Here's an out-there hypothesis, that is almost certainly not true, but fun to think about.
If I recall correctly, it's been the case for a while now that the biggest customer for Apple Xserve is Apple itself, they use more than anyone else. That's interesting, because what is Apple doing right now? Deploying a billion dollar data centre presumably stuffed full of servers. If Apple is the biggest customer of Xserves, and Apple require a lot of servers to put in one of the biggest data centres on the planet, might that possibly be a reason for a drastically reduced supply of Xserves in the coming months? Reason enough to actually choke off the supply of Xserves to other customers? Could this discontinuation actually be a temporary glitch while Apple turn their server manufacturing clout inwards, perhaps to be resumed once the data centre is operational?
If Apple, the dictionary definition of a vertically integrated company, has expanding server needs then it seems crazy that they'd stop producing their own servers.
This isn't clear for me... Why on the hardware that is intended to work as a server there is a video card with 1Gb of RAM ???? Looks like the new server standard for installing OS
I guess it is just because the 5770 becomes a standard card (ex: GTX 120 for Mac Pro 09'). so, why not?
It is a workstation, and usually a workstation has graphic card.
Nope, desktop app developers will do that on their own after the death of the XServe. I give it three to five years before Apple is forced to make a new XServe and Mac Pro with obscenely competitive specs/pricing to get people back before the OS becomes a graveyard.
In three to five years Apple won't give a rat's ass about desktop app developers.
Nope, desktop app developers will do that on their own after the death of the XServe. I give it three to five years before Apple is forced to make a new XServe and Mac Pro with obscenely competitive specs/pricing to get people back before the OS becomes a graveyard.
What the heck are you talking about? There is zero "halo effect" between XServe (and the Mac OS server business in general) and consumer Mac OS X (i.e., the OS that everyone cares about).
If Apple wasn't making money in the server business, or if they weren't very good at it, or it was an unnecessary distraction it was a smart decision to get out of that market. I go to major IT conferences and no one ever mentions Apple in the context of servers. The only people who care about this decision are the relatively few organizations that invested in Apple servers. Everyone in the business would have told them they were making an unconventional and risky choice. They made a risky choice and now they are probably upset about it. Oh well, sucks to be them, but they probably represent < 1% of Apple's revenue so no one else should care.
One more step on the long march towards a unified OSX with iOS. Eventually iOS will be it. Lion will be the last OSX major release.
I'd bet money against that proposition. The iPhone was successful because it has a completely different UX than Mac (or anything that came before). iOS isn't "better" than Mac OS X; it's a different OS for a different purpose.
What was the reason for putting everything on a single box?
Just buy more Mac minis.
They do fit nicely on 19" shelves.
except that mac mini's have no management capabilities and no RAID or hot swappable drives
with our HP servers i have console access via my iphone. i can even remotely press the power button on a server via my iphone and mobile safari. they don't even need KVM's
a 1U HP server can take up to 8 hard drives and 192GB of RAM. you'll need a whole rack full of mac minis for that. by the time you pay more money for power, KVM switches, data center space, more racks, you have wasted a lot of money compared to buying Dell/HP/IBM servers
and $1500 will buy me a 5 year 24x7 4 hour warranty from HP. with a mac mini i have to take it to an apple store for simple things like replacing hard drives
Apparently there are over 10,000 Mac Minis used as such in Vegas.
Would anybody like to bet against the IT guys that made those decisions? Like the idiots in the last forum.
that picture was from 2008
VMWare and hardware in general has grown a lot in the last 3 years. i bet this is all being transitioned to one vmware cluster if it hasn't been done already
Not sure why there is a discussion of IOS replacing Mac OS X. Such clueless comments...
The Mac OS will be alive and kicking as long as Apple will produce computers, which I imagine will be for a very long time. No cloud service will change that.
That said, the demise of Xserve's have been in the making for some time. Apple must have recognized that the majority of Apple server installs were for workgroup sizes where a desktop form factor makes more sense than rack mount servers.
I was always hoping for Apple to come up with a compelling 2U offering since that is the sweet spot for servers, along with better storage options.
We are running a mixed environment with a nearly 2 dozen Xserve's, still a few Xserve Raids and about the same amount of Dell's (using Redhat Linux), which I hate to say, are much more advanced.
