High End Server Rumors? [Archive]

JtheLemur

Jul 17, 2003, 11:47 PM

Oh sure, I post one nonsensical comment and it gets deleted. It was out of excitement at this rumor. Swear!

Seriously though... for this to really be effective, Apple has to get on the clustering bandwagon. Really on it - as in, including a well-written, easy to use/configure application that would allow even the biggest companies with huge IT teams to configure crates full of these systems with relative ease. What good is 64 procs X 10 racks full of them, if you can't get them to work together seamlessly and easily? It would really revolutionize the high-end server market.

Heck - I just bought a few Dell PowerEdge 650 1U servers (don't hit me!) and it was a chore just figuring out how to open it up to add more memory! They don't come with any hardware documentation, and there is basically zero info on their site ("because it's a new server" they said. sheesh. they took a solid MONTH to ship them to me, while I got 5 custom XServes only 5 days after putting in the PO. hmph!)

considering how fugly most blade server are, I'd love to see Ives' take on it. perhaps something like an XServe RAID, only taking up more rack space... hey, with the processors on remove modules just like the Apple Drive Modules! now THAT would be something! Want more processing power? just pick up a box of 20 Apple G5 Processor Modules, pop 'em in, and voila!

Now I REALLY want one. =D

Bob Knob

Jul 17, 2003, 11:49 PM

Pixar just went to Intel pixar-intel (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983898.html) So I'm not so sure about this report.

But at the same time I do know that one of the companies I am associated with has reported that a US agency is doing testing on an Apple server that is not currently available to the masses. I don't have any more info beyond that (no specific agency or server info), so who knows, could be NASA and a mass G5 server.

pretentious

Jul 18, 2003, 12:01 AM

It seems Apple is already in talks w/ the Australian Government in a clustering project in this Computerworld (http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=1039132060&fp=16&fpid=0) article.
Apple sources have also confessed to a Department of Defence implementation of an Apple-based cluster computing project, the details of which it refuses to divulge other than that the project is "not located in Canberra", at the G5 launch last week.
Any people down under know what 'Canberra' is? or know any more on this?

Nebrie

Jul 18, 2003, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by Bob Knob
Pixar just went to Intel pixar-intel (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983898.html) So I'm not so sure about this report.

But at the same time I do know that one of the companies I am associated with has reported that a US agency is doing testing on an Apple server that is not currently available to the masses. I don't have any more info beyond that (no specific agency or server info), so who knows, could be NASA and a mass G5 server.

Yes, Pixar went Intel because it needed fast chips *yesterday* when Apple couldn't deliver. Pixar will continue to require new cutting edge machines as their business requires, and since they control their own software, a switch will be easy. Considering how much better Nemo did than expected, they can surely afford a few million for new Apples.

j33pd0g

Jul 18, 2003, 12:08 AM

I think it's time to quote Moe Syzlak: Wah!

nagromme

Jul 18, 2003, 12:09 AM

A render farm can mix platforms. So pixar could keep their Intels, but add G5s for the next batch.

Possibly this is a reason why Pixar is rumored to be porting Renderman to OS X?

MrMacMan

Jul 18, 2003, 12:15 AM

richie

Jul 18, 2003, 12:25 AM

Originally posted by pretentious

Any people down under know what 'Canberra' is? or know any more on this?

Canberra is the capital of Australia :P It's also the term journalists tend to use to refer to the Government/Government departments (since they're stationed in Canberra) :)

Freg3000

Jul 18, 2003, 12:29 AM

It seems that Apple may already have some type of informal agreements with NASA and Pixar and such if MacB is naming specific customers. Then again, MacB could be pulling this out of the sky from logical deductions.

Originally posted by richie
Canberra is the capital of Australia :P It's also the term journalists tend to use to refer to the Government/Government departments (since they're stationed in Canberra) :)

Whenever this comes up in Social Studies class, all the kids go....capital of Australia.....Canberra?!?!?!....I thought it was Sydney!

pretentious

Jul 18, 2003, 12:53 AM

Originally posted by richie
Canberra is the capital of Australia :P It's also the term journalists tend to use to refer to the Government/Government departments (since they're stationed in Canberra) :)

Sorry, I'm just a dumb Amerikun :).
Yes I thought that Sydney was the capital as well, but I guess that would be just the same like thinking that either New York or LA was the capital of the US, right?

Trimix

Jul 18, 2003, 12:54 AM

Any people down under know what 'Canberra' is? or know any more on this? [/B][/QUOTE]

Canberra ? You are not serious not knowing WHAT Canberra is ?
:p

steve-dave

Jul 18, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by Nebrie
Yes, Pixar went Intel because it needed fast chips *yesterday* when Apple couldn't deliver...

Pixar bought a Blade server system, which Apple does not offer. It had nothing to do with CPU power. Blades are a hell of a lot cheaper than an X-Serve and take up far less rack space. If Pixar had bought X-Serves it would have cost significantly more and taken up far more space all for the same amount of processing power.

If Apple does create a high-end server it almost certainly will be in a blade configuration.

Trimix

Jul 18, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by pretentious
Sorry, I'm just a dumb Amerikun :).
Yes I thought that Sydney was the capital as well, but I guess that would be just the same like thinking that either New York or LA was the capital of the US, right?

Waddaya mean - NY is NOT the capital LOL ???? Thought it was Philly - at least I am sure it was a little while ago
:)

Anyhow at 12.000 a pop, one of these things in my bedroom would be nice - the question is what to do with it - but it is important that Apple raise their profile -
so all of this is good news

MisterMe

Jul 18, 2003, 01:04 AM

Originally posted by Nebrie
Yes, Pixar went Intel because it needed fast chips *yesterday* when Apple couldn't deliver. Pixar will continue to require new cutting edge machines as their business requires, and since they control their own software, a switch will be easy. Considering how much better Nemo did than expected, they can surely afford a few million for new Apples. Exactly. The Linux renderfarm pushed by Pixar was a one job purchase. IIRC, Pixar used it for Finding Nemo. By the time its next big release is ready to be rendered, that renderfarm will be obsolete. That is not to say that Pixar won't purchase a new Intel-based system, but neither is there a guarantee that it will.

trebblekicked

Jul 18, 2003, 01:07 AM

a render farm system seems to play to the strengths of the 970. Why not push it?

macdop

Jul 18, 2003, 01:17 AM

I hope I can get a good lease rate on one of these things...:D

Chryx

Jul 18, 2003, 01:25 AM

Originally posted by nagromme
A render farm can mix platforms. So pixar could keep their Intels, but add G5s for the next batch.

Possibly this is a reason why Pixar is rumored to be porting Renderman to OS X?

I distinctly remember seeing a renderman icon on the dock of one of the G5s at the WWDC unveiling....

(or was it before that when they were showing off Pixlet.. I'm not sure, I did see it though, sure of it... an icon with the title of 'renderman')

QCassidy352

Jul 18, 2003, 02:15 AM

wouldn't theses create heavy competition for IBMs blade servers? why would they want to help apple cut in to their own server sales?

uberman42

Jul 18, 2003, 02:15 AM

Why doesn't Pixar use Power4 servers? Please don't hit me if the answer is obvious...I'm thinking cost...

tduality

Jul 18, 2003, 02:48 AM

Originally posted by gandalf55
all those g5 processors might tear a hole in the fabric of the universe.

hehe.

