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Apple Introduces Xserve Rackmount Servers
2nd Post! writes "MacCentral is reporting the announcement of 1U Apple rackmount hardware. The Xserve, despite its cheesy name, seems quite powerful: dual G4/1GHz with 4MB DDR L3 cache, up to 2GB DDR (yes!) SDRAM, 4 ATA drive bays (up to 480GB), 2 Gb Ethernet ports, 2 64/66 PCI slots (one of which may be taken up by one Gb Ethernet card), and, of course, FireWire. Pricing starts at $2,999 for a single 60GB disk and 256MB RAM." Yahoo! has posted the press release; Doc Searls is writing about Jobs' speech. Update: 05/14 18:14 GMT by M : Apple's page about the Xserve is now live.
After reading the current information on the new Apple server (the XServe) I'm noticing more then a few problems with the first Apple server since the end of AI/X. Pros: 1U, this is sweet. I was expecting a 2U system. This will make for a very nice high density server farm. 266mhz DDR memory. About time. 4 hard disk bays. Dual gigabit ethernet. Cons: No redundant power supply. No ECC memory. Current price is looking like 1000$ for an extra 256megs of Apple blessed DDR RAM. I'm hopping this is a typo. IDE hard disks. Quote the Jobs "We're going with ATA because they're just as fast as SCSI and they offer real benefits in term of largest capacities.". How dumb does Jobs think we are? IDE just as fast as SCSI my ass. Any real world comparison of a top of the line IDE drive VS SCSI shows SCSI winning. No expansion slots. The second gigabit network card takes up the only PCI slot. Compare this to the DELL 1650 which has on board SCSI RAID, dual gigabit and two 64bit PCI slots at a starting price of under 1500$ and I have to wonder what Apple is thinking here.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
OMG
Apple sleek hardware + 1U Rack Mount Server + Kick Ass Unix with the sweetest GUI on the market + Gigabit Ethernet + Unlimited Client License included
*Faints*
I feel like a 12-year-old girl at a Backstreet Boys concert.
*Screams*
I'm well aware that Mac OS X has software RAID capabilties built-in, but they are limited... Why hasn't Apple included a hardware RAID option for availability? In a truly tolerant environment, it seems they would be pushing more redundant systems. Has cost become too much of a factor for them?
They've got a 3U, dual fiber channel, 14 drive RAID Xserver in the works. Keep a lookout for those ;)
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
The original specs are wrong, it's $2999 for the SINGLE 1 GHz G4, $3999 for the dual. Not as sweet a deal, but still not too bad.
I imagine this is going to be a hit with universities, especially those that already use Macintosh client units.
I think the RAID server that they announced (not shipping until later) will be pretty hot, too...
- 3U height
- 14 bays
- Fourteen 120 gB ATA drives (hot pluggable)
- 1.68 tB
- dual 2GB Fibre Channel on system
- 400 mB/second storage throughput
At $3,000, this is a fairly good solution. I just wonder what this "repair kit" will include??
jrbd
So does that mean the constant rumour of Apple buying (or bought by) Sun/SGI/whatnot will die now? Clearly Apple can make its own servers.
BTW Why did they choose ATA drives over SCSI?
Good point. I hereby retract my claim.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
this might be a silly question, but why would someone want a gui on a rack computer? it's not like you will be sitting in front of this thing. i would think it is the gui of your workstation with which you should be concerned.
-- john
After reading the current information on the new Apple server (the XServe) I'm noticing more then a few problems with the first Apple server since the end of AI/X.
Pros:
1U, this is sweet. I was expecting a 2U system. This will make for a very nice high density server farm.
266mhz DDR memory. About time.
4 hard disk bays.
Dual gigabit ethernet.
Cons:
No redundant power supply.
No ECC memory. Current price is looking like 1000$ for an extra 256megs of Apple blessed DDR RAM. I'm hopping this is a typo.
IDE hard disks. Quote the Jobs "We're going with ATA because they're just as fast as SCSI and they offer real benefits in term of largest capacities.". How dumb does Jobs think we are? IDE just as fast as SCSI my ass. Any real world comparison of a top of the line IDE drive VS SCSI shows SCSI winning.
No expansion slots. The second gigabit network card takes up the only PCI slot. Compare this to the DELL 1650 which has on board SCSI RAID, dual gigabit and two 64bit PCI slots at a starting price of under 1500$ and I have to wonder what Apple is thinking here.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Not sure I'd want to run a webserver on OSX. The peculiarities of OSX make me shudder to think of the hair-pulling and "ports" required.
I purchased one of Apple's iBooks last year and was totally dazzled by the display, OSX's performance. I opened a shell and was turned off enough to pack the thing into its box and take it back (eating the 10% restocking fee).
OSX has some peculiarities with its filesystem that are annoying. In Unix, myFilename.txt isn't the same as MYfilename.txt which isn't the same as myfilename.TXT. In OSX, you can't have those three files because the name is the same as far as OSX is concerned.
Unfortunately, I can't remember all the other little annoyances that prompted me to write of the $150 as a fee for trying out one of the iBooks. Too bad too, I really liked the hardware, just hated how different it was from Unix or BSD.
It wouldn't make sense for them not to...Remote Desktop is a perfect way to deal with any must-be-local issues. I assume that all server management programs can be run remotely, since they ran a server manager that identified all locally-running Xserves.
Probably something similar to their old Mac Manager Server.
And telnet's disabled by default, you have to ssh in
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
This wasn't mentioned in the press release but seems like a pretty big deal and come from the MacCentral coverage: "Introduces Mike Rocha, senior vice president, Platform Tech, Oracle: Oracle 9i on OS X -- we very excited about this hardware. Oracle is about low-cost clustering. Future releases will be on-time, synchronous. When we use UNIX native support, native APIs, optimized for this hardware, we can synchronize our releases so that our customers can have unified database versions across different hardware platforms. "
There are some situations when an IDE server makes sense. There are applications that are mostly network and RAM driven, and an IDE server is a great low-cost alternative for something that almost never touches the HDD.
As for the price, it's way too high for an IDE server.
Only the HFS+ filesystem does.
Apple announces new rack-mount server -- updated live
by Jim Dalrymple, jdalrymple@maccentral.com
May 14, 2002 12:00 pm ET
MacCentral is providing live coverage of today's announcement by Apple of a new rack-mount server. Information from the announcement is being published in reverse-chronological order, with the oldest info posted at the bottom. Please click on your browser's Refresh button to get the latest information.
The server event has ended -- MacCentral's coverage has concluded.
RAID is all about data protection -- all critical components are redundant. Dual RAID controllers -- drives, power, cooling -- all redundant. 14 independent hard drives, and each RAID controller connects to seven of them. Each has an independent ATA controller that goes to the heart of the system. 128MB processor cache in the RAID processor. Redundant drive cache, redundant fans. Will be Available by the end of calendar year 2002.
Steve introduces Alex Grossman, Director Server and Storage Marketing:
* 3U height
* 14 drive bays
* 14 120GB ATA drives - in same hot-plug format as Xserve
* 1.68TB
* Dual 2GB Fibre Channel on system
* 400MB/second storage throughput
Steve: One more thing...
Technology preview of something we're going to roll out around the end of the year. A product called Xserve RAID, an amazing companion storage product.
Now, Steve introduces two customers.
ClearChannel -- Bobby Harris, director of creative technologies. We have 3000 Macs and three guys taking care of all of them. Content-creation with nonlinear, graphics prepress houses, and it's going to be pretty amazing to click a button and administrate all of them We're buying 40 of them, and I can't wait. The IT guys will be envious. I'm glad there's a tamper lock and alarms on them, because I think we're going to need them.
Genentech -- Guy Kraines, vice president, Corporate IT. We got to use them, and we've got some observations. First, this is not a desktop box with rack-mount ears. From the physical design, the hot-swap capabilities, the remote monitoring -- this is a data center box. My guys in the data center are fully accepting of it. They did it right, right down to cable management. Second, performance. The G4 itself is a heck of a processor, especially with what we do. Velocity Engine doesn't just do Photoshop rendering well -- it does matching of genetic code really well too. The single most common application in bioinformatics is Blast. I'm not going to give you numbers today in terms of what we've done, but let's just say that this is not just a measurable improvement, but a meaningful improvement in helping us do what we need to do.
Introduces Russ Daniels, vice president and CTO, Software Business Unit, Hewlett Packard OpenView: industry-leading services management solution. We monitor critical management data, analyze it and present it to you. We're thrilled to bring that capability to this new platform. OpenView is a multiplatform, multivendor technology, and makes heavy use of open standards.
