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Apple To Discontinue Xserve
Toe, The writes "Apple has announced that they are discontinuing their line of 1u rack-mount servers. With their usual understated style, the announcement comes in the form of a box on their website and a transition guide (PDF) to their low-end Mac mini server or their now-more-powerful-than-Xserve Mac Pro server. Attitudes about the Xserve have ranged from considering it a token nod to enterprise to an underpowered wimp to a tremendous value. Apparently, the migration to Intel processors removed some of the value of clustering Xserves, leaving them somewhat overpriced compared to other, more traditional offerings. The odd thing is that Apple clearly has shown they have the capacity for enterprise, but rarely the will to take it on. So, does the discontinuation of their rack-mount mean they have abandoned enterprise for their post-PC offerings, or are they simply acknowledging that their products aren't gaining traction in the data center? Or do they have something else up their sleeve for next year?"
It was the only way to look like a trendy douchebag in a datacentre setting.
They are moving all their servers to their new super datacenter.
Apple sees the writing on the wall: the mainframe era is back, with Linux as the server and iOS devices like iPhone/iPad as the client. Non-standard servers running UNIX variants other than Linux are irrelevant. Although Apple struggled with 5% share for years it now wants to dominate the thin client market. My guess is that Apple will eventually abandon MacOS completely -- while interesting as an operating system, it is increasingly irrelevant, as is its more popular Windows cousin.
It would never dawn on me to use a Mac for anything other than the desktop. While I'm sure that they make perfectly capable server products, I would wager that the perception that Apple is primarily suited for making products that target the end user rather than the enterprise is a substantial hurdle for Apple. Frankly, I think that this is one of the hurdles that keeps Linux from being as widely adopted as a desktop platform. People hear *nix and, if they think anything at all, they think "server."
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
OS X Lion Server will introduce the new "Lion's Share," and a new blade server appliance into which you can mount 9 Mac Mini's each with app store instant Lions Share server installs. Want AFP? Install Lion's Share AFP app on the mini. Want DNS? Install app store DNS app on another Mini! Roar! with Lion's Share!
Yep. Windows is totally irrelevant. That's why you see all those PC makers selling Linux boxes, and the number of Windows boxes decreasing, in every single store around the country. That's why most people know how to use Linux out of the box, and aren't completely befuddled when they don't see the start button.
...it's Apple. Who cares? Since when did Apple mean anything but 'cute'? Hello Kitty stopped making servers. The world is feeling a tremendous loss.
A small comparison of interest:
Windows: Public School. Mac: Private School. Linux: Homeschool. Assembly: Unschool.
Apple are dropping Xserve and Ubuntu is dropping X-Server
Your move Microsoft...
Summation 2
If it is stored in a rack mount somewhere in the basement? I thought the point was that others could see the Apple logo and see how different (and better) you are.
Xserve aside, OS X Server provides some very, very powerful tools. Many of them are based on open-source, but for the ~$1K price, a well-paid employee would be hard pressed to roll them all in less than $1K worth of time. And all these tools have no per-seat cost, unlike Microsoft solutions.
The question remains, of course, how seriously can people take OS X Server now that apple discontinued the Xserve?
OTOH, it makes a really nice home server, if it is a bit over-powered and pricey for that application.
seems like an obvious question.
I think the only people who got these things were Mac Fanboys. Don't get me wrong, I like Mac. But I would never have recommended Apple Servers in a business settings.
1. You are stuck on one platform. It is like getting a Sun Solaris platform but worse because apple never really had a strong enterprise department.
2. You didn't get any real extra functionality over a Linux/BSD even Windows servers.
3. There is 0 fore-site on what will happen for the next version. What new features. Apple is too closed
4. You had limited options. So that means you are paying for stuff you don't need
5. Limited server tools. Sure the Apple stuff is good but you need that one extra tool that apple doesn't support.
Like Apple or Hate Apple, it really isn't a good server platform.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I can't believe they're suggesting that a Mini is a replacement for a server. They'd be better off suggesting a MBP as a replacement. Is their ad campaign going to be "One tenth the performance at one third the price"?
At least the Mac Pro offers the same performance level as the Xserver.
dom
You're trolling, but you should probably know that mainframes and enterprise servers make up about 35% of total server revenues. Also, half or more of the remainder is windows Server.
"The odd thing is that Apple clearly has shown they have the capacity for enterprise, but rarely the will to take it on."
Concentrating on certain sectors isn't odd. Doing a bunch of things, but not doing them well isn't a good thing. Lots of businesses do this.
But if memory serves, the reason they were in this business were to support creative types that needed this type of product for media production. It wasn't that they wanted to be in the enterprise sector. They wanted to be in the media creation sector, which especially before their current resurgence was their main area.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
...you could spec a similar Linux based server way cheaper, with better support. Apple has NEVER been serious about the business market.
Well I guess that answers the question about what *didn't* go in that big new data center.
