Apple to discontinue Xserve after Jan. 31, 2011 - Page 7

I did say that in a bit of a confusing manner. My apologies.

Based on my experience with Apple...

If they were going to discontinue support for OS X Server, they would have announced it and moved on.

Apple is not sentimental or into legacy... If it it isn't going to make them money or provide a stratecic advantage, it's gone -- the sooner the better.

To the contrary, they announced alternate hardware that can run the software.

I believe that Apple can go several ways with the software:

1) Develop an iServer - Cloud Server combo for home and small business

2) License the software to non-competitive, established, server provider -- IBM and Oracle.


I think they will do both!

.

Have you not read all the posts about the MPS _not_ being a sufficient replacement for the Xserve? Have you ever worked with one?

Oops! My mistake

...and yet the stock rises. Quite amazing.

Not at all. Take a look at #223 above you. To my mind, the issue is that this choice speaks volumes about the maturity level of the company.

for me apple was philosophy, now its just money, i used to work in macos but now i feel dissapointed. apple cheated us, made us belive that thet care about a business they were just exploring until they truly made a hit with phones and all that crap, then abandoned us.

go ahed explore gadgets in deep but everyone knows that everything that goes up some day will have to go down. apple is closing a door and leaving it for someone else to open. if not linux who else?

microsoft decreasing, apple is about to reach the crest, welcome linux.

killabyte

Did you believe enough in Apple to invest in AAPL?

They can't give you the excellent products (hardware and software) if they don't make enough profit to sustain their business goals.

... Whatever...

.

Maybe, but they were all true, so what's your problem?


Funny how the haters live in some bizarre alternate reality.

Note:

1. Apple is consistently rated #1 in customer service - by a wide margin. Hardly supports your silly contention.

2. Every iPod user I know connects it with a computer - so their data is always on the computer if the iPod goes bad.

3. As for the computer, Apple's Time Machine was one of the most successful methods for making backing up automatic and transparent to the user. Apple believes strongly in data integrity and security.


Exactly. it's just not a market that's of interest or benefits from what Apple offers.


Wrong. I couldn't care less whether Steve makes money. The point is that you cited NeXT and dropping the floppy on the iMac as massive failures for Jobs - when, in fact, they were both very, very successful.

As for the NeXT employees? Many of them are multimillionaires now and very happy in their role in the new Apple.


Based on what kind of bizarre logic?

So I guess if BMW stops selling tractor trailers that means that they must be planning to drop autos and sell only motorcycles, right?


I guess there's no point in even looking at the rest of your post since you're so wrapped up in hatred that you can't even be bothered by the facts.

NO ONE said that the Mac Mini was a replacement for the Xserve. For SOME APPLICATIONS, the Mac Pro Server might be. But both of them are designed for use as free-standing servers and departmental servers rather than server farm applications.

Apple tried for years and apparently wasn't very successful in selling enough xserve systems to justify continued development. The fact that they dropped that product doesn't mean that they can't sell servers for other applications.

What part of 'the right tool for the job' don't you understand?

I sense a strong bit of sarcasm in that post. I believe the "bunch of fucking lunatics" he's referring to are the bulk of posters in this thread who have gone all Chicken Little on this news. I might be reading him wrong though.


I agree. It shows a mature company that is focusing its capital on areas that are profitable, strategic parts of its long term vision.

That was your first mistake. Apple has always been about money. It's a business!


A wee bit melodramatic are we?



Everyone know this?



Probably a door that wasn't open as far as you think.



You could make a killing by shorting them. Go for it!

Well, maccherry, having read a couple of your posts, I figure you're maybe 15 years old and pretty damn good on a Wii or Xbox,
but you have no understanding of business computing needs. What do you want to be when you grow up?

I am sort of stunned that one of the people I was directing that towards would take it as an endorsement of his position. Maybe proximity to giant servers farms impairs one sense of sarcasm?

The next server I'm buying for work is HP Z800. I really wanted to give the Mac Pro running Bootcamp a try but this move by Apple makes the decision easy. Apple appears to have given up on professional and scientific computing, and is on its last legs in education. What a shame.

1) Anyone think Apple will use their vast resources in HW and manufacturing to build private server farms that suit their needs better at a lower cost, and/or would it behoove them to just use off the shelf products from IBM, HP, et al.?

