Can a case be made for IT SysAdmin primary computer be macbook pro?

D

dalearyous

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we are a windows shop. about 70 users now. i came from a job that required %60 development and %40 sysadmin work. now i am more like 70% sysadmin and 30% development. i never thought i would say this, but i miss the macbook pro from previous job. i am trying to break down the pros and cons to see if there is justification in getting another one.

pros:
great test environment outside your domain
can be dual booted or virtualized to support all your windows needs
osx has great a great terminal out of the box
best for development
best for handling lots of windows and workspace (largely my opinion but the resolution, gestures, corners, smooth handling touch pad and everything makes it a breeze)
safe from malware

cons:
outside your domain
expensive
may cause office envy or un-needed questions
no dock or dual monitor support out of the box (excluding thunderbolt displays)
licensing issue (although i think office 365 supports macs)

i seem to spend my life in virtual machines or terminals anyway so i don't really see the issue here. would love some feedback from others!
 
There is usually no technical reason. Many of us (consultants) now carry Macs. I've used them as my only system for years. If I need Windows for a tool I just run it under a VM...no dual boot here.

Most of the time it's things like... "Why does dalearyous get a Mac when I have to use Windows?!". Stuff like that. Or if you aren't the IT guy it's out of the standard and can't be managed by the standard tools.
 
We have our Macs on "the domain" easily through Keberos tickets. It's not as integrated as Windows is or as pretty. But it works well enough for anyone who knows anything about their computers. With that said, as one of two Mac-specialists in a Windows world, having a Mac works well enough. As you said, when there isn't native app support for X-Windows program (RDP and Screen-sharing/Proxy software) ... we have VMs available. I hardly use my VM unless I need to test something natively, or access AD Snap-ins in Management consoles.

Yes, sure, expensive. But so what?

Some of our supported staff have Macs per their taste in computing environments and need to be supported. And that's fine. They're mostly happy with it.

But as a SysAdmin perspective: Depends on the environment. If all or most of your admin-ing takes place in Console windows, or RDP instances, then why not have a bit of taste? Sure stuff like higher-end-non-junky Sony Vaios, or the iconic Thinkpad, or the new comers in HP and Dell have similar styles. It's still an Apple. And some people get kinda religious about it.
 
im still a windows guys at heart and i want to steer clear of the fanboy conversation. but a lot of the times i am away from my desk and working on things like spreadsheets, console, RDP, code, drupal and i miss having the mbpro. my current one is just awful and frustrating to use.

it purely boils down to an ease of use and the mbpro shines.

is there anything i missed?
 
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We are a Windows environment and have one Macbook. Unless we're programming iPads, the Mac collects dust because there's nothing that the Mac can do better than our Windows PC's in this environment.

The people doing tech support and are testing software and settings should be using the same OS as what you will be supporting, in my opinion. Everything else is extra.
 
Unless you are doing something on the hardware level or graphcs intensive, that is what VM's are there to handle. Regardless of whether your on a mac or windows machine, VM's can work for most development/support if your host won't work.
 
bigdogchris said:
We are a Windows environment and have one Macbook. Unless we're programming iPads, the Mac collects dust because there's nothing that the Mac can do better than our Windows PC's in this environment.

The people doing tech support and are testing software and settings should be using the same OS as what you will be supporting, in my opinion. Everything else is extra.
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see i agree with this. however, i know for myself, i can work way more efficiently on a laptop on mbpro. if the computer is docked or its a desktop then windows for sure for a majority of things. but on the go, and mobile, i think im faster on mbpro.
 
One of the guys I work with inherited a MBAir. He likes it as a laptop, but hates it as an admin device. It can be a hassle to do work on when you need to start up a bunch of VM's etc.
 
schizrade said:
One of the guys I work with inherited a MBAir. He likes it as a laptop, but hates it as an admin device. It can be a hassle to do work on when you need to start up a bunch of VM's etc.
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i would hate that on a mbair too. 2+ monitor setup is a must. but the mbpro have bigger screen and much higher resolution to handle lots of windows
 
We are basically 98% Windows, 1% Red Hat, 1% Mac. All of the IT techs have MBPs. They're just better laptops than what you can get from other manufacturers. The trackpads alone increase productivity. If anything breaks on them, downtime is 1 day at the max because an Apple Store is 20 minutes away. Having a BSD-based system has a lot of advantages too.
 
Yes, a case can be made, but it depends on the environment. In a large enterprise where Active Directory and group policy are entrenched… probably not. But in a smaller, more personally curated environment, I don't see why not.
 
The justifications you list are mostly opinion; some are simply not true, the rest are inconsequential. If you don't see the issue, why don't you just get the machine you want? Is the problem that you're not the decision-maker? Are you the IT SysAdmin in question?
 