Introduces Mike Rocha, senior vice president, Platform Tech, Oracle: Oracle 9i on OS X -- we very excited about this hardware. Oracle is about low-cost clustering. Future releases will be on-time, synchronous. When we use UNIX native support, native APIs, optimized for this hardware, we can synchronize our releases so that our customers can have unified database versions across different hardware platforms.
Steve Jobs returns to the stage
Target Markets:
* Education -- We think there's a great opportunity for us here.
* Creative -- Apple continues to be the platform of choice.
* Biotech.
* Video.
Three separate offerings: premium support plan, the service parts kit and professional service offerings (custom plan for larger customers).
What do customers want? They wanted 7 things:
* They want products to work. Apple spends a lot of time testing products for reliability, and dual-platform customers say the Mac is better than their PCs in this regard.
* They want really expert technical support. When they have a problem, they don't want to get on the phone with someone who's just been trained for three weeks. Consumer Reports tech support survey results: IBM 61, Compaq 62, HP 62, Gateway 71, Dell 72, Apple 73. And the very best when it came to support staff, and in limiting wait times.
* They want problems solved, not a lot of finger-pointing. Hardware company refers you to software company, software company refers you to hardware company. Apple is fundamentally different, because we're designing the entire solution, hardware and software.
* They want access to us, not 8-5, not banker's hours, but every minute, every day, all year long. As it turns out, we do this today at Apple for some of our customers, so we have experience here.
* A group of them wanted to be self-sufficient, particularly in the hardware area. Xserve is simple and fast for servicing -- pull it out, replace parts.
* A group of them said they wanted on-site support and don't want to touch anything. And we also do this today, for a group of customers, so we feel pretty good in this space.
* They wanted speed. Really, really fast. In fact, the group that didn't want to touch anything wanted four-hour on-site support. We don't do this today. We've majored in learning how to do this in the past several months. And today, we're ready to do this. And for users who want to do this, we're providing them with a spare parts kit, so they can change stuff out themselves.
Server support is really hard... Applications running on servers are mission-critical. There is a lack of hardware-software integration on most servers, said Cook.
Now, Steve introduces Tim Cook, executive vice president of Apple support and sales.
Publishing demo: Canto Cumulus server.
Server load demo: 400 simultaneous streaming connections, 50 percent server load, 211 megabits per second throughput, all on one server.
A demo of Blast, used in genetic research to try to find matches in fragments of genetic code. Not only will Blast run on XServe, but on clusters of Xserves.
A demo is taking place now of a Sybase database of NBA statistics, served through WebObjects.
Server solutions demo: File and print, Internet, Web, Mail, Workgroup management, Database and applications, Media streaming, Computational clusters.
"Edit Notifications" button lets you be warned, via e-mail or page, if something goes wrong with the server. It can be configured for single servers, or a whole groups of servers.
Server Monitor demo: We see a list of all running Xserves on a local network, with a series of green "lights" showing server status. Green buttons refer to current status of the drives (all four bays), power, network connections (2 built-in and any others you add), fans (both of them) and software lock. Clicking on the green buttons shows you info about status of those parts of the server.
Begin demo of Xserve and OS X Server
New software: Server Monitor -- this is how you manage the hardware.
OS X Server and Xserve provide a completely headless operation, SMP optimization, UPS support, 2-terabyte file system support, Net-SNMP and MIB II, for OS X clients. Management tools include Server Admin and Server Monitor, Unlimited clients (windows server requires expensive server licenses).
Mac OS X server also includes Mac Manager 2, NetBoot, NetInfo, LDAP connectivity, Server Admin via SSH
Internet and security: BSD, IP firewall, DHCP, DNS, SLP.
Internet and Web services: Apache, QuickTime Streaming, WebObjects, Mail (SMTP, POP, IMAP), WebDAV, SSL, PHP, MySQL, Java, CGI, Caching Web Proxy.
File and print services: Mac (AFP), Windows (Samba, SMB/CIFS), Unix and Linux (NFS), Internet (FTP, WebDAV), LPR/LPD and SMB/CIFS printing.
OS X provides an Industrial strength platform: protective memory, preemptive multitasking, symmetric multiprocessing, industry-standard BSD networking and software RAID.
Phil is talking Mac OS X Server -- we wouldn't have done this on OS 7, 8 or 9 -- the Unix of OS X is key.
Phil Schiller has just come on stage.
Compare this to the competitors:
* Dell PowerEdge 1560 $4277 - 3 bays
* IBM eServer X330 $5186 - 3 bays
* Sun Fire 280R $19590 - 2 bays
* Xserve $3999 - 266MHz DDR SDRAM, 4 bays means more total capacity
Apple is taking orders today and the server will ship in June
Pricing & Availability starts at $2999 for two standard models: 1GHz dual 256MB DDR and a 60GB hard disk for $2999 -- 1GHz dual 512 MB DDR with a 60GB for $3999. But most people aren't going to buy a standard configuration -- they'll configure it themselves on the Apple store.
Security: enclosure security lock, intrusion alert and software lock (FireWire, USB and CD-ROM can be locked down)
We also have hardware monitoring, where we try to alert you to what needs service. We monitor drive status and pre-fail, temperature (processor and enclosure), fans, power supply and network link.
You can service an Xserve in seconds. The units literally just slide out [like a drawer]. There's no top to take off.
SMART drive monitoring, so we can do predictive failure on drives. The servers will have hot-pluggable drives that pull out of the front of the device in a custom-made carriage.
"This is the fastest architecture we've ever built," said Jobs.
We're going with ATA because they're just as fast as SCSI and they offer real benefits in term of largest capacities.
Storage: 60GB and 120GB ATA/100 drives. (We support 4 drive bays, so that means 480GB max in a 1U server.)
The server will have a dual 1GHz G4 processor, 256K L2, 4MB DDR L3 caches. System controller with custom ASIC done by Apple. Built-in: Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire. That controller has up to 2GB DDR SDRAM. (This is the first time that we know of that that SDRAM has been used in a 1U server.) In addition, it will have a PCI slot with gigabit Ethernet. This means server comes std. with two gigabit Ethernet ports. Quad ATA/100 drives, all on independent controllers and all have independent channels into system controller; a CD-ROM and 2 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots.
Customers want to do:
* file and print
* web and email
* database
* QuickTime streaming
* Computational (for example, Blast)
What they want from Apple:
* Dedicated server platform
* They want it to be rack-mounted
* They want a lot of storage flexibility
* They want serviceability
* And they have to be able to manage these things remotely, so they want great remote management.
Though we're not on every desktop, we are in every Fortune 500 company. AOL Time Warner, Genentech... but Xserve is designed not only for business, but for education.
"It's a 1U server solution designed from the ground up, and customer driven," said Jobs.
Apple is now the largest UNIX developer in the world, said Jobs. We've seen a tremendous stream of innovation this year. We're going to add another piece of innovation today from Apple, and we call it Xserve.
Steve Jobs has taken the stage.
Does anyone want a $2000+ OSX rackmount with IDE drives? I'd guess they'd have done better with a more modest sub-$1000 rackmount. They should have marketted it as a rackmount for the rest of us (like they did with the iMac). Cheap, well built, easy to maintain.
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
i sincerely thank you for waiting till the announcement was over before posting the article!
signed,
the guy that bitched last time
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Apple does something business savvy.
Damn, it is sweet looking though.
Well, I'm disappointed. Everything else about this looks really nice, obviously.
Hm, thinking about famous systems that use IDE drives...think they're trying to appeal to Google?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"hey steve...........NICE RACK!"
"Boy, I'd sure like a Beowulf Cluster of these"
"looks like it might make a nice mp3 server"
A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head
C'mon editors, you know how a certain segment of Slashdot readers are. Now we have to wade through a pile of "why didn't they?"'s which were answered at the end of the press conference. The signal to noise ratio would have been greatly improved if this story went up 15 minutes later.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I am not sure what you have heard, but I have had very few problems with mac servers. I work at a small design and hosting firm that has about a dozen Mac servers in a production enviroment. Most of them are runing OS 9 but we aquired a g4 with OS X and moved it into production with a fractions of the problems we have had trying to set up a 'doze box. (The 'doze box is for customers that insist, and if we ever get it working we are are putting Linux on another box).
