Well, unsurprisingly, lots of wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
<sigh>
This is both an expected and rational move. There are several factors at play here that make this move make sense:
1. This product was likely not very profitable and a distraction from Apple's larger strategy.
2. Apple does/will offer a small business/office "server" solution in the form of the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro (server configuration...announced today).
3. More and more things are moving to the "cloud". Apple recognizes this and provides some (and likely more in the future) cloud-based services.
4. The data center is actually well-served by many other vendors. Apple likely didn't feel they could add a whole lot in that space.
And there are probably other contributing factors.
As to whether they will get out of the desktop business? To early to tell. I could see the Mac Pro line dwindling down and disappearing in a few years. I could also see some streamlining of the MacBook line.
Ah, finally a refreshing voice of reason on this convoluted thread.
I never understood why Apple even bothered with the X-Serve and it makes perfect sense for Apple to shed a product line that doesn't add to the company's overall value chain. Apple is a provider of client products. Apple is a consumer electronics company that also provides content. That's where their focus needs to be.
Apple's internal IT and data center needs are provided by a hodge-podge of IBM/AIX, Sun/Solaris, Red Hat Linux, customized UNIX, Oracle, SAP, even Windows, etc. These are systems that would cost tens of millions of dollars. Just do a search of Apple's job listings that Apple is trying to fill on the IT side and there is hardly any mention of the X-Serve or the Mac OS X Server at all. It's mainly heavy duty enterprise backend stuff dominated by IBM, Linux, SAP and Oracle/Sun.
Apple's push into the enterprise is for the adoption of the iPhone, iPad and, to a degree, Macs, but it's mainly about mobile. Apple hired Unisys to help large enterprises integrate the mobile devices into their IT infrastructure. Again, it's about the client side, not the server backend. Apple is not going to compete with the likes IBM, HP, Fujitsu, NEC, Dell and Sun, etc on this end. What is the point? It's just not Apple's area of expertise.
What value would Apple add on the server side when cheap generic Wintel or Linux machines can do much more for much less? Industrial design, the look and feel, the user experience and the ecosystem mean nothing in this space. Let's remember what happened to Sun. The server machines have become commoditized. That's why the likes of IBM, HP and Dell are focusing on software, storage, networking equipment, and services like consultation and systems integration. They can't grow or rely on the increasingly thin margins of the server hardware. And unlike on the consumer client side of things, Apple has absolutely nothing to add to the value chain there.
We ( the company I work for ) recently installed 250 Xserves for a mission critical project in the Oil Sands of Alberta; we could not be happier with the results.
Security of the OS is second to non right now, and the labour cost was cut 77% after replacing Windows Server and our systems have been on an unprecedented 100% up time from where we were before.
I sure hope that Apple will licence out OS X Server after this fiasco is over with.
Mac Pros use up more space but they can be used instead of the XServe:
The dimensions of the XServe and Mac Pro respectively are:
1.73" x 17.6" x 30"
8.1" x 20.1" x 18.7"
So if you assume the depth difference (17.6 vs 20.1) to be negligible, you can fit 4 XServes where 1 Mac Pro is going by the smallest dimension but you can fit nearly two Mac Pros along the longest side so realistically, you are only going to get around double the amount of XServes in the same space.
All Apple has to do is shrink down the Mac Pro:
Then the space saving is negligible. If they make the handles removable using wing-nuts on the inside, you save even more space. The payoff is huge because if you need to sell on a server, your market is much bigger as you can sell to people who need desktops and vice versa. It also increases sales volume of the Mac Pro, which should help drive costs down a bit and make support better.
The Mini is ok as a server but they really need to make those hard drives easy to upgrade. The XServe was a nicely designed piece of hardware but I think it makes sense for them to kill it off. I would really like to see them focus some more on the Mac Pro design.
2) Saying that satellite computing devices will outnumber typical ?PCs? is not some farfetched notion. iOS devices (which you refer to as iToys) already outnumber the number of Macs sold by 6 to 1. If we look at all other major PC makers and MS, they are all focusing their attention on satellite computing.
3) Dick?s statement isn?t saying that desktop computers will go away completely, but that our reliance on them as our primary means of communicating digitally will wane. This is the nature of all tech. Paradigm shifts do happen and with mobile computing getting more robust there simply is less need for the average person to have ?PC? in every room. We already had this shift from desktops to notebooks, now we?re seeing this with handheld devices that suit the majority of casual computing needs.
4) I predict we?ll see an upsurge of desktops as the single, powerful, stationary computer, with multiple smartphones and tablets in a household serving a multitude of satellite computing needs. Even the TV will get involved in future of computing.
'computers' will go back to being in the hands of those that truly need them and most of the population that never should have had one in the first place will move on to the devices designed for them.
I for one will mourn the dismantling of Apple's vast enterprise presence, with legions of Xserve admins left homeless and destitute. Entire businesses are likely to collapse overnight, as they scramble to replace their Xserve based infrastructure. Indeed, the US economy may well suffer a lethal shock as the underpinnings of its digital commerce are cruelly yanked away by the capricious martinets of Cupertino.
Truly, this move will be remembered as the day Apple once and finally jumped the shark, and began its descent into irrelevance. Without its mighty Xserve line, how can anyone ever again purchase an Apple computer without a deep, deep sense of shame, and the suspicion that that very machine will be discontinued and rendered inoperable before they can even get it home? Or that they'll be mocked en route by fat, sweaty IT people for trafficking in hardware without a relationship to the beloved "big iron" that swells their pants with pride?
