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><hr></blockquote>
If you think Linux or W2K is an enterprise-grade high-end solution, you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously. I know Apple is all about quality, and that's what serious, enterprise sysadmins care about. I based my predictions/ideas for a huge server Mac on <a href="http://www.sun.com/servers/highend/10000/"; target="_blank">Sun's E10K</a>. I'm no genius sysadmin myself, but I know enough about these things and their market to know that there is demand, and Apple could trample over Sun in usability, better design, and sex appeal.
However, I don't see Apple pushing out really big single machines. They have excellent clustering technology, courtesy of NeXT (and Pooch). They've gotten really good at stuffing powerful boards into confined spaces. So I'm anticipating something like the TiBook of rack servers: An elegant machine that will leave people gawking at how much power Apple crammed into how little space, with Energy Star compliance thrown in for good measure. Apple has done "real" hardware before - the ANS 700 - so they'll get the durability, reliability and redundancy right. These servers should scale in an almost plug-and-play manner, but I believe that a customer who wants a single, industrial-strength box will continue to be directed to Sun (or Compaq or IBM).
They have most of an enterprise-grade support structure in place (how do you think they handled deploying and supporting tens of thousands of machines in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maine?), so that really isn't an issue - they'll need one regardless of whether they decide to release small, scalable rackable servers, or big fire-breathing hardware.
I would hope that OS X server could run circles around both Linux and W2K, given equivalent hardware. Neither one is an impressive performer in any category except for up front cost. If not, Apple has work to do.
I'm going to resurrect my idea of two lines: an iServer, small and inexpensive for what it is, with a single processor, no PCI, no SCSI - just Gb Ethernet and FW to handle high-speed communications, and maybe AirPort as well (wireless clustering! Woohoo!). No redundant power supply. Performance would be good, scalability would be good, but the main purpose of this would be to slide into musicians' racks, to set up small, cheap render farms, etc.
Then there'd be the pro servers: Bigger, hotter, multiprocessor, PCI, Ultra160 SCSI, and everything the iServe has. Redundant everything. Better performance, better scaleability, better expandability. This would be the solution for professional 3d renderers, ISPs, and people who want to fill rooms with Beowulf clusters.
Do some research before you post. I can also name a couple of major mulit-nationals that use Win2K/NT for everything--file, mail, back-end, media-streaming and web.
That's their problem, and it's probably true because of the usual "all Windows everywhere" dictum from the CIO, or because of some handwaving about lower (up front) cost. But it doesn't change the fact that Linux and Win 2K are the runts of the pack in enterprise. In the areas that are actually of consequence: stability, reliability, scalability, performance, security; they're out on the trailing edge. We only started trusting Windows 2000 to handle light server duties about a month ago.
<strong>There seems to be a belief that rackmounts are cheaper than comparable desktops. This is false. You pay a premium for
multiple cpus crammed into a small form factor. Apple's rackmounts will be on par w/ their desktops, possibly more
expensive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Might want to check that market prior to posting.
"RenderBOXXes are specifically designed and built for 3D rendering:
·Â*80 cfm of heavy-duty cooling in a custom-built 1RU rackmount chassis to keep your network compact, happy and humming 24/7, 365 days a year.
·Â*Dual AMD Athlon MP 1900+ processors make multithreaded applications like MAYA, 3DS MAX, Lightwave 3D and Houdini scream! Tests with Maya, SoftImage|XSI and 3DS MAX show that our dual-Athlon configuration renders faster than any other configuration.
·Â*Most importantly, RenderBOXX systems have been specifically configured and tested with these 3D applications to insure peak performance and freedom from lockups and crashes. We get it right the first time: These machines slip in and start performing right away."
Price $1900
Apple could charge a little more if the Apple computers run cooler. If Apple wants into this market they will have to price accordingly. But the Ace up Apples' sleeve is the software that Apple will sell to the folks that use the bulk of these machines. Apple will make more, much more, from the software, maybe even Unreal amounts of money <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> I know that the prices will not be too much more than what is currently being paid for this hardware. The money is in the software.
