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?
I hope something big is coming up. You can mount an Mac Pro, even horizontally, but you don't get many of the features of Xserve, namely the rack density savings, hardware redundancy, better RAID options, LOM and more.
Even a better Server version of the Pro would be better. An option for redundant PSU right in the box (swap out the optical cage for another PSU, side by side.).
And Lights-Out-Management, and redundant power supplies. Neither the Mac mini nor the Mac Pro can match those features.
Someone else mentioned that Xserves make great departmental or small business servers, and that is precisely what the small company I work for uses one for. The idea of having to manage a Dell or HP server gives me nightmares, considering how awesome it is managing my Xserve. But,
Apple's been known to surprise before. This could be a prelude to something else they are going to introduce.
iServer anyone? Maybe they will introduce a server that's more integrated with iOS? Perhaps allow it to serve internal iOS apps in the enterprise? One never knows.
If Apple is still using Mac OS X, it's unlikely for users in server side to adopt it. Although I love Mac OS so much, thousands of stuffs are Linux only. I have no energy to port all of them to Mac OS even sometimes only minor codes are to be changed. Furthermore a lot of commercial softwares are binaries only, we only have the Linux version.
Then, Mac OS server version can't get enough resources to catch up with the Linux kernel team. I can't even find KVM port or Xen port to Mac OS. That's essential for any cloud base infrastructure.
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.
We have seen Apple exit from the market where it makes no strategic sense. Xserve Raid was a good indication.
I am not sure I would refer to server hardware being commodified as a reason.That would indicate that Xserve's were a premium product in the enterprise market, which wasn't the case.
If anything, Xserve & Xserve Raid's were quite on the budget side in their pricing, especially when server licensing were part of the equation.
AppleCare was also never up to par with others, like Dell. While I have no love for Dell, their mission-critical server support is bar none. Apple never did manage to build a truly competitive support service offering.
We have virtualized quite a few of our Redhat servers and would like forward to hear anyone describe major benefits of virtualizing Mac OS X server software. Besides licensing costs, that is.
As much as I love Mac OS X, linux distros easily outperform Mac Os X server in database intensive applications and websites (at least when using mySQL) and the user-friendly Server admin falls by the wayside the moment you have to modify versions or configurations via CLI, such as php, mySQl, postfix, etc. which is a requirement, not an option, when running public-facing services.
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.
iOS is OS X == OS X is Mac OS
The basic OS is the same the primary difference is the UI!
More and more features are migrating from Mac OS X to iOS OS X -- the latest is the API/Framework for Midi...
Why would they do that?
More and more features are migrating from iOS OSX to Mac OS X -- one of the more recents is the multi-touch UI.
Why would they do that?
The original iOS was built by taking Mac OS X and stripping out things that were not needed and reimplementing others -- all the while preserving the underlying OS, File System, etc.
That done, they are migrating some of the re-implementations and new features back to Mac OS X.
I suspect the goal is a Universal OS uOS (in Sol's words). I think Apple is implementing it so it contains everything in Mac OS X and iOS OS X,
Then, Apple will repackage the uOS so that when it installs on a device (including a computer), only the modules appropriate to that device get installed.
For example on a Mac with a multitouch screen (in addition to a regular screen) the Touch interface will be installed -- so Mac apps can use an interactive multitouch surface as a light table, drawing tablet, etc.
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
Mac mini Cluster Among World's Slowest Supercomputers
NEWS: red-lobster.it reports:
"(Schio, Italy) After the great worldwide success of Virginia Tech's Big Mac, a new Macintosh cluster has took everybody in the Mac community by storm.
"A supercomputer formed of a cluster of 4 Macintosh Mini has not scored high in the list of the world's fastest clusters, but its performance could still improve, according to the system's architect.
"According to the latest performance figures the Mac mini cluster, nicknamed Quarter Pounder Mac mini Cluster, the system is computing at 1 teraflop. That puts it basically behind every supercomputer in the world, according to the figures posted in a report at the top 500 supercomputers list.
"The Quarter Pounder Mac mini Cluster is turning heads in the low-performance computing world because it has been built for just over 2.000 $, from off-the-shelf Mac mini, in about six hours. Top-ranked supercomputers traditionally cost hundreds of millions of pounds and can take years to construct, and we don't understand why."
I have to say, I am very surprised to learn that Apple dropping a not very successful product that's always been somewhat of an orphan in their lineup variously means that they'll shortly abandon desktop OSes altogether, OS X specifically, that developers will abandon the platform entirely (?), Apple's NC server farms will replace everyone's need for servers, and, of course, the perennial favorite of trolling asshats, they'll concentrate on making "disposable consumer products" (as if the computer industry in general was noted for its preservationist, never toss anything ways).