Apple, Doomed™ again and for all time. And also, at this point, apparently, sort of effeminate.
Does anyone know what they are using in Apples billion dollar server farm in NC? I can't see Apple loading that thing with Dells.
I own two xserves, I am very happy with there performance. Hopefully this will lead to a new product, smaller, faster, cooler, smarter. I hate for Apple to abandon the whole sector when it seems there is abundant opportunities for integration with their mobile products with business.
Maybe they'll introduce a new Mac Pro which just happens to be 1U or 2U...
lol
Exactly what I thought. The current Mac Pro design has been around for a long time. Maybe thin with light peak for most peripherals. Who knows, maybe it will even drop the CDROM drive. OS media is now coming on flash disk after all.
So it turns out the fundamentalist Windo-philes were right all along: Apple is primarily interested in producing gorgeous high-profit consumer gadgets and doesn't take the needs of IT pros seriously.
OS X Server has long been the neglected stepsister of Apple's lineup. Now that there will be no grownup hardware on which to run it, it's not hard to see where it's headed... out of the cinders, out of the kitchen, off the estate, and into an unmarked grave.
Ah well... As it turns out, learning OS X Server was really about learning a rather restricted, overpriced Unix box with a few not terribly powerful, notably unreliable admin interfaces on a horribly slow development cycle. New releases that decrease functionality, bugs that linger for years, and a billion ads for one iThingie after another on the side of every city bus on the planet...
It's an abusive relationship I should have dumped years ago.
Not that I'm going to thank 'em for forcing the issue.
So it turns out the fundamentalist Windo-philes were right all along: Apple is primarily interested in producing gorgeous high-profit consumer gadgets and doesn't take the needs of IT pros seriously.
OS X Server has long been the neglected stepsister of Apple's lineup. Now that there will be no grownup hardware on which to run it, it's not hard to see where it's headed... out of the cinders, out of the kitchen, off the estate, and into an unmarked grave.
Ah well... As it turns out, learning OS X Server was really about learning a rather restricted, overpriced Unix box with a few not terribly powerful, notably unreliable admin interfaces on a horribly slow development cycle. New releases that decrease functionality, bugs that linger for years, and a billion ads for one iThingie after another on the side of every city bus on the planet...
It's an abusive relationship I should have dumped years ago.
Not that I'm going to thank 'em for forcing the issue.
I'm sure we will know more in the next few months. Apple is certainly not abandoning the enterprise. They may just be stepping out of the server room as enterprise-class appliance servers (clustered storage, SANs, etc) can fill the need. It remains to be seen if OS X Server will remain in Lion for those instances where it makes sense or if OS X client may gain a few server-like features. The *real* needs of IT pros is on the client side. Apple has done a great job with AD integration, management, and other enterprise-class features.
It wouldn't surprise me to see a more rack-friendly Mac Pro form factor coming out too. In fact I could see the video editors out there mounting them in the AV racks at their edit stations too.
Apple?s decision to discontinue the Xserve is probably the worst decision Apple made in along time, and it will come back to bite them ? hard I hope.
If Apple thinks that the Mac Mini Server can be compared to the Xserve, then they don?t have a clue what the Xserve means to the IT world. First, the Mac Mini doesn?t even come close to the processing power of the Xserve. Not to mention, the RAM in the Mac Mini maxes out at 8 GB whereas the Xserve is 96 GB with 10.6 installed. Then there is the hard drive configuration. Albeit you can mirror two hard drives, that is not the same as RAID 5; you will have to go to some external storage device after you max the internal hard drive out at 500 GB. If you append an external storage device, then you can only concatenate it to the Mini via USB or Firewire; both are considered bad practices for corporate use. There are many other technical disadvantages for the Mac Mini Server when compared to the Xserve when it is used in a corporate environment; however, when it comes to servers of any kind, you don?t want it to shout out ?I?m a single point of failure.? The Mac Mini Server says that loud and clear in every aspect of its makeup.
Apple is also saying that the Mac Pro is an alternative to the Xserve. I really do like the Mac Pro. It is a well built and rock-solid computer with many upgradeable components. With more internal drive bays than the Xserve, and you can also add a solid-state drive to it, the Mac Pro has a better internal storage option and a higher storage capacity than the Xserve. Processors in both computers are tit for tat as well. So why not the Mac Pro as an alternative to the Xserve? It is not practical when it comes to mounting it in a rack. With a rack mount kit, you can lay the Mac Pro horizontally and that will use about seven units of rack space. If you left it standing vertically in the rack, you will use about 12U of rack space. Therefore, I hope you have lots of racks because if you have as many servers as I do along with other devices such as a 4U tape library, Xserve RAID (which was another good product Apple did away with), and APC battery backups, you will run out of space fast. The Mac Pro does not have lights out management capabilities. In its current form factor, the Mac Pro can only have one power supply. The absence of LOM and dual power supplies make the Mac Pro inferior to the Xserve. Again, as good as the Mac Pro is, it is not a good corporate solution as an alternative to the Xserve. It does not fit in the server room.
I conclude this by saying to Apple, if you are going to do away with the Xserve than you might as well slap all who supported the Mac in businesses, schools, colleges, and government in the face. Not only are you slapping us in the face, but you are putting a lot of doubt in our minds about Apple?s long term plans for Mac OS X Server software. Give me a good reason why I should continue down Apple?s server road when you are continually discontinuing what I will call your enterprise product line? Right now I can?t trust Apple on whether they will someday discontinue server software or some other product I rely on in business. I really feel as if Apple just called me STUPID for buying their product.
