Apple plans self-sufficient cloud infrastructure with 'Project McQueen'
A day after reports linked Apple to a massive cloud services deal with Google Cloud Platform, sources have come forward with information of a comprehensive in-house data center initiative dubbed "Project McQueen."
Apple's data center in Maiden, NC.
With Project McQueen, Apple is looking to wean off third-party cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in favor of its own infrastructure, an investment expected to pay for itself within three years of going live, a person familiar with the company's plans told VentureBeat.
Apple currently relies on AWS and Microsoft's Azure for its content serving needs, including data-intensive products like iTunes and iCloud. The massive user base of iTunes and its various music, video and app storefronts is well known, and in February Apple revealed it services more than 782 million active iCloud accounts worldwide.
Sources said, however, that the iPhone maker is not pleased with Amazon's performance, specifically the inability to quickly expedite photo and video requests from iOS devices. In addition, Apple wants to bring iTunes under one roof. Currently, third-party services handle a majority of iTunes' data needs, with Azure being the primary provider, sources said.
Interestingly, the idea behind Project McQueen was purportedly formulated after a conversation with a Microsoft employee, who told an Apple employee that Azure would be unable to keep up with Apple's continued growth. To cope with the overflow, Apple would likely have to invest in an expansion to Azure's data center network, the Microsoft employee reportedly said at the time.
Instead of sinking capital into infrastructure owned and operated by outside firms, Apple is now mulling a buildout of its own. To that end, the company has purchased plots of land in China and Hong Kong for future data centers, the report said. Aside from the financial benefits, Apple would be able to optimize its data centers to suit customer needs, resulting in an improved user experience.
It is unclear when Apple plans to announce or break ground on the supposed data centers. Reports yesterday claimed the company struck a multi-year deal with Google Cloud Platform worth between $400 and $600 million, though the partnership could prove a stopgap until Project McQueen goes online.
Apple's data center in Maiden, NC.
With Project McQueen, Apple is looking to wean off third-party cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in favor of its own infrastructure, an investment expected to pay for itself within three years of going live, a person familiar with the company's plans told VentureBeat.
Apple currently relies on AWS and Microsoft's Azure for its content serving needs, including data-intensive products like iTunes and iCloud. The massive user base of iTunes and its various music, video and app storefronts is well known, and in February Apple revealed it services more than 782 million active iCloud accounts worldwide.
Sources said, however, that the iPhone maker is not pleased with Amazon's performance, specifically the inability to quickly expedite photo and video requests from iOS devices. In addition, Apple wants to bring iTunes under one roof. Currently, third-party services handle a majority of iTunes' data needs, with Azure being the primary provider, sources said.
Interestingly, the idea behind Project McQueen was purportedly formulated after a conversation with a Microsoft employee, who told an Apple employee that Azure would be unable to keep up with Apple's continued growth. To cope with the overflow, Apple would likely have to invest in an expansion to Azure's data center network, the Microsoft employee reportedly said at the time.
Instead of sinking capital into infrastructure owned and operated by outside firms, Apple is now mulling a buildout of its own. To that end, the company has purchased plots of land in China and Hong Kong for future data centers, the report said. Aside from the financial benefits, Apple would be able to optimize its data centers to suit customer needs, resulting in an improved user experience.
It is unclear when Apple plans to announce or break ground on the supposed data centers. Reports yesterday claimed the company struck a multi-year deal with Google Cloud Platform worth between $400 and $600 million, though the partnership could prove a stopgap until Project McQueen goes online.
Comments
- Tim Cook, January 2009 FQ1 2009 Earnings Call
Source: http://http//www.asymco.com/2011/01/17/the-cook-doctrine/
Maybe Apple can re-animate the Xserve project too.
But this time with A9 SoCs instead of G4 chipsets, running RISC-enabled OS X.
As for Xserves, I bought several for work and they worked fine for years, until the new IT manager got rid of them and replaced them with used Windows servers. So much for supporting a large group of Mac users with proper equipment.
I would like to see IBM servers being sold to SMB installations running a collection of Apple and IBM software. I'd also like to see these being sold to individuals. Regular customers should be able to reap the benefits of the IBM and Apple partnership.
Wean
to accustom (as a young child or animal) to take food otherwise than by nursing
to detach from a source of dependence
Now, it's more a matter of scaling properly.
Maybe not the A9 -- but possibly a custom variant of the A10. Say the A10C for Cloud, A10D for Distributed or A10S for Server.
Multiple of these SoCs (1-n) could easily be combined in a server and outperform Intel's best.
Then the "data crunching" could be distributed across multiple servers/geographic locations.
I suspect that Apple's acquisition of FoundationDB is integral to this plan:
http://thenewstack.io/databases-high-volume-transactions-scale-part-two/
Finally, Apple's development and release of Swift is a key component to their cloud offerings.
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1800094#.Vuu9XGN5gUE
Let's see what Apple could do with these;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/09/qualcomm_red_hat_enterprise_linux/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/amd_arm_seattle_launch/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/16/appliedmicro_x_gene_3/
I think that HP is using an earlier version of the x gene in the Moonshot servers.
The tools are certainly in place to make this happen.
http://www.mactrast.com/2016/03/survey-developers-now-use-os-x-linux-swift-second-loved-language/
Actually, what they should really do for power users of whom there will be more and more: morph the AppleTV and MacMini into an ARM64 home server, where all HomeKit and user data live, i.e. a self-administered iCloud server at home, with Apple's iCloud acting as rendezvous server (akin to back to my Mac), encrypted internet cache, and encrypted backup.
Once this tech exists, OS X server can also host the full iCloud functionality for organizations who have sensitive data they don't want to entrust any third parties.
Apple would solve the scalability issue, privacy issue in one go while giving AppleTV and HomeKit a boost at the same time...