Xserve Powers iTunes Music Store

Nexum writes "MacCentral has the scoop on the entire iTunes Music Store being powered by Apple Xserves. Is this the first really big implementation of Apple's server hardware? I have to admit, that even being a big Apple fan I didn't think that the Xserve hardware would be powerful enough for the severe pounding that the iTMS must have been getting. This seems like great news for Apple being able to show that they can be a real serious force in the server arena, to which they are practically a total newcomer to." I wouldn't see any reason to doubt that hardware and Mac OS X software could handle iTMS. I mean, it's heavyweight hardware, and Unix software. Still, good to see actual examples of Xserve sites in the wild.

Comments

What it's running doesn't matter

[ObviousGuy]

If there's anything that Apple does right it's that they make sure they do everything right the first time and then spend the rest of a product's life screwing it up.

So when it comes to making an online store, you can bet they didn't just throw together a couple of servers and hack up some Perl. They spent months getting everything right from the frontend UI to the backend load-balancing servers. They've no doubt got a nice server farm and fat pipe running to the internet just in case they do get hit like a redheaded step child.

Apple was ready for business, that's why the store went off without a technical hitch. That they were running XServes just shows that they have extra servers lying around. God knows they aren't being bought in the general server market.