Now I know what some guys meant with the 'Reality Distortion Field'. :p

Finally a theory of Quantum Gravity will be found and tested with Apple hardware!

:D

giffut

Jul 18, 2003, 03:00 AM

Macbidouille reprots that an Italian reader has managed to recompile the XNU kernel of Jaguar and gaining support for up to 64 processors. Very interesting though. Here´s hostinfo on that system:

"[hany@MacG4Dual ~] > hostinfo
Mach kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 6.6:
Thu Jul 17 20:45:52 CEST 2003; hany:BUILD/obj/RELEASE_PPC

Kernel configured for up to 64 processors.
2 processors are physically available.
Processor type: ppc7450 (PowerPC 7450)
Processors active: 0 1
Primary memory available: 512.00 megabytes.
Default processor set: 62 tasks, 198 threads, 2 processors
Load average: 0.00, Mach factor: 1.99"

http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-07-18#6157

danielgrenell

Jul 18, 2003, 03:34 AM

it makes perfect sense! panther is compatible with up to 4 processors, panther server too (duh), xserves only go to 2 NOW, but the future xserves will utilize 4!

eric67

Jul 18, 2003, 04:10 AM

Originally posted by pretentious
Sorry, I'm just a dumb Amerikun :).
Yes I thought that Sydney was the capital as well, but I guess that would be just the same like thinking that either New York or LA was the capital of the US, right?

yes , except that most of the non-american people knows that LA is not the capital of US.........

At the end I will think that the canadian parlement representative who was saying "war is the only way for american to learn geography" is indeed partially right????????????????

Regarding the subject, from my profesional point of view, if it really exists I would not be surprized at all that biotech companies like Genentech and Amgen are currently testing the beast, G4-based computer were already faster than PIV for sequences comparisons.... but with a clustered G5 I just can not imagine how fast it will go.....

mdesbiens

Jul 18, 2003, 05:41 AM

Why on earth would Apple build a 64 proc 970 server? Why not use Power4's, or, more likely - as Apple tends not to launch a platform on an old product - Power 5's? This seems to make a whole lot of sense to me. Slap Altivec SIMD engines on 32 or 64 of those bad boys and be done with it. As the architecture would likely be built from scratch to support hundreds of GB's of RAM and would have to use massively complex system controllers, converting a Power5 to Apple's needs would be a relatively easy project. IBM would benefit from the 'testing' done on the chip (as they are mostly concerned with reliability) and Apple would benefit from the image of power and therefore gain industry respect and higher market share (their primary concern). It would be much like the current relationship the companies share with workstations and the 970, only with high end server chips driving high end servers. As the 970's ultra high SMP efficiency is likely due to each chip's independance (no more dual chip cards) it's ability to be effictively scaled to this level in a single machine is questionable. It would seem far more difficult and costly to slap 64 970's on 64 busses (and make it work) than using an existing highly scalable server platform. With each Power5 working four times faster than a Power4 (isn't that 7 or 8 times faster than a G5?), Apple would be in the league of UltraSPARCs and Zseries powerhouses with less effort and complications than stringing all those G5's together, and it would require no change in code from 970 aware programs. It would even be a great alternative for Xserves!

...And wouldn't it be nice to test a multi-threaded, dual core chip on an existing OS? Such an OS would have to support four processors to do so.

ssamani

Jul 18, 2003, 06:00 AM

Originally posted by steve-dave
Pixar bought a Blade server system, which Apple does not offer. It had nothing to do with CPU power. Blades are a hell of a lot cheaper than an X-Serve and take up far less rack space. If Pixar had bought X-Serves it would have cost significantly more and taken up far more space all for the same amount of processing power.

If Apple does create a high-end server it almost certainly will be in a blade configuration.

Erm, Xserve is a blade. You cannot take up 'less rack space' than an Xserve cos it fits in a 1U rack mount space, which is the smallest you can use, just like a blade. If you mean they needed a blade cluster then that was correct when Xserve was first released but they now have third party clustering software and I'm sure Panther Server will have a full on clustering solution. (Clustering is using a whole bunch of machines, blades or otherwise and making them look like one big machine to anyone who wants to use them. Distributed computing made easy to use - you don't have to roll your own load balancing and fault tolerance software).

As for 'blades are a hell of a lot cheaper', this only applies for the hardware for Intel blades. Sun and other *nix blades are expensive. When you factor in the software licences for handling lots of users connected (e.g. for an ecommerce website) the Wintel solution becomes very expensive, Apple keeps its software costs per server rather than per user making it a lot cheaper for that example, with the possible exception of Lintel blades.

Most blade cluster buyers want to be able to add extra performance on demand and need all that performance to handle lots of users, leading to big software licencing costs. Pixar doesn't have lots of users connecting to their blade cluster, only people in their own company, not the general public using an ecommerce site. Therefore per-user licencing would be less of an issue for them, making Wintel or Lintel blades relatively attractive in terms of price / performance. Especially compared to the original Xserve which lacked performance relative to an Intel based blade. However the Xserve G5 will be another story due the big bump in performance, with hopefully not a big bump in price.

When Pixar needed a cluster of blades, a render farm for them, Apple weren't far enough down the road with Xserve and more importantly with XRaid for storage. Can you think of a company that generates more data than Pixar and therefore needs a top class storage solution?

This new machine (if it really exists) will be rack mountable, but it won't be a blade (1U or 2U max), it will be one big box with lots of CPUs. A 4U or 5U (ie it takes up 4 or 5 slots in a rack). It will be usable in a cluster as well but it will have the advantages of lots of CPU's without the headache of managing a cluster, which is quite complex. Think about how you would handle one of your machines in your cluster going down. This is why distributing computing, the magic bullet of the 90's took a while to take off. If you've given work to one machine, how do you know whether it has a) gone down or b) is just slow. Do you give the work to someone else, how do handle the results of the calc coming back? In a transaction processing environment, this is a nightmare. Hence you'll always need big boxes for some things and you'll need blade clusters for others.

Sanj

Chryx

Jul 18, 2003, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by ssamani
You cannot take up 'less rack space' than an Xserve cos it fits in a 1U rack mount space, which is the smallest you can use, just like a blade.

bzzt, 3-4 'blades' will fit in 1u work of rackspace.

AidenShaw

Jul 18, 2003, 07:16 AM

Dense blade servers pack small, card-like blades into a chassis which contains power supplies, fans, network interconnects and the like. An individual blade is small - about the size of a full-length PCI card:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/e-class/images/bl-eclass-photo.jpg

The support chassis has slots for many of these CPU blades:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/platforms/images/index-photo-ble-encl.jpg

In the case of the Compaq(HP) BL10 blade above - 20 CPUs sit in a 3U chassis, or effectively 0.15U. Other ffferings from HP, IBM and Dell are effectively 0.5U - 6 blades in a 3U, 12 blades in a 6U, or 14 blades in a 7U.