Just spoke with our DAM vendors and their linux version of the software is pretty advanced now compared to the Mac version. Plus there are some solid AFP services for linux out that makes this transition a little better. By the time we have to replace our DAM system, this will hurt a lot less.
Awful time to kill this product with such short notice. This is budget time and the MacPro and mini aren't suitable Xserve replacements in our environment. Globally, I don't fault Apple on this decision - it's theirs to make. However, in my little world, this means a scramble on our near and long term strategies. We're big enough to have plenty of Xserves, but too small to get any good 'NDA' strategic info from Apple. Not knowing what's on the horizon makes this all the more painful.
Certainly, I should be hammering out a plan for the future of Apple in our server room (and by extension, within our entire organization) instead of wasting time posting in a forum while 'on the clock.' Perhaps I'll feel better after some venting.
In the realm of speculation (outside of the burdens of my budgeting responsibilities), I'm very interested to see what the next move will be. I expect the Xserve's demise, as the Xserve RAID before it, are part of a larger strategy. It's exciting to consider the likes of HP (any good Tier 1 vendor) offering an Apple-licensed OS X solution - be it a direct install with a real EFI, or within a bundled VM. That seems to be a popular concept in this forum and fits with the Apple/Promise scenario.
Using Apple hardware, I could imagine the MacMini as a variation of the blade server concept. I picture a Mini with Light Peak that slides into a rack-mountable docking-chasis. Thus, instead of redundancy in the form of a robust single server, you get redundancy with distributed VMs on swappable Minis.
I'd be more jazzed to see where this news is really leading if the announcement itself wasn't such a poop on my parade. Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do.
I see some people post the word 'fail' as some cocky judgement of Apple's decision-making. In this case, I'm afraid the risk of failure falls squarely on my adaptability within the realm of my platform-choice.
Apple’s decision to discontinue the Xserve is probably the worst decision Apple made in along time, and it will come back to bite them – hard I hope.
If Apple thinks that the Mac Mini Server can be compared to the Xserve, then they don’t have a clue what the Xserve means to the IT world. First, the Mac Mini doesn’t even come close to the processing power of the Xserve. Not to mention, the RAM in the Mac Mini maxes out at 8 GB whereas the Xserve is 96 GB with 10.6 installed. Then there is the hard drive configuration. Albeit you can mirror two hard drives, that is not the same as RAID 5; you will have to go to some external storage device after you max the internal hard drive out at 500 GB. If you append an external storage device, then you can only concatenate it to the Mini via USB or Firewire; both are considered bad practices for corporate use. There are many other technical disadvantages for the Mac Mini Server when compared to the Xserve when it is used in a corporate environment; however, when it comes to servers of any kind, you don’t want it to shout out “I’m a single point of failure.” The Mac Mini Server says that loud and clear in every aspect of its makeup.
Apple is also saying that the Mac Pro is an alternative to the Xserve. I really do like the Mac Pro. It is a well built and rock-solid computer with many upgradeable components. With more internal drive bays than the Xserve, and you can also add a solid-state drive to it, the Mac Pro has a better internal storage option and a higher storage capacity than the Xserve. Processors in both computers are tit for tat as well. So why not the Mac Pro as an alternative to the Xserve? It is not practical when it comes to mounting it in a rack. With a rack mount kit, you can lay the Mac Pro horizontally and that will use about seven units of rack space. If you left it standing vertically in the rack, you will use about 12U of rack space. Therefore, I hope you have lots of racks because if you have as many servers as I do along with other devices such as a 4U tape library, Xserve RAID (which was another good product Apple did away with), and APC battery backups, you will run out of space fast. The Mac Pro does not have lights out management capabilities. In its current form factor, the Mac Pro can only have one power supply. The absence of LOM and dual power supplies make the Mac Pro inferior to the Xserve. Again, as good as the Mac Pro is, it is not a good corporate solution as an alternative to the Xserve. It does not fit in the server room.
I conclude this by saying to Apple, if you are going to do away with the Xserve than you might as well slap all who supported the Mac in businesses, schools, colleges, and government in the face. Not only are you slapping us in the face, but you are putting a lot of doubt in our minds about Apple’s long term plans for Mac OS X Server software. Give me a good reason why I should continue down Apple’s server road when you are continually discontinuing what I will call your enterprise product line? Right now I can’t trust Apple on whether they will someday discontinue server software or some other product I rely on in business. I really feel as if Apple just called me STUPID for buying their product.
Where the hell have you and the rest of the idiots been.
Awful time to kill this product with such short notice. This is budget time and the MacPro and mini aren't suitable Xserve replacements in our environment. Globally, I don't fault Apple on this decision - it's theirs to make. However, in my little world, this means a scramble on our near and long term strategies. We're big enough to have plenty of Xserves, but too small to get any good 'NDA' strategic info from Apple. Not knowing what's on the horizon makes this all the more painful.
Certainly, I should be hammering out a plan for the future of Apple in our server room (and by extension, within our entire organization) instead of wasting time posting in a forum while 'on the clock.' Perhaps I'll feel better after some venting.
In the realm of speculation (outside of the burdens of my budgeting responsibilities), I'm very interested to see what the next move will be. I expect the Xserve's demise, as the Xserve RAID before it, are part of a larger strategy. It's exciting to consider the likes of HP (any good Tier 1 vendor) offering an Apple-licensed OS X solution - be it a direct install with a real EFI, or within a bundled VM. That seems to be a popular concept in this forum and fits with the Apple/Promise scenario.
