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Apple to Allow Virtual Mac OS X Server Instances
Glenn Fleishman writes "Apple has changed its license for Mac OS X Server 10.5 (Leopard Server) to allow virtualized instances. VMware and Parallels are poised to offer support. This probably presages a thoroughly overhauled Xserve product with greater capability for acting as a virtual machine server, too. 'Ben Rudolph, Director of Corporate Communications for Parallels, told me, "Enabling Leopard Server to run in a virtual machine may take some time, but we're working closely with Apple on it and will make it public as quickly as possible." Pat Lee, Product Manager at VMware, concurred, saying "We applaud Apple for the exciting licensing changes implemented in Leopard Server. Apple customers can now run Mac OS X Server, Windows, Linux and other x86 operating systems simultaneously on Apple hardware so we are excited about the possibilities this change presents." Although neither company committed to specific features or timetables, it appears as though we should be seeing virtualization products from both that will enable an Xserve to run multiple copies of Leopard Server in virtual machines.'"
Seriously, what does an apple server offer over linux? Are there any advantages?
Do these virtual Mac OS X server instances run Linux?
The problem VMware and others face in getting Mac OS X up an running in a VM is that the OS might not support the hardware they're emulating. Work that out an they'll have to OS up and running in no time.
I think it would be just as well if Apple ported the kernel to Xen and allowed it to be run on a Dom0 and additionally was allowed to run on non-Apple hardware.
That having been said, I have to wonder whether people will attempt to side-step this restriction. Once OS X Server and virtual solutions (like VMWare) are tweaked so as to allow easy virtualization, one would imagine it would be easy to move the virtual image to different (not Apple-branded) hardware. Then again, perhaps part of this collaboration with VMWare and Parallels is specifically to have hooks that will allow OS X Server to verify that the physical hardware is a genuine Apple machine.
Or maybe it's not a major concern, since the target market for OS X Server is large-scale businesses that typically abide by software license agreements. (Or am I being naive?)
seems this is only allowed on MAC hardware.... Mr. Jobs. please stop tieing your software to your hardware.
I've been wondering if they would allow this for a while. My idea was Apple would allow it, but only when the host system is Apple hardware (possibly running an Apple OS as the host OS). That way you could run 10 copies of OS X Server on your XServe, that would be OK with them. But you couldn't run copies of OS X Server on your Dell.
That seems like the Apple solution to the problem to me. You can do what you want, but under our slightly restrictive policies that wouldn't be a problem for many people (but others won't like).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
In the story John Walsh says that virtual machines are more important in Windows. It's just as important with Linux. Much commercial Linux software requires a distribution that you probably don't want to run on your machine. With virtualization, it's no problem.
It's not clear to me what problem is being solved by having virtual OSX.
You think I'm not serious? They say the virtual machines will only run on Apple hardware. How are they going to enforce that?
It would be important to note in the summary that they seem to be allowing virtualized 10.5 server but still only if you do it on Apple-branded hardware and only if you buy licenses for each instance. It is kind of strange considering that the users who need this sort of thing are also the users who are quite good about being license compliant. A lot of these people who are asking for this are ready to deploy virtual Xserves right on top of existing VMWare ESX clusters today if it were simply ALLOWED. I can't really see the justification from a piracy concern standpoint or honestly even from the standpoint of losing hardware sales on the Xserve line.
What they really ought to allow is desktop OS X to be virtualized on top of apple hardware (ie run OS X VM's on xserve clusters) and allow OS X server to be virtualized on top of non-apple hardware. Not allowing this is really going to hurt their server business over the next few years I suspect. I also think that virtual desktop instances of OS X would be a very appealing way forward for the education market. I think Apple is enjoying its last days of lock-in in schools and having really NO computing product that is purpose built for education will probably make them slip soon.
Pretty simple really, just make VMware and Parallels check if it is on mac hardware before it will enable the virtual machine.
It would be more interesting if I could run virtualized OSX server on my quad-processor AMD boxes alongside Linux and Server2003.
http://www.CelloFourteGroupie.net
(I know, I know - but while I'm dreaming and all, I'd like a pony).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Huge fines against companies found to be doing it without licenses?