Oh yeah, and noting that Apple seems to be faring pretty well as of late which suggests that they probably had sound business reasons for the move (in that they're not given to willy-nilly suicidal gestures of the sort being ascribed to them) means you worship Jobs and cannot conceive of him being in error, the great argumentum ad douchebagum of Apple discussion.
Or, as has been pointed out, they made a business decision that they weren't selling enough Xserves to justify the expense. We need better trolls, these ones are broken.
And Lights-Out-Management, and redundant power supplies. Neither the Mac mini nor the Mac Pro can match those features.
Someone else mentioned that Xserves make great departmental or small business servers, and that is precisely what the small company I work for uses one for. The idea of having to manage a Dell or HP server gives me nightmares, considering how awesome it is managing my Xserve. But,
Oh well, good-bye Xserve!
But for a departmental or small business server, why do you need the rack mounting? A Mac Mini or Mac Pro server will do the job just fine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
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.
People like you have been saying that for 20 years.
Here's a clue: desktop app developers couldn't care less about the demise of the xserve. The xserve is designed for running big databases and server functions. They are, by and large, running the same things as Linux or Unix servers. They are NOT generally running desktop apps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy
except that mac mini's have no management capabilities and no RAID or hot swappable drives
Might I suggest that you learn something before posting on a topic?
You can easily remotely manage a Mini and Mini Server comes stock with RAID (can be configured as either RAID 1 or 0).
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy
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
So?
What part of "Apple is not interested in that market because it has become too commoditized and doesn't value Apple's core strengths' don't you understand?
BTW, you'd be a fool to try to do that with a Mini Server. Use a Mac Pro server. It won't handle 8 hard drives or 192 GB, but it's more than adequate for most users (I'd be surprised if HP can put 8 hard drives and 192 GB into a 1U server, either, btw).
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy
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, for $999, you can simply have a spare Mac Mini server lying around. If it breaks, you restore with Time Machine and you're ready to go.
You can easily remotely manage a Mini and Mini Server comes stock with RAID (can be configured as either RAID 1 or 0).
Except nobody uses those configs in datacenters. Everyone wants RAID-10 or RAID-50. Also you can't put an iSCSI card in it either, so SAN is out as well.
Comments
And I'm going to jam that into the 2U space in my rack how????
Sideways with a large hammer?
Enjoy playing Bejeweled on your iPhone when you're forced to switch to Windows when Apple drops their PC business altogether....
You assume Windows will still be around when that scenario happens.
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?
I hope something big is coming up. You can mount an Mac Pro, even horizontally, but you don't get many of the features of Xserve, namely the rack density savings, hardware redundancy, better RAID options, LOM and more.
Even a better Server version of the Pro would be better. An option for redundant PSU right in the box (swap out the optical cage for another PSU, side by side.).
Sideways with a large hammer?
The only thing nice was the 19" mount..
And Lights-Out-Management, and redundant power supplies. Neither the Mac mini nor the Mac Pro can match those features.
Someone else mentioned that Xserves make great departmental or small business servers, and that is precisely what the small company I work for uses one for. The idea of having to manage a Dell or HP server gives me nightmares, considering how awesome it is managing my Xserve. But,
Oh well, good-bye Xserve!
Yes, they are doing poorly, in the enterprise market. They are evidently aware of it, and are bailing out instead of fixing it.
Hey... not everyone can be as proficient as you in business... spending $10 to make a buck.
iServer anyone? Maybe they will introduce a server that's more integrated with iOS? Perhaps allow it to serve internal iOS apps in the enterprise? One never knows.
Then, Mac OS server version can't get enough resources to catch up with the Linux kernel team. I can't even find KVM port or Xen port to Mac OS. That's essential for any cloud base infrastructure.
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 sure is a lot of wasted ODDs!
.
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.
We have seen Apple exit from the market where it makes no strategic sense. Xserve Raid was a good indication.
I am not sure I would refer to server hardware being commodified as a reason.That would indicate that Xserve's were a premium product in the enterprise market, which wasn't the case.
If anything, Xserve & Xserve Raid's were quite on the budget side in their pricing, especially when server licensing were part of the equation.
AppleCare was also never up to par with others, like Dell. While I have no love for Dell, their mission-critical server support is bar none. Apple never did manage to build a truly competitive support service offering.
