Mac OS X Server 10.2 Announced

Aqua_Geek writes "Also announced was Mac OS X Server 10.2. From Apple's PR site: '"Jaguar" Server introduces more than 50 new features, including powerful new NetBoot and NetInstall network management tools, based on Apple's new LDAPv3 Open Directory architecture that simplifies user and computer management for business, education and government customers.'" The price is $500 for 10 clients, and $1000 for unlimited clients.

Comments

How much?

[stu_coates]

"Jaguar" Server introduces more than 50 new features

So, according to yesterdays "$1 per feature" keynote by Jobs about MacOSX 10.2 (Jaguar), this should cost just $50! ;-)

Re:How much?

[The Mayor]

Hmmm. $500 for 10 clients. That works to about $50 per client, or $1 per feature.

Great desktop software .. but server ? Why ?

[evil_roy]

Why choose OSX server ? Why does your server need all the gui goodies , digital hub blah blah that makes OSX so nice to use ?

This is an area where linux/BSD excels , can be configured for the job at hand ( read stable ) and can run on suitable-no-bullshit-run-what-ya-brung hardware. What a waste of nice hardware and software to confine it as a server when there are much more suitable tools to do the job - and do it cheaper and better.

Re:Great desktop software .. but server ? Why ?

[doomhammer]

I'm linux user but i will try to answer :)

> Why choose OSX server?

Because you dont know UNIX and you dont want to learn it either but you DO want stability that UNIX will give you.

thus MacOsX is best choice for you


> Why does your server need all the gui goodies

because you hate text interfaces :)

best tool for the job for you doesnt have to be best tool for me. I myself am keeping linux both on desktop and server because its best choice for me but it doesnt mean that its best choice for everyone else

Re:Great desktop software .. but server ? Why ?

[@madeus]

To say it's a 'waste' of nice hardware and software is to discount the ease of administration and monitoring of the system.

It's considerably less effort to maintain a Mac OS X server than it is to setup and maintain Solaris, BSD, Linux and the associated monitoring tools (Big Brother, Cricket, configuring SNMP support, RiverSoft, etc) and the functionality is identical (for the most part, sure you don't get ACL's or MAC's under Mac OS X (as you do with Trusted Solaris, Pit Bull or LIDS) but certainly more BSD & Linux software compiles on Mac OS X than does on say Solaris or on AIX).

Firstly, the use of expensive and tested hardware in a commercial environment should not be discounted easily. Most professional organisations choose on expensive name brand equipment such as IBM, Dell, Compaq and Sun even when they could get much cheaper 3rd party Intel or Sparc systems, simply for the name brand reliabilty.

The benifit of tested hardware combined with a complimentary operating system designed specifically for that platform multiplies the attactiveness of the solution (witness the corporate reliance on Sun & Solaris, HP & HPUX, IBM & AIX and to a lesser extent Compaq & True 64).

Secondly (and more importantly) the quality, flexiblity and ease of use of Apple's server software is what makes it appealing to me (and I'm not inclinded to credit a product that doesn't deserve it). I can run my own Java or Perl software on it without modification, I can also run my own or 3rd party open source C programs with little or modification and running the majority of software (Apache, Samba, FTP, SHH, etc) is entirely GUI based and a *click* *click* no brainer - much more straight forward than even Windows 2000). The slick real time monitoring tools (something like Big Brother but much slicker and designed specifically for the hardware and OS) and the remote access software (which is much like VNC) make spotting faults and dealing with problems very easy indeed.

For example (albeit an unrepresentative one, but illustrative none the less) I would much rather maintain 100 Mac OS X servers than 10 BSD, Linux or Solaris boxes. Actually with NetInfo and Apple Events for remote batch control of servers I'd rather set up and manage 1000 Mac OS X servers than even 100 BSD servers (and I've managed over 3000 horribly configured insecure P.O.S. AMD Linux boxes with Red Hat at once :).

Re:Great desktop software .. but server ? Why ?

[dthable]

Because companies/schools don't want to pay the evil_roy premium for an administrator. At most sites, the admin is born out of need. It's typically someone who does the administration in their free time. They don't want (or need) command lines and difficult setup routines to get a machine off the ground.

Enter Apple. They provide the same stability of the BSD machine you speak of and give the average administator access to the system through nice graphical tools. While all of the other zelots push for more command line like server packages, Apple can attract customers who may have selected Windows as their server platform and gain market share.