You know, just throwing ideas out here...
I said 'hackers', Any scheme like that WILL be hacked. Maybe I need to be more obvious.
This probably presages a thoroughly overhauled Xserve product with greater capability for acting as a virtual machine server, too.
Huh? The current Xserve supports 3 SATA drives, 32GB of memory in 8 slots, and redundant power. Oh yeah, and 4 processor cores. Far as I know, all recent Xeon processors support intel virtualization features.
Regardless- I don't think you'll see Apple kowtowing to the virtualization fetish. Beyond the usual desktop virtualization needs, I don't think Apple's target audience for the Xserve needs this capability.
Let's all take a step back and realize that the current base Xserve is THREE GRAND and pretty damn bare-bones for that price-point; that does include OS X server unlimited, but yeeeeeesh- that's still almost $2k. I'm the first to argue that Apple's hardware isn't as overpriced as everyone claims, but this is one notable exception. It doesn't even include basic hardware RAID capabilities- you have to buy a (inserts pinky into mouth) ONE THOUSAND DOLLAR proprietary raid card to do hardware raid! Jeeeeesus christ, even the cheapest 1U boxen support BASIC raid, typically, or it's a $100-200 option...
Please help metamoderate.
Doesn't want you to call his support number when your hodgepodge computer doesn't work because there are no OS X drivers for your hardware.
Well, like, you can already run Mac OS X in VMWare (somewhat hacked, and in breach of license) on non-Apple hardware (not sure about Leopard... but certainly with Tiger, and if not yet with Leopard, soon with Leopard...)
sigfault. core dumped.
While AAPL wouldn't allow it, it opens the possibility of running OSX in a VM on a PC.
There's a new marketing plan that Apple should consider... Offer OSX to PC owners with a stripped-down version of Linux and an emulator, and Apple could get away with not having to support a myriad of hardware & their associated drivers...
But, alas, Stevie J. is too full of himself to consider what the consumers want...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
"We applaud Apple for the exciting licensing changes"
Is it just me? But I hardly find a license change exciting, not even the the slightest bit. They should really send the PR person who wrote this to a shrink or a psychiatrist.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
> Pretty simple really, just make VMware and Parallels check if it is on mac hardware...
:)
Yea, they 'need' Steve's goodwill and blessings. So that leaves Xen, QEMU, etc. Once youy can buy a non-upgrade license 'off the rack' the genie is out of the bottle. Unless they really are stupid enough to pass through the DRM like you suggest, then it will ease the breaking of it and the freeing of OS X Desktop. Which would be hella fun.
Nobody cares about the EULA because it isn't enforcable in most states. (Real site licenses often are though since they involve a real contract signed by both parties.)
Of course nobody outside the hardcore Mac Faithful care about OSX Server or the Xserve anyway so it is a dead issue. The Xserve is just a tarted up rackserver the same as a dozen other top tier vendors can sell you with comparable features and support and a better sticker price. And for server duty, except for a few features to support OS X desktops a bit easier, OS X is just another UNIX, but one of the less featured, slower and less scalable ones.....
Democrat delenda est
Okay, I might concede point 1 depending how robust their server management tools are. But point 2 is stupid. While the quality of hardware/drivers argument might hold up with commodity PC, *if* you're going to compare server hardware to server hardware I think you're moving into more even footing. Sun, HP and even Dell's mid-range and up is solidly built and adequately tested to provide reliability on par or even surpassing anything cooked up in Cupertino.
As for your relatively irrelevant point about the problems your admin is having 1) why isn't that server headless anyway 2) and why would he be running what should be considered a beta server distro outside of testing/sandbox?
Quack, quack.
Without hardware OpenGL you wouldn't get the performance, and with pass-through OpenGL they'd have to support all the video drivers anyway.
I'm the first to argue that Apple's hardware isn't as overpriced as everyone claims, but this is one notable exception.