The Compaq blades have 1GHz CPUs, but that gives you 20 GHz of Centrino (Pentium 4) CPU power, 20 MiB of cache, 20 GiB of ECC DDR RAM, 8 GHz of FSB bandwidth, and 800 GB of disk in only 3U of space. (Each CPU is relatively modest, but for embarrassingly parallel jobs the aggregate power of all 20 in only 3U is superb.) BTW, you can buy the CPU blades in 10-packs - 10 blades come in one box.

IBM and Compaq BL20 blades are of the 0.5U variety, and offer dual CPU and Xeon support.

It is also common to call standard 1U and 2U servers by the name "blades" - since getting 20 to 40 servers in a standard rack is pretty dense.

Purists will try to say that a completely self-contained server like a 1U is not a "blade". They'll claim that "blades" refer to systems where a separate chassis provides support (power, cooling, network) for dependent CPU modules.

fixyourthinking

Jul 18, 2003, 07:20 AM

eBay was very vocal about looking for new partners at their recent seminar as far as serving and hosting technology, especially on the security end. The graphics design department there is already a high percentage Mac. Fred Anderson (Apple CFO) joining eBay's board of directors yesterday puts an interesting spin on this.

I have also heard that Apple may start selling refurbs and older systems that are traded in at Apple stores on eBay as many other PC companies like Dell do.

Fred joins eBay:

http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_headline.cgi?&story_file=bw.071703/231985735

eBay University:

http://pages.ebay.com/university/

jocknerd

Jul 18, 2003, 07:34 AM

Is Apple going to give OS X away for free? Thats the only way I see them being successful. Why isn't Windows involved in Hollywood? Simple, they require a license for every server. Thats why Linux rules in rendering. IL&M just did The Incredible Hulk with a 750 node--1500 AMD Athlon 1600 processor render-farm running Linux. The cost of the OS? $0. Can Apple compete with that? Maybe Steve Jobs will give away OS X.

Hollywood adopted Linux fast. SGI and Sun used to dominate the industry. But with Linux and Intel and AMD, they are saving a lot of money. And Linux is even being used on the desktop. It was easy to recompile the apps that ran on SGI. Maya and Shake come to mind. Now of course, Apple has bought out Shake. Are they going to buy out the whole industry?

I don't know, but I think the days of the big servers are coming to an end. Clustering is cheaper.

***T-MC®***

Jul 18, 2003, 07:53 AM

Mr. Anderson

Jul 18, 2003, 07:54 AM

sergeantmudd

Jul 18, 2003, 08:11 AM

The bus of the 970 only supports 16 processors so 64 processors in a single image is just not true. The 970 being only 16-way was announced with the original information. The 980 may be able to, or the 970 could with multiple boxes clustered, but there is no 64-way 970 box.

wchamlet

Jul 18, 2003, 08:16 AM

If they're going to start at 8 processors in this thing could that mean that we might see 4 CPUs in a G5 tower?

Why jump from 2 to 8? It seems to me that 4 CPUs for a desktop is totally feasible - especially with the amount of room in the G5 case......

That's one of the reasons why I'm not getting the first round of G5's computers. I think Apple will release workstation class computers soon, probably with more RAM and more processors, and hopefully with a real "Highend" graphics card. The reason I say this is because Apple is specifically marketing their new G5's as a personal computer for home use. Not as a workstation.

This is all my opinion of course.

Frobozz

Jul 18, 2003, 08:44 AM

For $50k, getting a 64 processor G5 is a STEAL. If that's the case, I am seriously impressed. That will give even mid-range super computers a run for their money.

Mr. Anderson

Jul 18, 2003, 08:59 AM

Originally posted by wchamlet
That's one of the reasons why I'm not getting the first round of G5's computers. I think Apple will release workstation class computers soon, probably with more RAM and more processors, and hopefully with a real "Highend" graphics card. The reason I say this is because Apple is specifically marketing their new G5's as a personal computer for home use. Not as a workstation.

I'm really starting to believe this myself.

I got the original G4 way back when (still using it too :D) and I was really bummed when they came out with dual configs and even more so when I found out that I couldn't upgrade that 450MHz to a duallie.....

I'm going to wait a bit too I think, even though I really need a G5 for Lightwave....I'd be interested in the 8 cpu version of this thing, but if they make a quad G5 workstation that would be so much better.

Come on Apple, show me the power!

D

arn

Jul 18, 2003, 09:06 AM

Update: Some new reports suggest that this rumor is not true

ssamani

Jul 18, 2003, 09:10 AM

Originally posted by AidenShaw

Purists will try to say that a completely self-contained server like a 1U is not a "blade". They'll claim that "blades" refer to systems where a separate chassis provides support (power, cooling, network) for dependent CPU modules.

I stand corrected. I had never seen these dense blades before. Although I've just been told we actually have them in our machine room. You learn something new every day.

::Chagrin:: I thought I kept abreast of IT developments pretty well. Now I know what dense blades are, I have to agree that they would be a good product for Apple to have.

Sanjay

trrosen

Jul 18, 2003, 09:11 AM

Is Apple going to give OS X away for free? Thats the only way I see them being successful. Why isn't Windows involved in Hollywood? Simple, they require a license for every server. Thats why Linux rules in rendering.

Remember that shake includes unlimited rendering lisences. also OS X server is much cheaper than windows Server and no sever taxes

trrosen

Jul 18, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by QCassidy352
wouldn't theses create heavy competition for IBMs blade servers? why would they want to help apple cut in to their own server sales?

the semiconductor division and server division are seperate and often go different directions. The folks making the 970 just want to sell as many as possible and don't care if its to Apple or the server division.

Mr. Anderson

Jul 18, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by arn
Update: Some new reports suggest that this rumor is not true

ah, that sucks and I'm getting all excited about this....

you have any links available?

D

DharvaBinky

Jul 18, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by MrMacman
Wow that is insane 64 processors could sure generate a ton of power.

:fold: :)

And generate a ton of heat! I hear they're only going to sell these things in Canada and Alaska.

;)

Dharvabinky

illumin8

Jul 18, 2003, 09:30 AM

Originally posted by arn
Update: Some new reports suggest that this rumor is not true
Yeah, the price alone should have clued people in that this rumor is not true.

Look at this webpage for an example of what a server with 64 processors costs: Sun High-End Servers (http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml?catid=48620)

Unfortunately, most people don't realize that once you scale past 4 or 8 processors, you have to go to a multi-board system. Can you imagine trying to fit 64 processors on one huge motherboard? It would be the size of a small home. So to make it manageable you break it into smaller pieces. Each system board (motherboard) now has 4 CPUs on it, and you have 16 total system boards. The next problem is that you have to make it so that all of these 16 system boards can share the same memory and all of the CPUs can talk to each other. To do this, Sun Microsystems acquired Cray (the mainframe manufacturer), and used their proprietary interconnect technology to build a cross-bar type system that allows all of the system boards to communicate with each other at many many gigabytes per second (massive bandwidth). As you can probably imagine, it's not the 64 processors themselves that cost so much money, it's all of the supporting hardware that's so expensive.