We have virtualized quite a few of our Redhat servers and would like forward to hear anyone describe major benefits of virtualizing Mac OS X server software. Besides licensing costs, that is.
As much as I love Mac OS X, linux distros easily outperform Mac Os X server in database intensive applications and websites (at least when using mySQL) and the user-friendly Server admin falls by the wayside the moment you have to modify versions or configurations via CLI, such as php, mySQl, postfix, etc. which is a requirement, not an option, when running public-facing services.
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.
iOS is OS X == OS X is Mac OS
The basic OS is the same the primary difference is the UI!
More and more features are migrating from Mac OS X to iOS OS X -- the latest is the API/Framework for Midi...
Why would they do that?
More and more features are migrating from iOS OSX to Mac OS X -- one of the more recents is the multi-touch UI.
Why would they do that?
The original iOS was built by taking Mac OS X and stripping out things that were not needed and reimplementing others -- all the while preserving the underlying OS, File System, etc.
That done, they are migrating some of the re-implementations and new features back to Mac OS X.
I suspect the goal is a Universal OS uOS (in Sol's words). I think Apple is implementing it so it contains everything in Mac OS X and iOS OS X,
Then, Apple will repackage the uOS so that when it installs on a device (including a computer), only the modules appropriate to that device get installed.
For example on a Mac with a multitouch screen (in addition to a regular screen) the Touch interface will be installed -- so Mac apps can use an interactive multitouch surface as a light table, drawing tablet, etc.
.
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
And they are all there and more since.
Perhaps you need to see something a little later. http://obamapacman.com/2009/10/danis...ple-computers/
But they are not always the fastest:
Actually I heard Apple's official transition strategy is to suggest XServe customers just string a bunch of iPads in parallel as a replacement...
Yeah, they'll valcro them to the wall and daisy-chain the earplug/microphone ports together.
... It may not offer the best throughput, but, no heat, power or space issues, and there's lots of redundancy!
... Just imagine the status/monitoring display possibilities -- now, that's what I'd call a Video Wall!
.
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.
Poor man's blade chassis.
Curious what Apple plans to use in the new datacenter. I was pretty sure all along that it wasn't going to be xserves.
Seems to me Apple should update OS X Server to run on ANY server platform.
Oh yeah, and noting that Apple seems to be faring pretty well as of late which suggests that they probably had sound business reasons for the move (in that they're not given to willy-nilly suicidal gestures of the sort being ascribed to them) means you worship Jobs and cannot conceive of him being in error, the great argumentum ad douchebagum of Apple discussion.
Or, as has been pointed out, they made a business decision that they weren't selling enough Xserves to justify the expense. We need better trolls, these ones are broken.
And Lights-Out-Management, and redundant power supplies. Neither the Mac mini nor the Mac Pro can match those features.
Someone else mentioned that Xserves make great departmental or small business servers, and that is precisely what the small company I work for uses one for. The idea of having to manage a Dell or HP server gives me nightmares, considering how awesome it is managing my Xserve. But,
Oh well, good-bye Xserve!
But for a departmental or small business server, why do you need the rack mounting? A Mac Mini or Mac Pro server will do the job just fine.
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.
People like you have been saying that for 20 years.
Here's a clue: desktop app developers couldn't care less about the demise of the xserve. The xserve is designed for running big databases and server functions. They are, by and large, running the same things as Linux or Unix servers. They are NOT generally running desktop apps.
except that mac mini's have no management capabilities and no RAID or hot swappable drives
Might I suggest that you learn something before posting on a topic?
You can easily remotely manage a Mini and Mini Server comes stock with RAID (can be configured as either RAID 1 or 0).
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
So?
What part of "Apple is not interested in that market because it has become too commoditized and doesn't value Apple's core strengths' don't you understand?
BTW, you'd be a fool to try to do that with a Mini Server. Use a Mac Pro server. It won't handle 8 hard drives or 192 GB, but it's more than adequate for most users (I'd be surprised if HP can put 8 hard drives and 192 GB into a 1U server, either, btw).
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, for $999, you can simply have a spare Mac Mini server lying around. If it breaks, you restore with Time Machine and you're ready to go.
Yes, they are doing poorly, in the enterprise market. They are evidently aware of it, and are bailing out instead of fixing it.
Yeah! The cowards! How dare they pick and choose what markets they compete in!
You can easily remotely manage a Mini and Mini Server comes stock with RAID (can be configured as either RAID 1 or 0).
Except nobody uses those configs in datacenters. Everyone wants RAID-10 or RAID-50. Also you can't put an iSCSI card in it either, so SAN is out as well.