Xserve Refresh Coming Within the Next Week or Two?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/31/xserve-refresh-coming-within-the-next-week-or-two/)

AppleInsider reports (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/31/apple_almost_ready_with_nehalem_based_xserves.html) that Apple may release updated versions of its Xserve (http://www.apple.com/xserve/) rackmountable server computers within the next few weeks. The new models are expected to utilize new Intel Xeon 3500 "Bloomfield" processors, as well as the same Xeon 5500 "Gainestown" processors found in the new Mac Pro (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/05/apple-gets-nehalem-early-h264-and-vmware-performance-boosts/) but only officially introduced (http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/03/30/intel.nehalem.xeons/) yesterday.New models, should they follow the same configuration format, would therefore include a single processor model capable of accepting 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz, and 3.2GHz quad-core Bloomfield chips and a dual-pocessor model that would take two 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz, or 2.93GHz quad-core Gainestown chips.

"Gainestown" is also available in 2.4GHz, 2.53GHz, and 3.2GHz variants, though Apple has expressed little interest in these parts thus far.AppleInsider notes that Apple's online store is showing shipping times of 5-7 business days for the Xserve, down from a 1-2 week window offered late last week, suggesting that a refresh may be just around the corner. Apple Store representatives are also reportedly informing Xserve customers of possible short-term delays to their orders.

Article Link: Xserve Refresh Coming Within the Next Week or Two? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/31/xserve-refresh-coming-within-the-next-week-or-two/)

[Santabean2000]

Sweet. Now if only I had a use for this...

[fleshman03]

YaY! Apple Servers!

Yeah, a use would be nice.... (for me)

[talkingfuture]

I think many people are reading this thinking wow that is awesome, wish I needed one!

[BTW]

It is nice to see Apple still cares about the enterprise markets. They still don't have a blade solution like all of their competitors but an updated xServe at least states they want to stay in the market.

[zombitronic]

I hope the storage capacity is significantly increased. 6TB (with three 2TB drives) would be nice.

[edesignuk]

I'd love to know the sales figures on the Xserve. They must be minuscule. It's hard to believe the whole line is worth bothering with at all.

[The Tall One]

I work in server rooms for clients all over the world, and only once did I see a rack full of xservs and xraids. I'm curious about how many customers Apple has for these products. They are great for large final cut editing suites in post production facilities, but I can't imagine that there are really that many of those in existence.

[Schizoid]

Rejoice, for Apple's finest computer is being updated!
Hopefully they'll keep 2 x FW 800 in the back!
Fibre Channel should be as standard!!

[haravikk]

I hope the storage capacity is significantly increased. 6TB (with three 2TB drives) would be nice.
Apple probably won't offer these by default, but you can always buy them yourself surely? Are the Apple Drive Modules not just special cases for hot-plugging? I'd be surprised if you can't just fire a load of drives from elsewhere into the machine.

I may be getting a dedicated server-machine some time in the future, and XServes are on the top of my list of possibilities, I'd probably go for the middle model (whatever the minimum dual-processor set-up is) and put a RAID card in and three good-sized, high-speed SAS drives.
I'll need to investigate where to get RAM I suppose, as the Apple RAM prices on the current XServe models are pretty ridiculous as it is, I got 8gb of the same type of RAM for my "Early 2008" Mac Pro and it only set me back $400-500 yet they still want $1400 for 6gb?

[themoonisdown09]

I'd love to know the sales figures on the Xserve. They must be minuscule. It's hard to believe the whole line is worth bothering with at all.

I'm sure Disney and Pixar use them!

[edesignuk]

I'm sure Disney and Pixar use them!If they were using their brain rather than going on influence from up above, I can't see why they would.

[Grimace]

There are over 300 Xserves deployed at my [large research-based] university, and I just returned one a few weeks ago (sealed) when the new Xeon processors came out. I had until June 30 to make a purchase, and so it made sense for us to send it right back and wait a little bit.

Apple may not have the largest share of the server market, but it is still a profitable arm of its corporate business.

[schneb]

Lackluster specs at a higher price? Seems to be the recent trend.

[The Samurai]

Kinda funny how all these updates are coming around when Jobs is not in office (well, technically).

[Rocketman]

I'm sure Disney and Pixar use them!