Back on topic. These servers answer our complaint about using macs as servers and that was shelves full of desktop machines instead of more professional looking rackmounts in the server room
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
The IDE drives worry me. Sure IDE is getting fast, but good SCSI drives are still faster. Also, IDE drives don't seem to have the reliability that SCSI drives do. Desktop drives fail all the time, but we rarely have good SCSI drives fail.
What a rip off. Where I work everything except some insignificant stuff is on at least RAID 1. Why would I go the Apple route when I can get a server form Dell or Compaq with SCSI RAID for less? My company is Win2000, but Dell and Compaq also support Linux on servers. Another Apple rip off.
http://www.apple.com/xserve/
Case-sensitivity is a PITB. When you speak a filename to someone, how does the difference in capitalization sound? Apple took the user-oriented solution of making case irrelevant. The only people that presume that case-sensitivity in something as accessible as the filename is a good thing are geeks. If we want our source code to be case-sensitive, fine. As far as filenames go, "CT Stuff" and "ct stuff" should mean the same thing. Making case the only difference between two names is as bad as calling your variables x instead of millisecondsBeforeShuttleLaunch.
Some may dismiss this as pandering to "lusers". Yet case-sensitivity makes your life harder, too. Claiming it's a desirable feature is just a way of trying to show off how 31337 you are. No one's impressed that you can type mixed-case filenames. The rest of us just want to get work done.
Constitutionally Correct
Hoo boy, bet this joke won't be made today.
very nice... drool: (http://www.apple.com/xserve/)!
Can't I get them in fruity colors?
--- Evil robots don't kill people, Mad scientists kill people.
Nice rack.
*dodges hurled items*
Check it out...
http://www.apple.com/xserve/
Nice.. this'll look pretty elegant in our data center =)
http://www.apple.com/xserve/
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
http://www.apple.com/xserve/
Xserve
shipping by the end of the year, no price yet...
3U height
*14 drive bays
*14 120GB ATA drives - in same hot-plug format as Xserve
*1.68TB
*Dual 2GB Fibre Channel on system
*400MB/second storage throughput
full info posted at apple.com any time now
The stated market aim is at the school server market... yeap sure is a "boutique". However your post is another pro-GNU/Linux (yes I say GNU/Linux as a general term from CRAP) anti-money posting.
Okay, bigshot. Give us the URL to a shop building 1U servers with these specs that include a similar OS (Linux is fine, but it should be included and supported by the manufacturer) and hardware support.
I'll be waiting.
http://www.apple.com/xserve/specs.html
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
this being a desktop box, aside from video/sound? its gorgeous, i want one.
I want 2D games back.
Didn't see any mention of it here, but apple has splashed it on their homepage and has added marketroid/tech-specs pages.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
This may not be immediately obvious, but the low power requirements of the g4 chip can provide a big advantage here.
From apple's site: Typical continuous power: 125W (single-processor system); 175W (dual processor system).
On a desktop, this doesn't make that huge of a difference, but when you fill a room full of these rackmounts, the electricity savings quickly being to add up. Then you can figure in cooling costs. Lower power consumption results in less generated heat and far lower cooling bills.
It comes with Blinkenlights for the two processor, just like the good old BeBox
That alone is worth $4k
P.S.:These machines actually cluster. Now imagine a rack full of clustered 1U G4s, all with psychedelic Blinkenlights showing activity.
Just don't try and play your Celine Dion CD in it.
Every company who makes computer hardware needs a server... every OS maker needs a server... seems to me to be a market with to many suppliers and not enough buyers.
They have managed to fit in 3 PCI slots into a 1U case though! The motherboard is tiny, and the design is excellent looking at it. Very well integrated, although I still think the price is a little too high for what it is... however the server management software and other things will make this a lot more attractive to those places that can afford the quality in this machine. If you want SCSI, stick a 64-bit 66MHz SCSI card in the spare PCI slot and use SCSI hard drives instead...
Shouldn't that be iServe?
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
after iChat.
Seriously, Oracle 9i on X is exciting.
Xserve web page
In particular, this software looks really nice. Apple is really going after schools who simply can't afford a full time IT employee.
256mb ram and 1 GHZ g4, for $3000. It's a rack server, but I got more power than that in a $700 athlon. I wouldn't be complaining if it was $1500 (over twice the cost), but really, I'd much rather have a sun box (proven, fast) for $3000 than an apple.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
However, what is the point of a Mac server? I don't see any advantage to OS X Server over Linux, and x86 hardware is still cheaper and has better performance than PPC hardware.
If you look closely at the Quicktime animation on the page describing the Server Management software, one of the frames shows that the server is running Mac OS X Server 10.1.5.
Wow, 100+ posts and i haven't seen a single "Beowulf cluster" joke.... oops, my bad.
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
Do you have a link to the article/interview/whatever where Gosling said that? I'd really like to read more on his impressions of OS X.
thanks
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
I'm serious - why would anyone buy this instead of cheaper x86-based racks servers? I don't understand. There are proven server OS's for x86, i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, WindowsAS, BSDI, whatever you need.
Apple has no track record in this domain, and I don't understand what they think they're going to achieve. They simply cannot compete in this sector of the industry.
This is the best gaming machine Apple has ever made! Mmmm..DDR + Radeon 8500 + 2x1Ghz G4's. EV Nova will never have run better.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0205/14.xserve annc.php
this follow-up article has a little more info and a picture--looks titanium-like
char *mySig;
Looks like one hell've a juicy apple to me!
Is it a Fuji or Granny Smith?
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
That link wasn't to any Apple products! I clicked on your link, and it took me to a website showing a picture of a grown man's a-hole! I cannot even imagine how it came to be so stretched out. I was at work and my boss came over right as I clicked on it! Now I've lost my job. Is anyone else aware that this sort of "trick linking" takes place? It is outrageous!
its in the management graphic. i want that too
I want 2D games back.
I feel your pain. Try naming a mailbox ABC in pine, and then try to save a message to mailbox abc. Mailbox does not exist. Create one?
Can't create one, it already exists. Try to rename ABC to abc... can't - already exists. You need to rename ABC to ABCX or something unrelated, then rename that to abc.
A pain in the ass.
Why not use UFS? I don't see any support from apple regarding UFS at all, and if they'll only be supporting HFS+, then well... I guess I'm stuck with it.
It only becomes an issue when you're using unix apps that expect case sensitivity. I might end up switching to UFS anyhow, but that's another story.
"There is no need for it" (the common response to your complaint) is just absurd. If you expect case sensitivity, then you DO need it. It's as simple as that.
Happy computing.
~D
The ATA drive subsystem has a high-bandwidth I/O bus that minimizes bottlenecks, even when all four drives are engaged at once. That's how Xserve can achieve a theoretical peak performance of up to 266 megabytes per second, compared to a 160MB/s theoretical performance with SCSI Ultra160 disk drives -- at a significantly lower cost, and while generating less heat than SCSI drives.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
notice the Xserve uses the same font as the eMac on the web site? also the layout changes for applecare site .. hmmmm something is afoot
If I understand correctly, this is a signficant differentiator between Apple's offerings and companies providing Windows XP on their servers. This is because the hardware OEM would have to negotiate a great deal with Microsoft to do a similar "unlimited deal". Either that, or they'd have to absorb the costs, an unlikely scenario.
Of course, the hardware OEM could install Linux instead, but we all know that Microsoft generally frowns on OEMs picking between Windows and Linux:
Source was eWeek, March 18, 2002.
So, if Apple sees any sort of success with Xserve, you'll probably see the other OEMs putting pressure on Microsoft to let them offer Linux or at least reduce their Windows licensing fees, meaning more, cheaper choices for the customers.
I guess competition is good after all.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
They're positioning this server (according to MacWorld) against, among other things, Sun's 280R.
Let's see here:
The 280R has dual redundant power supplies, can have up to 4 CPUs, gigabytes more memory, is SCSI-based, and, since it's 5RU, has a ton more expandability.
The main comparison point Apple chose to use? Available disk bays, and price. Who do they think they're fooling when they claim that an IDE-based XServer will be comparable to a $20k enterprise-ready server?
Man, the crack in Cupertino must be good.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I was sitting at my desk, just decided to buy a Mac workstation for myself, doing a little window-shopping (well, Mac-shopping...getting rid of 'doze...). Browsed on over to store.apple.com, saw that they were temporarily down, pending update (loved the Post-It note!). Looked at their homepage, and saw the box...am I the only one who damn near wet himself when I saw that?
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
The thing has dual blue-LED CPU meter graphs. I cannot stand it!!