Re:Great desktop software .. but server ? Why ?

[dbrutus]

However, you may be the best part time admin that 10 person graphic shop can afford. Also for a windows shop that wants to dump its file and print, Mac OS X Server let's them get away from CALS without having to pony up for Unix training on the front end. It's a way to roll out Unix gradually without scaring the window-philes.

It's still not as bad a MS pricing

[jerkyjunkmail]

I've seen a lot of really critical reactions on other sites when this announcement came out I don't know how the traditional UNIX vendors do their licensing Per client as well. But if you compare it to MS's scheme it's really pretty fair. A 5 user upgrade to Win2000 Server will set you back about 500 bucks. Apples is for 10 user. It's the 1000 dollar version that makes it not so bad. MS CALs are what about 30 bucks. To keep the pricing similar For Win2000 Server what could you get for your extra 500 bucks 16 cals for a grand total of 21 CALs. If you have more than 25 clients on you network it's a really good price because they don't sock it to you on the CALs. In spite of it being a ".1" update seem like it packs more that that minor number would make you think. It seems more like the OpenBSD versioning. Their releases usually carry a .1 value but quite often pack a lot of punch in them. IMO Apples numbering scheme for X isn't really very accurate. PB was really more of a late developer release. 10 was really more of a public beta, 10.1 was the real "10" release and Jaguar is really 10.1. People don't like vaporware so they pushed it prematurely to prove they really were working on something and that things were going somewhere not like Pink, taligent(was that the same as pink) Copeland. Apple should have more of a grace period on who can upgrade especially for those early adopter of the Xserve(I believe they were warned though, Pay to play IIRC) I am kind of curious how the pricing schemes for Solaris, HPUX, AIX etc were/are like. Anyone??

Re:Score 0, Redundant

[Fished]

If Apple were really with it, they'd port it to x86 and start yanking Windows customers over in droves. Most consumers don't want to pay for Apple's overpriced hardware.

Uh-huh.

Cheap, IDE Hard Drive ... $100
CompUSA BareBones System ... $400
Monitor ... $100
Keyboard, Mouse, etc. $50
Windows NT, 100 User license ... $5000

Knowing that your hardware will work with your OS? ... Priceless.

Reality check, Linux-boy. Do you have any idea how much corporations pay for Compaq servers? Or even slow, frankly crappy Suns? (Yeah, they've got IO bandwidth, but there's no question that Sun has fallen behind the technology curve.) Frankly, the Xserve is pretty competitive.

History of OS X Server?

["Zow"]

Okay, maybe someone here who has followed the Mac world more closely than I can shead some light on something I've wondered about. A few years ago, Apple came out with OS X Server that wasn't built from BSD - it used one of the other projects that tried to become "the" OS X (rhapsody?). I recall that when they announced it, it came with the caviot that it would be superceeded by the BSD based OS X, then due out in 6 to 12 months. So what I'm wondering is, was there ever a clear migration path from that system to what is now called OS X Server, or was it really a dead-end that was better to avoid? Just curious.

-"Zow"

Re:History of OS X Server?

[genglish]

OSX Server 1.0 was what Rhapsody became. It was based on a Mach kernel with a BSD personality in the kernel space and a driver model that uses Objective-C. Threading API is cthreads. The user land was BSD but a little outdated. It used the classic NeXT stuff like Display PostScript, all OpenStep APIs, directory layout, plist format, etc. It had the BlueBox for Mac OS compatibility. It was a full screen app that ran legacy stuff in a single Mac OS context. Look and feel is of OS 8ish widgets but you could customize the colors (so you'd have blue windows with tan window backgrounds, etc).

OS X isn't built from BSD. It has an updated Mach kernel and retains the BSD personality in kernel space. Threading API is pthreads. It does share some of the filesystem and network code with the BSDs. The driver model (IOKit) is drastically different from standard BSD and uses C++. The user land is FreeBSD 4.4-ish come Jaguar. "Classic", the compatibility system, is essentially a rootless BlueBox. It retains OpenStep (as Cocoa) but adds Carbon (modern ToolBox API). It removed the DPS server and went for the shared memory model of Quartz. Obviously it introduced Aqua.