2) Will OS X 10.6 “Lion” have a server variant? If so, will that server variant be a ‘real’ update, not just a carryover from SL with a new UI?

What is a 'real' update? From the last presentation I'd conclude that Lion is not that different from SL under the hood, mostly changes that bring the GUI closer to the iOS experience.

For a server OS, by “real” I mean new features that would behoove IT to consider the upgrade, not just a UI change which is mostly important to consumers.

So what features are you talking about? I am asking because the paradigm shift appears to have been SnowLeopard and Lion's main focus seems to be the adaptation of iOS features. Not sure how that would translate to a better Server experience.

•

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/
• http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/performance.html Again, not just an update to its appearance. Note, Snow Leopard didn’t change the UI (much) but it did overhaul the entire foundation of Mac OS X. There weren’t many features that came from iOS that I recall Apple mentioning, expect for the QuickTime X framework, with a new app written specifically for SL.

My query stems from what seems like Intel’s tick/tock method being applied to Mac OS X with the underpinning in SL, and UI in Lion. If true, it could mean Mac OS X 10.7 will be named Mountain Lion and will ignore (mostly) the UI again, with focus on the underpinnings of the US, with each getting a full overhaul every 4-5 years with this tick/tock method. Seems like a viable plan to me.

If none of you work for a provider.. (which it would seem none of you do) then I can see how nobody is fully explaining this. The hardware they make (or buy) will never be visible to end users again. The age of 'on premise' technology is over. Everyone (but EVERYONE) is working on clouds. Hosted is the new premise... and he who makes hosted as seemless as buying an app in the App Store stands to make a killing.

This is leading edge thinking.. not the death of a technology. They are simply repositioning themselves to say that for those 'die hard' admins who insist on 'on premise'... they must move to the Mac Pro or Mac Mini (for workgroup servers and small offices). For the 'rest' of us (TRUE enterprises... with 500+ employees) who have never bought an xserve... what better way to provide Apple Server Services then in the cloud.

Not to mention the suite of iOS applications to remotely manage these instances.. fully integrated.

If you haven't been in touch with any of the xserve hardware team.. (and if you haven't.. WHY not?) Get on linked in for gods sake. You'll find they have NOT lost jobs.. and are slowly changing titles and being relocated. New teams are forming.

Remember this is Apple, not Microslut or Dell. This is a move to remove the floppy or to drop optical drives altogether. This is them thinking TWO moves ahead of everyone else and making deft moves to plan on a future where they can corner the market the way they have done with so many other market segments.

And if you haven't been reading the trade journals.. apple is budding in the enterprise.. not shriveling up and dying. Management of their portables is getting larger all the time, and moving to a hosted model will make it all the more attractive to IT administrators who don't want the headache of fighting the datacenter teams to install an xserve nobody knows how to manage properly.

But NO.. you guys have it all figured out and stitched up... what a snooze....I should piss off right?

Thats all well and good IF Apple will host the apps I run on my server.

What if they won't?

What if I don't want them to host my apps and data? I like Apple and all but if their cloud hosting service' is like Mobile Me, slow and unreliable at times, I'm really not interested in them hosting for me.

Well said. Enterprise simply can't trust Apple. Steve Jobs is so incompetent sometimes. This is a high-profit area if it's done right. Apple just is stupid sometimes (just like everyone and every other company, they can and do make mistakes).

Someone else made another good point that deserves reinforcement: Mac mini is not a server. In fact with its new built-in power supply, there's no way anyone would let that into the room. it's going to catch on fire or melt....It'll probably turn out to be another lemon fiasco in the making for Apple when it catches on fire and burns someone or something.

This is really bizarre. And the Mac Pro rig is way too big. In no way is it the same product as the Xserver. Weak.

2 steps ahead? More like 2years behind in cloud tech.
And you are a complete numbskull if you think sysadmins have authority to say what stays in house and what goes to the cloud.

And your qualifications somehow make you more credible than Jobs? I doubt it.


It's not? Then what is it? Corned beef?

It's not an enterprise level server, but it is clearly a server and more than adequate for many users. Heck, I have one at home and use it 24/7.

What is it with these people who think that just because something doesn't meet THEIR needs (real or fabricated) that it's useless?