And AppleCare for Xserve's have been a joke, especially since they cut down support from 24/7 to 8am to 6pm on weekdays (or something like it). Talk about mission critical.
Plus in a business environment, Mac OS X server components or settings have to be configured and updated beyond what server admin or Apple software updates support (like version updates for PCI compliance, mail configuration, ssh, etc.)
Just what happen if Next Mac Pro can be Rackmounted with some magic?
The most important question is what will Apple use for their Own Datacenter. They Definitely wont be using their old Xserve. A Pile a Mac Mini, or something big coming up?
Does anyone else think that the discontinuation of the XServe product is a harbinger of Apple's push into cloud computing? While a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro is great for typical office networking needs, it isn't a great solution for large-scale hosting. But if Apple is moving in that direction with it's new data center, perhaps that should be less of a concern. Thoughts?
Mein Gott. This is laughable. It appears Apple has completely given up all hope of enterprise/datacenter inroads, and is strictly going for the SMB market with the MMS and MPS. Unless they license out OS X Server, probably on a specific platform (VMware? Parallels?), this is it for OS X in the server room.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Apple leaves the room when there is no money to be made. As long as desktops are around and selling, Apple will be making them. They will also likely be making the "best of class" in that market and capturing the top-end money as they do in most markets they play in.
If Apple is leaving the server hardware market, they are leaving it because it makes no money for them and doesn't fit into their strategic plans to the point where it's worth losing the money they aren't making. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the server hardware market is kind of a dying market anyway? IMO all indicators from the last five years or so are that virtualisation is the way forward and that server hardware has become commodified.
As usual you have cut through the crap and delivered a thoughtful response to a snarky comment.
Comments
If I recall correctly, it's been the case for a while now that the biggest customer for Apple Xserve is Apple itself, they use more than anyone else. That's interesting, because what is Apple doing right now? Deploying a billion dollar data centre presumably stuffed full of servers. If Apple is the biggest customer of Xserves, and Apple require a lot of servers to put in one of the biggest data centres on the planet, might that possibly be a reason for a drastically reduced supply of Xserves in the coming months? Reason enough to actually choke off the supply of Xserves to other customers? Could this discontinuation actually be a temporary glitch while Apple turn their server manufacturing clout inwards, perhaps to be resumed once the data centre is operational?
If Apple, the dictionary definition of a vertically integrated company, has expanding server needs then it seems crazy that they'd stop producing their own servers.
Food for thought.
The only thing nice was the 19" mount.
What was the reason for putting everything on a single box?
Just buy more Mac minis.
They do fit nicely on 19" shelves.
Or in racks. http://img-cluster1.dannychoo.com/cg...1c7cbaa572.jpg
Apparently there are over 10,000 Mac Minis used as such in Vegas.
Would anybody like to bet against the IT guys that made those decisions? Like the idiots in the last forum.
This isn't clear for me... Why on the hardware that is intended to work as a server there is a video card with 1Gb of RAM ???? Looks like the new server standard for installing OS
I guess it is just because the 5770 becomes a standard card (ex: GTX 120 for Mac Pro 09'). so, why not?
It is a workstation, and usually a workstation has graphic card.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workstation
Nope, desktop app developers will do that on their own after the death of the XServe. I give it three to five years before Apple is forced to make a new XServe and Mac Pro with obscenely competitive specs/pricing to get people back before the OS becomes a graveyard.
In three to five years Apple won't give a rat's ass about desktop app developers.
Like I said... let Jobs know what a shitty Job he's doing at Apple.
I know, I know.. Jobs is infallible. He is simply incapable of error and we should all set-aside critical judgment and powers of reasoning.
Clap, clap.
I know, I know.. Jobs is infallible. He is simply incapable of error and we should all set-aside critical judgment and powers of reasoning.
Clap, clap.
It looks like you've set-aside critical judgment and powers of reasoning regardless.
One more step on the long march towards a unified OSX with iOS. Eventually iOS will be it. Lion will be the last OSX major release.
Ah... finally... someone who bet on the computer over the typewriter and adding machine.
Nope, desktop app developers will do that on their own after the death of the XServe. I give it three to five years before Apple is forced to make a new XServe and Mac Pro with obscenely competitive specs/pricing to get people back before the OS becomes a graveyard.