In a previous life several years ago we looked at buying 300 of them to run Yellow Dog (yes, several years). They were nicely engineered units, but Apple clearly wasn't series about enterprise sales. They offered a kit of spare parts for field replacements, but not much beyond that.
Everybody will have an iP*
Just another step in phasing out OS X...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
With their usual understated style
o_O
Except that these "thin" clients aren't really thin at all. Give it a couple years and there will be quad-core smartphones doing a whole lot of stuff that will boggle our minds. It's all about the data stream to and from these devices and more processing power on either end is a technology enabler, but especially so on the client.
Remember to maintain your supply of
All our Macs have network user profiles, which are stored on ... a Windows box. And it's a complete pain in the arse. Loads of problems, all blamed on "Active Directory"
We used to used Xserves to host the accounts, and everything worked fine, but the IT boys only know Windows, so the Xserves are sitting gathering dust.
Considering that the graphics and print business basically kept Apple in business in the dark years, this is a crappy way of supporting Mac in the workplace.
What with the FisherPrice look of 10.7, I'm really worried about the direction that Apple's taking.
Really? They have just got to the point that they realise they can't fool smart people in to buying their over-expensive hardware when other companies probably offer the same specs at less than half the price.
Nobody wants to pay for stupidly expensive and overly-pretty server hardware. They want something that works and can be thrown in a backroom somewhere, probably never to be seen unless there is a serious error. Even if it looked like fecal matter, if it was cheaper, i would go for it.
Apple can't compete with other companies at those levels unless they Think Differently. But selling something that was just bare-frame and board? Steve Jobs would have 10 heart attacks at the thought. And by that, i mean all 10 of his hearts.
I will probably get modded as a troll, but it doesn't negate that statement.
Several years ago a friend of mine was pitched Xserve by someone from Apple. His impression was that the salesman wasn't trying very hard to promote the servers and wasn't speaking to the points he cared about. The pitch seemed to boil down to Xserve is great because Macs and OSX is great.
Even if he could have convinced management to spend such a big premium over other solutions the company would now be faced with equipment that's been discontinued, and knowing Apple, wont be supported for long.
Not that any enterprise involving rack servers would bother risking it, but theoretically doable?
Frankly I only ever *used* X11 to run terminals.
Good riddance to X and Gnome... never liked either. They are the reason most people using Linux/etc. think GUIs are crap (they've never learned to use a proper GUI).
I love the command-line, but I can really get by pretty well navigating and working on either Windows or OS X GUIs. The closest I've had to a good consistent experience on Linux was KDE.
Linux has always been a very good server environment for me, and never, ever a great client. Ubuntu has come a long way to try and change that and I applaud any (albeit questionable) changes they make.
Nothing here is fact, only my personal experience as well as my experience trying to help several non-tech savvy family use Linux, Windows and OS X. For them I recommend OS X, whereas I use OS X and Windows clients.
The Xserve has been largely redundant since Apple discontinued the Xraid. When you pair them up they make great file servers, the publishing company I used to work for loved them (yup, that's right, there *are* people for whom Apple servers make sense, go home haters).
Seeing as how there's nothing you can do with an Xserve that you can't do with a Mac Pro, the only difference is the rackmounting. Considering the way forward is Xsan, that's completely optional now even if all your storage is rackmounted. The SAN controller can be on the other side of the building as long as your fibre reaches it.
Nice as it was, goodbye redundant product. You'll be missed, but not for long.
Except that these "thin" clients aren't really thin at all. Give it a couple years and there will be quad-core smartphones doing a whole lot of stuff that will boggle our minds. It's all about the data stream to and from these devices and more processing power on either end is a technology enabler, but especially so on the client.
Yes ... and no. Smartphones and their 'tablet' cousins will certainly become more powerful but there will be a lot of low-cost offerings that don't use the latest and greatest chips. The low-end PC market for devices that fill roles as thin clients, dumb terminals and the like will transition over to the hand-held, tablet or true thin-client worlds. Android, ChromeOS and other OS offerings will provide low-cost 'good enough' computing power and access for many roles. These devices will essentially become commodity items much like PC's are now.
I'd absolutely use low-cost thin clients in place of PC's for many requirements my clients have in warehouses, call centers, kiosks, etc rather than PC's. Web-based & network-based apps delivered via a web browser can do a lot. They can't really produce 'content' on the scale of a PC but they certainly work for data entry, look-ups, updates, etc.
