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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.
But if you don't pay the Dixie Chicks *now*, how do you expect to get paid *later*?
And what happens if you sign up with someone, and then they get carried by iTunes Music Store... what would your attitude be if I said, "Why should I be paying for Tha_Mink when I can borrow it for free?"
And as for archiving.. history and science shows us that nothing can defeat entropy, the increase in disorder and noise. The only hope is to make as many copies as possible and vainly wish that one copy somewhere, somehow, survives for later generations.
Think stone tablets, manuscripts, tomes, books. How many of those exist in which only a single copy has managed to survive?
GPL Deconstructed
It seems to me that Apple is looking to move back to the older concept of the UNIX server: a high-end server and a (mostly) proprietary UNIX operating system sold together as a unit. For a while, it seemed like Linux and cheap-as-dirt x86 hardware were going to do away with this; now Apple is trying to introduce it as a product, albeit with more of an open soure component. Only time will tell if they can make money on this. My guess? They'll get a steady but not dominating niche market, much like they have with home computers (and for that matter, much as "big iron" UNIX still has.) They may have a problem with people installing Linux on the Xserves and then not paying for OS X Server software or upgrades; then again, their chosen market may not even consider this. Again, only time will tell.
My guess is that unless a particular company needs a powerpc processor for a very specific reason, there's almost no way anyone would pick the Xserver over cheap commodity x86 hardware running Linux (despite the SCO clown show). The reason? Total control.
Wow. You're an idiot. You either (1) totally ignore, or (2) have no conception of the amount of shit you have to go through to get a "commodity x86 hardware running Linux" working and to keep it working. For-fuckin-get it.
Do you know what the biggest source of IT costs is? I'm talking about across the board, for every company no matter how big or small. Hint: it's not hardware, and it's not licenses. The biggest source of IT costs is SALARIES AND BENEFITS. In other words, the biggest money-suck in the IT department is PEOPLE.
So it's no surprise that people whose livelihoods depend on sweet, sweet IT salaries would advocate the use of the single most labor-intensive hardware/software combination on the planet. The more work required to get it going and keep it going, and the more arcane the knowledge required, the better for Joe Slashdotter. (I'm talking to you, "zaad.")
Meanwhile, companies large and small dream of the day they can fire their last IT guy. That's why IT outsourcing is such a growth industry, even in this down economy. If you move IT from a cap ex to an op ex, you'll help your bottom line.
Xserves require basically no setup or maintenance, unless you're doing something outside the parameters with them. If you want a file server, mail server, web server (or WebObjects server), database server, or cluster, setting up an Xserve takes about ten minutes, and maintaining it takes zero time until the hardware fails. No security issues to worry about (Software Update, baby), no arcane hardware drivers to massage into compatibility. It Just Works.
This explains why IT people hate it. It demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, just how obsolete those people are.
At worst, you'd have to develop your own custom Linux app to serve your needs. Either way, it's a lot safer than to tie my company's future to Apple.
Pffffff. This is fuckin hilarious. I love it! "Doing it my way requires extensive knowledge of obscure arcana. This is good for my job security." Hell, dude, at least you're honest.
I may be missing something, but isn't this hardware RAID?
Of course, pedantry requires that me to point out that it is 0.00326 of the market, which is 0.326%, a hundred times larger than you calculated. A third of a percent of a huge market is not bad, especially when it's pure profit.
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
Okay, if this was a farm of FreeBSD machines (a la Yahoo!), then nobody at all would be surprised...even if the machines weren't multi-CPU Xeons.
:-)
If they were other UNIX vendors' machines that had RISC CPUs at a "paltry" ~1Ghz...again, nobody would be surprised because "they're UNIX machines and more reliable and they're 'optmized' and they 'don't run a GUI'".
But because their Macs people seem surprised. That's a Mach kernel with some of the best elements of 4.4BSD and FreeBSD/NetBSD grafted on there for God's sake. Yes, it does have a very slick GUI available, but we're also talking about the SERVER VERSION of OS X.
Someone also mumbled about lack of RAID -- what's XServer RAID, then? Yes, it runs ATA drives...but look at the interesting architecture, you've got each drive on a SEPARATE controller. That, IMHO, negates a lot of issues that ATA has in one single swoop.
Anyhoo, kudos to Apple...iTunes music store seems pretty slick on many levels. And it's good to see them eating their own dog food
-psy
If Apple can survive to the point when most new homes are going to be wired and have a server in the closet (and it will happen), Apple will be the one to bring ubiquitous computing to the home.
I am surprised that people should have any doubt that Xserve and Mac OS X can handle iTMS.
.mac Web service for years now.
Apple has been using its own hardware and software to power apple.com including Apple Online Store, QuickTime movie trailer and the
The QuickTime movie trailer site is the most popular on the Web, and QuickTime Player has been downloaded over 100 mln times in the last year or so. The storage and bandwidth requirement for downloading movie trailers are much higher than that for music.
To paraphrase Jobs iTMS presentation, Apple is capable of moving "ocean of bits" for video downloading, so music is really a no-brainer. In fact, a single Xerve RAID (2.5 TB) can store the 200000 songs many times over.
Apple online store is one of the best and biggest e-commerce site with annual sale in $billions.
A recent survey shows that apple.com is the #1 hardware site on the Web with 3.7 mln unique users a week, while hp.com is a distant second with 2.5 mln.
They also use WebObjects (the original enterprise application server from NeXT) for heavy lifting, which is capable of talking to multiple database systems and load ballancing. WebObjects is one of the best kept Apple secrets, and perhaps the only application server on the market that has the visual tool to automatically generate Java code for database programming.
Well, you're both right. I look at dozens and dozens of IT organizations (VC) and although managers are extremely cost conscious, they also have a deeply rooted suspicion of anything that claims to automate their jobs. It's not intentional, it's just psychology: people want to believe their hard-learned skills are valuable, and will find themselves picking holes in the cheaper, automated solution in order to justify not only their job but their value. It often takes a CFO to say, "Ok, we'll do without those 5 features that you want to custom code...buy the cheap shrink-wrapped stuff." So neither of you are a "fool" or an "idiot", but the truth is somewhere in between your extreme views.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
Not impressive numbers at all.
What kind of market share would impress you? Keep in mind that XServe has been on the market for less than a year, and XServe RAID has only been around for a few months.
Pretty good from a standing start, I'd say.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Apple store is a massive WebObjects app.
Consider when store.apple.com went live: XServe wasn't even on the drawing board at the time.
I would expect the store to migrate to XServe whenever it's time to refresh the hardware. In the meantime, the solaris boxes are doing OK, so why bother?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."