I'm sure someone could come up with a feature list that would make an XServe look competitive to a straw man "equivalent" box. Let's see, dual dual-core woodcrest plus *3* drive bays? Most 1U servers only have 2 bays, so that'll narrow things down... and don't forget, when you're comparing Mac and PC you don't worry if the PC is overspecced: you gotta have every feature of the Mac solution in the "equivalent" PC but the Mac never has to match up.
Apple's hardware has nice big margins, and PC hardware has razor-thin ones. That's reflected in the price.
The Mac Tax is the price you pay to get OS X. It's been worth the price for me, so far, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
I agree with you. Considering all that you get out of the box, Apple servers are pretty cheap. Especially compared to the Dell "frankenboxes" that you constantly have to babysit.
The major players VMWare and Parallels who sell VM software to the Mac user market have a vested interest in keeping Apple happy, so expect them to build in enough the same level of casual checks that OS X users to keep from running on a non-Apple branded PC. That's to say, if you truly want to run it, you can. But don't expect to be able to install OS X with just a few mouse clicks.
I personally think Apple let's power users install OS X, because these users, who can easily transition between OSes, are more likely that Joe Windows User to buy a Mac after trying out OS X for a while. More over power users require less tech support reducing costs and increasing profit.
The Mac Tax is the price you pay to get OS X. It's been worth the price for me, so far, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
How is this different from the Microsoft Windows tax imposed on all OEMs even if they ship Linux?
"Which would be hella fun"
The only people who use "hella" like that anymore are named Cartman in a 3 year old episode of SouthPark making fun of people who say "hella".
How is this different from the Microsoft Windows tax imposed on all OEMs even if they ship Linux?
1. You have to pay the Windows Tax even if you're not buying a device made by Microsoft (such as an XBox).
2. You don't have to pay the Mac Tax unless you're buying a device made by Apple (such as a Macintosh).
3. If you're not interested in running OS X, why the hell are you buying Apple's grotty kit?
I'm sure someone could come up with a feature list that would make an XServe look competitive to a straw man "equivalent" box. Let's see, dual dual-core woodcrest plus *3* drive bays? Most 1U servers only have 2 bays, so that'll narrow things down
Not really, considering there are many 4-bay choices out there; ALL of the 1U NAS boxes are 4-bay. The Xserve used to have 4 bays, and they cut it back to put in cooling ducts. The third drive is largely useless considering that all most people want to do in that market segment is have a pair of mirrored drives.
Have you actually spec'd out rackmount gear in an enterprise setting? Everyone's got "dual core woodcrests". In fact, you have far more processor options from other vendors; HP offers almost a dozen processor choices for 1U machines, and that's just on the intel side; they offer another slew of choices from AMD. Apple only offers intel, dual-core xeon processors, while everyone else offers everything from celeron/Pentium-D to quad-core, dual socket solutions. I'm sure that's coming- in 6 months or so, Apple will have a big press event where they offer Xserves with a pair of quad-core processors. "Whoop de doo, welcome to January 2007", everyone else will say.
Dual power supplies, dual network, two [PCI/PCI-e/PCI-x] slots, dual processor slot, etc- it's all available from IBM, HP, Dell, etc. All the other vendors also offer superior iLOM features Apple doesn't, like virtual floppy/CDROM images and full virtual KVM emulation; the best Apple offers is a serial port and software-based remote control.
Most of them also support hardware raid- again, something the Xserve doesn't- unless you pony up another thousand bucks. Everywhere else, $1k will buy you a raid controller with gobs of on-card memory, battery-backup capabilities, and a lot more than three ports.
Please help metamoderate.
for one thing you'd have to run OSX, and the other problem is that you'd have to run Apple hardware. Seems like a couple of deal breakers to me.
Could this mean cheaper (virtual) OS X Server hosting? I'd rather see OS X than ...
Linux running my webapp... I'm always a little nervous with Linux that I'll bork
something up
Apple could, along with AT&T, dominate the enterprise cellular market with the iPhone, if they'd just do one thing:
Add iPhone Enterprise Server to OS X Server. I've been saying it since the iPhone came out. The only reason BlackBerry is such a huge player is because of BES. The Bbs themselves are OK, but the iPhone blows them away. Give the iPhone a simple address book app that can query the iPES and phone, email, IM and status are all available on a corporate-wide level.