All that said. Nope: There was never any clear upgrade path. For a while Apple was even selling the OS but it wouldn't run on any of the machines they were shipping. They botched the upgrade to 1.2 and generally wished it was dead and buried. See www.stepwise.com for the gory details. Was it a dead end? Yeah. Better to avoid? I used it as a development machine to play with the OpenStep APIs and was very happy to have used it. As a production server it was lacking.

Re:History of OS X Server?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Rhapsody DR1 was based on OpenStep which was based on NeXTStep which was based on 4.3 BSD and Mach.

With Rhapsody DR2, NetBSD 1.3 and Mach 3 was used.

Mac OS X Server continued this line, but Mac OS X forked and begat Darwin. Then, changes from FreeBSD 3.1 were merged into OSX DP1 (developer preview), and FreeBSD 3.2 was merged in for DP2. After DP3, Darwin 1.0 was born from the combined changes.

Mac OS X beta then gave back to Darwin, as did 10.0 and 10.0.4. 10.0 was also the base for Mac OS X Server 10.0.3, wherein the base and Server versions were synchronized.

So, to answer your question, every version of Mac OS X Server was based on BSD, it's just been updated over time.

Back in 1988 there was A/UX, which was based on System V release 2, System V release 3, and 4.3 BSD. It ran on 68k Apple hardware and was sold mostly as a really efficient AppleShare server. That was killed under bad management when Apple decided to sell a Network Server which ran AIX for a year or so. It is actually the most robust server hardware Apple has sold to date. Most people don't realize that OS X is (at least) the third Unix Apple's sold.

Maybe one of those two failed projects are one you're thinking of?

OS X a danger for Linux on the desktop?

[MadMirko]

Because you dont know UNIX and you dont want to learn it either but you DO want stability that UNIX will give you, thus MacOsX is best choice for you.

So, is MacOsX threatening Linux on the desktop? Think about it, if you do want an alternative to a Windows desktop, you can basically have Linux, BSD and MacOsX. The first two require fundamental understanding of computers and their internal workings, not to mention of the OS itself.

Most people do not want to know "technical stuff" about their computer, so why should the masses adopt something other than Win or OsX?

MacO$X Windo$3

[necro351]

Every few years,
A new Windows came for all to fear
It started with Windows x.y,
And then Windows 95
And every 24 or 36 months it seemed,
New versions would pop up right to ME n' XP

If cost summed, for each Windows released
Over 500 dollars the price would increase!
One could say the only difference between 98 and ME
Is a few widgets redrawn and new bugs to be seen!

When compared to Microsoft, Apple's no better
They just choose different numbers rather then letters!
Its not so hard to buy 10.2 or .3,
If you think of it like buying a brand new XP

To many Apple is just a corporate beast
But they do need a pay check at the end of the week
And unlike Windows' excuse for another crappy update
Apple has an OpenGL facelift on the entire Quartz draw rate!

Peace out fools ;-)...

Licencing?

[theolein]

Didn't OSX server 10.1 have an unlimited client licence only? According to Apple's online store, the XServe server comes with 10.1 (at the moment until August 24) with Software:"Mac OS X Server
Unlimited-Client License"...

Since the new version has a price for 10 and unlimited clients it looks like Apple is trying to get more money here as well.

Re:Licencing?

[ZxCv]

...it looks like Apple is trying to get more money here as well.

Or not. OS X Server 10.1 has always had a 10-client license available for $499. It just happens that Apple decided to include the unlimited client license with the Xserve's instead of the 10-client license.

Re:Where's the outrage now?

[tgibbs]

$1000 for an upgrade to my 1 year old server seems outrageous. I can't help wondering if we'll need to upgrade to get a fix to the buggy Netinfo. Making people pay extra to get a fix for something that should have worked right in the first place is the sort of thing that I usually associate with Microsoft.

Re:What's buggy about NetInfo?

[tgibbs]

I'm not convinced that the flaky sometimes-it-mounts, sometimes-it-doesn't behavior of home directories can be blamed on applications. I'm running an absolutely basic set-up, just as described in the manual. There are no non-Apple applications running on my server, and problems frequently occur on login when no non-Apple applications are running on the clients. Besides, I think that it is the responsibility of the OS to protect itself from damage by applications.

Re:Not an "update"

[tgibbs]

I don't think that it's OK for Microsoft to do it either. But Microsoft has a long history of unethical practices. It is a shame to see Apple following the same road.