Are you a system manager or network administrator concerned about how your company’s new Xserve will interact with Dantz Development Corp.’s popular Mac backup utility Retrospect? Dantz has completed compatibility testing with the Xserve and has offered some specific information about how the two interact.
“When configured with the Ultra160 SCSI Card option, the Xserve makes an excellent Retrospect backup server, exhibiting solid performance and stability,” Dantz said.
Retrospect 5.0 for Mac — both the client application and the server software — is compatible with the Apple Xserve, according to Dantz. Xserve running Mac OS X Server 10.1.5 is the supported configuration. Dantz said that the forthcoming Mac OS X Server 10.2 “will be more fully supported by a free update to Retrospect 5.0.”
The only SCSI card that Dantz supports in the Xserve is ATTO’s US3S-66 PCI card — Apple offers it as the “Ultra160 SCSI Card” option. It’s also the only SCSI card that Apple itself has certified for use with the Xserve.
There are also some networking interface issues Dantz noted, since the Xserve is Apple’s first model that ships standard with two 10/100/1000baseT Ethernet ports.
“If both interfaces are active, the Retrospect application and client will use the highest priority active Ethernet interface (as listed in the Active Network Ports screen of the Network preferences pane). If the highest priority Ethernet interface is not active, the next highest priority active interface will be used,” said Dantz.
If the Retrospect application is open when the networking interface priority is changed, the new highest priority interface will be used, said Dantz’s engineers. The Retrospect client will continue to use the interface that it is bound to during startup, however, so in order to switch, the Retrospect Client must be turned off completely (by command-clicking the Off button, thus killing the pitond process).
Dantz also said that Retrospect is compatible with remote administration software products like Remote Desktop from Apple and Netopia Timbuktu.