Nope. They use generic unix/linux boxen.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a single X-serve to deal with Apple specific issues, but all the rendering and content libraries are on generic cheap(er) server hardware.

Rocketman

cites:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/pixars_rendering_software_big_on_linux_servers_not_mac

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1141476.cms

[iMacmatician]

The current Xserves use a maximum of 2 80 W CPUs. If Apple stays this way, the fastest 80 W Xeon is 2.53 GHz.

[zombitronic]

Apple probably won't offer these by default, but you can always buy them yourself surely? Are the Apple Drive Modules not just special cases for hot-plugging? I'd be surprised if you can't just fire a load of drives from elsewhere into the machine.

You can, but the current capacity is only 3TB.

[Schizoid]

Lackluster specs at a higher price? Seems to be the recent trend.

I'm betting on exactly the same case, with no Firewire, slightly faster CPUs, still one 80gb drive as standard, and a $250 price hike...

[cswiger1]

10" touch screen netXserve. Bank on it.

[guzhogi]

I work in an all Mac district w/ easily 3 dozen xServes spread throughout the district. Each school has an IBM server for some Windows-only software, but still.

I wonder how much of a speed boost Virginia Tech's System X would get if they replaced their G5 xServes with Nehalem xServes. Add in Snow Leopard and wow!

[xnu]

I have two in a small business, they work flawlessly. Prevents me from needing a IT department, really easy to set up and use for both Mac and Windows computers.

[t0mat0]

I think the benchmarks of these will show promise - will be interesting to see how Apple re-benchmarks all their Macs, and this new XServe, once 10.6 gets demoed/released.

[wonderbread57]

What the hell do people use mac servers for?

Hosting iTunes apps?

Hosting, er, photoshop?

lool

[twoodcc]

very glad to hear this. i am hoping that apple starts to really focus on the IT/server market

[nuckinfutz]

I'd love to know the sales figures on the Xserve. They must be minuscule. It's hard to believe the whole line is worth bothering with at all.

They sell enough to warrant the expense. Let's not forget that if you're running a media company you may be running Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Server along with XSAN which requires a a whole server just for Metadata.


Rejoice, for Apple's finest computer is being updated!
Hopefully they'll keep 2 x FW 800 in the back!
Fibre Channel should be as standard!!

Fibre Channel's not that pervasive. How about Apple finish that iSCSI initiator and add iSCSI support for XSAN that would be very nice IMO.

[t0mat0]

Really liked this review by Tom Yager from early 2008 -
Worth a read and accessible for those not too familiar with servers/XServe
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/06/19TC-apple-xserve_1.html

The potential that 10.6 could have with the XServe, and XSan hasn't really been pushed much, but hopefully beyond what the Xeons can provide, 10.6 might add a bit more also.
Whether the ability to "consolidate your Windows, Linux, and even OS X servers through Parallels or VMware virtualization" gets more traction, we'll see.

[nuckinfutz]

Dovecot sounds interesting as more robust Mail Server core. I hope this is true (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/13/snow_leopard_server_to_ramp_up_scalability_and_performance.html)

I'd like to run my own mailserver and good IMAP and push email services to the iPhone would be great.

[cthielen]

I hope the storage capacity is significantly increased. 6TB (with three 2TB drives) would be nice.

If you need a lot of storage for your Xserve, you should look into Xsan; it's a fiber-optic storage solution that can get your Xserve using up to 16 TB, but it's very expensive although very high-performance and reliable.

[cthielen]

Dovecot sounds interesting as more robust Mail Server core. I hope this is true (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/13/snow_leopard_server_to_ramp_up_scalability_and_performance.html)

I'd like to run my own mailserver and good IMAP and push email services to the iPhone would be great.

Dovecot is a fairly nice server if you're used to setting up a Linux environment. I set it up for work, although ultimately we went for Zimbra, a free email/calendaring solution.

Regardless of the setup, IMAP does not do push, not ever; it's not part of the spec. It does pull email, which is functionally quite different but roughly the same from the user perspective.

[nuckinfutz]

Regardless of the setup, IMAP does not do push, not ever; it's not part of the spec. It does pull email, which is functionally quite different but roughly the same from the user perspective.