I may be in such a minority here that this could even be considered off topic, but I'd like a rackmount for my personal use... I am a Cube user, and got the Cube because it's compact and quiet: I have a home recording system that I record solo classic guitar CD's and other stuff on... I don't need any expansion slots [Obviously], because I can do everything with USB and Firewire... I do hope they don't hardwire a bare bones video chip to the motherboard though: I'd at least like decent video performance... Since I have a rack full of guitar processing gear, and a rack full of USB and Firewire MIDI and recording gear, a rackmount would be ideal for me... Pep <><
[quote]I could have a huge uptime too if I never upgraded to reduce code-red vulnerability on my MS-IIS server. Uptime doesn't mean jack as far as how good an OS is, it could have more to do with how lazy the sys-admin is than you ever know. I know a one or two that barely even show up for work, let alone make sure their babies are defended against the latest and greatest.<hr></blockquote>
Doesn't have anyhting to do with uptime. Soemone made a stupid ass statement about Linux and WinNT/2K being not enterprise ready, and the purpose was to show the variety of OS's on the uptime list, including Linux and Win2K servers.
Most people I know reboot their Win2K servers once a wek, or once a month--things just run cleaner that way. Ooops, not enterprise ready.
Cornell used to run their main gateway web site on an old Power Tower Pro and an old version of Webstar. Reboot once a week on Sunday, very early in the morning.
Not everyone can afford Sun boxen and Solaris, and no one really wants to acknowledge the existence of FreeBSD or NetBSD.
Render racks, Cobalt Qube style servers--a real possibility, anything bigger--way out of Apple's expertise.
<strong>I may be in such a minority here that this could even be considered off topic, but I'd like a rackmount for my personal use... I am a Cube user, and got the Cube because it's compact and quiet: I have a home recording system that I record solo classic guitar CD's and other stuff on... Pep <><</strong><hr></blockquote>
Another cool use would be as a HTPC or Home Theater PC. Right now, the biggest limitation is getting good dolby digital 5.1 sound out. There are a few solutions, but this really should be supported by Apple. I would love to have a PowerMac rack mounted in my equipment cabinet, serving music and movies to my bigscreen. A small 2U server with the great AV would Rock!
Do some research before you post. I can also name a couple of major mulit-nationals that use Win2K/NT for everything--file, mail, back-end, media-streaming and web.
Didn't think so. Apparently we have wildly different ideas of just what high-end means (today). Do a little research before you post, the big boys don't mess around with Redhat.
There are also Linux distros that run on IBM bigboxes--S390 and z and i Series [Linux only] mainframes. Brought to you by people who know nothing about enterprise computing, IBM.]
Take a high performance reliable os like MS NT4 <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
We had a few Kompaq Prolient 3000's single 300mhz CPU intel boxes with fairly large MS Access databases that were used to calculate stock positions. Some reports took 5 minutes to run.
One broke down so one of the techie guys took a single cpu 300mhz alpha workstation and put NT and the apps on it and the report took less than a minute to run.
He reckoned that even though the alpha was doomed to die as Compaq had Digital, the alpha would be one of the best CPUs around (ahead of its time).
They were all rack mountable which brings my comment back on topic albeit irrelevant.
[quote]If you think that's the same Linux you can download, just compiled for IBM big-iron, you're seriously misguided. Linux in that context is mostly a marketing ploy playing to name-droppers and wanna-be hipster-techno-geek IT/IS types that wouldn't know a compiler if it hit them in the face. I buy Linux derived, but derived is a very big word in that sentence.<hr></blockquote>
You want to cram as much CPU power into as small a space as possible, while producing as little waste heat and using as little electricity as possible.
In other words, PowerPC should excel here.
This is where Sun Netras play as well...