Using Apple hardware, I could imagine the MacMini as a variation of the blade server concept. I picture a Mini with Light Peak that slides into a rack-mountable docking-chasis. Thus, instead of redundancy in the form of a robust single server, you get redundancy with distributed VMs on swappable Minis.
I'd be more jazzed to see where this news is really leading if the announcement itself wasn't such a poop on my parade. Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do.
I see some people post the word 'fail' as some cocky judgement of Apple's decision-making. In this case, I'm afraid the risk of failure falls squarely on my adaptability within the realm of my platform-choice.
Nothing to worry about it. Buy an Xserve if you need it now. Otherwise, wait until spring. I'm sure Apple has some surprise for us. Besides, there are enterprise-class alternatives for things like AFP and management. I am guessing that Mac Minis and a new form factor Mac Pro might be part of Apples strategy. Remember that Apple has not issued a press release yet. And as far as I know, nobody from the OS X server team has been fired or relocated. If the changes were that drastic, we would be hearing something from Cupertino.
Ok, so I'm an ACSA supporting Xserves for a Fortune 100 company. I also own an ACN supporting SMB customers. I have mixed feelings. But Apple, really, WTF?
Enterprise customers need rack mount servers with redundancy and lights-out remote management. My data center is a 15-minute drive from my office, so I rely on ILOM almost exclusively. A rack full of Mac Pro's (time to buy some more racks, I guess) does nothing for me.
And talk about a pain in the ass if I have Mac Pro's sitting two or three to a shelf (or on their side) and I need to pull a drive. Tell me how I am supposed to service the machine if I have to take it almost completely out of the rack to swap drives.
What about ILOM? Apple really needs to make some add-on ILOM board at the very minimum. Especially for the smaller non-Enterprise customers.
We had plans to expand our Mac OS X Server footprint extensively in 2011. Now, that is going present a huge challenge for us in the data center. I can't go to Facilities and ask for twice the floor space.
Dumb, Apple. Real dumb. Just when Enterprise are finally starting to look at Mac solutions
Please do not say anything about things that you have no clue about or work with - A MacPro have not any redundant power supply and LOM... Also it´s to big for server racks. 2/3 MacPros in the same space as 12 Xserves
And yes I have installed a lot of MacPros during the years as Mac OS X servers for companies without racks. I know they work but not in Data Centers and in larger companies.
This announcement is just a MAcPro with Mac OS X Server preinstalled. Been available for years...
...NeXT ended up earning hundreds of millions of dollars for Jobs (billions if you count his profits on Apple stock)...
With failures like those, who needs winners?
Yes. Jobs earned millions of dollars. Not the people who worked at NeXT and bought into his BS vision and most importantly not the consumers who actually bought the machines and were then abandoned.
But hey, in your eyes as long as Steve makes money it's all good.
Killing off their Enterprise group just shows that Apple is well on their way to abandoning the Mac and instead focusing on cheap, disposable, gadgets as their sole reason for existance. Sad.
...We ( the company I work for ) recently installed 250 Xserves for a mission critical project in the Oil Sands of Alberta; we could not be happier with the results...
Hey what company? I used to work at Syncrude. I would have been thrilled if they had used Apple products when I worked in their IT department.
Ah, finally a refreshing voice of reason on this convoluted thread.
That's very kind. Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexkhan2000
I never understood why Apple even bothered with the X-Serve and it makes perfect sense for Apple to shed a product line that doesn't add to the company's overall value chain. Apple is a provider of client products. Apple is a consumer electronics company that also provides content. That's where their focus needs to be.
It seemed neat at first but, yes, odd. Apple has definitely changed since that time. They recognize this and are adjusting accordingly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexkhan2000
Apple's internal IT and data center needs are provided by a hodge-podge of IBM/AIX, Sun/Solaris, Red Hat Linux, customized UNIX, Oracle, SAP, even Windows, etc. These are systems that would cost tens of millions of dollars. Just do a search of Apple's job listings that Apple is trying to fill on the IT side and there is hardly any mention of the X-Serve or the Mac OS X Server at all. It's mainly heavy duty enterprise backend stuff dominated by IBM, Linux, SAP and Oracle/Sun.
Exactly! Just like every other large (Fortune 500 or 1000) corporation. I don't know why people don't get this. Fundamentally this is an issue of comparative advantage. These other companies have a comparative advantage in creating, delivering, maintaining and selling enterprise systems. This is not Apple's core competency. Apple's management is being very wise in recognizing their core competencies and focusing on those. Enterprise and data center servers are not it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexkhan2000
Apple's push into the enterprise is for the adoption of the iPhone, iPad and, to a degree, Macs, but it's mainly about mobile. Apple hired Unisys to help large enterprises integrate the mobile devices into their IT infrastructure. Again, it's about the client side, not the server backend. Apple is not going to compete with the likes IBM, HP, Fujitsu, NEC, Dell and Sun, etc on this end. What is the point? It's just not Apple's area of expertise.
Right again!
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexkhan2000
What value would Apple add on the server side when cheap generic Wintel or Linux machines can do much more for much less? Industrial design, the look and feel, the user experience and the ecosystem mean nothing in this space. Let's remember what happened to Sun. The server machines have become commoditized. That's why the likes of IBM, HP and Dell are focusing on software, storage, networking equipment, and services like consultation and systems integration. They can't grow or rely on the increasingly thin margins of the server hardware. And unlike on the consumer client side of things, Apple has absolutely nothing to add to the value chain there.
