Racks upcoming?
French site <a href="http://macplus.org/magplus/article.php?id_article=984"; target="_blank">MacPlus</a> is reporting Apple might introduce rack mountable PowerMacs soon.
The racks would be aimed at the professional rendering markets, that desperately need rackable, clusterable machines from Apple.
MacPlus rarely engages in speculation, so this might lend creedence to the Archintosh rumors...
Perhaps Apple's pro hardware is in for a big refresh soon...
[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: SYN ]</p>
The racks would be aimed at the professional rendering markets, that desperately need rackable, clusterable machines from Apple.
MacPlus rarely engages in speculation, so this might lend creedence to the Archintosh rumors...
Perhaps Apple's pro hardware is in for a big refresh soon...
[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: SYN ]</p>
Comments
<strong>Even if they make them, will the price/performance make it worth any .edu or science center's while?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ummm....yes.
Let me give you an example. I have a friend who works VERY closely with Apple in the Southern California area. He went to a client about a month ago who does video rendering. Takes my friend into a room packed with as many Power Macs as he could fit in there. He was complaining that they were not enough but he will not buy anymore due to the size. Flat out said to my friend: I would buy at least 200 from you right now if they were rack mountable.
Apparantly from what my friend has heard from Apple, they are taking this area VERY VERY seriously. And no they are not targeting education with these, they are targeting video and science markets, areas which have no problem spending a lot of money on this type of stuff.
Just a question. When do think those plastics will finally be completed?
<strong>
Ummm....yes.
Let me give you an example. I have a friend who works VERY closely with Apple in the Southern California area. He went to a client about a month ago who does video rendering. Takes my friend into a room packed with as many Power Macs as he could fit in there. He was complaining that they were not enough but he will not buy anymore due to the size. Flat out said to my friend: I would buy at least 200 from you right now if they were rack mountable.
Apparantly from what my friend has heard from Apple, they are taking this area VERY VERY seriously. And no they are not targeting education with these, they are targeting video and science markets, areas which have no problem spending a lot of money on this type of stuff.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As giant mentioned. <a href="http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/gvs9000/"; target="_blank">http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/gvs9000/</a>;
Give this to your friend and he can pass it along to the guy who needs them. Apple will sell 200 machines by proxy.
<strong><a href="http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/gvs9000/"; target="_blank">you mean like these?</a></strong><hr></blockquote>
This may be a stupid question, but how are these folks selling systems preloaded with the Mac OS when Apple supposedly doesn't let anyone else do that?
These are current G4 machines stripped out of the El Capitan chassis, and stuffed into a rackmount chassis...
Hey! Why am I paying for PCI slots that I CANNOT USE?!?
See the problem here? If Apple made their own rackmounts, the main logic board would probably NOT have excessive PCI slots... After all, who needs four PCI slots for a renderfarm, servers, distributed computing applications? Not required, just extra expense...
So, cut the number of PCI slots (possibly even cut the AGP slot and integrate a 'bare-bones' graphics chip on the main logic board) and save on the overall cost of the unit, both in production and for the end user...
A renderfarm wants multiple CPUs, a ton of RAM, a fast drive array (or, set it up to load the OS in on bootup, and keep the actual rendered images/files on a SAN) and a fast network connection...
Quad G5s cover the CPU angle, three RAM slots per CPU daughtercard covers the massive RAM, a SAN would cover the fast disk array (and save overall costs) and the Gigabit Ethernet is already in there...
Rack them up, send the render job from a central workstation, and check back in the morning...
I hope apple does make their own rackmount, maybe something to specifically compete against sgi?
[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: dartblazer ]</p>
Lots of money as in loads of machines or lots of money as in expensive machines? I thought the point was to rip out anything that wouldn't be needed, make all duals (or even quads) and sell them at an attractive price point?
Does anyone have a link on NEXTSTEP's clustering abilities?
<strong>
Lots of money as in loads of machines or lots of money as in expensive machines? I thought the point was to rip out anything that wouldn't be needed, make all duals (or even quads) and sell them at an attractive price point?
Does anyone have a link on NEXTSTEP's clustering abilities?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did I say that this is what they were NOT going to do???
Two major problems with using a current Power Mac in a rendering farm environment:
Size
Maximum RAM
These two things will be the focal point of the Rack Mount servers. Yes they will be adjusted in price.
