Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Enterprise, Education
Why your school doesn't want boot camp
A trend
I'd like to see go the way of the dodo: every time Apple introduces something new that doesn't seem to appeal to the
average home user, the net lights
up with wild speculation that it's for the education market. Most of the time it's not, and Boot Camp is no
exception. The reaction to Boot Camp from MacEnterprise and other education
and business Mac communities has not been positive. It's ranged from "wait and see" to "why me?"
with most of the responses at the "why me?" end. Boot Camp is, in the words of University sysadmin and TUAW
reader Jason Young, quite possibly
"any IT staff member’s worst nightmare come true." And here are just a few of the reasons I think he's
right:First, we live in a very imperfect world. Heterogeneous networks are messy, messy things. Sure there are protocols for Active Directory, Open Directory, LDAP, DHCP, etc., but vendors do one of two things: fail to implement the spec properly, or add a bunch of proprietary bells and whistles that aren't part of the spec, are technically add-ons, but still seem to mysteriously cause hardware or software to fail when they aren't present. Throw a couple of DNS forwarding issues, some CISCO equipment and maybe a Radius server into the mix, and things get ugly fast. What's the admins final line of defense against complete network chaos? Hardware addressing. Figure out what hardware is sitting at which MAC address, and build policies based on that. It's not ideal, but it's the the way the real world works. If you can't predict the OS type from the MAC, your job becomes 10 times harder in a flash.
Second, nobody actually wants to reboot. It's time consuming, stressful on the hardware, and just generally not too much fun. It also means getting users in the habit of interacting with the firmware, which is something sane sysadmins want to avoid at all costs. What admins, and others, want is real virtualization. Not dual booting. Not emulation and compatibility layers. Real virtualization. When Apple delivers that, there will be partying in the streets.
Third, there's no support and it doesn't look like there's ever going to be. Unlike the rest of us peons, large education and enterprise clients spend a lot of money on premium AppleCare services. They have reps who know them by name, and part of what makes Macs appealing is that you call one number and get integrated hardware and OS support. If Apple won't support Windows, dual booting will mean buying a second support contract for the same machine. hat more than negates the cost benefit of a single machine solution. Beige boxes are cheap and procurement already has contracts with HP and Dell. There is, of course, a potential for third parties here to step up and become Apple Authorized Resellers offering pre-configured machines with support, but that's a niche market. Most organizations that buy Macs want to deal directly with Apple.
And then for education tech support, there's the added fun of personal machines that people use to connect to the network....
Individual admins, of course, are thrilled. Being able do dual boot, say, a MacBook Pro means only needing one machine to administer everything. But supporting it for users? That's a different story.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Clayton Zaugg said 11:55PM on 4-07-2006
You know, I may actually take your words to heart Jay, but you miss a key point: Apple is merely offering a solution for which there was an apparent need. When you buy your Dell on contract for a school system, you generally prohibit the use of installation by anyone other then Admins. Why would this be any different?
Admins could easily disable this feature and not allow the computer labs to run windows or other operating systems, just like they now prohibit these features on windows boxes today.
This is a perfect way for Apple to finally gain market share it so rightfully deserves.
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Tom said 12:05AM on 4-08-2006
Finally a voice of reason to quell some of the insanity! This IS NOT a good solution, only a stop gap (at best). The fact that it won't be supported by Apple is key... and why would they support it if they plan on, perhaps, implementing emulation into Leopard? The bottom line is Boot Camp would create more work than it's worth for any sysadmin. Nice analysis.
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Mark said 12:20AM on 4-08-2006
I am the Mac administrator at an educational institution that has both Windows and Macs as desktops, but also assist in administration of the linux infrastructure servers. I think this announcement is exciting news from Apple. Just because you *can* dual boot these doesn't mean you have to. I like the idea that we can have one hardware platform that can just as easily be a Mac OS, or a Windows OS. I.e., if a staff member hates one OS then we can give them a machine installed with the other (but not both). There's nothing saying that you have to have both environments configured setup at the same time, is there? If need be, one could use clever loginhooks or startup scripts to have a 'curious' user who tries to boot into the Mac stopped and the machine rebooted into windows. Additionally, it reduces the number of 'spares' to keep around too, as you have have some emergency hardware that can replace either OS easily and quickly.
In regards to supportability - well, for mission critical operations, of course you wouldn't rely on BootCamp at the moment. But, educational institutions often have additional flexibilities in this regards - to try and do something new, and revolutionary.
I dread the idea of having to worry about administering two operating systems on the one machine at the same time (whether it's through dual booting or virtualization). But I welcome the opportunity to standardise hardware and allowing users to have the opportunity to choose their OS assuming their requirements are met by either.