And again.
Apple is a consumer electronics company. Let's accept this fact. They do it incredibly well. Could their skills in making life easier also be applied to the corporate IT arena? Sure. But nobody in that arena really cares. I work in IT and this is my experience. Sad? Sure. True? Mostly.
The computer industry is slowly but surely moving away from the antiquated BIOS to EFI, particularly in the enterprise space. Apple will be able to license Mac OS X Server for other manufacturers' systems, including blades, which are far more attractive than Xserves.
Comments
Well, unsurprisingly, lots of wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
<sigh>
This is both an expected and rational move. There are several factors at play here that make this move make sense:
1. This product was likely not very profitable and a distraction from Apple's larger strategy.
2. Apple does/will offer a small business/office "server" solution in the form of the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro (server configuration...announced today).
3. More and more things are moving to the "cloud". Apple recognizes this and provides some (and likely more in the future) cloud-based services.
4. The data center is actually well-served by many other vendors. Apple likely didn't feel they could add a whole lot in that space.
And there are probably other contributing factors.
As to whether they will get out of the desktop business? To early to tell. I could see the Mac Pro line dwindling down and disappearing in a few years. I could also see some streamlining of the MacBook line.
Ah, finally a refreshing voice of reason on this convoluted thread.
I never understood why Apple even bothered with the X-Serve and it makes perfect sense for Apple to shed a product line that doesn't add to the company's overall value chain. Apple is a provider of client products. Apple is a consumer electronics company that also provides content. That's where their focus needs to be.
Apple's internal IT and data center needs are provided by a hodge-podge of IBM/AIX, Sun/Solaris, Red Hat Linux, customized UNIX, Oracle, SAP, even Windows, etc. These are systems that would cost tens of millions of dollars. Just do a search of Apple's job listings that Apple is trying to fill on the IT side and there is hardly any mention of the X-Serve or the Mac OS X Server at all. It's mainly heavy duty enterprise backend stuff dominated by IBM, Linux, SAP and Oracle/Sun.
Apple's push into the enterprise is for the adoption of the iPhone, iPad and, to a degree, Macs, but it's mainly about mobile. Apple hired Unisys to help large enterprises integrate the mobile devices into their IT infrastructure. Again, it's about the client side, not the server backend. Apple is not going to compete with the likes IBM, HP, Fujitsu, NEC, Dell and Sun, etc on this end. What is the point? It's just not Apple's area of expertise.
What value would Apple add on the server side when cheap generic Wintel or Linux machines can do much more for much less? Industrial design, the look and feel, the user experience and the ecosystem mean nothing in this space. Let's remember what happened to Sun. The server machines have become commoditized. That's why the likes of IBM, HP and Dell are focusing on software, storage, networking equipment, and services like consultation and systems integration. They can't grow or rely on the increasingly thin margins of the server hardware. And unlike on the consumer client side of things, Apple has absolutely nothing to add to the value chain there.
We ( the company I work for ) recently installed 250 Xserves for a mission critical project in the Oil Sands of Alberta; we could not be happier with the results.
Security of the OS is second to non right now, and the labour cost was cut 77% after replacing Windows Server and our systems have been on an unprecedented 100% up time from where we were before.
I sure hope that Apple will licence out OS X Server after this fiasco is over with.
Mac Pros use up more space but they can be used instead of the XServe:
The dimensions of the XServe and Mac Pro respectively are:
1.73" x 17.6" x 30"
8.1" x 20.1" x 18.7"
So if you assume the depth difference (17.6 vs 20.1) to be negligible, you can fit 4 XServes where 1 Mac Pro is going by the smallest dimension but you can fit nearly two Mac Pros along the longest side so realistically, you are only going to get around double the amount of XServes in the same space.
All Apple has to do is shrink down the Mac Pro:
Then the space saving is negligible. If they make the handles removable using wing-nuts on the inside, you save even more space. The payoff is huge because if you need to sell on a server, your market is much bigger as you can sell to people who need desktops and vice versa. It also increases sales volume of the Mac Pro, which should help drive costs down a bit and make support better.
The Mini is ok as a server but they really need to make those hard drives easy to upgrade. The XServe was a nicely designed piece of hardware but I think it makes sense for them to kill it off. I would really like to see them focus some more on the Mac Pro design.
1) Learn the origins of such paraphrasing that is done for comic effect. They will show up again.2) Saying that satellite computing devices will outnumber typical ?PCs? is not some farfetched notion. iOS devices (which you refer to as iToys) already outnumber the number of Macs sold by 6 to 1. If we look at all other major PC makers and MS, they are all focusing their attention on satellite computing.
3) Dick?s statement isn?t saying that desktop computers will go away completely, but that our reliance on them as our primary means of communicating digitally will wane. This is the nature of all tech. Paradigm shifts do happen and with mobile computing getting more robust there simply is less need for the average person to have ?PC? in every room. We already had this shift from desktops to notebooks, now we?re seeing this with handheld devices that suit the majority of casual computing needs.
4) I predict we?ll see an upsurge of desktops as the single, powerful, stationary computer, with multiple smartphones and tablets in a household serving a multitude of satellite computing needs. Even the TV will get involved in future of computing.
'computers' will go back to being in the hands of those that truly need them and most of the population that never should have had one in the first place will move on to the devices designed for them.