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Macintosh\Apple are way too over priced and over rated...
i could build my own server & install Linux on it and it would be much less expensive and will have better quality...
i could build my uwn for under a thousand dollars, and a OEM equivelent would cost in the neighborhood of $2,500 to $3,000
yes it will.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Looking closely at the pictures on the design page it shows that the machine has FireWire on the front panel, and this is confirmed in the text. This begs two questions. Firstly, is this the first machine, rack or workstation, to have firewire on the front? Secondly, why on earth would you want it on a server? Maybe it's so that if you trash the system disk you don't have to take it out of the rack, you just plug in your iPod :-)
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
"Digital video professionals who are thinking of using Xserve as a rackmount workstation...if you order your unit with an AGP 4X card, your Xserve will come with the card installed in an AGP riser that fits in a PCI slot."
So...does it run at PCI speeds or AGP speeds?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Apple's small server
just 1U so powerful
I think I have wood
...and they have the 3U/14 bay unit for HW RAID.
Maybe Apple will be sued by the X Consortium. I thought this was Apple introducing an X Windows Server.
Check out the GVS 9000. Not quite as nice as the new Xserve, but it has been out for a while and has a dvd burner.
--Have a Johsonville brat.
is there a link to this?
Increasingly Audio/Video production is becoming de-centrelized to the point where editors and producers need to be able to work from a common source that addresses "thier" needs. Not the needs of gamers or SOHO admins.
Since the production work is mostly done on Macs it makes perfect sense to use a Mac server.
Cost of hardware has always been secondary to quality of workflow and consistency in delivering the end product. (meaning: the shit should just work! and it should work the way you'd expect)
Face it, we pay THOUSANDS for audio cards and video equipment. We are not home "tinkerers" and dont want to tinker with our servers.
If these Xservers can also double as workstations 2 birds go down with one stone.
Windows admins and Linux hobbiests will never get it.
Go Apple !
"Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?"
I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet, but on the first page of the xServe site they say:
"Using Xserve as a rackmount workstation Digital video professionals who are thinking of using Xserve as a rackmount workstation can get built-to-order units from the Apple Store. You can add to the capabilities of your Xserve by installing PCI cards (for connecting to SCSI storage and backup devices) in its expansion slots. You get three expansion slots which accommodate peripheral component interconnect (PCI) cards. And if you order your unit with an AGP 4X card, your Xserve will come with the card installed in an AGP riser that fits in a PCI slot."
Think of how much space this would save in a sound studio or video editing room by having your entire computer and drive array in the rack? In one space? Firewire ports for portable drives and AV monitoring. Add a SCSI card and rackmount Glyph drives. Add a MOTU 828 for huge audio input. What else could you want? (and don't give me any crap about a 2-button mouse) What about streaming audio or video production? You can carry around a 6-space SKB rack with everything you need! I think we might be seeing more of these units running audio for tours and doing mobile production video and broadcasts in the future.
Maybe its just due to all my time working on Sun and HP boxes, but how are you supposed to interface with this? You can either go the KVM route, which I find cumbersome and impractical (I only ever see it set up for Win NT boxes), or you can set up a terminal server... but there is no serial line. I havn't looked at Mac boxes in a while, so how are you supposed to connect to this (without running SSH or Telnet on every Apple box in your server room).
Methinks some new desktop Power Macs are in the works if they're letting people at this hardware, which would be comparable in price to what you'd get with a 2x1GHz desktop system.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Exactly.. this is a pretty big deal. Between the whole "look, a server OS that a half-idiot can configure with reasonable licensing policies" thing and the tools that seem to provide remote administration done right (apple remote desktop and this crazy looking manager thing, apple seems to have suddenly gotten a bunch of stuff right that no one ever quite has before.
.. this could definitely turn into a real, credible threat to windows XP.
I can only just hope and pray with all my might that apple doesn't let this opportunity slipt hrough their fingers. I mean, this isn't the most impressive box i've ever seen, esp. compared to some high-end UNIX setups, and traditional Unices probably still are more reliable and powerful for some stuff, but the tradeoffs you have to go through with this XServe are certainly no more unreasonable than the ones that early or even sometimes current versions of Windows NT make you go through. If Apple keeps developing this, and they *market* it, and they actually push this in those markets where this is actually something killer (all the ease of Windows NT without the bullshit, the constant reboots, the downtime, the requirements to buy like four redundant servers to make anything work, or the need foran MSCE)
And if this gets developed, it would be a very good thing for linux and UNIX in general, because anywhere that picks up this thing is going to be naturally gravitated toward J2EE and UNIX-based SQL software.. and after awhile, they'll begin to realize linux is a drop-in replacement in some places for this. Any mindshare that this Xserve thing picks up translates to instant mindshare for everything UNIX.. becuase that's just one more shop that has expertise in Apache, Perl, etc, instead of expertise in IIS, ASP, etc...
Please, please, apple, don't fuck this one up. If they play your cards right, they could take over the world with this one. This could be the first step to making Macs seem usable or credible in a university/business environment.. if they can get a serious foothold with this.. i don't even know.
This makes me incredibly, incredibly happy. It's very exciting. It's just too bad apple will probably not market it correctly and we'll wind up with something that just slips through the cracks and never catches on, another product that was technically neat but no one used. Now i just want to know how long it will take LinuxPPC to put together a bootable package for the XServe..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Uh, yeah. http://www.apple.com/xserve. There's a console port ... a serial console port.
Not a huge deal, but still.
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Supposedly, Steve Jobs gets bent out of shape when people refer to OS X as "oh-es ex", rather than "oh-es ten." So, is this called "ten-serv?"
This announcement explains Pixar's move to OS X. How else could a render farm on OS X be space-effective?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Redundant? Hey moderator, don't do drugs, it fucks with your head.
But the real question is...
...do they have blue LEDs?
Not as fast connection
Jeremy D. Zawodny /
http://www.apple.com/xserve/design.html
or do I need a rack?
Its such a sweet looking box, not as artsy as some of the other Apple hardware (and as a TiBook, Sage iMac DV+, Cube, PowerMac 5500 and MacSE owner I am definitely not bashing!) I'd really like to have it on my desktop.
Just maybe purchase an Apple flat panel display. Maybe not. But I'd really like this thing on my desktop.
As someone who is not really familiar with rack mount hardware - can I get away without a rack?
A message from our sponsor
As a ballpark figure, 1 watt turned on all year costs you $1. Maybe double that if you are in a continuously air conditioned environment like a machine room.
The savings may not be too large. I checked an Athlon system with an ammeter recently. It came in at 120W with one drive in it while doing its server tasks. So, they at least are in the same ballpark. (The measurement techniques are surely different, I would not claim one was higher than the other based on this data. Just that they are near each other.)
Power is one of the reasons I suggest people not use that crappy old 486 or pentium as a NAT/firewall box in their house unless they are doing it for joy. In about a year or so of electricity savings you can pay for one of the new integrated appliances and enjoy increased reliablity and savings in the following years.
Not too bad.
You don't know what you are talking about.
First, Apple has NEVER produced a machine with a 64-bit CPU. Period.
Second, Linux has supported preemtive-multitasking from the start - something like 10 years ago...
You are confusing it with KERNEL PREEMTION which means the *kernel* process itself can be preemted to support real-time scheduling. Darwin has never supported this, and I've not heard of any rumours that it will in the future either...
As for features, there are plenty of server throughput benchmarks that show Linux to be as fast or faster than Windows. I've never seen any OS X server benchmark that even comes close.
Hint: Photoshop filters are not a server benchmark, and results "up to" X times faster with no details just means it much slower in many other cases...
You say you can get a server from Dell with RAID for less, and you run Win2000?
Hmmm. Since Win2000 will charge you $3295 for unlimited users, that means you must be able to get a Dell for $605? I looked on the Dell website and couldn't find a $605 server.
Oh, and the Xserve DOES have raid.
Seriously, you run Windows, you pay the user tax and you're concerned about cost- when your user tax is almost as much as the complete server from Apple?
This is a really competitive server from a hardware standpoint. When you include the software costs (and you did since you run Win2000) there is no comparison.
