One of the biggest announcements from Apple with OS X Mavericks was not part of the WWDC 2013 keynote.  Instead, it is buried deep in a technical document on Apple’s site.  This is the announcement that the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is being deprecated in favor of Server Message Block version 2 (SMB2).

While this announcement may not mean very much to general consumers, it is certainly going to be a large change for those who integrate Macs in enterprise environments.  SMB2, also known as CIFS, is the main file sharing protocol for Microsoft Windows, and also has excellent support on Linux through Samba.

Apple has long supported SMB in some form on OS X, but as it was not the default, it did not receive the love and care that AFP did.  In the past, Apple simply used the open-source Samba project to gain this functionality, and there was much outcry from many Mac admins...

Apple has posted a document highlighting the core technologies of OS X Mavericks, which includes some changes from Mountain Lion.

Among the new features is a change to the default file sharing protocol from AFP to SMB2.  OS X has long supported SMB, but AFP has remained the default.  AFP will still work, but with SMB2 now being the default protocol, interoperability in Windows environments should be much better than before.

It appears from the document that Time Machine, including to Time Capsules, will still be over AFP.

Coming to OS X Server in Mavericks will be Caching Server 2, which promises to speed up not just App Store downloads, but also iOS updates and iTunes.

Profile Manager also promises to become more powerful as an MDM, with the ability to manage Apps and iBooks for iOS, something that currently requires a third-party MDM.

There is much...

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