Well Looks like I will be working more on rolling out more Linux servers to replace the functionality of the XServes. What is next, no more Mac OS X Server? And the replacement options kinda suck. Mac Mini, great that will not work very well for remote home directories, redundant arrays, etc..., or the big honkin Pro, 1U vs 12U, can I have my rack space back please? Luckily there are some very good Linux packages out there that support Mac very nicely for a lot of this, Netatalk, OpenLDAP (Gee where did Mac get theirs), NFS, etc... I really did like Time Machine for ease of use, but I will find something for Linux, or create my own based around rsync. My boss has been an Apple fan for years, decades really, but at this rate Apple is attempting to disillusion all of the small companies like us whose computer infrastructure is majorly Mac, with some as in our case Linux servers. Between this, the Mac App Store and where it looks like that might be going, Java, and Flash/Adobe argument, it looks like Steve is getting a little, OK, a lot more arrogant, and driving quite a few of us away with it.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
Looks like they now have a "server" option in the MacPro line . Just what we need - less 1U servers and more 6U servers (that don't rack mount and foul air flow).
Apple's hardware support was abysmal for their servers. And by support, I'm not talking about drivers, I'm talking about their ability to fix a broken system.
I've called Apple to get parts for failed Xserves, and they have taken WEEKS to ship for systems covered under applecare. They also think it's entirely fine to tell you to bring an Xserve in to an authorized repair center. I mean, *what?*
Just because a server is available in a 1U form factor doesn't mean it's an enterprise system. You can't support enterprise hardware the same way you support iPods.
50% of customers reported to be distraught, but we couldn't contact the other guy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I just wonder. I don't understand how a company flush with cash would ignore such a huge market. Jobs has not been bashful about snapping up the consumer market and swatting down the competition. But then to ignore, actually shy away from the server market... that doesn't compute in my data banks.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
And me with no mod points to spend.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Not much point to a server that doesn't run java, is there?
Don't we all read engadget?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/05/mac-pro-server-quietly-introduced-as-xserve-heads-for-the-grave/
Here's the server:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/
I don't understand how a company flush with cash would ignore such a huge market.
The phrase "Know thy self, and to thine own self be true" springs to mind. The business graveyards are littered with the carcasses of companies that didn't understand their own strengths and weaknesses, didn't understand what made them great and where they would fail. Jobs knows the DNA of his company.
As for the server market, it's pretty clear that servers have become commoditized. Apple is aiming to make money from how they use servers, not from servers themselves. Jobs also seems to understand better than anyone in the computer industry that while business computing used to dictate where the industry went, the opposite is now true. Dominate the consumer market, and you'll make inroads in the business market.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Mac OS is a perfectly capable OS for a server, but Linux is better in pretty much every single way for servers, and easier to keep up-to-date. So you end up installing Linux on it anyway. At that point, you have to ask: why did I buy a Mac? The Mac hardware is ok, but nothing special and pretty expensive. The only reason to buy a Mac these days is for Mac OS.
I can totally understand taking someone's used desktop Mac and turning it into a server. You've got already got the machine, presumably the desktop user upgraded to a newer Mac, so use the old one for something. But almost nobody is using an xserve for their desktop, so there's few initial sane uses for the machines to have.
So I bet Apple wasn't selling very many of them. Anyone who bought an xserve to use as a server was making a mistake, and people eventually learn from their mistakes. And anyone who bought an xserve to use as a desktop (that sounds kinda cool, in a way), was very rich and very niche (far beyond the typical Apple fanboi). So who bought 'em?
Also, in my (admittedly very limited, only used a G5 not x86) experience, xserves are just weird enough to be inconvenient. "Oh, we don't get a quite perfectly-working fan control or sensors? Bummer."
Would be for Apple to let us virtualize OS X server on our existing (insert VM platform of your choosing) clusters, instead of requiring Apple hardware. I had an Apple rep tell me the other day that they have that requirement because the experience is better on their hardware (when talking about a server that sits in a rack that you never look at). What a joke.
As someone who's job it is to be a server administrator for two Xserves, and systems administrator for our corporate network of Mac workstations, this news saddens me. No longer can I throw my title out as "Mac Server Administrator" at geeky parties to the amusement of my friends who work on Linux and Windows servers. Seriously though, the Xserve will be missed, at least in my organization. Unlike many Apple products, they aren't toys, they were designed for the enterprise and had many useful functions. They are extremely useful to me, running FileMaker Databases, providing NetBoot services for imaging Mac workstations, hosting AFP file shares, and when connected with a rackmount RAID array, make for a very nice backup server (Time Machine!). Also, the OS X Server software is really a great server OS, a fully Unix certified OS that also provides many other innovative and useful tools. Sure, I can do most of what I do on a different server, but, damn, Apple just makes my job so easy! RIP Xserve, you will be missed, at least by this Systems Admin.
Perhaps there is more to the deal with Unisys than previously reported. Maybe this is what Unisys is getting out of the deal? Probably not but still fun to speculate.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
This is typical of post-iPhone Apple, unfortunately. If you look at pre-iPhone apple, they had their hands in a number of places and were making some cool stuff. This is one example, but look at their various other pro and/or creative tools. They had some small but interesting ones such as Motion and Aperature. They also had tools like Final Cut Pro, which swept the NLE world, and Shake, which when they bought Nothing Real (creators of Shake) was taking over the high-end compositing world and was used in many of the big movies that needed heavy visual effects. They also bought Silicon Grail, makers of Chalice and RAYZ, niche high-end compositing apps that were moving up in the world.