Your alternative is at least twice the cost (And when I go to the Dell website their servers are a lot more expensive than the Xserve for less CPU horsepower and multiple-rack units.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Technically, sure. At my last job, I had a rackmount IBM server sitting on a desk for almost a year. They're optimized for racks--but that certainly doesn't mean there would be some inherent problem in just leaving at your desk.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The last batch of 6 1U x86 rackmount servers I bought from one of the largest PC manufacturers came with misprogrammed APICs that made them unable to run Linux without spending several days on hackery to get them going. The PCI slots are still useless, they can't deliver interrupts, but the rest of the machine works. I shuttled machines around so they don't need their PCI slots. (This machine was not purchased with Windows, it was a no-OS machine.) Two of these machines have failed in the 6 months that I have owned them.
The previous batch of 2U servers I purchased had a whiz-bang scsi controller that displayed a linux allergy and took me weeks of trying pre-release patches and waiting to get a linux version that worked acceptably. I still have to build custom kernels for these machines when I upgrade.
The biggest problem I have purchasing PC hardware is there is no good way to tell what is "server grade" and what has cheaped out components in the power supply or capacitors that will cause their MTBF to suffer. The extreme price pressure always tempts the manufacturers to cut corners.
So, the attactions...
Ok, they cost about 30% more than the servers I have been buying (and certainly outperforms them, but that is irrelevant, my servers are low cpu users). I'll take that. It vanishes in the unbilled hours dealing with mystery hardware and having to buy a bunch of spare machines to count on being able to replace a machine when needed.
Hmmm, when Alpha Processor Inc. (API Networks) introduced the 1U dual-833Mhz EV6x Alpha CS20 over a year ago, I saw no special Slashdot story.
Granted, it was an expensive server ($8000US+)but did run Linux and NetBSD admirably.
Compaq introduced a 1U AlphaServer DS10L over TWO years ago and no Slashdot story on this either.
Slashdotters would complain that the Alpha-based servers are far too expensive so let's look to the low-end.
Sun introduced its sub-$1000US 1U Sun Fire V100 and Netra X1 servers and yet I never did see a drooling Slashdot story on either of these.
Not to mention that third-party integrators have had 1U dual Intel/AMD rackmounts for over a year as well. Nope, no major Slashdot story on the introduction of these either...
Apple comes late into the game with a non-ECC "Server" (that more closely resembles a desktop G4 stuffed into a 1U enclosure) that runs an unproven OS X (yes, unproven compared to Tru64/Digital UNIX, Solaris and even Linux/Net/FreeBSD) and Slashdotters are ecstatic.
Boy, that Kool-Aid must have been awfully refreshing.
~PA
Guess what the next motion picture will use as a render farm...
realkiwi
Apple releases a $4000 1U server and you say x86 hardware is cheaper and faster?
I'm perplexed that such mythology remains-- how can people continue to think this despite the fact that the powerPC has been beating the pentium in every reasonable performace comparison for years, and at half the cost.
The is almost a law of physics-- the PPC is a risc chip while the pentium is a risc chip with a 386 compatibility processor running emulation software. Therefore the die is a quarter the size -- which means it costs 1/8th as much and the speed is much much faster.
Hell, it even has a dedicated floating point vector unit, which the pentium doesnt (MMX was quite a failure.)
This means Apple gets faster processors for a lot less money, which allows them to release servers like this one with more performance for less money than you can get from any quality x86 manufacturer.
The Dell PowerEdge1650, the closest comperable machine from Dell, has fewer drive bays, half the drive capacity, NO-hot swappable drives, dual processors (which are SLOWER than the PowerPCs), dual gigabit ethernet, 512MB Ram, the remote management card (Which is free for apple, extra for dell), RedHat, and standard support is $6,341.00.
So, %50 more expensive with less capacity, and SLOWER PROCESSORS.
Every time apple releases new hardware, some x86 fan goes on and on about how expensive it is, and every time I make this comparison in response and find the same thing-- it costs a lot more and you get a lot less when you go Dell, Compaq, HP, etc.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Well, when I say me, I mean my group. We do computational chemistry (solid state). The more work we do, the more CPU we need. All the software we use runs on UNIX, (mostyl fortran). Scince OS X, we've had the option of looking at a Mac for purchasing CPU.
Our real problem is that the way the system of grants works, is that we can afford up to 3000 pounds (about 3800 USD), from a small grant. Otherwise, because of the accountability problem, we have to apply for a large grant specifically for a computer. This makes taking on small grants, and colaborations awkward.
All we want is CPU bang per buck. Fast networking for cluster building would be useful, but not needed, as we can spread the jobs over many indepentant machines.
I'll be watching these beasts. Could be just what I;ve been waiting for, if I can get a decent F90 compiler for them..
up at apple.com
http://www.apple.com/xserve/specs.html
p.s. if i had any mod points left, you would have gotten a "funny" for that
Not that what your server looks like is a huge benefit, but these things are the most beautiful little servers I've ever seen.
I used to work for a little dot-gone, and the couple racks of VA FullOn 2x2 servers looked really impressive to me, especially the blue power lights. Of course, a couple racks of those sounded like a jet taking off. (Actually, one sounded like a jet taking off...those twin high-rpm fans in the front.)
Then later I saw a full rack of Cobalt RaQ servers, and all those blinking lights were impressive looking...
This has over 24 little lights on the front of it...must be so impressive looking in a darkened server room. I could probably read a book from the light off a rack full of these.
The titanium(?) enclosure is just the icing on the cake.
After browsing through the comments, it's obvious why Apple is still in business. Some people like to buy things because they look good and for no other reason.
"Look! It's pretty! Buy one!"
"Oooooh! Here's my wallet!!"
Anything is possible given time and money.
Sure, it didn't add alot to the overall cost, but it seems like a waste of real estate. You get three firewire ports over 2 usb ports. Plus one of the firewire ports is in the front, where I think usb would make more sense.
I mean, this thing is probably going to be in a server room, so I can't really see it hooked up to an ipod or a camcorder, and firewire doesn't extend long enough to make it to someones office before you need a repeater.
The only real application I see is IP over firewire which isn't a bad idea at all. You get 4x performance over 100mb ethernet and the hubs are alot cheaper than gigabit so you it's a nice compromise.
Still, beyond IP, what would a practicle application be?
nt
1 rack, 42 Xserves, dual G4 1GHz = 42 x 2 x 10,500kkeys/sec
= 8,820,000 kkeys/sec
which would place it 2nd in the top 100 participants for the day, only after The-Space.net @ 12,077,535 kkeys/sec.
Pretty powerful hardware from Apple.
Stats here
It's got the firewire port and everything. Can't wait for the TV ad... do-do-do...
That's a nicely done Quicktime movie though: note that it's interactive: you can actually click on the tabs. Try it!
You can actually get into the case of these systems whithout unracking them, unlike the Sun units I know (420R's and 280R's). Yeah, I know that an 85-lb., 4U Sun server that was pulled out of the rack like this would tip over onto me, but I might prefer that to un-racking it and re-racking it every time I go in the case:/ irack/i ndex-6.html
http://litterbox.zawodny.com/~jzawodn/pics
Apple's thingy
Dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache per processor
512MB DDR SDRAM @ 266MHz
60GB Apple Drive Module
CD-ROM drive
ATI Graphics Card
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
Two USB ports
Three FireWire ports
Price $3,999.00
TerraSoft's GVS option
GVS9000
CPUs: dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4 w/AltiVec.
Memory: 1 GB PC-133 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs.
Storage: 80 GB IDE drive.
Removable: DVD-RW Super Drive.
Communications: Gigabit, FireWire, USB.
Video Card: ATI Radeon 7500 dual (YDL video patch required).
Expansion: single 64/66 PCI slot.
Chassis: GVS 9000 2U Rack System.
Keyboard & Mouse: Apple USB.
Operating System: YDL & Mac OS X pre-installed; complete box sets.
Warranty Service Plan: GVS One year - Hardware.
Weight: 50 lbs.
Price: $3,839.00
So, the GVS has a memory bus that is 1/2 the speed, but a DVD-RW that can be taken out and put into my home machine, for $160 less than Apple's machine.
Also, I wouldn't rush out and buy these machines before someone else tests the cooling system first. I've been burned before buying 1st generation Apple hardware. From my experience, Rev 2 is well worth waiting for.
A lot of us snickered when Apple pitched the G4 as a "supercomputer" (using the technical export definition), but if folks like Genentech build racks of these, clustered, and land in the top 10% of the Top500 list, Steve and company will be the ones laughing.
Let's see... the *bottom* of the Top500 list is currently a 116-CPU Cray T3E 1200, with a theoretical peak of about 139 GFlops... you'd only need enough Xserves to fill 1/4 of a rack to come up with that kind of power.