No I want IMAP for client connections an push email for iPhones. I certainly do not want to create the impression that they are in anyway linked.

I also want to see how Apple leverages ZFS read/write, improves cluster features and delivers overall polish.

A cheaper Xserve product would be nice as well.

[BG-Mac]

Am I the only one who would love to see Apple release a product to compete with HP's Home MediaSmart Server?

[cthielen]

Am I the only one who would love to see Apple release a product to compete with HP's Home MediaSmart Server?

Do you think this is the direction of AppleTV? You can store photos, movies, etc. on it - streaming off it to your iPhone, etc. seems like the next step, and it all integrates with MobileMe so you can publish photos for relatives to view, etc.

Just seems to me like this is the obvious path for AppleTV with respect to the Home MediaSmart Server.

[redaxe]

My high school had an XServe RAID setup for publications and film studies back when I was there and I'm sure it's still around. Pretty reliable servers.

[Goona]

Kinda funny how all these updates are coming around when Jobs is not in office (well, technically).

What's your point?

[nuckinfutz]

Am I the only one who would love to see Apple release a product to compete with HP's Home MediaSmart Server?

Yes I do. Perhaps by the time iTunes 9 is ready we'll have the ability to centralize our media.

Apple will hopefully have a multi bay box that allows all media to be streamed to Apple TV or Mac/PC on a network.

MobileMe users will get Slingbox like features for streaming their A/V over the internet.

[zombitronic]

Fibre Channel's not that pervasive. How about Apple finish that iSCSI initiator and add iSCSI support for XSAN that would be very nice IMO.

I'd personally love to have native ATA over Ethernet (AoE) support in OS X.

[BG-Mac]

Yes I do. Perhaps by the time iTunes 9 is ready we'll have the ability to centralize our media.

Apple will hopefully have a multi bay box that allows all media to be streamed to Apple TV or Mac/PC on a network.

MobileMe users will get Slingbox like features for streaming their A/V over the internet.

That's exactly what I'd like to see only sooner rather than later. My HD is at its breaking point and I'm trying to hold out for the inevitable iSolution before dropping a bunch of cash on a Drobo or something like that. I'm an iTunes junkie and would be downloading HD TV Shows and Movies left and right if I had the space.. :D

[salmon]

Kinda funny how all these updates are coming around when Jobs is not in office (well, technically).
It kinda makes sense to update all of the hardware BEFORE Snow Leopard gets released. There's an initial sales surge when new hardware is released, and this way they get some extra sales of OS upgrades. Plus, they get double exposure for the hardware.

I'd be highly surprised if any fundamentally new products are released before Jobs comes back, though.

[nuckinfutz]

That's exactly what I'd like to see only sooner rather than later. My HD is at its breaking point and I'm trying to hold out for the inevitable iSolution before dropping a bunch of cash on a Drobo or something like that. I'm an iTunes junkie and would be downloading HD TV Shows and Movies left and right if I had the space.. :D

+1

I'm hoping Apple doesn't have us waiting too long. Currently in a multiple computer household if you have media strewn across these computers you've got stranded data. What if the movie I want to watch is on my gf's computer? I have to make sure it's on and ready to stream.

A centralized box should have the intelligence and it should be able to stream saving the need for other Mac/PC to be sucking up power. It's a more "Green" solution to be sure.

How 'Bout an Xserve mini hehehe.

[fabriciom]

am I the only one wondering who will be the first to buy 2 3.2ghz Gainestown and install it on a new mac pro? That would be crazy....

[BG-Mac]

+1

I'm hoping Apple doesn't have us waiting too long. Currently in a multiple computer household if you have media strewn across these computers you've got stranded data. What if the movie I want to watch is on my gf's computer? I have to make sure it's on and ready to stream.

A centralized box should have the intelligence and it should be able to stream saving the need for other Mac/PC to be sucking up power. It's a more "Green" solution to be sure.

How 'Bout an Xserve mini hehehe.

Exactly! I'm tired of having to have my MBP running all the time. My dream solution would be a centralized box that holds ALL of my itunes media that would run 24/7 and could stream on demand to my MBP, my girlfriends MB, multiple Apple TVs, and possibly even my iPhone. It seems like such an obvious product for Apple to implement. Icing on the cake would be to be able to access everything through MobileMe when away from home, which I think will definitely be a feature. That's possibly the reason for the hold up in releasing something like this. I know there were rampant rumors of an Apple Home Server prior to Macworld. Hurry up Apple!!