If Apple were to introduce a rackmount, I'd hope that they'd rethink the thing. Perhaps a $700 1U using a variant of the last-gen iMac motherboard- integrated video, gigabit ethernet and wireless built-in, 2 GB RAM limit (minimum- ideally 4).
Then scale up to a $5-10k 4U rackmount, quad or oct G5's on a RapidIO backplane, supporting 16 GB+ of RAM, multiple 64 bit PCI slots, U320, local per-CPU DDR.
Either that, or get into the backplane idea, where you can squish multiple rackmounts into a 1U space, so you wind up with "modular" computers which just click together, like LEGOs, when you want more CPU power. Just buy as many modules as you need.
There's a lot of interesting ideas here, but the rackmount market is pretty competitive, and Apple will need more than a token gesture to do it profitably.
If I'm not mistaken, redundancy would be unnecessary for a cluster/render farm, thereby allowing for a 1U rackmount (I would be surprised if you could fit redundant power supplies and storage in 1U). From my understanding, if a machine in a cluster fails, assuming that there is a machine monitoring the status of the nodes, the job that was sent to that node just gets put back in the queue and gets sent to the next available processor. Then, a message is sent to the administrator or pops up on the screen of the monitoring machine stating that "Node XYZ" has failed, at which point you haul it out, get it fixed/replace it and get back on your way. I believe redundancy is only really needed when you are talking about a single machine.
If they are waiting on G5s being ready, then potentially the machines could be very small, and potentially include no onboard storage whatsoever, if a simple "OS" was in ROM. With the next iteration of Firewire, we could potentially be looking at external RAID 5 SANs for storage (even the current Firewire might well work fine), GigEth for networking. The monitoring/controlling station could be a high-end tower with graphics card, audio card, etc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, since I don't actually work with clusters at all. Cheers!
The thing is with OS X and BSD there is a huge market for Apple and high density processing from genetics to rendering to serving. All they have to do is not lose focus on ease of setup and low maintenance and they will be gold.
Paying IT people to take care of servers adds quite a bit to the cost of running a server so the lower maintenence the better.
The thing is with OS X and BSD there is a huge market for Apple and high density processing from genetics to rendering to serving. All they have to do is not lose focus on ease of setup and low maintenance and they will be gold.
Paying IT people to take care of servers adds quite a bit to the cost of running a server so the lower maintenence the better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thank you. We seem to be arguing about silly details, but that is the key point here-- that Apple can innovate the definition of "high end," if they try. IMHO it's pretty damn likely, too.
Comments
<strong>
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><hr></blockquote>
If you think Linux or W2K is an enterprise-grade high-end solution, you don't know what you're talking about. Seriously. I know Apple is all about quality, and that's what serious, enterprise sysadmins care about. I based my predictions/ideas for a huge server Mac on <a href="http://www.sun.com/servers/highend/10000/"; target="_blank">Sun's E10K</a>. I'm no genius sysadmin myself, but I know enough about these things and their market to know that there is demand, and Apple could trample over Sun in usability, better design, and sex appeal.
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: bradbower ]</p>
They have most of an enterprise-grade support structure in place (how do you think they handled deploying and supporting tens of thousands of machines in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maine?), so that really isn't an issue - they'll need one regardless of whether they decide to release small, scalable rackable servers, or big fire-breathing hardware.
I would hope that OS X server could run circles around both Linux and W2K, given equivalent hardware. Neither one is an impressive performer in any category except for up front cost. If not, Apple has work to do.
I'm going to resurrect my idea of two lines: an iServer, small and inexpensive for what it is, with a single processor, no PCI, no SCSI - just Gb Ethernet and FW to handle high-speed communications, and maybe AirPort as well (wireless clustering! Woohoo!). No redundant power supply. Performance would be good, scalability would be good, but the main purpose of this would be to slide into musicians' racks, to set up small, cheap render farms, etc.