Okay, okay, I guess I want some too.
As you can see the AMD is a hottie and thus not necessarily the best choice for a rack. I will admit that the process technology to make the AMD Athlon Model 4 (not the XP) is a little dated and for that along with other factors contributes to the high power consumption.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
For the price, this is amazing. the box has two 64bit/66mhz slots in it, which could probably fit two dual channel scsi160 (or 320) controller cards in it.
7 A58-54C8-11D5-97C60090278D3ED0
It's a 1U case, if I was going to do massive storage intensive tasks on it, I would plug it into a hardware raid. Like the Lacie TX12000 system, http://www.lacie.com/products/product.cfm?id=4A86
Which is rackmountable, and handles all the aspects of the raid itself. That way, if the server breaks, I can remove it, put a new one in its place, and keep going. (Servers support netbooting now, so I wouldn't have to change configuration). For the education / science / lets get work done crowd, this is an awesome benefit.
Since storage capacity is essential, and you can raid the drives, why not put ATA in there? Instead of scsi. If you need scsi do the above, and put them in a box dedicated to handle them.
Oh, and the machines all have RS232 ports on em.
Firstly, hats off to Apple. It looks good (and that is a selling point, especially in design companies). It has enough power, the group of researchers (there was a story here on them wanting to use G4's but the tower couldn't be stacked) can now stack them. And above all (this is redundant, has been posted already) the admin software and unlimited seats licence will be selling points in those places (schools, design companies etc) where there is no one who has the technical capability to setup a linux box (and the Cobalts from Sun are not very good in terms of software admin and cost more with far less power) who probably thought that they were stuck with Windows servers.
Nice to see that Apple has finally introduced DDR. means that this will trickle down to the desktop sonner or later.
You can get your fill of blinkenlights on Mac OS X here. Probably need to run Remote Desktop or something for it to be useful with the RacMac, though. :-)
With Apple's recent knack for removing "legacy" ports on their machines, it's really, really nice to see that they thoughfully added a serial port on the Xserve for console access. My server farm is all Unix, and as such, I don't use a KVM, rather, I use a serial terminal server.The Xserve, with both serial and VGA would work great in any server farm environment. Kudos to Apple!
If you're a heavy video editor and want access to a machine that's super fast and has proper cooling for lots of drives, this might be a really appealing workstation.
I'm thinking of this myself, but I'm planning to wait until the midyear introduction of new G4s. They'll probably put the best of what they've developed here into the new systems plus a faster processor.
Just because it's called a server doesn't mean you need to use it as one.
D
... all it needs it another mouse button.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
...until they can bring the price down to levels that are competitive with PCs or even Suns.
Firewire sounds like a good way to attach a CD-R or tape drive for backups.
...makes all the difference in the world. Space considerations are a major issue in servers. Anyone can build a 2U unit. Building a 1U unit that stays cool and is still serviceable, that's the trick.
Check out various server websites sometime: you'll note that the 1U models are generally significantly more expensive than equivalent 2U models.
On the Design Page:
"Fits in with what's out there:
"Xserve fits into all types of industry-standard racks, so you can use what you already have or buy new racks "off-the-rack" to meet your specific needs. There's no need for a special "Apple rack."
Xserve supports racks that meet the specifications of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/Electronic Industries Association (EIA) standard ANSI/EIA-310-D, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 297, and Deutsche Industrie Norm (DIN) 41494. You can install the server in any of several types of racks, including: open four-post rack (19 inches wide and 29 -- 36 inches deep), cabinet with four-post rack inside (19 inches wide and 29 -- 36 inches deep), and two-post telco rack (19 inches wide).
I think this new attitude -- along with the list of nice features -- will go over well here in higher ed. I'm considering getting one of these and putting it in our co-location center. I've used the Server Admin on my in-house G4 server, and it's great for remote admin, too. But all of the admin tools alone would sell me over a different brand. A Linux 1U would be cheaper initially, but it costs something in time to maintain, too. I don't have the time and resources to hire a sys admin. I've got to do that myself, and it's not a lot of fun. This would be perfect.
I believe there are 1394->SCSI adapters that are available for Macs. It was brought about for iMac buyers who were migrating up from older systems.
Granted, you won't have good performance, but they'll work... and with similar fail-safe (since firewire/1394 is hot pluggable, etc.)
- Sig
Got to build a bunch of new tools for ID management, software distribution, aggregated backup/storage management, automatic help tickets and so on. For a service provider, a new golly gee whiz server type is just another lump of hard work we have to retrofit into our infrastructure. I sure help the management tools work otherwise it's going to cost tons of money to do everything by hand.
install XDarwin and you're there.
Apple's list of venders promising support for the new server (without any actual product commitments) is at : http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/may/14quotes. html
Without a doubt, the BSD-base is the best thing this server has going for it. Without knowing more, I'd say that VNC is going to be a big deal for people wanting to use this thing without necessarily giving a Mac to their network admins. (Speaking of admins, has Apple figured out how to sell the major consulting companies on this thing?)
Don't you remember the Netra X1? IDE drive.
Quit trolling, dude. These boxes rock...
Apparently, Trollaxor was arrested and narrowly escaped certain death by the hand of the Lunix Nazis who had taken over his hometown Kansas City. RMS and the evil JonKatz apparently had an elaborate plan to turn the 50% homosexual, 50% redneck Kansas City into a 100% gay sodom and ghemmorah, using the diabolical GayZer cannon. Fortunately the evil plot was foiled by the brave Ninja Troll Task Force, who reversed the polarity of the GayZer and turned everyone in Kansas City into heterosexuals but sent all the gayness of Kansas City into the perverse twisted mind of JonKatz, who had been operating the GayZer at the time.
In other news, Lunix use has completely disappeared in Kansas City, Volkswagen sales have plummeted, and the Kansas City Royals reports zero attentance.
In the image http://www.apple.com/xserve/images/servermonitorsc reen05142002.jpg
you will notice the ip address, and the hostname are the wrong way round.
haha ?
Well, we now have a new operational definition of stupid. And that would be: "Eating a $150 restocking fee rather than Reading the Fucking Manual."
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Man, the crack in Cupertino must be good.
Eh, it's not that crack-addled. The 280R is the least expensive rackmount 2-CPU machine in Sun's product line, so it's a logical place to start the compairison.
The point here is that the xServe manages to hit about 50% feature parity with the 280R while staying at more or less exact price parity with the Netra T1 AC200, which is blows the doors off of in terms of features.
I manage datacenters full of Sun boxes (low and high end) for a living. Frankly, apple has a very compelling little box here, and if I were Sun I'd be taking this very seriously.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
To be fair, Apple's manuals are horrendously bad. There's little useful information there about the way the GUI part of the operating system works, let alone the BSD underpinnings.
Still, I guess that's why there are handy sites like Mac OS X Hints and the like for reference.
From Apple's Web site:
:-)
"Just set Server Monitor to alert you with email, cell phone or pager notification as soon as it detects critical problems."
Hah, modern slavery
1. That is a normal thing for those other companies to do. This is Apple's first rackmount. The sheer novelty of this warrants coverage.
2. Apple's server offer 2 gigahertz of processing power, a half terrabye of storage, excellent management software, and some GREAT service plans - all in 1U.
Apple's rackmount is simply worthy of discussion.
despite the fact that the powerPC has been beating the pentium in every reasonable performace comparison for years
That's not a "fact". That is what we in the business like to call a "marketing claim," or what normal human beings call a "bald-faced lie."
Outside of a small number of benchmarks that make extensive use of the G4's vector units, the Athlon XP and Pentium 4 are faster than the G4 at every equivilant system price point -- usually a lot faster. This is a cold, hard fact.
That's not to say that the xServe isn't a nice box. Hell, it's a great little server, and I can't wait to get my hands on one. But the reasons for that have everything to do with the OS, the case design and the management infrastructure, and nothing to do with CPU speed.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
That's the Super ATA Next-generation (SATAN) technology. It'll be making its, er, mark on computers worldwide soon.
I think this new offering is going to give the new HP/Compaq behemoth a real run for its money. Why choose a bunch of expensive blades when you can get a $3K blade, plop 42 of them in a rack, and run a sweet OS to boot?
Funny that Apple's high-end graphics solution for the server is an ATI card vs Nvidia based...remember when ATI had that huge foul-up and released pics of the new Apple before the official MacWorld release? Seemed like it was all about the GeForce 3 after that. Now they're back to ATI. Hmmm...what happened here?