Hi MJ1970, you´re right, a little much melodramatic, not too much after all. Confidence is something that people use to throw away as other needs arise. its usual, but does not mean that it is right.

the big fish came to our company and made us believe about apple so we turned out the whole solution to an apple based one. it was a big investment.

anyway it will work, but in a couple of years when we have to upgrade surely we will move to a serious company.

killabyte

Yes, there are a lot of posters who've gine Chicken Little, and with good cause. There are a surprising number of R&E institutions, biopharma companies, and production houses that have considerable reliance on OS X Server, on Xserve. The sysdmins that have spent years convincing their coworkers that Apple was a good bet now look like idiots, right when Apple actiually had a chance to penetrate the deeper IT realm to some extent. Now, the sysadmins, and the bosses, will NEVER trust anything Apple while Jobs is here, and probably never after.

Apple is a successful company by most standards, but by this single move they have destroyed the faith of a market they could easily have made inroads into. Yes, they make billions. They could have made more billions, but they have a capricious, immature corporate mentality.

For some less hot-headed Chicken Littles, check out the comments on the Apple server forums. As someone said over there, Apples just kicked every Apple sysadmin in the gut, shot them, then kicked them in the gut again for good measure - turning their most knowledgeable and supportive long-term customer base instantly into Apple disbelievers.

Enjoy your iToy.

I share the sentiment. I feel I'm at a crossroads again, feeling betrayed by yet another corporation. Unfortunately, there really isn't much choice at all when it comes to personal desktop computing. Choose between two real evils Apple or Microsoft.

If only Adobe would wake up and make Photoshop and its video suite run on Linux, I would never look back. Linux is the premium software development platform, excellent server platform, but it frankly sucks as a desktop/personal computer for people that also care about video/image editing.

I think you will find that any company worth its salt would NEVER put its private data in 'the cloud' - i.e. on someone else's SERVER (insert sarcasm here). The only companies putting data in the cloud are putting other peoples data there, not their own. Cloud may have convenience, but there are huge latency and bandwith issues, as well as privacy/security, and the comfort of knowing exactly where your data is and how it's managed. If I was running a 500+ employee company, and I saw my data in the cloud, heads would roll in a microsecond. And no IT admin will tell me where to put my data, thank you.

Just had a thought - preface your post with "CL" if you've:

a) more than 8 TB of storage
b) know what 19" means
c) used a LOM
d) ever actually touched an Xserve

Exactly. Same here. No sane individual would put their most personal data into the cloud (it can really cost them a lot in the future, like getting health insurance or car insurance or even that new exciting job), let alone a company. Some companies are in highly regulated industries that require them to store their data securely and small breach would leave them out of business.

You seem to be intent on making the case for knowledgable computer technicians being knowledgeable.

I don't see where that has much to do with making the case for demanding Apple devote resources to a market where they clearly don't feel they can bring much in the way of innovation or value.

Can you explain to me why repeatedly brandishing your tech credentials gives you insight into what markets Apple should be pursuing? You've got "Hey losers I know my server shit" and "Apple is a stupid toy company if they don't keep making the Xserves" but no plausible connection between the two. In fact, just the opposite: there's a distinct implication of "Apple has never been very good at this stuff take it from me I should know" which makes the conclusion "therefore, they should do it more" all the more puzzling.

No it admin gives a rats arse where you put your data. But you put the companies data where you are told to put it if you want to be employed.

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to post your experience and thoughts.

When I look at this I see folks that are currently using Xserve and migrating to Mac Pro Server losing four key things; lights out management, rack space, redundant power, and the comfort level in the long term commitment of Apple to OS X server software for use in Enterprise Computing.

remote lights out management -

In my opinion the loss of lights out management has many functional workarounds. At the large datacenter's I've worked at (Financial, thousands of servers) we've used technology from Raritan for remote management and power control even in cases where the servers have remote lights out management built in.

http://www.raritan.com/products/cent...er-management/

These appliances give you a uniform interface and more granular access control and audit trails across platforms. They're a little pricey but a significant amount of the cost is offset by freeing up the network connections on the switches that the server's remote lights out management connections would use.

rack space -

http://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L...erve_Guide.pdf

"The Mac Pro enclosure does not support rack mounting; however, two units can fit on a rack-mounted shelf in 12U of space."

