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! ;-)

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: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: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.

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 :).

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?