I think the firewire ports on the front are very suspect. Purely speculation, but perhaps there's R&D going on for some sort of iPod application? I really can't imagine what, as these puppies are networked to the kilt... probably developer incentive as Apple is a force behind the interface.
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
I could get my agency to spend some money on a couple of those :)
I've addressed this issue in the Slashdot Meta-Discussion.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Last I saw, a license or 25 or 50 or 100 Linux users was free.... if you want to run Windows, there are far more serious problems than the price :-). Darwin may be a decent Unix implementation, but I don't see why this is such an amazing win compared to a 1U server. (Admittedly, I couldn't get Dell's web page to simply give me a list price without becoming a registered customer :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Let's actually answer all these "imagine a cluster of racks!" remarks, shall we?
As shown here, the current record holder for the world's fastest supercomputer is ASCI White. It has a theoretical maximum of 12.288 teraflops and cost $110 million. Seems like a worthy contender.
Apple quotes their dual processor machine as having a theoretical max of 15 gigaflops. A module with Dual 1GHz G4s, quad 120 GB, and 512MB of ram costs $5,649.00 a pop. Doing a little bit of math, we find that we need at least 820 modules to match ASCI White. On principle, let's fill up all the racks (42U), getting a total of 20 and thus 840 modules. The racks cost $1.4k each. This brings us to a grand total of $4.8 million. Throw in a million or so for facilities, so about $6 million total.
We go back to our original number of $110 million for 12.3 teraflops. With Apple, you could theoretically get a 12.6 teraflop machine with 400 terabytes of storage for a little more than 1/20th of their cost. Not bad.
Now, imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
sure you did, troll. uh huh. suuuuure.
makes a lot more sense now. I was a bit surprised that they were going to be doing their rendering on a huge field of desktops. I wonder if they had any inside info that the Xserver was coming soon ;)
The way you distinguish directories from files is that the directories look like folders and the files look like pieces of paper. That's been going on for 20 years now.
Of course, if you insist on ordering servers from Walmart, you're going to have problems sometime. This does not mean that all PC hardware is crap and you should switch to Macs; it means you are cheap (and apparently work cheap). Are you really spend 30% more for Apple hardware, when you're too cheap to order from a company that will provide a parts list?
I don't know who wouldn't be happy with these remote management/monitoring options:
Server Monitor for remote monitoring of key hardware subsystems: enclosure temperature, processor temperature, blower speed, hard drives (SMART data), Ethernet links, power supply and UPS systems, enclosure security
Server Admin (TCP/IP)
Remote Setup Assistant
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
Intermapper from Dartware
Secure Shell (SSH2) for secure remote login
Command-line tools for remote configuration and management, including installing software, running Software Update, and setting system and network preferences
Go out and get sailing!
pple is aiming at the "boutique" server market (well, probably not much of a "market" at these prices). Any company that is going to invest in more than one or two servers will be looking to get more bang for the buck than pple offers. Looking at the specs, most screw-driver shops could put together something better for $1500 or so (thousands less than the Apple tax). The baseline $4000 dollars for the dual processor unit is way too pricey for its medicore specs.
The White House announced that it's taking another look at its Middle-East policies in response to the media having become unaccountably IRack-friendly...
Get off my launchpad!
This is an important point which often gets glossed over. OS X can take two drives and make them RAID 1 but it can't boot off it. That means even with this Xserve you can't have disk redundancy for your OS. OS's drive fails, server goes kerplunk.
This is what I want - I want my OS on a RAID 1 and my data on a separate RAID 1 or RAID 5. If any drive fails I want the system to keep going, keep providing access to the data and I want it to let me know a drive failed via blinkenlights and by email (my pager has email). If it doesn't have its own email alert, I want it to execute the program of my choice or log it to a file so I can use a script or cron+script to make my own email alert.
I want this in a system which costs around $5000, provides at least 8GB for the OS disk and 30GB for data. I don't need a 14 bay array which will probably cost $3000 before you even add any drives to it. I need to set up an OS X file server this summer. I don't need a blazing processor or even blazing disk performance. I need reliability, redundancy and monitorability (I think I made up that word).
I can get this for Windows 2000 Server from many sources (with hardware RAID and hotswap drives, something I don't really need).
It's the reduced CPU utilisation you get with SCSI and don't with IDE. They could plug in additional SCSI HBA's to boost the bus throughput. Not that an individual physical drive is going to push much more than 20Mb/second anyway.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You can't go measure the current draw of one machine, and then compare it to the spec sheet for another. The spec sheet is going to vastly inflate the power draw, so that people don't under-spec their power supply lines.
What does your athlon system claim on the box for power usage? 240W?
Is this yet another example of Apple's innovation?
Oooh looky, a mediocre overpriced 1u server.
Can we please stop kissing apple ass by posting this ad copy bullshit?
1) I suppose RC5-64 seeing as that is the one thing i seem to care about at the moment. DAMN, a keyrate of 20.7 M/Keys/sec is faaast. and 48x that in a rack, makes me wish i had much money to blow. DnetcDB
2) Thats a server, woah! They *look* good.Blue PCB inside, sweet metal stylings outside, i know that i should not look at these things and think it is good or anything like that, but i can not help myself.
3) Cooling: This is my only concern, they do not appear to have a decent air intake system at the front of the rack, to cool the internal componantry.Sure the G4 is relatively cool, but there are the HDDs and 48 of them in a stack would be a lot of heat.
4)Comparable to PC offerings. At lest our new racks we are purchasing in the next few weeks are only PIII 1.3G machines, the speed differences of these new apple servers are negligable. To what it used to be
I think that it will be most interesting to see how much penetration into the rack-space market share apple are able to achieve.
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
1GHz CPU, 4 60GB disks (as 2 RAID 1 drives), AppleCare for $3,889.00 (.edu price) Whoo-hoo!
The $3889.00 was for 3 disks, not 4.
"What else could you want?" - More PCI slots for starters. Upon hearing the announcement of the Apple rackmount system I had my fingers crossed, hoping that I would not have to continue to use a Magma PCI expansion chassis to use all the DSP Farm PCI cards I want to with my Digidesign digital recording studio system. Ask anyone who uses Digidesign pro audio equipment - they have been begging Apple for years to give them a system with more than 4 PCI expansion slots.
While on the subject of adding the expansion slots, why not make them based on a crossbar architecture like the HyperTransport system rather than the 'party line telephone' architecture of plain vanilla PCI bus. Having a system with better disk throughput is a start, however.
Apart from quick and easy access to any specific machine in the rack, I think the main reason that Apple included the Firewire on the front panel is for Dgital Video. Sine DV is one of Apple's main markets and Video Processing houses generally need huge amounts of storage, this would be tailor made for them. In the Video center the rack will probably be not in some remote data center but in the room next door. You walk in with your Camera, ask the Admin which box has space on it for your prOn, plug the Camera or whatever in and copy the stuff across. The admin could obviously also make a Firewire hub out of the server room for easy access.
If Apple wants people to refer to the OS as "10", then surely they're doing themselves as disservice by naming their server "ex".
Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Since you do computational chemistry using grant money, I'm guessing you're at a university. Apple *is* trying to sell processors to that market, but they might also be talked into donating some, especially if you can make your chemistry code open-source so their paying customers can use it and buy more computers. It's probably at least as easy to beg one from Apple as it is to do your large-grant paperwork to get the cash to buy one.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"...PRICELESS"
There are plenty of PCI RAID5 controllers on the market. You really want more than 4 disks for RAID5 anyway.
> first Airports [were unreliable]
I have to mention that even though a high number of the first generation of AirPort Base Stations failed after 13-15 months of use due to a bad capacitor in some component, even thought they were then out of warranty, Apple replaced them with no questions asked. I got a new one the next day after I called about mine dying after 14 months. We were literally only on wired connection for less than 24 hours.
Also, I used to have a PowerBook 190, whose case had a tendency to crack at the hinge, and Apple extended the warranty on those to 7 years. I got mine fixed after five years for free and it was as good as new. The 5300 is the other "crappy" PowerBook model, and it also got a 7 year warranty extension. Every year or so Apple also offers 190 and 5300 owners $500 off a new PowerBook if they trade in their old one.
My point is that Apple's reputation for reliability is not necessarily tarnished by certain failing models if they did something about it afterwards to make it right.
The Netras are a pain, precisely because they need to be unracked to be opened. But at least you can lift one in one hand.
This announcement now makes so much more sense!
