server 1.2, with the exception of the Power Macintosh G4 Cube, which sources claim is no longer supported.

Mac OS X Server Jaguar is due out this Summer, alongside the release of the Jaguar client software.