And then they realized they could be FAR more profitable selling phones and without fanfare have slowly but surely left all of their little niche markets behind. They convinced companies to switch their infrastructure over to Macs to use their amazing tools, and then just leave them high and dry. I get that it makes business sense, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as I'm sure it does to many of the companies that dumped huge amounts of money into their products.
If you watch the D8 podcast (or the stream) of Steve's interview with Walt Mossberg (nearly two hours long), he explains why the enterprise market is not of interest to Apple. And you get the impression the disinterest is long term.
Even if you don't like Steve Job's or Apple, it is fascinating to seen the man think and respond.
Watch that, then watch the interview with Steve Ballmer (and Ray Ozzie). The contrast between Jobs (and Ozzie) to Ballmer is.....definitive.
To me, this is just more evidence that they will be dropping OS X and moving to iOS for all devices over the next five years. If they were to introduce a new Xserve now, I suspect that the support date is past whatever EOL date they have in mind for OS X. What is essentially an appliance OS won't work for what are technically meant to be back end servers except for very limited applications. The people who buy the most Xserves (HPC, etc) do not fall into that category.
I'm the system admin for a large design company (4 Xservers and one XRaid that replaced 4 Linux boxes about 4 years ago). This is pretty fucking awful news for us, and I'll lay out the reasons:
1. Apple's servers are very easy to manage. Much easier than Windows or Linux machines.
2. Apple's Workgroup management features are much easier to use than the Windows or Linux equivalents.
3. Apple File Sharing being able to mix AFP/SMB and NFS seamlessly was world class.
All of this led to large productivity gains in that much less time was being spent on admin tasks than necessary.
So now that's gone.
Shit.
And, what worries me more is that I can see Apple killing traditional OSX on Macs in favour of iOS as well.
I think Apple just lost a customer in us because we can't trust them anymore.
I read this a few days ago;
http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2010/10/1200-undocumented-vmx-parameters.html
I wonder if this is going to be an option in the future in vmware. Apple sells a hardware/software package, and it's probably getting harder to sell with people consolidating all their 1U boxes onto a few big VM hosts.
The only physical server left in my environment is the xserve file server. I still need an OS X server, i'd love to be able to P2V that thing.
joe
"Apparently, the migration to Intel processors removed some of the value of clustering Xserves"
What, Intel processors obviate the need or usefulness of clustering? They are so insanely awsome that clustering is obsolete? Huh?
I would love to hear more about this little tidbit. Sounds like someone is writing garbage.
OTOH, I had three clients that were using XServes at one time. One loved them, best thing evar, but they were a Mac house and it was homogenous. The second had them to support the cranky art department, and was always being challenged with more bizarre and impossible adminstrative tasks until he ceded control to the crankypants, who promptly hosed them up to the point of an OS rebuild. The net result was very plain-vanilla servers with none of the gee-whiz features they claimed they 'needed'. The Xserves were fine, the users were just useless. The third had them to support the Macbooks they had, and considered them a necessary evil. this was a Novell environment way back when, and the XServes matched the NetWare servers for uptime and availability. Ultimately the Novell servers gave way to Windows servers, and those never got along with the Xserves. As is so often the case, they blamed the Novell environment for this, despite the servers being migrated, shut down, and crushed. So far as I know, they still have their XServes.
What will replace them where they are actually useful?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Luckily there are some very good Linux packages out there that support Mac very nicely for a lot of this, Netatalk, OpenLDAP (Gee where did Mac get theirs), NFS, etc...
Bingo! The Mac's unique selling points over other platforms are:
...none of which are a particular advantage on a box sitting in a rack in the basement.
With the trend towards "cloud" based computing rather than old-style fileservers, any old commodity x86 server with a LAMP stack can do the job.
To get a foothold on the corporate desktop, Mac (desktop) has to play nicely with Linux or Windows servers, so saying "if you want x to work get an Xserve" won't cut it. Where OS X server is used, then customers will increasingly want it running on blades or virtual machines alongside other OSs.
If you want a compute/render farm then the future is going to be GPUs rather than CPUs - that will mean a Mac Pro stuffed with graphics cards, not a 1U box.
I really did like Time Machine for ease of use
...and almost every review you see of Time Machine will say that its perfect for domestic backups by people who wouldn't otherwise bother, but no substitute for proper backup software (as would be used by someone in the market for an XServe).
it looks like Steve is getting a little, OK, a lot more arrogant, and driving quite a few of us away with it.
Or, applying Occam's Razor, it might just be that Apple (a business, with shareholders) isn't shifting enough XServes to justify the cost of producing the next revision. The existance of a few people who do use/like XServe isn't a refutation of this.
