I was a network admin in a Mac/PC/unix shop running AppleTalk, TCP/IP, Wins/SMB, DEC, Banyan Vines, and 3270. My job was to make all of that work together. I recall many late nights doing a router upgrade and having to wait for security to unlock a comm closet because someone forgot to turn off their department's AppleTalk router. It grabbed the primary role while the Cisco was down and had to be power cycled to return every subnet back to the way things were.

Analysis

My 10 tips for you:

1. Become familiar with the ins and outs of both Mac and PC especially where one lacks some capability. Both can use SMB networking but the PC has difficulty with an Appletalk network.

2. Often times software is made for both platforms and if so, take care to test interoperability under your conditions as the filesystems on Mac and PC are different.

3. VNC remote desktops are standard items available for both platforms and should be kept in mind should that serve a need.

4. Consider using ssh tunneled X terms to access some server resource.

5. Keep track of the allocation of Mac and PC for software licenses, intranet device tracking and maps, etc. You should know who has which platform in order to plan operations.

6. Keep the support staff trained on both in terms of repair, and security issues. They should be given one of each to use so interop problems can be duplicated and rectified.

7. You can run virtual PC on a Mac or even dual boot a Mac into Windows.

8. Do not assume interoperability based on advertising, test it well in advance.

9. Plan a few steps down the road so that upgrading both is always possible and you are not left with a "dead" platform.

10. Develop a user training program and documents that allow for the most efficient operations possible.

Conclusion

Thus knowledge and experience are required to make well thought out plans for deployment, troubleshooting, and migration. And training the support staff and users so that the procedures developed are seamless can be key to efficiency and cost savings.

Disclosures and References

This Brief is based on my professional experience as a network administrator at the University of Michigan Medical Center. A huge heterogeneous shop of everything imaginable including gear that was way out of date but users refused to give up as they were comfortable and familiar with using it.

I forgot to mention Novell Netware was also a big player and OS 7 on Mac did not have a built in inter operable windows mechanism. That had to be provided by 3rd party vendors and creativity at times.

I cannot think of any potential conflict of interests.