[Schizoid]

If you need a lot of storage for your Xserve, you should look into Xsan; it's a fiber-optic storage solution that can get your Xserve using up to 16 TB, but it's very expensive although very high-performance and reliable.

... as long as you have two more xserves for primary and backup metadata controllers, a fibre channel switch, separate ethernet network for metadata and a Promise RAID, you're well away... up to 2 Petabyte volumes, although Apple now say that's more of a limitation of the number of physical drives...

[zombitronic]

A centralized box should have the intelligence and it should be able to stream saving the need for other Mac/PC to be sucking up power. It's a more "Green" solution to be sure.

How 'Bout an Xserve mini hehehe.

My dream solution would be a centralized box that holds ALL of my itunes media that would run 24/7 and could stream on demand to my MBP, my girlfriends MB, multiple Apple TVs, and possibly even my iPhone. It seems like such an obvious product for Apple to implement. Icing on the cake would be to be able to access everything through MobileMe when away from home, which I think will definitely be a feature.

FWIW, this is already completely possible, minus MobileMe support. I've got an old Power Mac G4 with a 1.5TB concatenated volume hosting my iTunes library. I just set iTunes preferences on all my other Macs to use this iTunes Music folder.

I've also got a 2TB FireWire striped RAID array connected to this G4 which I use as the Time Machine disk for all the other Macs on my network.

I agree that a low-power, smaller, drive expandable home media server from Apple would be ideal, though.

[BG-Mac]

FWIW, this is already completely possible, minus MobileMe support. I've got an old Power Mac G4 with a 1.5TB concatenated volume hosting my iTunes library. I just set iTunes preferences on all my other Macs to use this iTunes Music folder.

I've also got a 2TB FireWire striped RAID array connected to this G4 which I use as the Time Machine disk for all the other Macs on my network.

I agree that a low-power, smaller, drive expandable home media server from Apple would be ideal, though.

Yeah I've thought about buying a Mac Mini and hooking it up to a Drobo. I've been telling myself that I'd wait to see what WWDC brings, but if nothing gets announced I'll be saying it again for the iPod event so I need to go ahead an bite the bullet.. :rolleyes::apple:

[DrivenByMac]

I noticed that the new Xserve is up on the Apple site

[darthraige]

I'm gonna try and convince my boss to buy another one. So awesome.

[t0mat0]

I noticed that the new Xserve is up on the Apple site
Still showing the Harpertown ones here.

[mreed911]

Lackluster specs at a higher price? Seems to be the recent trend.

You're thinking hardware. Think licensing. $999 unlimited vs. OS + CAL's for Windows. *huge* savings, especially for SMB's.

[overcast]

Exactly! I'm tired of having to have my MBP running all the time. My dream solution would be a centralized box that holds ALL of my itunes media that would run 24/7 and could stream on demand to my MBP, my girlfriends MB, multiple Apple TVs, and possibly even my iPhone. It seems like such an obvious product for Apple to implement. Icing on the cake would be to be able to access everything through MobileMe when away from home, which I think will definitely be a feature. That's possibly the reason for the hold up in releasing something like this. I know there were rampant rumors of an Apple Home Server prior to Macworld. Hurry up Apple!!

http://www.solaris.com

Setup a ZFS array, enable iSCSI targets or just use NFS. Just do a little reading outside of the Apple world and you can do most anything. I just setup a 6 x 1.5TB array and it hosts everything from my network, including TimeMachine backups and the ZFS snapshots.

[nuckinfutz]

http://www.solaris.com

Setup a ZFS array, enable iSCSI targets or just use NFS. Just do a little reading outside of the Apple world and you can do most anything. I just setup a 6 x 1.5TB array and it hosts everything from my network, including TimeMachine backups and the ZFS snapshots.

I wouldn't say it's all that easy.

Monster Ars Technica ZFS NAS thread (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/24609792/m/567005626831)

The issues with Mac support is that you can use a free iSCSI initiator from GlobalSAN but it can be a little flaky. The $$ initiators work better (like the Xtend from Atto) but at cost.