Also, why the paranoia?
First, they came for Flash, and I said nothing.
Next, they came for Java, and I was silent.
Then, they opened the App Store, and I bought a copy of Pages.
Yesterday, they came for my bash shell.
So I said "Ah, Fuck it" and installed Linux.
...doesn't really cut it as a tale of poetic justice and the need for eternal vigilance. If Steve stops making general purpose computers, then its his loss, not mine. Apple isn't a monopolist.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I bought an Xserve for my all-Mac department at work (student publications at a big state university) a couple years ago and it has really been outstanding. It's simple to administer, made well, with nice attention to detail, and is reliable and easy to use. I doesn't do a whole lot aside from being a file server (no web serving or anything like that) but it has a heavy, 24/7 load from up to 60 concurrent users, most doing network-intensive things like building newspaper pages, editing D-SLR photos, archiving HD video, etc. It takes it like a champ and only gets restarted when there is a security update.
That said, we have used a dual G5 Power Mac tower with 10.4 OS X Server for a server box for our arcane old Mac-based accounting software for nearly five years and it has also been dead-nuts reliable. It runs 24/7 and also does some light web- and file sharing and has been trouble-free as well. I will be replacing it over the winter break with a new Mac Pro with 10.6 Server.
That's really a shame, guess those of us in education will have to go back to towers for servers. The xserve was a great and very awesome piece of hardware. I've never had one die (I currently have 3 in my arsenal)
brickspeed.net for your old Volvo performance addiction
Just a dream...
Maybe they plan to introduce a little mini-tower... 5.25-optical drives, 3.5-harddrives, replacable graphics adapter, aluminium body, fullsize-memory instead of laptop-memory, etc.
Of course it would be very popular, and maybe kill the Mac Pro. The iMac and MacMini sales would also suffer. But with the XServe gone, its a little bit more natural to introduce a new desktop model.
Simply an original Mac for those who build a Hackintosh today.
A Mac for gamers.
Maybe the most popular Mac ever?
They're still selling that thing? I thought Apple had given up on rackmount servers years ago.
It could be worse. Google has a server offering. Google is still advertising their 1U server, the Google Search Appliance (Mini version). Although, since that page has a date of 2005, the product may not have been updated in a while.
Google, of course, doesn't do support. Here's their FAQ on support:
The Google Mini is supported through an online-only model. Our support team is available via e-mail, and is more than happy to help you with any support that you need while deploying or maintaining the Google Mini.
If there is a problem with the hardware while you are covered under a support plan, Google will send out a new Google Mini via overnight mail."
The Google Mini comes with a perpetual license so you can continue using the Google Mini for as long as you like even if you choose not to purchase a new Google Mini after 2 years. However, it is generally recommended that you upgrade your hardware as we often come out with new hardware releases within the same period. Also, in some organizations, which can include your own, compliance may require IT administrators to keep their hardware and servers under warranty and technical support. Please contact us at mini-sales@google.com for potential upgrade paths for existing customers. "
That's right, their approach to support is that you're supposed to replace your rackmount server every two years.
Nor was that thing cheap. It's priced from $3,793.95 to $9,498.95, depending on how many documents you want to index.
This has always, always been the Apple way. For better AND worse, Apple is a "We do what we want," kind of company. They set their own path, decide what they think the market REALLY wants, and so on. This has good sides, it leads to them trying new things that other companies wouldn't and ignoring some conventional wisdom. That has lead to some extremely popular products in the consumer electronics space. However the bad side is that they do not consider the needs of their partners, and their clients, in enterprise. They'll change their mind on how shit is done, not tell you first, not give you a migration strategy, and that is that.
Two good somewhat recent examples would be the move to Intel hardware and the discontinuation of the 64-bit Carbon API. In the case of the Intel transition, everything was kept heavily under wraps. They admitted after it was done that they'd been working on it for years, even using OS-X on Intel in demonstrations, however it was all kept very hush hush. Suddenly PPC was no longer available and it was all Intel. So if you were heavily invested in PPC hardware, well fuck you. In the case of 64-bit Carbon they said it'd be supported, provided beta APIs and so on, and companies like Adobe were using it. Then they suddenly said "Nah, changed our mind, you have to use Cocoa," leaving companies like Adobe in a lurch.
Apple has never taken enterprise support seriously, their mentality is just not aligned with it. They want to be able to change everything, do what they think is cool at the time and so on. It has worked wonderfully for them in the consumer electronics space, but that is NOT what is needed in the enterprise world.
Well, perhaps businesses will understand that, and understand that going all Mac has problems because of that. Apple may pay lip service to the business market, but it isn't what they are good at doing. They can and will change their minds on how things are done on no notice and leave you to deal with the results.
I think I have an idea where this might be heading...