Truly, this move will be remembered as the day Apple once and finally jumped the shark, and began its descent into irrelevance. Without its mighty Xserve line, how can anyone ever again purchase an Apple computer without a deep, deep sense of shame, and the suspicion that that very machine will be discontinued and rendered inoperable before they can even get it home? Or that they'll be mocked en route by fat, sweaty IT people for trafficking in hardware without a relationship to the beloved "big iron" that swells their pants with pride?
Apple, Doomed™ again and for all time. And also, at this point, apparently, sort of effeminate.
I own two xserves, I am very happy with there performance. Hopefully this will lead to a new product, smaller, faster, cooler, smarter. I hate for Apple to abandon the whole sector when it seems there is abundant opportunities for integration with their mobile products with business.
Maybe they'll introduce a new Mac Pro which just happens to be 1U or 2U...
lol
Exactly what I thought. The current Mac Pro design has been around for a long time. Maybe thin with light peak for most peripherals. Who knows, maybe it will even drop the CDROM drive. OS media is now coming on flash disk after all.
OS X Server has long been the neglected stepsister of Apple's lineup. Now that there will be no grownup hardware on which to run it, it's not hard to see where it's headed... out of the cinders, out of the kitchen, off the estate, and into an unmarked grave.
Ah well... As it turns out, learning OS X Server was really about learning a rather restricted, overpriced Unix box with a few not terribly powerful, notably unreliable admin interfaces on a horribly slow development cycle. New releases that decrease functionality, bugs that linger for years, and a billion ads for one iThingie after another on the side of every city bus on the planet...
It's an abusive relationship I should have dumped years ago.
Not that I'm going to thank 'em for forcing the issue.
So it turns out the fundamentalist Windo-philes were right all along: Apple is primarily interested in producing gorgeous high-profit consumer gadgets and doesn't take the needs of IT pros seriously.
OS X Server has long been the neglected stepsister of Apple's lineup. Now that there will be no grownup hardware on which to run it, it's not hard to see where it's headed... out of the cinders, out of the kitchen, off the estate, and into an unmarked grave.
Ah well... As it turns out, learning OS X Server was really about learning a rather restricted, overpriced Unix box with a few not terribly powerful, notably unreliable admin interfaces on a horribly slow development cycle. New releases that decrease functionality, bugs that linger for years, and a billion ads for one iThingie after another on the side of every city bus on the planet...
It's an abusive relationship I should have dumped years ago.
Not that I'm going to thank 'em for forcing the issue.
I'm sure we will know more in the next few months. Apple is certainly not abandoning the enterprise. They may just be stepping out of the server room as enterprise-class appliance servers (clustered storage, SANs, etc) can fill the need. It remains to be seen if OS X Server will remain in Lion for those instances where it makes sense or if OS X client may gain a few server-like features. The *real* needs of IT pros is on the client side. Apple has done a great job with AD integration, management, and other enterprise-class features.
It wouldn't surprise me to see a more rack-friendly Mac Pro form factor coming out too. In fact I could see the video editors out there mounting them in the AV racks at their edit stations too.
If Apple thinks that the Mac Mini Server can be compared to the Xserve, then they don?t have a clue what the Xserve means to the IT world. First, the Mac Mini doesn?t even come close to the processing power of the Xserve. Not to mention, the RAM in the Mac Mini maxes out at 8 GB whereas the Xserve is 96 GB with 10.6 installed. Then there is the hard drive configuration. Albeit you can mirror two hard drives, that is not the same as RAID 5; you will have to go to some external storage device after you max the internal hard drive out at 500 GB. If you append an external storage device, then you can only concatenate it to the Mini via USB or Firewire; both are considered bad practices for corporate use. There are many other technical disadvantages for the Mac Mini Server when compared to the Xserve when it is used in a corporate environment; however, when it comes to servers of any kind, you don?t want it to shout out ?I?m a single point of failure.? The Mac Mini Server says that loud and clear in every aspect of its makeup.
Apple is also saying that the Mac Pro is an alternative to the Xserve. I really do like the Mac Pro. It is a well built and rock-solid computer with many upgradeable components. With more internal drive bays than the Xserve, and you can also add a solid-state drive to it, the Mac Pro has a better internal storage option and a higher storage capacity than the Xserve. Processors in both computers are tit for tat as well. So why not the Mac Pro as an alternative to the Xserve? It is not practical when it comes to mounting it in a rack. With a rack mount kit, you can lay the Mac Pro horizontally and that will use about seven units of rack space. If you left it standing vertically in the rack, you will use about 12U of rack space. Therefore, I hope you have lots of racks because if you have as many servers as I do along with other devices such as a 4U tape library, Xserve RAID (which was another good product Apple did away with), and APC battery backups, you will run out of space fast. The Mac Pro does not have lights out management capabilities. In its current form factor, the Mac Pro can only have one power supply. The absence of LOM and dual power supplies make the Mac Pro inferior to the Xserve. Again, as good as the Mac Pro is, it is not a good corporate solution as an alternative to the Xserve. It does not fit in the server room.
I conclude this by saying to Apple, if you are going to do away with the Xserve than you might as well slap all who supported the Mac in businesses, schools, colleges, and government in the face. Not only are you slapping us in the face, but you are putting a lot of doubt in our minds about Apple?s long term plans for Mac OS X Server software. Give me a good reason why I should continue down Apple?s server road when you are continually discontinuing what I will call your enterprise product line? Right now I can?t trust Apple on whether they will someday discontinue server software or some other product I rely on in business. I really feel as if Apple just called me STUPID for buying their product.