I'd be interested in knowing your hardware/software setup. Glad it's working well for you (especially the Time Machine )

[DELLsFan]

I think many people are reading this thinking wow that is awesome, wish I needed one!

+1 Yup.

Apple would make some money competing with Windows Server, and all the HP Media and clone Servers floating around. The Mini just might not be enough for everyone.

:apple:

[sarge]

Nope. They use generic unix/linux boxen.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a single X-serve to deal with Apple specific issues, but all the rendering and content libraries are on generic cheap(er) server hardware.

Rocketman

cites:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/pixars_rendering_software_big_on_linux_servers_not_mac

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1141476.cms

I love the rocketman. One of the reasons why this site is worth reading.

[zombitronic]

If you need a lot of storage for your Xserve, you should look into Xsan; it's a fiber-optic storage solution that can get your Xserve using up to 16 TB, but it's very expensive although very high-performance and reliable.

I think you're referring to the Apple-endorsed Promise RAID (http://www.apple.com/server/storage/), which replaced Apple's own Xserve RAID. The regular Xserve (http://www.apple.com/xserve/specs.html) still only supports up to 3TB.

I've been doing some research on Xsan and SANs, in general. Xsan is freaking awesome. It supports up to 2PB!!

nuckinfutz mentioned iSCSI and I mentioned ATA over Ethernet earlier. I've also heard of a new IEEE 1394 interface update which would allow FireWire over Ethernet. I suppose these native updates to OS X would allow the non-Fibre user the ability to use Xsan. This would be awesome.

Question for anyone who uses Xsan:
Apple has a diagram (http://www.apple.com/xsan/whatisxsan.html) on their site where they show an Xsan network setup. They show an Xserve (5) connected to a Promise RAID (1) via a Fibre switch (2). Then some clients (6) are connected to that Xserve (5) to access the SAN. My question is, couldn't you just use this portion of the setup but replace the Promise RAID (1) and Fibre switch (2) with an external (or internal) hard drive? You'd connect that external (or internal) drive to the Xserve (5) or another Mac Server running Xsan. Then connect clients to that server (5) and tada!: you've got an affordable SAN. Minus the price of Xsan, of course.

So is this possible or does the storage have to be connected via Fibre?

[jons]

I'm sure Disney and Pixar use them!

They don't. They used to use Sun systems, now they run blade servers and Linux IIRC.

[frimple]

Question for anyone who uses Xsan:
Apple has a diagram (http://www.apple.com/xsan/whatisxsan.html) on their site where they show an Xsan network setup. They show an Xserve (5) connected to a Promise RAID (1) via a Fibre switch (2). Then some clients (6) are connected to that Xserve (5) to access the SAN. My question is, couldn't you just use this portion of the setup but replace the Promise RAID (1) and Fibre switch (2) with an external (or internal) hard drive? You'd connect that external (or internal) drive to the Xserve (5) or another Mac Server running Xsan. Then connect clients to that server (5) and tada!: you've got an affordable SAN. Minus the price of Xsan, of course.

So is this possible or does the storage have to be connected via Fibre?

Interesting question, I'd love to hear the answer on the possibility from someone that uses XSAN. My question for you, however, would be why would you? A Drobo connected to a server with this kind of infrastructure seems like kind of a waste when compared to capabilities of a huge SAN. Often it's forgotten that the throughput of your connection is limited by the spindles your SAN can spin (to write/read). This product is aimed at high throughput SAN's and it seems like it would be a waste to share a 1TB external storage array.

[deconstruct60]

I think you're referring to the Apple-endorsed Promise RAID (http://www.apple.com/server/storage/), which replaced Apple's own Xserve RAID. The regular Xserve (http://www.apple.com/xserve/specs.html) still only supports up to 3TB.

I've been doing some research on Xsan and SANs, in general. Xsan is freaking awesome. It supports up to 2PB!!

nuckinfutz mentioned iSCSI and I mentioned ATA over Ethernet earlier. I've also heard of a new IEEE 1394 interface update which would allow FireWire over Ethernet. I suppose these native updates to OS X would allow the non-Fibre user the ability to use Xsan. This would be awesome.