You can fit 4 Mac Mini servers into 1U now, they just need a tray that diverts the heat from them. That's a killer opportunity right there. You get much more oomph from four Mac Minis than you do from an XServe.
http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html, yup, you could definitely fit these one-high, and side-by-side into a 1U tray, with room for connectors and venting. I think trays might even be deep enough to hold six of them.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
a few months ago i needed an extra generic xeon rack server "now". list price, the xserve seemed pointless, but dell said an r410 would be a 2~3 week wait, apple would deliver in 3 days.
after the university discount (yay), the xserve was only $80 more than the r410, for a broadly equivalent system (CPU+RAM identical, disks+ethernet controllers slightly different and both a bit shitty.)
$80 on a $2k rack server was totally worth it to save waiting a couple of weeks.
I guess apple want to leave the delling to dell.
What OS and hardware platform does Apple run in it's datacenters? I'm not envisioning rows and rows of racks of mac-minis to serve up internal email and web pages? Are they are a linux shop on HP/IBM/beigebox?
it's all about the software.
you buy x86 to run OSS on linux/bsd, you buy sun/ibm to run oracle/db2/java, you buy windows to run microsoft stack.
you wouldn't in your right mind run OSX unless you had to, and there's nothing really that requires OSX on the server, except maybe WebObjects, pfff.
In the data center, where function is everything, and form is irrelevant, apple brings nothing.
Not at all, it means that the market for companies that have racks and want to run OS X Server is small. Now they have the Mac Mini Server, they have a product that can go into small offices that don't have somewhere for a rack-mounted system.
The XServe was never a product that Apple created to sell. They created it because they have a lot of data centres of their own (to drive their site, the QuickTime Movie Trailers hosting, Apple Store, iTunes Store, and so on) and they didn't want to be buying a load of servers from a competitor to run them. They sold it because, having already designed and built it for un-house use there was no reason not to, but the potential market for a rack-mounted OS X box was small enough that it wouldn't have been worth their while designing it just for sale.
So what does this announcement actually mean? That they are no longer planning on using XServes in their own data centres. My guess is that they're planning on having their ARM team design a Cortex A15 SoC with ethernet, crypto hardware, and SATA on die and make tiny blade servers for internal use. They almost certainly won't want to ship OS X Server for ARM for external use, because supporting another architecture would be a lot of effort for little return, but they might do if the market looks big enough.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Apple has not given up the server market, but now you'll just put your instance(s) of OSX Server on VMWare or other hyper-visor with appropriate licensing. Not sure how they'll tackle the OSX on a non-Apple box, but it's probably technically trivial (maybe like the old Logic Pro dongle-thingy).
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OS X Lion Server will introduce the new "Lion's Share,"...
But first you have to go to the Woz and ask for courage..
Or does anyone even give a shit?
Support is. Apple's support is very built around consumers. Their attitude for most things is "Bring it in to the store." Fine, that works for a desktop perhaps, or particularly for an MP3 player. That does not work for a server. Servers need fast parts shipping. You need to be able to e-mail in and say "A drive has failed in this server," and have a new drive, already in its caddy, FedEx'd to you by the next morning.
Dell offers that. A server breaks, they send the parts fast. They can also have contracts with support places so they can send a tech if needed. Here it is IBM, so if you need someone to handle the replacement a guy from IBM will come out with all the parts and take care of it. However for servers normally what you want are just the parts sent fast, and they do that real well.
So price aside, there is the issue of support. You don't have to just match Dell's price, you have to match their support, particularly for servers. It isn't just a matter of having support, it is a matter of getting it fast. If a desktop is down, life goes on. If a server is down, it can be critical. Also disks are one of those things that can go from no problem to big problem in a hurry. If a RAID drops a disk, there is no problem so long as the replacement is there before another one drops.
Also the whole concept of a "Refresh cycle" is kinda silly. You don't have to shuffle things around to change price. It is not at all hard to have a system where based on your costs, prices are updated on a day-by-day basis so people always get a good price, by whatever your company has chosen that to mean. You don't have to wait for any kind of cycle at Dell, their prices change all the time.
My company used to run web servers on XServe/OSX - the web team was all Mac, so they wanted to use OSX to serve the web pages.
The servers ran relatively well, no major problems. The hardware looks nice, and the CPU monitor on the front is surprisingly userful.
However, after we built a VMWare cluster and started migrating services to it, we ditched OSX and moved to Linux on VMWare for the webservers. The Xserves are sitting idle in the corner of the datacenter now. I believe it's possible to virtualize OSX as long as the host operating system is OSX, but we didn't want to build out an OSX VMWare cluster just to run some web servers.
Meh, perhaps they'll sell a USB dongle that enables OS X Server on whitebox servers?
So I take it you work for Los Angeles Police Department? Answer the fucking question, or something happens to an XServer? Oh, a wise guy, redundancy is going to help you this time eh? I have a former administrator that has a AC2RJ11 adapter for you in the Fit room...