Maximus825 said:
... The trackpads alone increase productivity.
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totally agree.

mikeblas said:
The justifications you list are mostly opinion; some are simply not true, the rest are inconsequential. If you don't see the issue, why don't you just get the machine you want? Is the problem that you're not the decision-maker? Are you the IT SysAdmin in question?
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i am and was looking to submit a case for one.
 
Maximus825 said:
We are basically 98% Windows, 1% Red Hat, 1% Mac. All of the IT techs have MBPs. They're just better laptops than what you can get from other manufacturers. The trackpads alone increase productivity. If anything breaks on them, downtime is 1 day at the max because an Apple Store is 20 minutes away. Having a BSD-based system has a lot of advantages too.
Click to expand...

My Latitude has a 4 hour turn around from submission of ticket to fixed machine. Screw going to a store.
 
Maximus825 said:
We are basically 98% Windows, 1% Red Hat, 1% Mac. All of the IT techs have MBPs. They're just better laptops than what you can get from other manufacturers. The trackpads alone increase productivity. If anything breaks on them, downtime is 1 day at the max because an Apple Store is 20 minutes away. Having a BSD-based system has a lot of advantages too.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
 
dalearyous said:
we are a windows shop. about 70 users now. i came from a job that required %60 development and %40 sysadmin work. now i am more like 70% sysadmin and 30% development. i never thought i would say this, but i miss the macbook pro from previous job. i am trying to break down the pros and cons to see if there is justification in getting another one.

pros:
great test environment outside your domain
can be dual booted or virtualized to support all your windows needs
osx has great a great terminal out of the box
best for development
best for handling lots of windows and workspace (largely my opinion but the resolution, gestures, corners, smooth handling touch pad and everything makes it a breeze)
safe from malware

cons:
outside your domain
expensive
may cause office envy or un-needed questions
no dock or dual monitor support out of the box (excluding thunderbolt displays)
licensing issue (although i think office 365 supports macs)

i seem to spend my life in virtual machines or terminals anyway so i don't really see the issue here. would love some feedback from others!
Click to expand...


If you have an iPhone, a case could be made for iMessage/Messages. I work in a 100% nix environment where you either have Ubuntu on a Thinkpad or a MBP. So it's nice when someone iMessages me and it pops up on my MBP while I am busy testing software.

If you don't have an iPhone, I can't really think of a good reason OPs would need a particular type of system one way or another. Your pros and cons are more or less opinions, that doesn't make them any less valid though. I would just suggest you tell your employer you need a MBP. If they question you, just make something up that they will likely just shrug at tell you to purchase whatever you need and then file an expense report.
 
Maximus825 said:
Of course you can get whatever kind of service you want, if you're willing to pay for it.
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Not necessarily with Apple. I had a bank of xservers at my last job and when they would have issues had to take it to the damn store, and of course the retail outlets are not able to work on servers. Apparently Carson City, Nevada is too far (20 miles, 20 minutes) from Reno, and out of service range to send a warranty tech. :mad: The expensive 4 hour response warranty was almost worthless. So the only option was to take it to a local authorized repair shop in Reno, drop it there for a few days, and pick it back up. :mad:

Lame.

Either way, an Apple in a Windows enviro is fine, just strap in VMware Fusion and run windows 7 in unity mode. Best of both worlds.
 
schizrade said:
Not necessarily with Apple. I had a bank of xservers at my last job and when they would have issues had to take it to the damn store, and of course the retail outlets are not able to work on servers. Apparently Carson City, Nevada is too far (20 miles, 20 minutes) from Reno, and out of service range to send a warranty tech. :mad: The expensive 4 hour response warranty was almost worthless. So the only option was to take it to a local authorized repair shop in Reno, drop it there for a few days, and pick it back up. :mad:

Lame.

Either way, an Apple in a Windows enviro is fine, just strap in VMware Fusion and run windows 7 in unity mode. Best of both worlds.
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Damn, that sucks. Apple really didn't care about the Xserves.
 
Fuzzy Logik said:
Apple can and will drop things off the radar at will - MobileMe.
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Oh of course, any company will do that. They don't even sell them anymore.

But what I speak of was when they were still selling and supposedly supporting them.
 
schizrade said:
Oh of course, any company will do that. They don't even sell them anymore.

But what I speak of was when they were still selling and supposedly supporting them.
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Yeah, I can understand your frustrations :(

Apple can be a bastard of a company at times - but at the same time I grew up dreaming of devices like an iPhone.

I don't know why but Droid just don't cut it for me. It feels so - meh. :p

So I usually just forgive Apple - like an abusive spouse :D
 
I use my rMBP primarily for work. Build quality is better than 99% of laptops out there and the retina screen makes looking at text for long periods of time MUCH easier on the eyes. The only laptop that has a comparable screen resolution is the Chromebook Pixel and with the minimal amount of local storage you get it's not an option for most people. I don't even feel I overpaid for this Mac because there is nothing comparable out there.
 