Question for anyone who uses Xsan:
Apple has a diagram (http://www.apple.com/xsan/whatisxsan.html) on their site where they show an Xsan network setup. They show an Xserve (5) connected to a Promise RAID (1) via a Fibre switch (2). Then some clients (6) are connected to that Xserve (5) to access the SAN. My question is, couldn't you just use this portion of the setup but replace the Promise RAID (1) and Fibre switch (2) with an external (or internal) hard drive? You'd connect that external (or internal) drive to the Xserve (5) or another Mac Server running Xsan. Then connect clients to that server (5) and tada!: you've got an affordable SAN. Minus the price of Xsan, of course.

So is this possible or does the storage have to be connected via Fibre?


Doesn't look likely.
StorNext closest solution is to have a cluster gateway give the "normal" LAN access to the files.
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid5_gci1249894,00.html


Somewhat likely that there is no abstraction between the client virtual volume software and raw Fibre Channel devices. ( that client is specially looking for fibre channel addresses for the blocks it is trying to get).

I'm no sure you are quite getting what the diagram is presenting. The XServe boxes , next to the 3 and 5, just have the metadata associated with the files. Not the data in the files themselves. When you say you want file "foo.txt" the clients ask those server(s) where those bits are stored on the SAN. Where to find those bits is sent back and the client directly goes to get those bits themselves. So the data inside the file isn't being served up by those servers; it comes directly off the SAN devices.

So the metadata for a file will have some aspects about where in the SAN network the blocked associated with that file are stored. ( plus whether the file is locked , date accesses , etc. ) For fibre channel networks that would leverage the FC protocols for what these addresses look like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel_network_protocols

So unless they built an abstraction layer into the software to allow one to plug in other fabric protocols they are probably stuck with something that is very FC specific.

There are several cluster/shared file systems that are stuck to specific networks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_disk_file_system

iSCSI has some aspects of Fibre Channel addressing/security protocols but
Mac OS X (as delivered from Apple) is bit lacking in iSCSI capabilities.


Fibre Channel 4GFC is just faster than 1 GB Ethernet ( http://www.fibrechannel.org/OVERVIEW/Roadmap.html): 800 MBps througput. Can play tricks with bounding multiple 1 GB ports into a faster channel but the same is true of FC. Eventually it looks like some combination of 10 GB ethernet and Infiniband will kill off FC , but right now if need to move 1 TB files around .... likely will run into FC.

A bit dubious about ATA over Ethernet as a cluster technology. ATA is a single host to device protocol. And ATA drives usually get hammers in multiuser situations. Some of the complexity that FC and iSCSI have is for management of large collections of devices. ATA forgoes security, authentication , authorization , global naming , data checksums, etc. which is fine for the 10 disks attached to just one box. But 100s of disks from different pools/servers is that really going to scale up?

Although bounded ethernet on a switch which supports it isn't likely going to be routed anywhere if really need performance so can see the point of forgoing TCP/IP. Can also get around TCP/IP with iSCSI over Infiniband. (which is as faster or faster than Fibre Channel. )

[AidenShaw]

It is nice to see Apple still cares about the enterprise markets. They still don't have a blade solution like all of their competitors but an updated xServe at least states they want to stay in the market.

The Xserve is a low end 1U server - it's a joke in the enterprise market.

The Xserve is good for building a render farm with rack-mount systems for a shop using FCP and other Apple tools. Some universities and labs use them as well for grid computing - although Linux owns this area overall.

The enterprise wants support, and server families. 4 hour 24x7 onsite support is required for some, for others same day or next day is OK.

Families are important - let's go from dual-core to 24-core using the same parts, the same tools, the same management infrastructure, the same everything. From 1 PCIe slot to 24 PCIe slots, from 8 GiB of RAM to 192 GiB of RAM - but the same infrastructure.

It also has to be non-proprietary. Any SAN or iSCSI disk array should be usable, not just one particular model from one minor vendor. Any FibreChannel or 10GbE or InfiniBand or iSCSI card should work.

To put it simply - at the high end the Xserve is useful for small Apple workgroups that need a small number of servers for a compute farm. At the low end, it's a Mac Pro in a 1U box - good for a web server or file server.

Apple is now the iGadget company - the Xserve is the ugly duckling....

