Q. I have a Leopard server and it is our *only* Apple server.  If I had the option, I would install Snow Leopard on a spare and then just experiment.  Since I do not have this option what should I do?

A. You *do* have this option. Its called VMware Fusion - Mac OS X Server is licensed to be able to be run in a virtual machine (as long as that VM is running on Apple hardware, and you have the relevant key/licence for Mac OS X Server). I use Fusion for testing out changes to my single server Xserve based environment before making them.

Additionally, for testing and evaluation like this, if you qualify, which inexplicably means being in the USA, as well as not being a reseller, or in education, you can get Snow Leopard Server free of charge direct from Apple here http://seminars.apple.com/contactme/SnowLeopardServerEvaluation/ .

It would seem to me that the 10.4 to 10.5 world of pain some people encountered (especially those with only one server, and poor DNS setup) has taught us that best practise is to try out new server releases from Apple before upgrading.