Oh, and 512GB (that's right, half a terabyte) of ECC memory isn't too cheap either... ;)

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but I don't think Apple is going to ever be a competitor in the high-end server market (servers 64 procs and up). The barriers of entry are just too high, and right now it's too competitive. You have Sun, IBM, HP, and Fujitsu to compete with, and they've been making these servers for years.

In the Unix workstation market, however, I see Apple taking a big chunk out of all the companies above.

Rocketman

Jul 18, 2003, 09:31 AM

Originally posted by Macrumors
Scattered (but unconfirmed) whispers of a high-end server coming from Apple have been mentioned in the past (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/05/20030505020041.shtml) -- but with no real confirmation.

MacBidouille (http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-07-17#198) adds to these with a rumor that Apple is working on a high-end server (codename: Dark Star) with support of up to 64 G5 Processors. According to the site, the new machines would be priced between $12,000 and $50,000 and targetted at clients such as Industrial Light & Magic, Genentech, Pixar, and NASA.

Even if all they did was pre-configure a set of dual G5 Xserve's in cluster mode in a rack, it would qualify to fulfill this rumor. That is what these folks use to perform these complex calcs.

Servers are used for web pages.

If only Apple released a blade format dual they would be in a position to compete in the 3U 8 board market (24 CPU/3U vs 6/3U now.)

If only Apple made a quad processor motherboard they would double the throughput density of a G5 X-serv. The relatively simple possibilities are right there. Going too far afield and making a Big Blue like dedicated 100 processor + box seems too far afield for Apple marketing wise. Unless IBM were to sell it.

Rocketman

http://www.v-serv.com/-upload/avatar.jpg

scan300

Jul 18, 2003, 10:33 AM

Remember SJ's introduction of the Xserve? He said it was a modest introduction into the server market. I don't have his exact wording, but he left me with the impression of a much bigger plan is in the offing.

Apple spend a few years planning and designing their products with a lot of prototypes left on the cutting room floor. (Remember Ive's first attempt at an LCD iMac was ditched and a new 'sunflower' version developed.)

I'm sure Apple have a range of machines, that are wildly souped-up and blow up in 3 minutes.

You can't just follow the pack if you're Apple, so a rumour such as this 64 cpu thing is plausible, if someone was privy to what goes on in the concept lab.

wizard

Jul 18, 2003, 10:39 AM

Hopefully with the internal and external expansion capabilities that the a average workstation user would use. That is internal drive bays, and externally accessible drive bays. Also it is not unreasonable for a work station user to instal raid arrays in their systems so hardware support for that would be nice. Using the same modules as XServe raid would be even nicer.

While my biggest issue with obtaining the first round G5's is $$$$$$$, I also think it is wise to wait a bit to see if they come out with something a bit more expandable. I'd even be tempted by an XServe chassis if it supported hardware raid and had a decent built in graphics system or the ability to easly handle the latest AGP cards. That is no heating issues. But who knows, with a bit of overtime I might be able to trash all of the above and have my machine by october.

Dave

Originally posted by wchamlet
That's one of the reasons why I'm not getting the first round of G5's computers. I think Apple will release workstation class computers soon, probably with more RAM and more processors, and hopefully with a real "Highend" graphics card. The reason I say this is because Apple is specifically marketing their new G5's as a personal computer for home use. Not as a workstation.

This is all my opinion of course.

ffakr

Jul 18, 2003, 10:55 AM

Originally posted by scan300
You can't just follow the pack if you're Apple, so a rumour such as this 64 cpu thing is plausible, if someone was privy to what goes on in the concept lab.

I think plausible is a stretch for a 64cpu machine.. this isn't just big iron, it's huge iron.
these machines use NUMA memory architectures, they have massive internal bandwidth, they cost a ton to build, and they need to be ultra redundant and ultra reliable. 64cpu machines from other vendors STILL cost a million bucks a pop.

I think it's plausible that apple is preparing bigger, badder hardware, but I'm not sure where the market is for an OS X 64processor machine.
I think apple could break in with a 4cpu or 8 cpu box if they could release it at a reasonable price point. They may market such a system as a modular computing node (think SGI Altix) that can scale to 64cpus, but this would still require a big R&D cost and high production costs.

There is a reason why customers in Apple's new markets (science and video) don't buy HP superdomes... their applications run MUCH better from a price/performance standpoint on clusters of inexpensive nodes. In fact the applications that Apple wants to target probably run much better on a pure performance standpoint on a large cluster than on a lower-cpu massive server.

hrashid

Jul 18, 2003, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by pretentious
It seems Apple is already in talks w/ the Australian Government in a clustering project in this Computerworld (http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=1039132060&fp=16&fpid=0) article.

Any people down under know what 'Canberra' is? or know any more on this?

interesting. Canberra is the capital of Australia. Just heard about a project concerning a telescopic array to be located in the outback to view Southern Hemisphere stars. Supposed to be a joint project between NASA and the Australian gov't. Wonder if it's related.

jettredmont

Jul 18, 2003, 11:13 AM

Originally posted by eric67
yes , except that most of the non-american people knows that LA is not the capital of US.........

At the end I will think that the canadian parlement representative who was saying "war is the only way for american to learn geography" is indeed partially right????????????????

Exactly. The bombs should arrive in Sydney ('cause we do know that that's the real capital) in 30 minutes.

jettredmont

Jul 18, 2003, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by mdesbiens
Why on earth would Apple build a 64 proc 970 server? Why not use Power4's, or, more likely - as Apple tends not to launch a platform on an old product - Power 5's? This seems to make a whole lot of sense to me. Slap Altivec SIMD engines on 32 or 64 of those bad boys and be done with it.

I agree that using 970's for high-end server applications is kinda silly. The key differentiators (way simplified) between Power4 and 970 are these:

1) 970 lacks the dual cores and related circuitry of the Power4

2) The interprocessor interconnects have, IIRC, been simplified for the 970

3) The 970 is designed for speed over stability; the Power 4 is the opposite

4) The 970 includes Altivec.

Seems like the only reason Apple might put 970s into a high-end server would be support for Altivec (which might be important for, as an example, Renderman). But you lose so much by doing such ... seems the more "sensible" approach would be to just convince IBM to slap Altivec onto a Power5 (it's that easy, right? :) )

The 970 is NOT a high-end server chip. It is a low-end server, high-end workstation and desktop chip.

jettredmont

Jul 18, 2003, 11:27 AM

Originally posted by ssamani
Erm, Xserve is a blade. You cannot take up 'less rack space' than an Xserve cos it fits in a 1U rack mount space, which is the smallest you can use, just like a blade.

Umm, no. Blades are smaller.

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/bladecenter/blade_servers/

ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/bp_server/why_blade_servers.pdf

There's a link to some blades. Note that blades slide into a 3U, 6U, or 7U rack mount vertically, fitting 12-16 across. All blades in a chassis share a single power supply and cooling system and management/networking modules.