Dude, you are not an enterprise if you are using 1U form factor....
To be clear the announcement that the Xserve will only be available until Jan 31, 2011 should not be considered an indication of where Apple is going with respect with Mac OS X Server. While it's our policy not to discuss unannounced products I do have an official statement that I can share with you:
"Apple remains committed to the development of server products, services and technologies. Apple continues to offer Mac OS X Server software, Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server, and starting today a new configuration of Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server."
OK, typical Apple response - but at least this holds out some hope that those of use with OS X Server infrastructures in place won't have to show up at our data centers with a bunch of consumer-grade Macs.
Yes, they have something else up their sleeve. Did anybody notice Apple's "enterprise services agreement" with Unisys? http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-Unisys-Agree-to-Enterprise-Services-Deal-Report-788654/ Did anybody notice the 54% drop in Unisys's profits, along with a drop in server sales? http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unisys-3Q-profit-sinks-54-pct-apf-3818156357.html?x=0&.v=1 So, Unisys is an enterprise computing company looking for a way to save its server business. Apple is consumer electronics company with enterprise ambitions, enterprise software, but no enterprise distribution network. Apple just announced it is dropping its server hardware line, a little over a week after announcing the deal with Unisys. I know it is fashionable to dismiss Apple's enterprise computing ambitions. I was at an Apple Developer's seminar a couple years ago where they were showing off the new version (then) of MacOS X Server. The entire focus of that seminar was on how Apple was adding features to MacOS X Server (and even licensing things from Microsoft) to make OS X Server more suitable for the enterprise. I predict Unisys will start offering MacOS X Server on Unisys server hardware soon. Apple may even end up buying Unisys.
I always found the phone support was great. And on the two occasions I needed parts, they had them to me the next morning, all covered by apple care.
Actually, I think the previous post is probably right, at least in the long run.
If there's one thing the popularity of iPhone/iPad had demonstrated, it's that most people don't really use their computers much. They have a hugely capable desktop machine that they use for "facebook", email, and "youtube", and that's about it for most of them.
I'm a pretty hardcore penguinista myself, but even I doubt that a standard full-service (by today's "PC" standards) Linux desktop will ever conquer the market, or even a large minority of it. However, I think the current "desktop" market is mostly doomed outside of "enterprise" and hardcore power-user settings. Now that "consumer" gadgets have gotten cheap and powerful enough to do what the great majority of "users" seem to do with their computers, there's no need for it any more. All those people who are "completely befuddled when they don't see the start button" will be migrating their way over to even-simpler environments like Android and iOS and perhaps Windows 7 Series 7 Phone 7 Series (or whatever they were calling it), which I actually kind of expect will cannibalize BlackBerry for corporate users.
My personal prediction: Microsoft is busy fossilizing into the New IBM (firmly embedded in many "corporate" environments but fading out of the "consumer" market), while Apple clamps down on its users and gets increasingly ruthless with its market control to become the New Microsoft. I expect Linux to grow solidly on the internet server side and on corporate servers.
I actually expect the Android/Apple landscape in the "consumer" side to end up looking a lot like the Microsoft/Apple market now - I'm guessing we'll end up with a solid majority made up of various Android devices, with Apple being a minority (but a relatively large and reliable one).
There, a free wild prediction, and you didn't even have to look at ads on ZDNet or some other commercial publication to get it.
tl;dr: Yes, I agree that Microsoft will likely hold onto the "traditional desktop" market for as long as that market stays around, but I don't think that market is going to exist for that much longer now.
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First they came for java...
and no-one complained
Then they came for the Xserve....
and still no one complained
Who's left, etc etc, when they come for your Mac?
That's a whole lot of speculation.
The way I remember it, Apple sold a lot of Xserves into media environments, for digital video processing, basic file storage, etc. Musicians and A/V professionals have a natural affinity for Macs and little interest in maintaining servers, so a plug-and-play server that worked with their Macs was a natural choice. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly large market.
Xserves were nice machines, but building and maintaining bulletproof server hardware -- including continually producing new models that keep up with the ongoing upgrade cycles from Intel and other component vendors -- just doesn't make sense if the products aren't competitive in the market. And Apple's servers weren't going to be competitive until it started shipping models with Linux and/or Windows Server as an option. Instead, Apple tried to be Sun and found out it simply didn't have the expertise and market savvy to be Sun -- and then, look what happened to Sun.
They almost certainly won't want to ship OS X Server for ARM for external use, because supporting another architecture would be a lot of effort for little return, but they might do if the market looks big enough.
So they're going to use it exclusively in-house, to the extent that they're going to replace all their Xserves, but they don't have enough faith in the ARM port to sell it? Just the fact that they put it into production use in-house means they'd have to "support" it. I think you're reaching.
Breakfast served all day!