Certainly, I should be hammering out a plan for the future of Apple in our server room (and by extension, within our entire organization) instead of wasting time posting in a forum while 'on the clock.' Perhaps I'll feel better after some venting.
In the realm of speculation (outside of the burdens of my budgeting responsibilities), I'm very interested to see what the next move will be. I expect the Xserve's demise, as the Xserve RAID before it, are part of a larger strategy. It's exciting to consider the likes of HP (any good Tier 1 vendor) offering an Apple-licensed OS X solution - be it a direct install with a real EFI, or within a bundled VM. That seems to be a popular concept in this forum and fits with the Apple/Promise scenario.
Using Apple hardware, I could imagine the MacMini as a variation of the blade server concept. I picture a Mini with Light Peak that slides into a rack-mountable docking-chasis. Thus, instead of redundancy in the form of a robust single server, you get redundancy with distributed VMs on swappable Minis.
I'd be more jazzed to see where this news is really leading if the announcement itself wasn't such a poop on my parade. Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do.
I see some people post the word 'fail' as some cocky judgement of Apple's decision-making. In this case, I'm afraid the risk of failure falls squarely on my adaptability within the realm of my platform-choice.
Apple’s decision to discontinue the Xserve is probably the worst decision Apple made in along time, and it will come back to bite them – hard I hope.
If Apple thinks that the Mac Mini Server can be compared to the Xserve, then they don’t have a clue what the Xserve means to the IT world. First, the Mac Mini doesn’t even come close to the processing power of the Xserve. Not to mention, the RAM in the Mac Mini maxes out at 8 GB whereas the Xserve is 96 GB with 10.6 installed. Then there is the hard drive configuration. Albeit you can mirror two hard drives, that is not the same as RAID 5; you will have to go to some external storage device after you max the internal hard drive out at 500 GB. If you append an external storage device, then you can only concatenate it to the Mini via USB or Firewire; both are considered bad practices for corporate use. There are many other technical disadvantages for the Mac Mini Server when compared to the Xserve when it is used in a corporate environment; however, when it comes to servers of any kind, you don’t want it to shout out “I’m a single point of failure.” The Mac Mini Server says that loud and clear in every aspect of its makeup.
Apple is also saying that the Mac Pro is an alternative to the Xserve. I really do like the Mac Pro. It is a well built and rock-solid computer with many upgradeable components. With more internal drive bays than the Xserve, and you can also add a solid-state drive to it, the Mac Pro has a better internal storage option and a higher storage capacity than the Xserve. Processors in both computers are tit for tat as well. So why not the Mac Pro as an alternative to the Xserve? It is not practical when it comes to mounting it in a rack. With a rack mount kit, you can lay the Mac Pro horizontally and that will use about seven units of rack space. If you left it standing vertically in the rack, you will use about 12U of rack space. Therefore, I hope you have lots of racks because if you have as many servers as I do along with other devices such as a 4U tape library, Xserve RAID (which was another good product Apple did away with), and APC battery backups, you will run out of space fast. The Mac Pro does not have lights out management capabilities. In its current form factor, the Mac Pro can only have one power supply. The absence of LOM and dual power supplies make the Mac Pro inferior to the Xserve. Again, as good as the Mac Pro is, it is not a good corporate solution as an alternative to the Xserve. It does not fit in the server room.
I conclude this by saying to Apple, if you are going to do away with the Xserve than you might as well slap all who supported the Mac in businesses, schools, colleges, and government in the face. Not only are you slapping us in the face, but you are putting a lot of doubt in our minds about Apple’s long term plans for Mac OS X Server software. Give me a good reason why I should continue down Apple’s server road when you are continually discontinuing what I will call your enterprise product line? Right now I can’t trust Apple on whether they will someday discontinue server software or some other product I rely on in business. I really feel as if Apple just called me STUPID for buying their product.
Where the hell have you and the rest of the idiots been.
Apple announced their new Mac Pro Server early this morning. http://www.apple.com/xserve/
And even AppleInsider published the story at 9:40 AM:
Apple offers new Mac Pro Server configuration to replace Xserve http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ce_xserve.html
Awful time to kill this product with such short notice. This is budget time and the MacPro and mini aren't suitable Xserve replacements in our environment. Globally, I don't fault Apple on this decision - it's theirs to make. However, in my little world, this means a scramble on our near and long term strategies. We're big enough to have plenty of Xserves, but too small to get any good 'NDA' strategic info from Apple. Not knowing what's on the horizon makes this all the more painful.
Certainly, I should be hammering out a plan for the future of Apple in our server room (and by extension, within our entire organization) instead of wasting time posting in a forum while 'on the clock.' Perhaps I'll feel better after some venting.
In the realm of speculation (outside of the burdens of my budgeting responsibilities), I'm very interested to see what the next move will be. I expect the Xserve's demise, as the Xserve RAID before it, are part of a larger strategy. It's exciting to consider the likes of HP (any good Tier 1 vendor) offering an Apple-licensed OS X solution - be it a direct install with a real EFI, or within a bundled VM. That seems to be a popular concept in this forum and fits with the Apple/Promise scenario.
Using Apple hardware, I could imagine the MacMini as a variation of the blade server concept. I picture a Mini with Light Peak that slides into a rack-mountable docking-chasis. Thus, instead of redundancy in the form of a robust single server, you get redundancy with distributed VMs on swappable Minis.