[deconstruct60]

The Xserve is a low end 1U server - it's a joke in the enterprise market.

The Xserve is good for building a render farm with rack-mount systems for a shop using FCP and other Apple tools. Some universities and labs use them as well for grid computing - although Linux owns this area overall.
... .

As long as Apple can use them for its own server farms and to sell vertical workgroup servers it will probably limp along.

One thing for Pixar/Disney to use Suns/Dells/HP/whatever as their render farm and quite another for Apple to have to use Sun/Dell/HP as their grid nodes. I'm sure Apple using other's folks boxes for internal ERP and enterprise software, but their grid datacenter seems likely to have a stack of XServe boxes in them. When they get to the point that they don't care about their own grid being on other folks stuff ..... bet XServe would be on much weaker footing. ( For instance other folks storage products are probably pervasive in their datacenters. )

However, that said there are lots of business/groups that don't need to grow to monster size. If you are 4 person partnership ( a doctor clinic , small specialized law firm , etc. ) then 1U could be sufficient for your "enterprise". Less than a half rack of equipment is all needed to run that "enterprise". Mac OS X server is more handy where company is so small there is no IT deparment. Just like there is no other departments.


Any SAN or iSCSI disk array should be usable, not just one particular model from one minor vendor. Any FibreChannel or 10GbE or InfiniBand or iSCSI card should work.


That's not even true of AIX, Solaris , Solaris boxes ... and yet they are enterprise ready. That mindset seems to be oriented toward Windows/Linux are the only Enterprise solutions because they are pervasive. Those too have their problems penetrating Entreprise at the highest levels.




The Apple Server market is a bit of a catch-22 If it were much larger there would be an argument for a more diverse set of servers. Host Bus Adapter (HBA) vendors would be motivated to write Mac OS X specific drivers for their cards. But as long as it is small many IT shops will avoid it because it doesn't have them.

The other factor is that Apple has shot its partners in the head multiple times. Wipe out the hardware vendors with Apple stores. Throws curve balls at the developers from time to time. etc.


It also would be another thing if technology from the servers was trickling down into the cheaper systems over time. However, that doesn't seem to be case. The Mac Pros update with tech just as fast as the servers and are more flexible. ( if need a 2U Mac server effectively buy a Mac Pro. Just doesn't fit into a standard rack. )

[deconstruct60]

P.S. just noticed something else ...

My question is, couldn't you just use this portion of the setup but replace the Promise RAID (1) and Fibre switch (2) with an external (or internal) hard drive? You'd connect that external (or internal) drive to the Xserve (5) .... Then connect clients to that server (5) and tada!: you've got an affordable SAN. Minus the price of Xsan, of course.


For that internal/external connections to a server and then have the clients connect directly to it, if Mac OS X had a iSCSI target mode and finished up ZFS support you'd be done.

ZFS allows for huge files. Only it isn't a cluster file system. You'd need to put something else for multiple clients to connect to.


You could export the files via NFS to the clients from a server which has ZFS file system. (at least can on Solaris. would hope that works on Mac OS too but remains to be seen if can export ZFS files well. ). NFS file sizes are limited to local file system ( or 64 bits. which should be plenty.)

I don' think Apple is going to be in a hurry to enable Mac OS X Server to be a large file server. For now an OpenSolaris box is a better low cost SAN/NAS server than Mac OS X. ( yet another reason the market for Xserve is smaller than other servers. ). [ OpenSolaris examples:
http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=128
http://www.sun.com/storage/disk_systems/unified_storage/index_v3.html

]

[zombitronic]

Interesting question, I'd love to hear the answer on the possibility from someone that uses XSAN.

I found a simple straight-forward answer (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=258382&tstart=606) on Apple's discussions page:

To access the storage directly, you need to pull fiber. Xsan requires fibre channel access to the storage, period. It won't go over IP; it's not iSCSI based.

You could always front-end the storage with a server, via AFP or NFS. But then you have a NAS, not native fiber channel storage.

This makes sense. Once you connect via ethernet, you're IP. Until native iSCSI, ATA over Ethernet or FireWire over Ethernet is in Mac OS X, connecting to a SAN storage front-end will just be another network share. I wish there were screen shots of the desktops in Apple's diagram. I think this would've gave me instant comprehension. Thanks, everyone, for your explanations.