Then there'd be the pro servers: Bigger, hotter, multiprocessor, PCI, Ultra160 SCSI, and everything the iServe has. Redundant everything. Better performance, better scaleability, better expandability. This would be the solution for professional 3d renderers, ISPs, and people who want to fill rooms with Beowulf clusters.
<a href="http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html"; target="_blank">http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html</a>;
Do some research before you post. I can also name a couple of major mulit-nationals that use Win2K/NT for everything--file, mail, back-end, media-streaming and web.
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: cowerd ]</p>
But anyway, how 'bout them Apple racks?
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>There seems to be a belief that rackmounts are cheaper than comparable desktops. This is false. You pay a premium for
multiple cpus crammed into a small form factor. Apple's rackmounts will be on par w/ their desktops, possibly more
expensive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Might want to check that market prior to posting.
"RenderBOXXes are specifically designed and built for 3D rendering:
·Â*80 cfm of heavy-duty cooling in a custom-built 1RU rackmount chassis to keep your network compact, happy and humming 24/7, 365 days a year.
·Â*Dual AMD Athlon MP 1900+ processors make multithreaded applications like MAYA, 3DS MAX, Lightwave 3D and Houdini scream! Tests with Maya, SoftImage|XSI and 3DS MAX show that our dual-Athlon configuration renders faster than any other configuration.
·Â*Most importantly, RenderBOXX systems have been specifically configured and tested with these 3D applications to insure peak performance and freedom from lockups and crashes. We get it right the first time: These machines slip in and start performing right away."
Price $1900
Apple could charge a little more if the Apple computers run cooler. If Apple wants into this market they will have to price accordingly. But the Ace up Apples' sleeve is the software that Apple will sell to the folks that use the bulk of these machines. Apple will make more, much more, from the software, maybe even Unreal amounts of money <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> I know that the prices will not be too much more than what is currently being paid for this hardware. The money is in the software.
Ty
Doesn't have anyhting to do with uptime. Soemone made a stupid ass statement about Linux and WinNT/2K being not enterprise ready, and the purpose was to show the variety of OS's on the uptime list, including Linux and Win2K servers.
Most people I know reboot their Win2K servers once a wek, or once a month--things just run cleaner that way. Ooops, not enterprise ready.
Cornell used to run their main gateway web site on an old Power Tower Pro and an old version of Webstar. Reboot once a week on Sunday, very early in the morning.
Not everyone can afford Sun boxen and Solaris, and no one really wants to acknowledge the existence of FreeBSD or NetBSD.
Render racks, Cobalt Qube style servers--a real possibility, anything bigger--way out of Apple's expertise.
<strong>I may be in such a minority here that this could even be considered off topic, but I'd like a rackmount for my personal use... I am a Cube user, and got the Cube because it's compact and quiet: I have a home recording system that I record solo classic guitar CD's and other stuff on... Pep <><</strong><hr></blockquote>
Another cool use would be as a HTPC or Home Theater PC. Right now, the biggest limitation is getting good dolby digital 5.1 sound out. There are a few solutions, but this really should be supported by Apple. I would love to have a PowerMac rack mounted in my equipment cabinet, serving music and movies to my bigscreen. A small 2U server with the great AV would Rock!
But it doesn't change the fact that Linux and Win 2K are the runts of the pack in enterprise.<hr></blockquote>
Then MacOS X Server must be the still-born...
[ 04-22-2002: Message edited by: Analogue bubblebath ]</p>
<strong>
<a href="http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html"; target="_blank">http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html</a>;
Do some research before you post. I can also name a couple of major mulit-nationals that use Win2K/NT for everything--file, mail, back-end, media-streaming and web.
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: cowerd ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
How about some major international banks?
Didn't think so. Apparently we have wildly different ideas of just what high-end means (today). Do a little research before you post, the big boys don't mess around with Redhat.