A 1U server, such as the XServe, has fully self-contained power, network, and management systems. This leads to multiple cables to each 1U server and relatively slower communication amongst multiple 1U server processors than between blades.

kenaustus

Jul 18, 2003, 11:27 AM

First time I read the Bidouille article I also read $50,000. Looking again and it's $500,000. Logical when you think of 64 processors with 16 Gig of memory for each. A top price of $50,000 would mean about $750 for each processor matched to 16 Gigs - we ain't there yet!.

I think we will see them, either when Panther is released or when the 980 is ready. There is no way Apple would invest the development resources to get prototypes "running well" in all configurations if they were not going to go for it. There is simply too much pressure in the other areas - G5 PM, new PBs, refreshing the consumer lines, etc. to put a major effort into this project as a whim.

This is going to be one hell of a year for Apple!

scan300

Jul 18, 2003, 12:03 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
I think plausible is a stretch for a 64cpu machine.. this isn't just big iron, it's huge iron.
these machines use NUMA memory architectures, they have massive internal bandwidth, they cost a ton to build, and they need to be ultra redundant and ultra reliable. 64cpu machines from other vendors STILL cost a million bucks a pop.

I think it's plausible that apple is preparing bigger, badder hardware, but I'm not sure where the market is for an OS X 64processor machine.
I think apple could break in with a 4cpu or 8 cpu box if they could release it at a reasonable price point.

I agree about the practicality of Apple bringing such a product to market in the near to mid term future. But I still think it's possible for Apple to be developing concept machines in this category.

R&D for product development that's ready to go to market is different to R&D for new concepts. Lots of different industries spend some resources in developing concept products that fall into the 'can it work?' category. They are too difficult to bring to market in the short to medium term, but they know they can make one, (eg Honda's Human Robot project). These concepts drive the company's forward planning; laying out options to respond to marketplace opportunities, if they arise. A lot of these concepts never see the light of day, or sometimes patents are filed and shelved for a later date.

So my thought on this rumour is that its origins may come from the concept lab and/or a mixture of here-say. I obviously can't say the rumour is true, but I can't rule it out.

solvs

Jul 18, 2003, 12:58 PM

I thought Pixar leased those Intels.

Well, I can't wait to see what Apple does with the xServes. With the 970 and Pather supporting multiple CPUs, who knows. I don't see 64 CPU servers any time soon, but there's always clustering...

arn

Jul 18, 2003, 01:18 PM

Originally posted by kenaustus
First time I read the Bidouille article I also read $50,000. Looking again and it's $500,000.

I updated my article... but you aren't crazy - it did say $50,000 originally. They changed it.

(someone submitted the original text before I posted it, and it said 50,000)

arn

eric67

Jul 18, 2003, 01:21 PM

Maybe not related directly with subjet of 64processor based machine, but did someone also noticed the space left inside the G5 anclosure??
I mean it is easily possible to fit at lest something in front of the 2 G5 processors covered with their alu box???
OK there are 2 fans in between but really a lot of space???

pretentious

Jul 18, 2003, 01:45 PM

Originally posted by eric67
Maybe not related directly with subjet of 64processor based machine, but did someone also noticed the space left inside the G5 anclosure??
I mean it is easily possible to fit at lest something in front of the 2 G5 processors covered with their alu box???
OK there are 2 fans in between but really a lot of space???

Thats there to put a way kewl mod light to make it "glow" ;).

jaedreth

Jul 18, 2003, 02:45 PM

We use compact blades like that too. I've seen them. They're sweet. Apple needs to come up with a chassis / blade design like that, so it can fit 8-16 proc to a blade, and then 8 blades to a box. Then the UNIX based server OS needs to mature a *LOT* including becomming POSIX compliant, as well as a far better RAID system than XRaid, then the boxes could be something we might actually be able to use. However, the HW may get there in the next two years, the OS is the part I fear will never meet the needs of my work... Go POSIX. Please.

Jaedreth

jaedreth

Jul 18, 2003, 02:56 PM

Yes, there is a lot of space, but if you look close, the "empty space" has the ram slots, so you can't put processors there. That empty space is for airflow. If they cram it too packed, then the air will not flow. If they do a quad on the G5, they would have to rearrange it a bit. Either that, or just make it larger. Certainly the fabled Workstation units will be considerably larger.

Jaedreth

ffakr

Jul 18, 2003, 03:10 PM

Originally posted by jaedreth
We use compact blades like that too. I've seen them. They're sweet. Apple needs to come up with a chassis / blade design like that, so it can fit 8-16 proc to a blade, and then 8 blades to a box. Then the UNIX based server OS needs to mature a *LOT* including becomming POSIX compliant, as well as a far better RAID system than XRaid, then the boxes could be something we might actually be able to use. However, the HW may get there in the next two years, the OS is the part I fear will never meet the needs of my work... Go POSIX. Please.

Jaedreth
hehe.... that's entertaining...

a blade is typically about the size of a big PCI card. You are asking for an entire computer on a PCI card with 8 - 16 processors on it. If you ignore everything else and just think about the power consumption of the cpus...
2GHz 970 @~45 watts x 16 processors x 8 blades per enclosure = 5760 watts just for the CPUs. haha... the paint would burn off the blade backplane enclosure and the PCBs would melt.
After the CPUs, you typically need to add a small Hard drive, ram slots, and all the controller chips (and assorted electronics).

Blades can handle 1 or 2 cpus per blade. I've heard rumors of quad processor blades but I've not seen them for sale anywhere. A quad Blade would need to use some low power CPUs anyway.

Also, do you realize that being POSIX compliant means that it supports standard Unix conventions? OS X IS functionally POSIX compliant, but Apple does not choose to apply for official POSIX compliance from the licensing group because a) it costs a lot, like a couple hundred grand every time you submit for review, and b) it takes a long time to go through the certification process.
Apple is very clear to its developers that though OS X doesn't official have the POSIX badge, it is nearly entirely POSIX compliant (it actually may be POSIX compliant but they don't bother with certification).
If Apple bother with official POSIX compliance, you would see much longer spans between major system upgrades.

jaedreth

Jul 18, 2003, 08:13 PM

Well, here are a few things to keep in mind:

IBM's major cash cow besides enterprise server software and services, is enterprise servers, aka AIX and those wonderful high end servers that are not available to anyone but corporations (and then those that are the strict domain of the US Government). Trust me, a good friend of mine does Level 3 AIX support, Install/Restore.

Sure, IBM is getting *back* into Workstations. They had dropped them. But notice what their workstations are running on. They are actually Intel based. IBM is trying to keep up with the market while trying to *develop* a new market.

I'm sure IBM would love to have *nothing* to do with Intel, their competition for chips. I'm sure IBM would love to have *nothing* to do with Microsoft. And I'm sure they would want to help Apple make that happen.

Sure, use of IBM Smartdrives (which was consequently sold to Hitachi) showed some semblance of Apple's and IBM's in-bed-ed-ness, but not much. This new G5 architecture with Apple system controllers being fabed *by* IBM shows this to a greater detail.

Such rumors of IBM assisted high end workstations from Apple sounds like good business for Apple and IBM. Especially since Apple also needs help in the Servers market. These high end workstations should not be mistaken for servers. Sure these machines will be more awesome than XServe, by a good bit.