I'd be more jazzed to see where this news is really leading if the announcement itself wasn't such a poop on my parade. Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do.
I see some people post the word 'fail' as some cocky judgement of Apple's decision-making. In this case, I'm afraid the risk of failure falls squarely on my adaptability within the realm of my platform-choice.
Nothing to worry about it. Buy an Xserve if you need it now. Otherwise, wait until spring. I'm sure Apple has some surprise for us. Besides, there are enterprise-class alternatives for things like AFP and management. I am guessing that Mac Minis and a new form factor Mac Pro might be part of Apples strategy. Remember that Apple has not issued a press release yet. And as far as I know, nobody from the OS X server team has been fired or relocated. If the changes were that drastic, we would be hearing something from Cupertino.
Enterprise customers need rack mount servers with redundancy and lights-out remote management. My data center is a 15-minute drive from my office, so I rely on ILOM almost exclusively. A rack full of Mac Pro's (time to buy some more racks, I guess) does nothing for me.
And talk about a pain in the ass if I have Mac Pro's sitting two or three to a shelf (or on their side) and I need to pull a drive. Tell me how I am supposed to service the machine if I have to take it almost completely out of the rack to swap drives.
What about ILOM? Apple really needs to make some add-on ILOM board at the very minimum. Especially for the smaller non-Enterprise customers.
We had plans to expand our Mac OS X Server footprint extensively in 2011. Now, that is going present a huge challenge for us in the data center. I can't go to Facilities and ask for twice the floor space.
Dumb, Apple. Real dumb. Just when Enterprise are finally starting to look at Mac solutions
Where the hell have you and the rest of the idiots been.
Apple announced their new Mac Pro Server early this morning. http://www.apple.com/xserve/
And even AppleInsider published the story at 9:40 AM:
Apple offers new Mac Pro Server configuration to replace Xserve http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ce_xserve.html
Please do not say anything about things that you have no clue about or work with - A MacPro have not any redundant power supply and LOM... Also it´s to big for server racks. 2/3 MacPros in the same space as 12 Xserves
And yes I have installed a lot of MacPros during the years as Mac OS X servers for companies without racks. I know they work but not in Data Centers and in larger companies.
This announcement is just a MAcPro with Mac OS X Server preinstalled. Been available for years...
...NeXT ended up earning hundreds of millions of dollars for Jobs (billions if you count his profits on Apple stock)...
With failures like those, who needs winners?
Yes. Jobs earned millions of dollars. Not the people who worked at NeXT and bought into his BS vision and most importantly not the consumers who actually bought the machines and were then abandoned.
But hey, in your eyes as long as Steve makes money it's all good.
Killing off their Enterprise group just shows that Apple is well on their way to abandoning the Mac and instead focusing on cheap, disposable, gadgets as their sole reason for existance. Sad.
...We ( the company I work for ) recently installed 250 Xserves for a mission critical project in the Oil Sands of Alberta; we could not be happier with the results...
Hey what company? I used to work at Syncrude. I would have been thrilled if they had used Apple products when I worked in their IT department.
Ah, finally a refreshing voice of reason on this convoluted thread.
That's very kind. Thank you.
I never understood why Apple even bothered with the X-Serve and it makes perfect sense for Apple to shed a product line that doesn't add to the company's overall value chain. Apple is a provider of client products. Apple is a consumer electronics company that also provides content. That's where their focus needs to be.
It seemed neat at first but, yes, odd. Apple has definitely changed since that time. They recognize this and are adjusting accordingly.
Apple's internal IT and data center needs are provided by a hodge-podge of IBM/AIX, Sun/Solaris, Red Hat Linux, customized UNIX, Oracle, SAP, even Windows, etc. These are systems that would cost tens of millions of dollars. Just do a search of Apple's job listings that Apple is trying to fill on the IT side and there is hardly any mention of the X-Serve or the Mac OS X Server at all. It's mainly heavy duty enterprise backend stuff dominated by IBM, Linux, SAP and Oracle/Sun.
Exactly! Just like every other large (Fortune 500 or 1000) corporation. I don't know why people don't get this. Fundamentally this is an issue of comparative advantage. These other companies have a comparative advantage in creating, delivering, maintaining and selling enterprise systems. This is not Apple's core competency. Apple's management is being very wise in recognizing their core competencies and focusing on those. Enterprise and data center servers are not it.
Apple's push into the enterprise is for the adoption of the iPhone, iPad and, to a degree, Macs, but it's mainly about mobile. Apple hired Unisys to help large enterprises integrate the mobile devices into their IT infrastructure. Again, it's about the client side, not the server backend. Apple is not going to compete with the likes IBM, HP, Fujitsu, NEC, Dell and Sun, etc on this end. What is the point? It's just not Apple's area of expertise.
Right again!
What value would Apple add on the server side when cheap generic Wintel or Linux machines can do much more for much less? Industrial design, the look and feel, the user experience and the ecosystem mean nothing in this space. Let's remember what happened to Sun. The server machines have become commoditized. That's why the likes of IBM, HP and Dell are focusing on software, storage, networking equipment, and services like consultation and systems integration. They can't grow or rely on the increasingly thin margins of the server hardware. And unlike on the consumer client side of things, Apple has absolutely nothing to add to the value chain there.
And again.
Apple is a consumer electronics company. Let's accept this fact. They do it incredibly well. Could their skills in making life easier also be applied to the corporate IT arena? Sure. But nobody in that arena really cares. I work in IT and this is my experience. Sad? Sure. True? Mostly.