This is not the sig you are looking for...
has to do with the support. $950 for a server is a lot as far as I'm concerned. That's half the cost of a basic server (or there abouts, maybe not an Apple). They should offer a basic extended HW warranty. Then offer a support plan. If they really want to get into the professional server business, they need to expand their options a bit I think. Our Enterasys networking HW options are numerous. There are probably 30 options to choose from. That said, I like the box. Nice looks. Good specs. I'd buy one. I wish they'd make a really cheap one though.
Do the math 12288gflops is the fastest super computer. 12288/15 is about 820 or 19 1/2 racks of these guys at 4k$ a piece so for 3.3Millions dollars, you can own the worlds fastest computer!!!! And it would only take up a room about 20x20 with the UPS and all :) not bad
For $1000US you can buy an HP rp2430 (128mb ram, no disk, but that's easily fixed)
:(
650MHz PA-8700 with 2.25MB of L1 cache on-die. I mean wtf. This is 2002, I'm getting a bit sick of people advertising 32 bit computers as servers.
You can serve up web pages and that's about it. far out.
Apple.
... pronounced "ex-serve" or "ten-serve"??
Total and complete BS
You're assuming all these wonderful apps on OS X are carbon, which the majority (by far) are not! And whats up with the 2gig max memory? Crap! IDE drives in a $4000 'enterprise' server? crap! this is just more fodder for the blind mac addicts that won't accept the 2 button mouse.
Looking at the specs, most screw-driver shops could put together something better for $1500 or so (thousands less than the Apple tax)
All true, but you're missing the point. This one runs Mac OS X (easy to use) and intergrates with Macs better than Linux, Solaris, Windows, etc. It's ideal for design firms, education, science, etc. These people using Macs on the desktop want to use them in the server room. They're not looking for the cheapest solution, they're looking for the solution with the least fuss. Another example: this is could be the best solution for server-based video editing setups.
The prices are basically the same range as their high-end desktop machines.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Apple didn't release a rack mount system years ago
I don't think this would have been too practical without Mac OS X in its current form.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Hmmm, for $4K I can buy 5 dual processor AMD Servers and fit them in the same 5 Us of rack space. That's 10 CPUs (With 50% more power per CPU, 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 5 unit redundancy, 10 GBs of RAM and space for 2.4 TBs of HD...
In other words, about 8 times the power for the same price. Do not use price/performance logic when talking about any apple. You will always loose. Focus on how pretty they are or how slick OS X is.
Why is NASA looking for 8086 chips? Because of proven reliability. Apple is the very new kid on this block. Sun is the proven reliable and accountable adult on this block. Show respect to your betters. If you are looking for price/performance only go with AMD. If image is everything, and reliability, accountability, price and performance is nothing, go with shiny apple.
What was your point again?
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Someone mentioned or asked about this. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/222/wo/Yo8J31JOh66s3XSopS/6.3.0.3.30 . .3.20.13.0
...and come the arrival of Jaguar, Rendezvous will allow you to just plug in a new Xserve and your cluster will auto-detect it, and farm out work to it. Zero configuration.
Not in an xterm, they don't ;)
Sometimes I like a graphical file manager (Konqui, Nautilus), but it depends what I'm doing. I can sometimes fit more useful information on the screen with an x-term, can sort with wildcards, etc -- and I like a nice green-on-black file listing ...
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
Oh wait, that's kind of the point.
Well, then imagine... um.. darn, these are pretty cool on their own.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Sure, eventually apple extended the Airport warranty, but when mine failed they hadn't. Their helpful phone guy made a veiled suggestion that I should call back and lie about when I bought it to get it replaced. (I soldered in some new capacitors and now run it with an open case.)
I have a PB5300 too. The case split at the back and Apple fixed it at no charge 3 years out of warranty. They kept offering me $500 to trade it in, but I always liked it too much to give it back. It was a nice machine. There is something to be said for a 640x480 active matrix screen. That was gorgeous. I know one person that traded a more modern 800x600 machine for the PB5300 because he liked the screen so much.
They do an great job of standing behind the occasional lemon, but that isn't going to make me feel much better if I have servers failing on a regular basis. What makes me feel good about the servers is how rare the lemons have been.
If you notice, one of the BTO options is A SCSI CARD!
So, you only configure it with one ATA drive (for the system), you add the SCSI card option then buy a SCSI drive rack and hook them up... RIGHT?
Or (this is not for the faint of heart) - *hack* the drive bays to support a SCSI configuration...
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
I usually don't respond to ACs, but...
These are rackmount servers from one of the most reputable x86 vendors. These are not mystery boxes. The parts list would suggest that they run fine under linux, and I'm sure there are machines with those parts that do. Even the whizzy-scsi controller was listed as supported under linux.
A few years ago it was easier because the vendor would sell them in linux configurations, but that was stopped.
Your second paragraph is purely your unsupported (and contradicted in my first post) conjecture repackaged as facts about me.
What I'd really like to know is, How do you tell which PC hardware is crap? I was using the "buy server grade gear from reputable PC manufacturer" as my guideline and that has failed me miserably. I previously tried the "buy a couple different things, pick the best one then keep buying those" but the models change too fast for that to be practical.
I really hate to nit-pick, but shouldn't you *scream* before you *faint*?
Not if you're a Mac fan.
It's not quite as bad as you make it out. Each ATA drive has its own controller which will perk up the speed nicely thank you very much.
The Dell 1650 has room for 3 drives max, with a max size of 73Gb each. If you're in a linux shop, it'll be a bit less expensive but if you add cost of Microsoft's OS + equivalent server apps the Dell is many thousands of dollars over the Apple price.
Apple's offering unlimited client licenses on this baby with an interface that will make it easy to integrate into a windows shop. You can have 0.48T on this baby and it can sport two Gigabyte ethernet links. If you're just serving 1000 users email (not a problem for a unit of this capability) you are saving many thousands of $US in CAL costs.
god damn thats a good one
thank you RecipeTroll
As a ballpark figure, 1 watt turned on all year costs you $1. Maybe double that if you are in a continuously air conditioned environment like a machine room.
The problem isn't with the power per machine per year, but the power density (watts per volume). Above a certain number of kW per rack (5? 6?) the cost of cooling increases non-linearly because of the need for specialized AC equipment, plumbing, building reinforcement for heavy stuff on the roof, etc.
Go look at one if you're thinking about a new Unix desktop in the near future. It's really nice hardware.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
I already posted on what the target market would be that Apple is aiming at, but I thought it over a bit and came to the conclusion that the target market is larger than that:
1.Video Production houses: A lot of those houses already use Macs (Final Cut, After Effects, Maya etc) and already have Mac OSX expertise. This machine with it's Firewire port on the front of the machine is made for them: Most Video Production houses have racks of VCR's and effects gear in the studios and with this machine they could patch the gear to the server without having to crawl around the back of the rack. In addition to this this machine can do the file and web serving for these companies and thereby remove the need for them to have seperate platforms for this.
2.Audio Studios. The same as Video houses.
3.Schools. The server managment software makes it very interesting due to it's simplicity. While I doubt that cash strapped schools already using PC's will switch, those schools who can afford iMacs and iBooks will almost surely be using these on the server side, as well as the Apple remote desktop to control the classroom.
4.Any enterprise that needs one platform for web and file serving. This is the riskiest bet, but there is some merit in it. Since Apple makes a point of saying how well it works with both Unix and MS servers, there could well be effective reasons for enterprises to go with some of these. While they have qualified server technicians and admins, the managment software's ease of use, combined with the Unix underpinnings make it definitely a good idea to make those areas more efficient, especially since it can double as an MS file server at the same time except for Exchange.
I really do wonder if MS will start to do haul out the dirty tricks dept. with Apple since this is competeing head on with them? For instance changing the CIFS standard in future XP versions to make them incompatible with this server and refusing to licence the standard to Apple, or withholding updates to Office on OSX.
he must think high karma will help him get chicks...
Looking at the pictures of the big racks of these machines on apples page, I can't help but think, what if I need to go in back and patch in a keyboard mouse, and monitor..Not a fun job. However there is a firewire port on the front, does apple have a utility for plugging in say an iBook on front and running and it as a terminal/console? That would be my main use for that port if I had an installation of these boxes...
While there is that DB9 RS232 port on the back there is firewire on the front surly the placement of this is signifigant.
Also anyone know about OSX server clustering support? The gigabit ethernet, 1u size, and raw power of these boxes makes me want to cluster them....
-sonic