It wouldn't be that difficult to code something like that up; the people at RIM have pretty much proven they're not the rocket scientists people originally gave them credit for. Apple is poised to take-on that market, if not just completely take it OVER!
So, c'mon Apple, show us your corporate quality. You'll not regret it.
put the what in the where?
I can't see OS X being very good for a server. It's considerably more expensive than Linux and prone to wasting resources on UI. I use a tiny copy of FreeBSD for my file servers and it works very well.
.fs_history subdirectory in every directory that offers a read-only versioning view of the directory's contents. Each file is presented as a directory of the same name, with different versions of that file inside named by their creation/modification time. Any program read old versions and it'd be quite easy to make a modified file dialog for the system.
/home as it's such an obvious useful feature. More proof that distro maintainers are more interested in creating new wallpapers than in adding useful features. Since FUSE became commonplace it's been extremely easy to create useful file systems like this.
Versioning filesystems aren't that new or impressive in the server world and aren't that complex to use anyway. The one I use on Linux simply has a
Now for the desktop I think most users have not yet experienced versioning so it'll probably be a nice feature. I don't know why no Linux distro, to my knowledge, has a versioning file system as the default file system for
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
How much do you really know about OS X? If you claim it's one of the "less featured" I'd like some examples, please. And what is the basis for your claim that it's "slower and less scaleable"? In fact I believe OS X is actually really good at scaling. If not why would they use it build supercomputers?
What they really ought to allow is desktop OS X to be virtualized on top of apple hardware (ie run OS X VM's on xserve clusters) and allow OS X server to be virtualized on top of non-apple hardware. Not allowing this is really going to hurt their server business over the next few years I suspect.
I dipped into the comments for this article *knowing* that someone was going to make something like this comment... but I gotta ask, if you're gonna ask to virtualize osx server on non-apple hardware, why not go all the way and ask for it with the desktop osx as well? I mean, where's the rationale for going half-way? Obviously, the point of wanting to host osx on non-apple hardware at all is to cut costs by either using servers you've already got, or some cheap, no-name 1U crap you plan to pick off of eBay.
And, just as obviously, by this time you *know* that Apple still considers itself a hardware company, and that the os is bundled to move the iron. Anyone other than a troll still making the unbundling the os argument hasn't been reading the business section in something like, oh, three years.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Pretty simple to get around that, really, just make an outer instance of VMware act like a mac, and then have an instance of VMware running on the virtual mac go ahead and do it's checks - it will think it's running on one.
They can read the TPM manufacturer code to do this.
The third drive is largely useless considering that all most people want to do in that market segment is have a pair of mirrored drives.
Aha, now I get to abandon the devil's advocate side! Thanks for the opening, I really appreciate it.
This is how they got to tell me that I couldn't beat my Macbook Pro with a "comparable" thinkpad, by taking three or four features of the Macbook Pro that I don't actually care about (or that I would prefer not to have) and "discovering" that only the top of the line Thinkpad that costs almost as much as a Macbook Pro also has those features. If I come back and point out that it also has a mini-PCI internal slot so I can replace the Wifi with a second gigabit ethernet, and a Smartbay so that I can install a second hard drive, a floppy drive, or an additional battery (instead of the DVD-RW) I'm not allowed to count that as valuable.
If that kind of argument is "fair play" on the laptop side, then it's "fair play" on the server side. I don't get to say "I'd rather have a fatter laptop with a better keyboard" then you gotta accept the jet-engine nozzles and the extra drive bay as "requirements".
The fact is, Macs cost more for *genuinely* comparable generic hardware throughout the product range. There should be no mystery about that, or about why it is, or why people still buy them. Their servers are not particularly out of line with the rest.
This - alas - doesn't solve the need for developers to have access to Mac OS X for testing and porting their apps. Especially OSS developers, who may not want to fork out for a mac just for testing.