As far as price...if the power is right they will pay for it. I was at a film editing lab in Hollywood last night...the largest one in Hollywood. They buy machines like I buy coffee....which is often and without any regard for price! :cool:
[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>
And for those saying why fortran, sadly there is a lot of code still out there in the world of science and engineering.
The crap SPEC test that German mag did was not good PR and was widley distributed. Apple can remedy this with compilers that let the altivec unit do its magic. They work wonders on a gaussian blur and much of the SPEC code is just as heavily laden with vectorizable matrix math loops.
This will help convince scientists to buy rackmounts.
multiple cpus crammed into a small form factor. Apple's rackmounts will be on par w/ their desktops, possibly more
expensive.
I also think Apple will leave Fibre Channel SANs to the third parties, since integrating it would really drive up the price of a Mac.
What I am curious about, however, is Apple's take on "rackmount." I can see rackmount Macs being just as possible as a hugeass server Mac with like 16 or 24 dynamic, independant system domains, up to 64 processors, 64GB of RAM, and 32-64 PCI slots. Not to mention some technology like HyperTransport/RapidIO, and plenty of storage space (how does 100TB sound?).
Maybe we might even see non-PowerPC servers, because Apple's contract is over, PowerPC is going down the toilet when it comes to serious speed, and Mac OS X being compiled on x86 or otherwise is completely plausible in a server environment where widespread Carbon/Cocoa application recompiles for x86 would not be necessary. Of course these two ideas are really independant, but I see either as being very possible. IT markets might even favor x86 over PowerPC.
Combine all of that power, the simplicity/ease of Mac OS X, the beauty (not just outer beauty, either) of a Mac, and it could launch Apple into new markets (and heights). I can totally see them doing it, too.
Of course, I suppose regular PowerPC G4 (or G5) based rackmounts are a little more down-to-earth... but kinda boring after imagining what COULD be.
None of these things exist in the current machines.
The product matrix may become a 3X3 square instead of a 2X3 square, and Apple is broadcasting this, I believe.
Top Tier-
Very Powerful, high value and high price hardware that simply has a return on investment twice as good as a Wintel System. Rack-mountable. Top-end processor (G4? G5? GX?) Pricing, who knows?
Middle Tier-
Powerful, medium priced standalone "towers." Also feature the higher Motherboard bandwidth, fast RAM, but with IDE drives, PCI slots, etc - pricing to remain close to current G4 models. Processor unknown.
Consumer Tier-
100 to 133 MHz Bus iMacs with G4's, mid-to-high grade consumer graphics card (about one generation behind the high-end on the Middle Tier stuff). Pricing hoped to be from $1000-$1,500.
My 2 centavos.
<strong>What I am curious about, however, is Apple's take on "rackmount." I can see rackmount Macs being just as possible as a hugeass server Mac with like 16 or 24 dynamic, independant system domains, up to 64 processors, 64GB of RAM, and 32-64 PCI slots. Not to mention some technology like HyperTransport/RapidIO, and plenty of storage space (how does 100TB sound?).</strong><hr></blockquote>
Is there any evidence that Apple has the ability to design something like that? I haven't seen it.
[quote]<strong>Maybe we might even see non-PowerPC servers, because Apple's contract is over, PowerPC is going down the toilet when it comes to serious speed, and Mac OS X being compiled on x86 or otherwise is completely plausible in a server environment where widespread Carbon/Cocoa application recompiles for x86 would not be necessary.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple makes x86 servers, that puts them in direct competition with Dell, Compaq, IBM, Linux, and Windows. Apple doesn't have enough volume to compete on price and I'm guessing OS X Server is slower than Linux and W2K Server, so the only advantage left is usability. Can usability sell servers?
<strong>Belive me, Apple IS releasing a rck-mount Mac soon. I know because I have had 2 conversations (one last October and one 2 weeks ago) face to face with an Apple senior engineer in person about this very subject. He didn't come right out and confirm this, but he did give me a "wink and a nod". I walked away from him VERY confident that Apple is indeed releasing a rack case soon. I have no doubt that we will see them by MYNY or MWSF03.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have heard that WWDC is a possibility. It apparantly has been in the works for a long while.
[edit] Now that I think of it, they willmost likely be G5 based which would make MWNY or Seybold a better guess.
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>