That means Apple needs to get *serious* about servers, and go to using 1U Blades especially in its cluster configurations. The main server that controls the cluster can be a souped up xraid, but Apple needs Blades, true to form.

Also Apple need a far better RAID solution. Apple needs to be able to put a lot more storage in one XRAID box. Apple needs to use smaller drives that hold more, and thus fit more in. Even if it takes up U4 or U5 to do so, if Apple wants to be a serious contender in the low end server market (competing with GUI based servers, not unix based, ie, with MS), each XRAID must be able to handle 10TB, and as a base configuration of fully stocked. (eg, all drives in place, but with the lowest drive config for XRAID, so you can still order an XRaid with less than 10TB by not filling it up, but you can also get much more by using larger drives.)

I know that sounds *extreme*, but we here where I work wouldn't consider them otherwise. As for the Blades, they would have to have a minimum of 8-processors per blade, and a minimum of 8 blades to a 1U. Because that's what we're using. (And no, you can't find them to buy publicly, only available to corporations like the one I work for. And they're made by Sun, and larger than a PCI card, but thin.) Then it would still have to be cheaper *and* for our software and OS to work on it. We are Unix based, but OS X is simply *not* a mature enough UNIX based OS for us to do with OS X what we do here.

That's why I'm so adamant that Apple must have *better* equipment than the competition for *less*, as well as a fully 64-bit and POSIX compliant operating system that doesn't have all the core portions of the OS locked down. (I don't care about certification, I care about having 100% of the tools any stock UNIX system would have, which just isn't so with Mac OS X. Furthermore, any open standard unix OS is gonna have security issues, and we use proprietary code to lock down everything as tight as AIX, or even more so, but we don't have to pay for it, we do it ourselves.

However, if Apple works with IBM on *all* of these concerns, Apple could eventually do quite well in the low end servers market, and the high end workstations market, which would make IBM all the happier.

It's going to take time. However, if Apple builds it, they will be bought. Why? Visualize this a moment. If an IBM workstation is running Windows Server software and using an Intel chip, but IBM is making and selling it, are they going to make more money on that, or on the Apple high end workstation / low end server, especially if there are licensing issues for collaboration with OS?

"Hmm, let me get you over to Apple Enterprise sales. I'm sure they would be far better equipped to meet your needs than we can."

(Since IBM can only sell its servers to Corporations, not even small businesses, Apple would be poised to take on small and medium businesses, as well as the entire professional arena.)

Is this a pipe dream? I'm sure everyone will have an opinion. However, it would take specs like these in order for this company to consider using these machines with our high end servers. This is the most state of the art facility I've ever seen, so if Apple could schmooze it's way into being used here, no one would have a reason not to at least look at the Apple server platform.

Just wait and see.

Jaedreth

ffakr

Jul 18, 2003, 09:49 PM

**edit** choosing my words better after reading the 'don't pick on others' thread from arn **edit**

Originally posted by jaedreth
Sure, IBM is getting *back* into Workstations. They had dropped them.
But notice what their workstations are running on. They are actually Intel based. IBM is trying to keep up with the market while trying to *develop* a new market.

When did IBM get out of the workstation market? From what I know, they've always offered Power and PowerPC workstations. They may have lagged in performance (you can only stretch a Power3 so far) but I'm pretty sure they've always been there.
as you can see in this link, IBM still offers Unix Workstations running on hardware from the 604e to ones with the latest Power4+. (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/workstations/)
I'm sure IBM would love to have *nothing* to do with Intel, their competition for chips. I'm sure IBM would love to have *nothing* to do with Microsoft. And I'm sure they would want to help Apple make that happen.IBM shipped intel chips in their desktop machine when they could have shipped AMD. IBM makes a LOT of money offering enterprise support and consultation for Windows clients. I'm not sure if I agree with your take on this. IBM is interested in making money on whatever pays... just like MS will keep making Mac products like Office as long as they turn a good profit

That means Apple needs to get *serious* about servers, and go to using 1U Blades especially in its cluster configurations. The main server that controls the cluster can be a souped up xraid, but Apple needs Blades, true to form.
Who sells 1U blades? Blades are typically 4u, 7u... they typically stand up in a an enclosure (backplane). They don't achieve high computational density by packing a lot of cpus in 1U, they do it by packing a lot of nodes vertically in a multiple U rack unit.

Also Apple need a far better RAID solution. Apple needs to be able to put a lot more storage in one XRAID box. Apple needs to use smaller drives that hold more, and thus fit more in.
Huh?
eWeek seems to think it's pretty nice in this article (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1149364,00.asp). They give it an Excellent in "capability" and the score it good in other categories even though they incorrectly believe that it doesn't operate with other hardware and OSes (Apple bragged about how nice it ran on Sun servers at WWDC). The only limitation I've seen to xServer RAID is the fact that it must be configured into to volumes if you use all the disks, one per FC port. Considering how incredibly low the cost is for such a nice 2.5TB RAID cabinet, I think this is entirely acceptable.
I think your critiques totally ignore the weak points of the xServe and they address non-issues. 2.5TB in 3U is NOT too little. If you knew more about RAID5, you would know that there are diminishing returns as you add more drives to one RAID 5 volume. Bandwidth becomes a big issue as the array size increases (as does controller power).
Your suggestion to use smaller (2.5"??) drives is kind of silly. Smaller drives are not available in high capacities. What's the biggest 2.5" drive? 80GB? The max speed is 7200 rpm and those are rare, the average 2.5GB drive is 5400 while many are still 4500rpm. So, if you want a very very slow, very very expensive RAID, I'm sure smaller form drives are the way to go.

Even if it takes up U4 or U5 to do so, if Apple wants to be a serious contender in the low end server market (competing with GUI based servers, not unix based, ie, with MS), each XRAID must be able to handle 10TB, and as a base configuration of fully stocked. (eg, all drives in place, but with the lowest drive config for XRAID, so you can still order an XRaid with less than 10TB by not filling it up, but you can also get much more by using larger drives.)
Um, yea.
Apple needs 10+ TB RAIDs to compete in the LOW END SERVER MARKET?
Huh???
The lowest price 10TB RAID case I could find (http://www.atabeast.com/) runs just under $50,000 and they don't even post a picture of the thing.. they have a cheap-o rendering on the web page. This is EXACTLY what the low end server market is looking for... more crappy $50,000 drive arrays. BTW, do you have any clue what it would take to back that up?

I know that sounds *extreme*, but we here where I work wouldn't consider them otherwise. As for the Blades, they would have to have a minimum of 8-processors per blade, and a minimum of 8 blades to a 1U. Because that's what we're using. (And no, you can't find them to buy publicly, only available to corporations like the one I work for. And they're made by Sun, and larger than a PCI card, but thin.) Then it would still have to be cheaper *and* for our software and OS to work on it. We are Unix based, but OS X is simply *not* a mature enough UNIX based OS for us to do with OS X what we do here.