With luck Apple will at some point release a developer-only Mac OS X client OS (perhaps one without all the apps it normally comes with etc, just a barebones OS) for testing apps. They'd still face some risk people would use it for other things, but people who do so are likely to want to jump to real Apple gear anyway.
I'm not holding my breath, of course, since I value my life.
I said 'hackers', Any scheme like that WILL be hacked. Maybe I need to be more obvious.
Apple don't care about the 1% of the user base who have the patience and knowledge to "make it work", they care about 99% of people who will be happy to pay a bit of money so it "just works".
I am SOOOO sick of folks being so sure that Apple should bless MacOS X on generic PCs.
Do you all honestly think that the folks at Apple are entirely congenital idjits?
(I know, it wouldn't be /. if 99% of the posters weren't convinced their 30 seconds gloss on any random topic didn't give them profound insights those investing their professional careers on a subject astonishingly oblivious to...)
Perhaps, just perhaps, Apple has run the numbers.
Indeed, possibly, Apple actually HAS the numbers to run and so, after looking over their numbers, and considering their financial model, and the state of the market, they've managed to determine MacOS-on-* might NOT be in their best interest?
Because going on (and on, and on) about your deepest fanboy wishes on /. & like sites doesn't seem to be impressing the folks at Apple.
So, instead of telling the rest of us this again & again how you think Apple should do things how about putting together a nice presentation for them and see how far you get. Now, to be honest I don't think J. Random Know-It-All is gonna tell them anything they don't already know (probably better then you do) but please, go ahead, stop blathering on about how you're right and they're wrong and try and convince THEM.
'Cause saying it over and over again here is just a waste of electrons.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The notion that Apple (or any software vendor) has any say in this whatsoever is disgusting.
http://outcampaign.org/
I think this (not allowing virtual servers on non apple hardware) demonstrates clearly that apple isn't serious enough about making inroads with OSX server. Apple has little to gain by forcing users to buy apple branded hardware for servers. There is no market to support such a thing, but there is a huge market for a good server OS on commodity hardware, which would be possible with virtualization.
As it is, there's just no good reason to do anything with OSX server. It just doesn't stand up to the competition price wise if you have to buy it in conjunction with apple's extra pricey hardware. Apple's server platform is a real "me too" effort right now. They might as well discontinue the line, I have a real hard time imagining anyone is buying OSX servers.
I thought VMware intentionally prevents itself from running in itself?
like the number of people wanting to do that is going to hurt apple.
Hardware RAID is a bad idea anyway. You get some proprietary layout that probably isn't transportable, and the monitoring/admin utils suck bigtime. The x4100 eg. has some flinky hw RAID but it's not worth using.
I am SOOOO sick of folks being so sure that Apple should bless MacOS X on generic PCs. [...] [It] might NOT be in their best interest?
They certainly have evidence that attempting to become a software company instead of a hardware company is a rocky road. Both Apple and NeXT tried that in the '90s, and it didn't work then... NeXT didn't have the user base to launch it as a software platform, and Apple was stuck with a product that required their licensees to build completely custom hardware that wouldn't run any other software, so they couldn't possibly charge enough for an OEM license to make up for the lost hardware sales.
I don't think either applies in this case, and I've seen figures that indicate that they'd be able to break even pretty quickly, and would probably do better over the long term. But I don't expect Apple to really believe that they can make the third time a charm, not without more incentive than that.
if the cost of the OS and hardware is in the "noise level" range, then where are all the real costs? Maybe with software that you'd run on it, or with the administration, and in that case why run some oddball stuff that nobody else does? I mean why would you run OSX when you'd rather run linux, a normal bsd or even a microsoft product? Apple doesn't even lay their filesystem out normally, and thus you lose the advantage of getting standard unix knowhow that you'd retain with linux, bsd, or a commercial unix. Really, there is just no advantage to Apples product line unless you're an image concious metrosexual, and thats just not a sales pitch you'd want to make to enterprise customers, ie., "our servers are color coordinated."