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Velvet Nightmare said 12:31AM on 4-08-2006
You guys. Need to stop. Posting opionion threads.
Please.
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Brian Clarke said 12:47AM on 4-08-2006
Very good points. I agree that at an individual level, admins are happy, but I see how this could create big problems for administering large amounts of computers. Personally, this virtually seals the deal with me buying a MacBook Pro as my next laptop. I'll be a half switcher! LoL
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mayo said 12:49AM on 4-08-2006
uhm, rebooting is stressful on the hardware? wtf, c'mon, that's pure bs. get over the bootcamp. don't use it if you don't like it, and get on with it.
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Derrick Goodfriend said 12:52AM on 4-08-2006
I really think that Boot Camp was meant for home users to begin with, probably mostly switchers who have a treasure trove of obscure PC-only games that they *must* have. If Intel Mac were out when I switched a year ago I probably would have installed Boot Camp because I still use my PC for the dozens of PC-only legacy games I still enjoy playing that don't work in Virtual PC. As far as education and enterprise users go, I agree with what everyone else has been saying. Sysadmins have a hard enough time when it's only one OS per machine. The last thing they need is to add another OS that will need servicing and upgrading.
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abacsalmasi said 12:54AM on 4-08-2006
I have a feeling that there is something else going on with Boot Camp. This is a beta. Apple doesn't offer up beta's too often. They expressly state that it will be a part of their next OS, Leopard. What I think will happen is that Apple will build in virtualization into OS X.5 with full support of WIndows. Boot Camp is just a testing ground. Apple can offer support for Windows, which will be much easier for them than Microsoft because they know exactly what hardware is running it and they will use their exceptional approach to support that they do now, it could also be profitable. So imagine a scenario where Apple supports Windows (Tech Support) and knows exactly what hardware it's running on. Now imagine (again) that they provide a UNIX buffer (based on OS X) to take care of all the security issues. All of a sudden you have a faster, more secure, more robust version of Windows (how many admins wouldn't want that) and selling more Mac's in the process. At the same time, convergence to OS X will proliferate because of all the ease-of-use iApps. Remember, Apple is a hardware company. They are creating a solutions for every PC user to run Windows on a secure(er) system. This will be bigger than the iPod. Remember Apple innovates and looks 5 years ahead at all times. This is planned. This is genius.
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Ryan said 1:21AM on 4-08-2006
Now you know why they got the new operations in India, future Tech Support of Windows for the windows side, keeping the OSX people still speaking fluently here, england, ireland, etc. If their windows tech support is like Dell's and their OSX support remains as it is now, that's reason enough to switch and stay in the OSX environment to me. At least as far as tech support goes, of course I'll have to use windows, will use windows, and am still happy this option of Boot Camp is offered and will be improved upon and integrated by 10.5. Nonetheless, my theory gives me a possible understanding on why they are adding the 3,000+ Jobs in India. Perfect for their windows wing, heck Dell's being doing it for years and still somehow found ways to win customer satisfacation awards (at least in the early 2000's) - who the heck in their right mind gave them these awards in another story altogether!
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Ryan said 1:29AM on 4-08-2006
Obviously I CAN'T speak fluent english, but it is relatively late so I'm using that as my excuse. Well that and I don't get paid for this, or offering tech support where it would be much more important in my opinion! To address one more thing, meant to say "3000+ jobs." I do however wish they could add 3,000 Jobs (as in Steve) in India or anywhere for that matter, but then again one may be enough. Somehow I don't think 2 or more would get along, but rather the opposite would come of it. So I guess it's good we've got just one, but a mighty fine one at that!
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systemsboy said 1:33AM on 4-08-2006
Thanks for this article. I wholeheartedly agree that for our lab and probably most a dual-boot scenario would be a sysadmin's worst nightmare. Yet I've been pelted by requests for this since Boot Camp was released. (Well, I exaggerate... But still, it has come up.)
I think Boot Camp is great for individual users or maybe small labs, particularly those with limited budgets. But most larger labs are accustomed to providing dedicated Windows and Mac computers. As it should be. If you've ever been responsible for 20+ computers and 100+ users you'll know how impossible it would be to build and maintain all the machines if each one had two partitions with two operating systems and two sets of apps. Even a simple software update would become a logistical nightmare requiring physical access to every machine.
Anyway, as a sysadmin myself, I greatly appreciate that TUAW has pointed all this out. Most people really don't understand what we deal with every day maybe they don't even care and it's not often you hear things from our side of the fence. Bravo! Thanks, Jason.
And if anyone's interested in my take on all this, beyond what I've written here, you can find it on my blog, which is ALL from the sysadmin's point of view. Like I said... If you're interested.
