Slashdot Mirror
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.
Imagine the fallout if people found out Apple was using, say, IIS on 2000 Server. It would make the sales pitch for their server solutions a little tougher.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
Find me another server that can hold 720 gig in 1U and survive a million hits a day.
These things are awesome! Our IT guy is a part timer because our Xserves are so reliable.
Aren't being bought? Are you out of your mind? You know the story behind the Xserve, right?
Genentech, a biotechnology company, did some research in late 1999/early 2000 and found that BLAST, software for sequencing genetic material, could be modified to use vectors instead of scalars and get performance improvements of as much as 10X. They did some preliminary work and ran a big cluster of Power Mac G4's for a while. Then they went to Apple and said, "We want this and this, and if you build it for us we'll buy umpteen thousand of them."
Apple built it. Genentech bought umpteen thousand of them.
The net result is that every Xserve apple sells is pure profit. Genentech has already paid for the development and initial tool-up costs, and then some.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. In the late 1990's SGI designed and built a DSP coprocessor system for Lockheed. They then turned around and sold it as the Tensor Processing Unit. Of course, nobody's ever heard of those because they're very specific little devices, but it's the same basic principle.
...and not simply a technical prowess.
I mean, Apple bashers can say all they want, but the Xserves are great machines, and the architecture proves to be scalable and reliable. Sure, they are not running at 20THz, but hell they will cope with the load of such heavy duty app like the music store.
This shows Apple dedication towards *reliability*.
I dunno if I'd like to have OS X Server running on such nice boxes, but it's Apple, it works together nicely.
P.S. : I'm a switcher, that doesn't mean I only swear by Apple products. I just try to give credits to a company that clearly tried its best to come up with comprehensive solutions.
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Apple's .Mac mail servers are XServes, too, running OS X Server. Apple is eating their own dogfood. Or forging the headers to make themselves look good... I don't even care as long as the mail gets through.
Like jo_ham said, you have to be very careful comparing Macs & Dell/Gateway/HP/etc. products. Once you spec out features to as close a level as possible, the Macs actually do come out ahead on most (not all, but definitely most) fronts.. especially with recent price slashes on the laptops and consumer lines.
As far as the XServe goes, if you break it down per-gigabyte or per-gigaflop, the prices compare very favorably. Check out the website ( http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/ ) for the XServe RAID box for Apple's quoted comparisons if you like.
And plus, just look at all those blinkenlights!! I've seen both an XServe + XServe Raid playing an HDTV file on a 23" Cinema display, and a small rack of XServes chugging happily away on.. well, something.. and they're quite sparkly. Mmmm, blinkenlights..
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.
Um, no.
In the mid-eighties Steve Case was running a little company called Quantum which was an online service for the Commodore 64. By January of 1986 Q-Link had about 10,000 users. By 1987 Quantum's stock was on the decline and the company was facing an inability to pay back its loans. In '86 Steve Case moved to California for three months in an attempt to convince Apple to let Quantum build an online service for them.
Apple as you said had been running a system called AppleLink. This was a system for retailers and sales reps to keep in contact with all that was going on at Apple. The system was run by General Electric Information Services and was pretty successful at keeping its intended audience up to date. The top brass began to think an extended system might allow them to lower their customer support costs by allowing direct access to technical documentation and the like. This was the system Steve Case was in California to nab the contract for.
He managed to convince Apple to let Quantum develop and run the system. Quantum was going to produce the software and were granted the right to use Apple's logo as long as they made the program LOOK like an Apple product. Problems arose pretty quickly after a while. Quantum in Steve Case fashion wanted to package APE with new computers for free or sell it through direct marketing (mass mailing). Apple said that option was a no go, they didn't want to give software away for free. The service debuted at Apple Fest in 1988 and was $35 annually and $6 night time and $15 day time IIRC. The service had a fair number of users and was for the most part a success as far as Apple was concerned.
Quantum however decided to end their relationship with Apple. Because of the logo deal signed Apple had to pay $2.5m to Quantum to relenquish rights to use of the logo. This set Quantum up very well for the short term. In 1989 Quantum changed the name of the service from AppleLink to America Online.
Later Apple wanted to be rid of the costly AppleLink service run by GE. They decided they wanted a service not only for intracompany communication but an experience for their customers as well.
They approached AOL due to their history with APE. Apple bought the APE code from AOL to develop it further on their own with AOL providing the actual service. Apple added content from third parties and provided e-mail and other services to contend better with existing services like AOL and CompuServ. As I recall the service was announced sometime in January 1994 and went into operation around June. From the rusty confines of my mind I seem to recall the monthly fee was about $8.95 (maybe 8.99) with a couple hours included. Night time hours were $5 and daytime minutes were $8.
The service was aimed at all the people running around with Macs and Newtons and up until then relatively unused modems. NewtonMail was provided through eWorld as was e-mail for regular Macs. The interface was spacial and pretty fun to use. Any Mac enthusiast who could afford to had an eWorld account. Due to budget cuts a Windows version was never released and the service shut down altogether in 1996. Apple's problems elsewhere caused serious problems for eWorld.
I believe eWorld was the service the grandparent post was talking about. AppleLink did not get spun off from Apple however. Quantum ended their partnership and relabeled their service of their own volition. They had been playing Tandy and Apple against each other by developing similar services for both systems, the Tandy system called PC-Link. Apple was under the impression Quantum was giving their full attention to their contract when in fact they had a similar agreement with Tandy. APE failed because Apple and Quantum did not want to market the service and software the same way.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
>A similarly specced Dell 1750 (or even the superceded
e l_rkopt_1_rkopt_1750.htm)
>1650) is thousands (AU$) cheaper
Actually, I just had to price out the different configurations of different servers for my class, and the price difference is actually not that much. See below, they are both gathered from both company's online stores...
Apple XServe (http://www.apple.com.au/xserve/)
* 1 x 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor
* 1 GB RAM
* 3 x 60GB HDD (180 GB total)
* AU$7,398.01
Dell PowerEdge 1750 (http://www.ap.dell.com/ap/au/en/bsd/products/mod
* 1 x 2.40GHz Intel Xeon Processor
* 1 GB RAM
* 3 x 73GB HDD (219 GB total)
* AU$6,436.10
The XServe is definitely more expensive. However, keep in mind that the Dell comes with no operating system, while the XServe comes with OS X Server with unlimited clients (all the goodies of OS X like deployment license for WebObjects, etc.). So if you want a "GUI" server software, you would have to pony up for unlimited client version of Windows to compare (OUCH!). But if you just plan to use BSD or Linux on it, Dell is definitely cheaper.
-B
Because some high calliber investigative journalists at MacCentral (as site dedicate to Apple news) have managed to read a web page that has only been up for a little over a month! Impressive, huh?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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
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.