What the heck are you talking about? There is zero "halo effect" between XServe (and the Mac OS server business in general) and consumer Mac OS X (i.e., the OS that everyone cares about).
If Apple wasn't making money in the server business, or if they weren't very good at it, or it was an unnecessary distraction it was a smart decision to get out of that market. I go to major IT conferences and no one ever mentions Apple in the context of servers. The only people who care about this decision are the relatively few organizations that invested in Apple servers. Everyone in the business would have told them they were making an unconventional and risky choice. They made a risky choice and now they are probably upset about it. Oh well, sucks to be them, but they probably represent < 1% of Apple's revenue so no one else should care.
One more step on the long march towards a unified OSX with iOS. Eventually iOS will be it. Lion will be the last OSX major release.
I'd bet money against that proposition. The iPhone was successful because it has a completely different UX than Mac (or anything that came before). iOS isn't "better" than Mac OS X; it's a different OS for a different purpose.
There will never be an OS X 11.
-kpluck
Because Operating System 10 11 makes no sense whatsoever.
The only thing nice was the 19" mount.
What was the reason for putting everything on a single box?
Just buy more Mac minis.
They do fit nicely on 19" shelves.
except that mac mini's have no management capabilities and no RAID or hot swappable drives
with our HP servers i have console access via my iphone. i can even remotely press the power button on a server via my iphone and mobile safari. they don't even need KVM's
a 1U HP server can take up to 8 hard drives and 192GB of RAM. you'll need a whole rack full of mac minis for that. by the time you pay more money for power, KVM switches, data center space, more racks, you have wasted a lot of money compared to buying Dell/HP/IBM servers
and $1500 will buy me a 5 year 24x7 4 hour warranty from HP. with a mac mini i have to take it to an apple store for simple things like replacing hard drives
Or in racks. http://img-cluster1.dannychoo.com/cg...1c7cbaa572.jpg
Apparently there are over 10,000 Mac Minis used as such in Vegas.
Would anybody like to bet against the IT guys that made those decisions? Like the idiots in the last forum.
that picture was from 2008
VMWare and hardware in general has grown a lot in the last 3 years. i bet this is all being transitioned to one vmware cluster if it hasn't been done already
The Mac OS will be alive and kicking as long as Apple will produce computers, which I imagine will be for a very long time. No cloud service will change that.
That said, the demise of Xserve's have been in the making for some time. Apple must have recognized that the majority of Apple server installs were for workgroup sizes where a desktop form factor makes more sense than rack mount servers.
I was always hoping for Apple to come up with a compelling 2U offering since that is the sweet spot for servers, along with better storage options.
We are running a mixed environment with a nearly 2 dozen Xserve's, still a few Xserve Raids and about the same amount of Dell's (using Redhat Linux), which I hate to say, are much more advanced.
And AppleCare for Xserve's have been a joke, especially since they cut down support from 24/7 to 8am to 6pm on weekdays (or something like it). Talk about mission critical.
Plus in a business environment, Mac OS X server components or settings have to be configured and updated beyond what server admin or Apple software updates support (like version updates for PCI compliance, mail configuration, ssh, etc.)
So you are back to a command line anyway.
The most important question is what will Apple use for their Own Datacenter. They Definitely wont be using their old Xserve. A Pile a Mac Mini, or something big coming up?
Does anyone else think that the discontinuation of the XServe product is a harbinger of Apple's push into cloud computing? While a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro is great for typical office networking needs, it isn't a great solution for large-scale hosting. But if Apple is moving in that direction with it's new data center, perhaps that should be less of a concern. Thoughts?
I was thinking the same thing!!
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Apple leaves the room when there is no money to be made. As long as desktops are around and selling, Apple will be making them. They will also likely be making the "best of class" in that market and capturing the top-end money as they do in most markets they play in.
If Apple is leaving the server hardware market, they are leaving it because it makes no money for them and doesn't fit into their strategic plans to the point where it's worth losing the money they aren't making. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the server hardware market is kind of a dying market anyway? IMO all indicators from the last five years or so are that virtualisation is the way forward and that server hardware has become commodified.
As usual you have cut through the crap and delivered a thoughtful response to a snarky comment.
Yes... and because of it they are doing so poorly. Best you give them a call to make them aware of their failures.
Yes, they are doing poorly, in the enterprise market. They are evidently aware of it, and are bailing out instead of fixing it.