Can't you post a link to these mysterious Sun blade servers that Sun only makes for your company... the only Sun 1U blade server, the only one that has 8 cpus per blade, 64 cpus per 1U??
I'm surprised Sun doesn't sell these to other companies.. they'd sell like hot cakes. That seems like REALLY bad business to me.

That's why I'm so adamant that Apple must have *better* equipment than the competition for *less*, as well as a fully 64-bit and POSIX compliant operating system that doesn't have all the core portions of the OS locked down. (I don't care about certification, I care about having 100% of the tools any stock UNIX system would have, which just isn't so with Mac OS X. Furthermore, any open standard unix OS is gonna have security issues, and we use proprietary code to lock down everything as tight as AIX, or even more so, but we don't have to pay for it, we do it ourselves.
so.. wait, let me follow this if I can. I know I don't know as much about computers as you do.
Apple NEEDS a 64bit OS, it needs to be POSIX compliant, and it can't have it's core locked down (proprietary, closed source).
So, in light of these pearls of wisdom you tell us all that you don't care if the OS has certifications (though this IS what POSIX is, a certification of compliance). You also tell us that your organization is so great because you practice security through obscurity (http://www.vnunet.com/Analysis/1126488) (you hide your flaws).
Oh... BTW. the entire core of OS X IS open source already, it's called DARWIN (http://www.darwin.org). It's only been available for like 3 years now, it even runs on x86.
[b]
However, if Apple works with IBM on *all* of these concerns, Apple could eventually do quite well in the low end servers market, and the high end workstations market, which would make IBM all the happier.
If Apple tried to follow your lead, they'd be out of business in 2 years.

Is this a pipe dream?
yes

Rower_CPU

Jul 18, 2003, 10:07 PM

Watch it, ffakr.

[edit: Nice edit. ;)]

ffakr

Jul 18, 2003, 10:32 PM

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Watch it, ffakr.

[edit: Nice edit. ;)]
You DO know how tough it was to edit that down, don't you?
;) :p

wizard

Jul 19, 2003, 01:20 AM

I would not under estimate a corporations ability to spend money on a whim. You would be absolutely surprised with the way SOME companies will spend the share holders money.

In any event I do not think this is the issue with Apple. First if we accept that a machine with 64 processors exists at Apple, there can be a number of reasons for those machines and a number of possible configurations.

The most obvious reason is for research and developement of new machine concepts. This would be one reason for the machine, it may have no future at all as a saleable machine. That doesn't mean that technology won't be developed on the mystery machine for future Macs.

At this moment I believe that the 970 is just to new for anybody to be release massive machines based on it. Maybe in 6 months to a year we may see large multi processors but I think maybe Apple has a lot of work to do on their core systems this year. Stabalizations of and expansion of sales ought ot be job one right now after the recent results posted by the company. Besides I have this suspicion that maybe GPUL2 is a more highly integreated chip, such a device could serve Apple well in several of its lines. I'm not an Apple engineer but if I was that is what I'd be shooting for, a 970 that needs little in the way of support chips for blades, IMacs and portables.

Dave

Originally posted by kenaustus
First time I read the Bidouille article I also read $50,000. Looking again and it's $500,000. Logical when you think of 64 processors with 16 Gig of memory for each. A top price of $50,000 would mean about $750 for each processor matched to 16 Gigs - we ain't there yet!.

I think we will see them, either when Panther is released or when the 980 is ready. There is no way Apple would invest the development resources to get prototypes "running well" in all configurations if they were not going to go for it. There is simply too much pressure in the other areas - G5 PM, new PBs, refreshing the consumer lines, etc. to put a major effort into this project as a whim.

This is going to be one hell of a year for Apple!

rjwill246

Jul 19, 2003, 10:14 AM

Sorry that this is a late entry but there is a 7 1/2 hour time change here.
Originally posted by Trimix
Any people down under know what 'Canberra' is? or know any more on this?

Canberra ? You are not serious not knowing WHAT Canberra is ?
:p

It's unbelievable! It is like someone outside the US saying they think New York is the capital of the USA. The seat of government was created just like Wash DC out of bits of land from two states and thus sits on the edge of Victoria and New South Wales. The city's layout was designed by an American and an artificial lake was named after him: Lake Burley Griffin!

No wonder Wintel was successful in the US!!
Tears! tears! tears! 'nuff said.

Apple has tested the waters with XServe... they imply that they are happy with the response to the XServe. Industry and reviews are generally positive toward them... good business says get moving further into this sector of the enterprise market.
And it is highly unlikely that Apple will make way-behind-state-of-the-art servers/blades or whatever devices they chose to make with the PPC line up ahead.

wms121

Jul 19, 2003, 12:30 PM

just a speculation...

The POSIX issues won't go away, and IBM has already showed a willingness to modify its software marketing model.

What would really be neato-keen is if (as they did with AIX5L..the
linux version of AIX)..is if IBM began to allow experimentation in UNIX flavors of other types of OS's..including Inferno (Plan9 derivative) and others..

Think about it.

We could have a 256 base OS for multiple processors ..run on AIX master code..with a.i. sub systems OS's like z/VX..or even an OPEN CYC 64 bit variant.

OSX would then be the preferred media os of choice for the scientific GUI..or bio-medical interface. PowerPC is already the preferred processor in the embedded area over custom DSP applications because of its flexiibility in floating point apps.

Most genuine Artificial Intelligence apps (a.i.) need serious fp transfer data rates/ bus speeds for neural net and compression requirements.

Sun Microsystems sure has been real quiet since Steve announced the G5. Maybe McNeally is in Canberra with a 64 processor system already.

<---needs a blonde space maiden right now..

visor

Jul 20, 2003, 03:04 AM

anyone notice that apple is selling xservers as cluster nodes? Diskless and everything, just optimized for computing. I think Apple works on a good clutering mechanism rather than building real big machines.
It would be easier to target the existing market with that as well as scalability for CPU intensive tasks is given - and you can grow as you need it.

dbrutus

Jul 21, 2003, 10:02 AM

Apple wins big when it creates markets. It won big when it introduced the legacy free iMac, the iPod revolutionized portable music in its form factor, and the iTMS revolutionized downloadable music for pay.

A larger server that runs anything from $12k-$500k would be perfect for a home server in a McMansion. If you're spending $5M for a house, $100k seems reasonable for a wireless system that will control your home, give you great terminal services via native Mac OS or virtualized Windows sessions and, especially in Windows settings, being able to throw away and start over when you get virused, trojaned, etc. is a great feature that will sell such systems to the upper middle class and wealthy.

The partnership would be with home builders who would install these monsters in at construction and wire up access points throughout the house and yard (perhaps in parallel with the sprinkler lines?) and the cost gets rolled into the mortgage.

It would be an ultimate reaffirmation of Apple as a high-class status symbol and Apple's scarcity of virus software would ultimately push it ahead of its Windows competitors. Linux would also sag here as the appeal of tweaking your house would be rather limited (and accomplished just as easily on PPC Linux as on x86 variants).

ffakr

Jul 21, 2003, 10:37 AM

Originally posted by dbrutus
Apple wins big when it creates markets. It won big when it introduced the legacy free iMac, the iPod revolutionized portable music in its form factor, and the iTMS revolutionized downloadable music for pay.