Two Mac Pro Server units on a rack mounted shelf taking up 12U of space is not outstanding. That's 10U more space for approximately the same processing power as 2 Xserves. It will be up to each individual organization as to whether or not this additional 10U space per server pair is a deal breaker. A standard rack is 42U, so you will be able to fit 6 Mac Pro Servers into a standard rack with 6U of space left over.

redundant power -

no alternative. However, if you are concerned that you won't have redundant power because of the critical nature of the services running on the server you should look at implementing a cluster or fail over solution anyway. Redundant power only protects you in one hardware failure scenario. This may be an opportunity to implement a more robust environment consisting of multiple servers.

comfort level in the long term commitment of Apple to OS X server software for use in Enterprise Computing -

If it were me this would be the biggest loss. I understand that most small to medium businesses that use Apple OS X server to host some of their technology services will be fine with the alternatives Apple has provided. Still, Apple has made it obvious by discontinuing their rack mounted server line that their strategy as a company is to grow their revenue in the enterprise space in other ways ( I suppose the writing has been on the wall here for sometime ). This would make me worry, OS X server software provides them very little revenue and their market share is negligible in the server operating system space. The question is, does Apple's strategic move away from Enterprise Computing hardware matter enough in the short term to precipitate organizations like yours to reevaluate their existing infrastructures and plan a migration away from OS X server software. I think that decision will depend on the importance of the presence of OS X server software in the individual environments. If it's too hasty to think that Apple will discontinue OS X server software like it has it's server hardware line, well, maybe losing redundancy of power and taking up some additional U's in a rack isn't that big a deal? The costs of migration could be large and OS X server development and support could go on indefinitely.

That's the only thing that would make sense, is if they had a deal.

I only hope the deal is that they license Mac OS X Server to Oracle for use in their hardware, and not a deal that says we are chummy buddies and we stay out of each other's markets and SUN/Oracle does enterprise servers, and Apple sticks with consumers and whatever workgroup/small business servers consumers need.

It's a pity. Mac OS X Server and XSan were pushed when they were severely lacking due to being underfunded and understaffed at Apple. Now, with Snow Leopard Server things finally start coming together (although before OS X Server really is running smoothly likely takes another one or two major releases if Apple lets that happen).

So basically, Apple leaves the market when their products finally get to the point of being somewhat polished.

2 Mac Pro in a shelf using 12U? Did anyone do ANY math? The average mid-sized operation or small internet based business has their servers with a colocation provider. They charge by the U.
So if you need 1 server, your monthly rent just went up by a factor of twelve! If you need two servers (which can fit on the same shelf), then it's still a factor of six.
Another server pays for itself just in terms of saved colocation rental cost.

And the Mac Pro's don't have LOM (lights out management), which is a big deal if you have to manage a bunch of servers, and none of the MacMini's have ECC memory, which is a big deal if you handle any important data.

Further to maximize stupidity, the new Mac Minis are now flatter and wider, and while the old form factor allowed 3 MacMini to fit on a shelf in a 1U space, the new form factor only allows for two.

So unless the MacMini gets ECC memory, it can't be taken seriously as a server other than as a media/file server in a private household (as long as you don't intend to store your tax records on it). And the MacPro, while perfectly fine as a media production server in a small media production outfit, it is utterly useless as enterprise-type server because it takes up too much space and lacks LOM functionality.

Why is it, that each time a company is in the position that they could rule the entire market from small to big iron, they don't realize that position and focus on the currently most profitable market and destroy that strategic advantage in the process? Quarterly results are good and important, but the long term vision is equally important.
The last time a company had one architecture that stretched from the desktop to the mainframe, it was DEC with VAX, but they failed to develop the desktop end, moved to the PC and ended up losing all. DEC's loss was ultimately M$ and Unix/Linux' gain.
Now Apple is in the position where it has an OS platform that scales from iPod to Supercomputing clusters, and they let it die at the high-end, first be killing the XServe RAID, WO, now the XServe...

Dumb move. With the Gartner report and all of the noise Apple has been making between the iPhone and iPad there will be major opportunities Apple hasn't had access to before in the enterprise market. RIM just made BES free on Domino, that's a sign that they are scared...on MS Exchange it's $32K for a BES serving a company of 500 users or more they wouldn't be just giving that away for nothing. Hopefully Apple will reconsider and allow companies to build their own "Cloud" for their employees using the iOS/Mac OSX combination there's a lot of money to be made there.