Most of our IT dept employees run macbooks. But we also all boot to the windows side :) We tried getting macs to play well in the domain environment... yeah the magic triangle was never that magical. Apple no longer sells rack mounted servers and its server product is nothing more than an add on to their consumer os. In the end most people hated outlook on mac and that was enough to push them over to the windows side again.
 
Fuzzy Logik said:
Yeah, I can understand your frustrations :(

Apple can be a bastard of a company at times - but at the same time I grew up dreaming of devices like an iPhone.

I don't know why but Droid just don't cut it for me. It feels so - meh. :p

So I usually just forgive Apple - like an abusive spouse :D
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LMAO.

I was a die hard mac guy in the 90's... then OSX came out and it was so painful for the first 3 point versions I said fuck it. Besides, no real money in the mac world to be made as a sys admin/network eng.

I finally got sick of android and went Windows Phone 8. Loving it so far.
 
schizrade said:
LMAO.
Besides, no real money in the mac world to be made as a sys admin/network eng.
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not true. The TV/movie and music industries still use tons of Macs. It was very profitable supporting their IT needs. After several years though, I had enough of dealing with their personality types and crazy hours.
 
dalearyous said:
i am and was looking to submit a case for one.
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Then you should figure out who the decision maker is and build a factual case that suits their decision points. What you've listed is just rhetoric and opinion and not likely to sway someone to spending money for you.
 
bloodypulp said:
not true. The TV/movie and music industries still use tons of Macs. It was very profitable supporting their IT needs. After several years though, I had enough of dealing with their personality types and crazy hours.
Click to expand...

My experience as well. I use a older Macbook Pro myself when doing on site work. Mainly run Arch full time and have a win7 VM on it just in case. Of course I work for myself and will buy whatever I want, then write it off. But there is nothing on the market that can touch a Retina display with awesome window manager running for my workflow in a mobile form factor. I'll typically have a shell open, a couple instances of Emacs and misc other windows/terminals all open at once for 4-5 hours at a time. The display alone was worth the cost, forget the rest of the top notch hardware and kick ass build quality. While I am all set with the OSX experience, currently no one is interested in going toe to toe with Apple for hardware quality.
 
Ran into this myself - sold my old beast of an HP 17" DV9700 laptop (desktop replacement) and went looking for a lightweight (relatively speaking) quad core system in a 15"+ form factor with good battery life for mobile development.

My job is about 60% development, 40% SysAdmin.

I ended up tracking down a BTO late 2011 17" MBP (2.5Ghz / 8GB ram / 250GB SSD) and to be honest, I don't see me going back to a Windows laptop. The only equivalent as far as power, battery life, screen real estate, etc was going to be a Gen2 Razer Blade.

I'm *extremely* happy with my MBP - this coming from a die hard Linux/PC guy. I have to say, the terminal is superb - I had originally purchased the hardware with the intent of gentoo/KDE (my norm) setup, but after using OSX for a while, I'm quite pleased with it out of the box.

VMWare handles my Windows 7 needs, what few they are (mainly Visual Studio 2010).

Just one man's meager opinion. :)
 
OK, so I just inherited a i7 Quad 17" MBP... and am now running it for work. So far so good. OSX has much improved since 10.5, which is the last time I had used it in a daily way. We will see if I can adjust.

So far all is good for Fusion Unity, except Lotus Notes... and fuck lotus notes.
 
schizrade said:
OK, so I just inherited a i7 Quad 17" MBP... and am now running it for work. So far so good. OSX has much improved since 10.5, which is the last time I had used it in a daily way. We will see if I can adjust.
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What if you can't?
 
mikeblas said:
What if you can't?
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So far so good. With VMWare Fusion all my windows apps needs are met. The biggest jump is learning the quirks of the OSX shell. Been on Debian/RedHat so long, the BSD-ish ways are a bit odd.

Still mostly hate the damn dock.
 
how many monitors can be hooked up to the rMBP? i have a 27" Dell running at 2560x1440 and a 24" running at 1980x1200 currently on my win 7 machine. can both of those be ran off the rMBP? what adapters would be needed to push out at that res? i'm guessing it would be best to have the nvidia gfx instead of only the intel chipset.

thanks
 
R3d said:
how many monitors can be hooked up to the rMBP? i have a 27" Dell running at 2560x1440 and a 24" running at 1980x1200 currently on my win 7 machine. can both of those be ran off the rMBP? what adapters would be needed to push out at that res? i'm guessing it would be best to have the nvidia gfx instead of only the intel chipset.

thanks
Click to expand...

New rMBPs have 2 Thunderbolt ports and 1 HDMI port for driving external displays.
 
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