We, a company that I won't name, currently run about 200-odd Linux boxes in our server farm. When we started out about 5 years ago, our CEO, being a huge Apple fan, wanted to buy Apple's servers, so we had a few in addition to the traditional Dell offerings.
The Apple servers crashed at least 10 times as often as the Dell servers, even the lowly Dell blades that our SAs resoundingly hated.
Now, some years later, although our CEO is still a huge Apple fan (iPhone, iPad, Mac Book Pro, iWhatever), we have no Apple boxes in our server farm. I believe the SAs were allowed to go all Office Space on them. Being a developer, and thus one level removed from the hell that was working with the Apple servers directly, I still hated them. Unreliable piles of dren, they were.
Apple Computer may make nice shiny consumer-grade stuff, but they don't have what it takes to build something that stands up to commercial use.
I reckon it's about time that apple sorted out virtualization and if they did, who needs an xserve, when I can get a 2/3u HP server with sas drives that will virtualize 6 xserves for the price of 1xserve. To note, they have legally discouraged people from virtualising mac osx client , but not server, so maybe someone has come through and will let you run OSX server on a HP server in a virtual machine.
wrong story, fuckwit!
The desktop version of OS X will still be locked to Apple hardware (legitimately), but they'll open up OS X server to run on commodity x86-64 hardware and/or x86-64 VM's. That's my guess.
My guess is that Apple will eventually abandon MacOS completely -- while interesting as an operating system, it is increasingly irrelevant, as is its more popular Windows cousin.
Apple pretty much dismissed that idea in their last "Back to the mac" event where they reiterated several times that the mac is a >$20 billion business and they have no intention of giving it up. What they do seem to be doing is putting most R&D into iOS, based on the same MacOS core (Darwin), and plowing the improvements back into the MacOS. Presumably they would reunify the lines somewhere in the future when the mobile vs desktop line is sufficiently blurred. Apple's competitive edge is based on being in complete control of both hard- and software, the MacOS isn't going anywhere.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
So they're going to use it exclusively in-house, to the extent that they're going to replace all their Xserves, but they don't have enough faith in the ARM port to sell it? Just the fact that they put it into production use in-house means they'd have to "support" it. I think you're reaching.
If they sell it, people will expect to be able to run third-party code on it. They will need either something like Rosetta, or they will introduce confusion where programs that run on OS X Server on the Mac Mini or Mac Pro don't work on OS X Server on the blade. For internal use, they don't care - they'll only be running software that they have the source code for.
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Dear Apple,
I have a number of clients who rely on the Xserve as a solid, dependable and data-centre ready server platform and am VERY concerned with the recent announcement to kill the Xserve.
For a small design studio, the Mac Pro may be a valid replacement, for a small business with email and Office documents, the Mac mini Server is a wonderful option, however for enterprise business with a large number of Macs, there is an absolute requirement for a powerful and RACK MOUNTED server platform with redundancy built in.
I have large mission-critical Kerio Connect deployments, I have large HELIOS EtherShare installations with huge amounts of data and tight deadlines are always an issue.
I have Xserves installed in climate-controlled server rooms and datacentres, taking up a minimum of rack space and performing admirably and these customers, the ones that will happily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every few years to ensure their hardware is up-to-date, will be left with no option for a serious Apple Mac OS X Server platform.
Sure, this doesn't affect the office with three iMacs and a Mac mini Server and it doesn't affect the design studio with a few Mac Pros and some MacBooks who went with a Mac Pro as a server because it was $100 cheaper than the Xserve, but for the customers who are spending the real money, they need a real server.
I know that I am not the only one in this situation and I ask that this decision please be reconsidered as it will have a serious knock-on effect to the image of Apple as a serious contender in enterprise environments.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
bullshit. You obviously have no real knowledge of what hardware Apple uses inside...
i get the impression that much of the heavy lifting of media rendering use linux clusters these days, but maintain apple mac desktops of various sorts as "terminals". It is even possible that with high speed net connections one can work on a scene in one place, then rent render time on a cluster somewhere else during "off" hours. Send it over at end of office hours, and come back to a completed render the next day.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I think that is probably right, but add in pixar as another customer Jobs had in mind. But they probably switched to rendering on linux servers a long time ago.
http://sar.typepad.com/ramblings_from_academia/2010/10/iapple.html
I never said I only use 1U. If you're telling me enterprises don't use *any* 1U, you're not enterprise either, chief.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Looks like Apple gave... some bottom of the barrel IT guys (at least in the risk assessment part of the job)... a rope.
And they hung themselves and their employers with it.
Apple sees the writing on the wall: the mainframe era is back, with Linux as the server and iOS devices like iPhone/iPad as the client. Non-standard servers running UNIX variants other than Linux are irrelevant.
I guess Jobs forgot to forward that memo to his buddy Ellison ;)
your "ideas" are interesting, and give a good "play by play" of the "future" of "technology".
"Nice work".