Lion to Lion Server Free Upgrade

Lion Server is a an add-on to Lion. I had to purchase Lion for my Mac Mini and then Lion Server. Therefore, if you have Lion on your Mini... you just need to buy the Server Package from the App Store.

I never tried (as I did an inlace upgrade from SL Server to Lion server, but can any version of Lion be upgraded to server or just the server versions?? DOes anyone know?/

Lion Server can only be added onto Lion OS. Lion OS needs Snow Leopard to be upgraded from the App Store. However, I was successful in buying Lion OS via App store on my iMac at home. Then I burned an image of the installation file and did a clean install on my MBP and Mac Mini.

After the Mac Mini was fully installed to Lion OS, I went onto the App Store and purchased and Downloaded Lion Server Add on. I am also able to download and install the Lion Server to any of my other iTunes registered Macs if I wish.

To be clear.. Lion Server is not packaged or sold as an OS like Snow Leopard Server. It is an add on that requires Lion OS as a base.

The upshot of this is you can run the Server App in the background of a Mac using Lion without needing to dedicate a single computer as a Server machine. Of course this assumes you do not need heavy server work.