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Apple Blurs the Server Line With Mac Mini Server
Toe, The writes "Today Apple announced several new hardware offerings, including a new Mac mini, their (almost-literally) pint-sized desktop computer. In a bizarre twist, they are now also offering a Mac mini with Mac OS X Server bundled in, along with a two hard drives somehow stuffed into the tiny package. Undoubtedly, many in the IT community will scoff at the thought of calling such a device a 'server.' However, with the robust capabilities of Snow Leopard Server (a true, if highly GUI-fied, UNIX server), it seems likely to find a niche in small businesses and even enthusiasts' homes. The almost completely guided setup process means that people can set up relatively sophisticated services without the assistance of someone who actually knows what they are doing. What the results will be in terms of security, etc. will be... interesting to watch as they develop." El Reg has a good roundup article of the many announcements; the multi-touch Magic Mouse is right up there on the techno-lust-inspiration scale.
Why scoff at a nice looking server that adds to the array of options you have for serving whatever you may want to serve? Sure, it may not be the right thing to rack-mount en mass (though maybe it would work fine for that too), but it'd be a safe bet to say that Apple isn't trying to take over the rack-mounted server market with this particular offering. Those who would scoff would merely be scoffing at a misuse of the product.
As an admin on a mix mac/linux network(well, we do have to support 4 pcs, but only grudingly), I would say that Apple's tools are pretty nice, and have progressed immensely during the lifespan of Leopard(Tigers Open Directory was buggy as hell, Leopard has been pretty rock solid), the GUIs actually work really well UNTIL something goes wrong. Then trying to wade through the mish-mash of manual configs vs. gui configs(not to mention you don't really know what the GUI is doing) trying to track down the problem is a real mess.
Overall, if you want centralized logins at your mac-centric organization I would definitely recommend a Mac Server, largely because LDAP config on Linux still isn't quite as simple as it is on a mac, but for everything else(web, database, file shares etc.) I would go Linux.
The nice thing about the mac clients is that they support most of these technologies out of the box. For instance sharing NFS between macs and Linux is pretty braindead simple. Of course, that *other* OS still doesn't support NFs out of the box. I mean, I guess you have to give them a little slack, the protocol is only 20 years old....
Monstar L
You will then notice that there is a Configure-to-order option of a Promise FireWire 800 RAID unit with 4x 1TB hard drives.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
"Part of the value is that the Mac mini Server is only $100 more than the standard mini equipped with a single 500 GB drive"
A caveat: the server does not have an optical drive (that's where they stuffed the other HD). Still a good deal, just not quite as good as on first glance.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Let me ask again. Is this server, 'rackable'? How many Us?
4 Mac Minis will fit on this $58 2U tray..
Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.
http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/features.html#ports
"Mini DisplayPort.
The Mini DisplayPort lets you connect an external display, including the Apple LED Cinema Display, to your iMac. On the 27-inch iMac, the same port offers input, too. So you can connect any external source that has DisplayPort output — including a MacBook or MacBook Pro — and use your iMac as a display."
Fail. Epic fail.
The new Mac Mini is actually rated for "14 watts of power when idle", which Apple says is lower than any other computer in the EPA STAR database.
But wait, there's more! With Snow Leopard, Apple introduced a new "Wake on Demand" feature that could allow the Mini to be in sleep mode (~1.5W) most of the time, but still work as a server when needed:
(1) Airport base stations can now provide a "Bonjour Sleep Proxy" service that will keep announcing all the services your computer is hosting on the network, even after the computer goes to sleep. The base station will then wake the server whenever another computer tries to access it. It isn't clear whether this happens only for Bonjour services, or for any IP-based access (which should be possible in principle).
(2) All this magic can happen via the wireless network if your computer is new enough. (Wake-on-LAN was only possible via ethernet before.)
If the server is set to go back to sleep automatically after a few minutes of inactivity, this setup provides a low-power, always-on server arrangement: the computer sleeps most of the time, automatically wakes up whenever someone wants to connect to it, then goes back to sleep whenever it's not needed.