Oracle is currently supporting two operating systems Oracle Enterprise Linux and Solaris. Where is the value proposition for them to sell OS X server? Why would they want to direct customers away from operating systems which would be far more profitable for them because of the revenue from support contracts? Further, if Apple felt they could compete effectively and attain a sufficient profit margin they wouldn't drop the hardware line. Why would Oracle have more faith in Apple's ability to compete in this space than Apple has themselves? There isn't sufficient market share and margin for a company like Oracle to involve themselves and it's not in their best interests to do so.

Autodesk would disagree with you there. As would I.
Smoke, Flame, Inferno Luster, Burn, Wiretap all run on Linux. These apps and systems are pretty much at the top of the video/image editing, coloring and manipulation industry. I don't see the sucking.

I'm actually making the case for home user folks to stop commenting out their arses when they clearly don't have a clue about the very basics of enterprise server construction.

I don't think the Xserve is a particularly good server, and I don't care what markets Apple pursues, in their consumer market they're brilliant, but they pursued the enterprise market and screwed people over, and that ain't nice. That's a fact. I also think it ain't smart. That's an opinion.

I've never said they're a stupid toy company, I said this confirms they're a now a toy company Quite a good one, IMHO.

Finally a good article:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1555...11/xserve.html

Exactly. It's kind of funny to see so many (although it's actually a tiny number in the big scheme of things) in denial about the fact that Apple has no interest whatsoever in the backend of enterprise computing, i.e. servers. Hardware on the backend has very thin to virtually no margins anymore. Money in the enterprise computing market (what I'd define for companies doing at least $100 million in annual revenues) is in software and services, not the hardware. Why are some people so stubbornly in denial about this?

Even Apple doesn't use the OS X Server for the great majority of their own internal data center needs. Why would Oracle use it and sell it when Apple is actually using Oracle's Solaris and Enterprise Linux along with IBM/AIX, Red Hat Linux and even Windows server software? Companies competing in the real large-enterprise computing market make their money with software and services like consulting and systems integration. Hardware is now a small part of IBM's revenues and even less of their profits. HP acquired EDS specifically to compete with IBM in services. Dell is moving in the same direction because they just can't make enough money selling servers.

Also, large-scale storage and networking equipment have much better margins than servers. It's why HP and Dell recently went into a bidding war for little-known storage technology company. It's why HP acquired 3Com as well. Servers don't make money because most IT departments can cobble together their own server farms with cheap generic blade servers running the free open-source Linux server software from various companies. And then there are also a horde of Wintel servers that a lot of IT geeks can put together themselves.

Why would Apple want to compete in this kind of cutthroat space where no one cares about UI, ease-of-use, the ecosystem or industrial design? CIOs and IT directors care about computing power for each buck spent. Specs and how cheap the hardware is does matter an awful lot here. Consumers are willing to pay more to be shielded from the complexities of using technology and that's where Apple's expertise is and where Apple adds value and have the ability to charge a premium. That won't go over with the IT departments and Apple knows it, so Apple is getting out.

Consider it Apple throwing up their hands, if you must. Apple can't win here. Sun lost big-time in this market because their servers were way too overpriced during the dot com era but when the bubble burst, no one wanted to pay the premium for Sun servers when there were much cheaper servers based on Linux and Wintel. Sun ended up losing billions and billions of dollars over the past decade and ultimately got snatched up by Oracle at a bargain basement price of $7 billion. Please remember that Sun's market cap was once well over $100 billion during its heydays. There's no guarantee that Oracle will do well with Sun's hardware business. Oracle was primarily interested in Sun's software IP's.

So, what exactly does Apple bring to the server market? I can understand the frustrations of those who have a vested interest in the Xserve feeling abandoned by Apple on this, but why should Apple continue to use their resources on something that makes up well below 1% of their revenues and earnings and which will continue to become even more insignificant as iPhone and iPad sales grow at an exponential rate in the years ahead? It's just business reality. Apple won't be getting into the backend enterprise computing business. Apple has absolutely no interest in it because they'd get slaughtered trying to compete in it. They have their hands full enough dealing with Google/Android, Samsung, Microsoft/WP7, Sony, Nokia, RIM, Amazon and other companies in the CE client side of the tech industry.