Article:
http://systemsboy.blogspot.com/2006/04/should-labs-be-dual-boot.html
Blog:
http://systemsboy.blogspot.com/
-systemsboy
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Ryan said 3:15AM on 4-08-2006
I think the whole idea of a dual platform network being messy. I go to Franklin & Marshall which has 70% Macs and the PCs are welcomed by our tech crew. The fact of the matter is that Windows is not much of a problem on Mac networks, whereas the reverse truth is slightly different. I still agree with the messiness of a windows network adding support for macs, but I don't agree with it being the other way around.
What do I know though, I'm just a student who knows the tech guys.
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andrew said 3:16AM on 4-08-2006
I think that if Apple approaches running Windows in virtualization like the approached running Classic in OS X, they may just have a chance. Give it the "We're trying our best, but it's just too old" angle, and then encourage app developers to develop native apps, and they'll win on both fronts.
Frankly, if they did that, I would think it would be a brilliant strategy. Nobody develops OS 9 apps anymore, and if they did it this way, it might take a little more time, but nobody would develop Windows apps anymore either. Make users wait to "boot up" Windows, make it operate *almost* the same as an OS X app, ( but just different enough) and make a few of the big apps not work in "virtualization" or "emulation", and you'll see people buying the hardware, developers writing the software, and apple laughing all the way to the bank. :)
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starwxrwx said 4:34AM on 4-08-2006
my university labs already dual boot - linux and XP.
Sure, the linux setup SUCKS ASS because computer support dont give a rats ass are incompetant fools and would rather go home sick than work (wow, some issues to work out there...)
Maybe the ease of OS X will fix all that.
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nezromatron said 5:05AM on 4-08-2006
Can you guys just start another website to handle all your ramblings and leave tuaw for actual news. I'd be happy with an alternate RSS feed that would get rid of this garbage..
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Aaron Hoffman said 5:37AM on 4-08-2006
abacsalmasi: You get a cookie.
Everybody go back and re-read his comment. Seriously.
I've only seen it mentioned once (a few hundred Boot Camp posts ago) that Boot Camp is only called what it is "for now."
Let's add some things up:
1) Boot Camp is (likely) only a temporary name.
2) Apple only has room for .3 more OS updates to Tiger
3) 10.5 "Leopard" has already been announced
Who's to say that we need a "preview" of Leopard before it comes out? I wouldn't put it past Jobs to get up at WWDC and say something along the lines of:
"Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming.
*insert hardware announcements here*
"A new OS is also being released todayLeopard. Guess what? Microsoft Virtual PC is obsolete. We made one. It's called iOwnYou. You can run Windows XP inside OS X with Intel's Virtualization Technology, in addition to dual-booting for all the games that developers couldn't be bothered to code for the Mac. You can also install as many operating systems as you want on it; Linux, DOS, old Mac OSes, whatever. Ohand one more thing... When Microsoft gets their s**t together and actually releases it, you can run Vista on it. I don't understand WHY anybody would want to do all that, but I figured it'll sell more computers. See you all next year. Kthnxbye."
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Matthew Waters said 8:08AM on 4-08-2006
Aaron, you forgot to include "but there's one more thing!" in your predicted quote from Steve and his reality distortion field :)
/CaptObvious
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Jim said 8:41AM on 4-08-2006
It never fails to amaze me. The writer (a self-described sysadmin) thinks boot camp is bad. EVERY new piece of SW or HW means more work for the sysadmin and support teams and usually a large number of them claim it's a bad move. Come on guys - the world does not stop changing - sysadmins better learn to change with it. China and India welcome change...
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Hawk said 9:52AM on 4-08-2006
I think TUAW should only post things we know, because then there wouldn't be any room for argument!
No, I'm kidding.
I think bootcamp's cool and a welcome addition to the things you can do with a Mac.
However, as a student I had to deal with the Computer-Aided Engineering Network at the University of Michigan. As a student, not an IT person, although I wanted to work for them. They decided to turn all the Windows PCs into dual-boot Windows / Linux PCs. The windows part worked as well as it always did, which was surprisingly bad (the user's Application Data directors weren't zapped until re-image.. the machines would sometimes run out of disk space!). But the Linux half was also bad, because it just didn't work right half the time, and they seemed to have just slapped it in.
Having Linux instantly doubled the amount of work, because now every Windows license was now a Linux license, and every physical machine represents two unique problems even if they are all huge batches of supposedly identical hardware.
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Roger Wehage said 10:06AM on 4-08-2006
A Mac owner for nearly 30 years, I've spent hundreds of dollars on VirtualPC with Windows XP Professional installed to get functionality for the few times I'm forced the PC agony. Very few of my Windows applications have full functionality on VirtualPC. Why wouldn't I want Windows XP Professional running on my Mac to get performance that exceeds Windows XP Professional running most PCs?
Go Apple!
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