[quote]Financial firm Credit Suisse First Boston recently migrated one of its key customer service applications that was spread across 20 reduced instruction set chip-based systems to a few Intel-based processors running Red Hat Linux.<hr></blockquote><a href="http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/linux/2002/01311287.html"; target="_blank">http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/linux/2002/01311287.html</a>;
35 million transactions per day.
If thats not convincing enough try this
<a href="http://www.linuxworld.com/ic_693675_8806_1-568.html"; target="_blank">http://www.linuxworld.com/ic_693675_8806_1-568.html</A>;
There are also Linux distros that run on IBM bigboxes--S390 and z and i Series [Linux only] mainframes. Brought to you by people who know nothing about enterprise computing, IBM.]
[ 04-22-2002: Message edited by: cowerd ]</p>
Take a high performance reliable os like MS NT4 <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
We had a few Kompaq Prolient 3000's single 300mhz CPU intel boxes with fairly large MS Access databases that were used to calculate stock positions. Some reports took 5 minutes to run.
One broke down so one of the techie guys took a single cpu 300mhz alpha workstation and put NT and the apps on it and the report took less than a minute to run.
He reckoned that even though the alpha was doomed to die as Compaq had Digital, the alpha would be one of the best CPUs around (ahead of its time).
They were all rack mountable which brings my comment back on topic albeit irrelevant.
[ 04-22-2002: Message edited by: alfredh ]</p>
Dude its a SuSe Enterprise Linux Distro.
Here's the URL--roll your own:
ftp.suse.com: /pub/suse/s390/
Racks? New hardware from Apple. The hell you say.
[ 04-22-2002: Message edited by: cowerd ]</p>
Space in a CoLo is expensive.
You want to cram as much CPU power into as small a space as possible, while producing as little waste heat and using as little electricity as possible.
In other words, PowerPC should excel here.
This is where Sun Netras play as well...
If Apple were to introduce a rackmount, I'd hope that they'd rethink the thing. Perhaps a $700 1U using a variant of the last-gen iMac motherboard- integrated video, gigabit ethernet and wireless built-in, 2 GB RAM limit (minimum- ideally 4).
Then scale up to a $5-10k 4U rackmount, quad or oct G5's on a RapidIO backplane, supporting 16 GB+ of RAM, multiple 64 bit PCI slots, U320, local per-CPU DDR.
Either that, or get into the backplane idea, where you can squish multiple rackmounts into a 1U space, so you wind up with "modular" computers which just click together, like LEGOs, when you want more CPU power. Just buy as many modules as you need.
There's a lot of interesting ideas here, but the rackmount market is pretty competitive, and Apple will need more than a token gesture to do it profitably.
My $.02 as always,
-HOS
If they are waiting on G5s being ready, then potentially the machines could be very small, and potentially include no onboard storage whatsoever, if a simple "OS" was in ROM. With the next iteration of Firewire, we could potentially be looking at external RAID 5 SANs for storage (even the current Firewire might well work fine), GigEth for networking. The monitoring/controlling station could be a high-end tower with graphics card, audio card, etc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, since I don't actually work with clusters at all. Cheers!
The thing is with OS X and BSD there is a huge market for Apple and high density processing from genetics to rendering to serving. All they have to do is not lose focus on ease of setup and low maintenance and they will be gold.
Paying IT people to take care of servers adds quite a bit to the cost of running a server so the lower maintenence the better.
<strong>Why not blades instead or in addition to?
The thing is with OS X and BSD there is a huge market for Apple and high density processing from genetics to rendering to serving. All they have to do is not lose focus on ease of setup and low maintenance and they will be gold.
Paying IT people to take care of servers adds quite a bit to the cost of running a server so the lower maintenence the better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thank you. We seem to be arguing about silly details, but that is the key point here-- that Apple can innovate the definition of "high end," if they try. IMHO it's pretty damn likely, too.
[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: bradbower ]</p>