A larger server that runs anything from $12k-$500k would be perfect for a home server in a McMansion. If you're spending $5M for a house, $100k seems reasonable for a wireless system that will control your home, give you great terminal services via native Mac OS or virtualized Windows sessions and, especially in Windows settings, being able to throw away and start over when you get virused, trojaned, etc. is a great feature that will sell such systems to the upper middle class and wealthy.

The partnership would be with home builders who would install these monsters in at construction and wire up access points throughout the house and yard (perhaps in parallel with the sprinkler lines?) and the cost gets rolled into the mortgage.

It would be an ultimate reaffirmation of Apple as a high-class status symbol and Apple's scarcity of virus software would ultimately push it ahead of its Windows competitors. Linux would also sag here as the appeal of tweaking your house would be rather limited (and accomplished just as easily on PPC Linux as on x86 variants).
No.
An xServe could run the NAT, handle the web site, personal email, and all the automation systems for a dozen of "McMansions".
You don't buy 4, 8, or 64 cpu computer systems to run your house. You buy them to run the customer database at BankOne, or to model the Big Bang (though a cluster would be more cost effective at the latter)
This is not the market that apple is going to try and create.
Anyway, I've dealt with enough well off people to know that many are extremely cheap (unless it's something that is really status). I don't see a big computer hidden in the bowels of your house being a status symbol unless you are Bill G. and all your friends are in the tech industry.

jaedreth

Jul 21, 2003, 01:58 PM

I agree with the previous post.

Apple does have cluster boxes. Apple does have XRaid. Apple does have XServe, but it is *still* nowhere near enough for my bosses to consider implimenting Apple technology here.

Apple is just starting in the right direction, and still has a long way to go. The market Apple needs to go after is not just the Windows Professional Server market, but low end UNIX environments as well.

For a company our size, we have a lot of high tech equipment and a lot of servers. Just standing in the machine room is amazing. However, this company is still small, all the employees fit on a web page with pictures, and our machine room has plenty of space for expansion. We are not an ideal customer for Sun, just another semi-small business, though a really profitable one.

So we have top notch equipment.

Yet the owners love macs. Why are we using Sun then?

Macs can't do what we need yet.

I want apple to deliver some outstanding products for our market, which is largely seen as the leftover scrap of the larger enterprise market. We're too big to qualify for small business, but too small to be considered enterprise. But we need enterprise quality and enterprise level equipment. Not workgroup servers.

We'd have to fill too many racks with XRaids and XServes to equal the computing power and storage space we have with these enterprise products. Sure the XServe costs less, but it doesn't fit our needs.

What we need is Enterprise Server Solutions - For the rest of us.

Full blades, hd raids, and they have to be small in size yet big on storage and processing power. Our facilities are state of the art, and will only get moreso.

We also need an operating system that can do what we are currently doing. Right now, we'd have to rewrite *everything* from scratch, and because of the darwin underpinnings, there are many things we may not be able to do at all. The OS Server needs to become more robust and mature as a UNIX server, because we wouldn't even use the GUI.

Here's hoping Apple gets the clue.

Jaedreth

ffakr

Jul 21, 2003, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by jaedreth
We also need an operating system that can do what we are currently doing. Right now, we'd have to rewrite *everything* from scratch, and because of the darwin underpinnings, there are many things we may not be able to do at all. The OS Server needs to become more robust and mature as a UNIX server, because we wouldn't even use the GUI.

Here's hoping Apple gets the clue.

Jaedreth
What exactly can't you do with the Darwin underpinnings?
Darwin is based off of FreeBSD. I MUCH prefer FreeBSD to Linux... and that preference goes back to before Apple announced Darwin.

Netcraft reported that FreeBSD is running 2 Million web sites (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/07/12/nearly_2_million_active_sites_running_freebsd.html). It's a full on BSD Unix.. just free.

Here's a few companies that rely on FreeBSD to host web sites...

Yahoo 159,354 active sites hosted
NTT/Verio 152,054 active sites hosted
Infospace Inc 129,378 active sites hosted
Datasync 100,103 active sites hosted
Pair.com 72,626 active sites hosted
Tierranet 41,811 active sites hosted
Global Internet 39,365 active sites hosted
Telus 38,525 active sites hosted

You might want to see which servers post the longest up time too... (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html)

kenaustus

Jul 22, 2003, 12:48 PM

jaedreth,

You know that Apple is going b@lls to the wall working on Panther and the G5 server. They want your company's business, as well as other companies like yours - especially the profitable ones!

Let them know that you (and other employees) are a Mac lover, want to see their servers used where you work and what you feel is needed to get them ordered. Like the "Bug" icon on the beta Safari, information from informed Mac user can help moving towards a configuration your boss will sign off on. Maybe not in the next 3 - 4 months, but in the reasonably near future.

Carpideum

Jul 25, 2003, 06:36 PM

I think IBM and Apple should do a cross licensing deal where Apple would sell IBM's blades with OS X and IBM would sell blades and high end severs with OS X! Think Power 5 running OS X... and Photoshop:D

jaedreth

Jul 27, 2003, 01:11 AM

Yes, I do agree feedback to Apple is important.

And I do, through my own channels.

;)

I can't give a detailed description of why Apple doesn't meet our needs, but I've seen what we're running, and Apple doesn't have anything anywhere near it.

I will of course inquire further at work, as I know my bosses would be thrilled to be able to have an Apple solution there, as I set up a brand new tower for one of the head haunchos the other day. 23 HD Display. :)

It's good being the most experienced mac guy there. :D

Jaedreth

jaedreth

Jul 27, 2003, 01:28 AM

Heya, the nick looks a little familiar for some reason. Perhaps it's nothing...

However IBM has no interest for OS X on its servers.

Right now, it's fighting a deathmatch against Sun and HP. Solaris and HP/UX are the only serious competition for AIX.

And it is serious competition, and that market is waning... I only hope IBM comes out on top, but right now, it doesn't look like it.

IBM is selling lower end servers and blades based on Intel chips (stupid idea imo) yet they're running Linux.

Those boxes they might be persuaded to ship Darwin with, if Darwin without the OS X GUI could do everything that OS X server can do with the gui. But it's different enough, very few people have experience modifying, customizing, and making Darwin do what they want (unless they are mac and unix heads).

I do hope IBM does teach Apple how to make proper blades, and I think the "G5" chip would be great on these machines currently sporting Intel chips.

A Darwin Server product, sold inexpensively on cd, downloadable for free for those with broadband, would be ideal, providing it only runs on Macintosh G4 or G5. Said product would come with no support, but tons of man pages and an actual instructional manual thick enough to be of use.

If they cleaned up the underpinnings, and made it so there is not one thing that can be done in the gui and not done in darwin server, then the gui would be more efficient due to it simply referring to the underlying programs. They could also sell cheap server boxes, again no support, Apple does not want to get into the business of supporting a unix os in the command line, but then a cheap alternative to a top notch G5 or Xserve with a pure unix environment could sway a lot of customers, and cost Apple less money while making more in the long run.

Just an idea...

Jaedreth