My question for you, however, would be why would you?

Time Machine, for one. Yes, you can back up via Time Capsule or a network share, however, this uses the sparse image backup method. Time Machine creates an automatically re-sizable sparse image file on the Time Machine share and mounts this image to your desktop, and the backup files are stored within this image.

If you could connect to a hard drive as a SAN, this machine could act as a local drive on all of your Macs connected to this SAN, and the backup process would occur normally.

Both backup methods work, however, it would seem to be favorable to backup via the locally attached (or SAN connected) method. This is just one example of an application that behaves differently on a local drive (or SAN, presumably) vs. a network share.

[schneb]

You're thinking hardware. Think licensing. $999 unlimited vs. OS + CAL's for Windows. *huge* savings, especially for SMB's.

Good point. But not as funny. ;) You are right, of course. A good license trumps cost of hardware by a mile.

[deconstruct60]

I wonder how much of a speed boost Virginia Tech's System X would get if they replaced their G5 xServes with Nehalem xServes. Add in Snow Leopard and wow!

System X has dropped off the top500 list (but apparently still in production http://www.checs.eng.vt.edu/resources.php) . They now have System G ( built with Mac Pros ).

They already have Macs with 2008 era Intel processors. However they run Linux ( (Probably why apple doesn't explicitly use them as an example when this came online. And perhaps why VaTech's press info doesn't really explicitly name the OS. However, assuming the filled out their top500 submission form correctly... )

http://top500.org/system/9833

(also down to 279 on the top500 list also. It is striving to be "green" so perhaps not so bad. )

http://www.vaeng.com/feature/new-system-g-supercomputer-introduced


It is using Infiniband for the interconnect.... like just most newer HPC clusters these days. Mac OS X didn't fit the bill. Exact same hardware with Linux drivers for fast connectivity are the driving force. [ There was a single smaller vendor SilverStorm that sold a Inifinband card with Mac OS X drivers but they were acquired by QLogic and that combo disappeared. ]

All the cute veneer of the Finder ( cover flow for your files , etc. ) doesn't really make a difference if nobody is having a one-on-one relationship with that single machine. It isn't really the OS just an application that runs on top. If Apple was reaching out to and giving leading vendors incentives to put high speed cards into their boxes perhaps would be running OS X. No Infiniband means out of the HPC market.

[overcast]

I wouldn't say it's all that easy.

Monster Ars Technica ZFS NAS thread (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/24609792/m/567005626831)

The issues with Mac support is that you can use a free iSCSI initiator from GlobalSAN but it can be a little flaky. The $$ initiators work better (like the Xtend from Atto) but at cost.

I'd be interested in knowing your hardware/software setup. Glad it's working well for you (especially the Time Machine )
It really is all that easy, ZFS is seriously brainless when it comes to setting up volumes. GlobalSAN seems to behave fine for me, but I admit I have looked at the paid initiators. The only thing you really need to pay attention to setting up Solaris or OpenSolaris is Hardware Compatibility, especially video.

ASUS A8N-SLI PREMIUM
Opteron 165 @ 2.7GHZ
4GB OCZ DDR2
6 x 1.5TB WD Green (raidz zfs storage pool)
2 x 320 GB WD RE2 (mirrored zfs boot)

[nuckinfutz]

It really is all that easy, ZFS is seriously brainless when it comes to setting up volumes. GlobalSAN seems to behave fine for me, but I admit I have looked at the paid initiators. The only thing you really need to pay attention to setting up Solaris or OpenSolaris is Hardware Compatibility, especially video.

ASUS A8N-SLI PREMIUM
Opteron 165 @ 2.7GHZ
4GB OCZ DDR2
6 x 1.5TB WD Green (raidz zfs storage pool)
2 x 320 GB WD RE2 (mirrored zfs boot)

Sweet! Thanks for this. I think as long as you stick to HW OpenSolaris works well with half the battle is over.

[deconstruct60]

Nope. They use generic unix/linux boxen.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a single X-serve to deal with Apple specific issues, but all the rendering and content libraries are on generic cheap(er) server hardware.

Rocketman

cites:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/pixars_rendering_software_big_on_linux_servers_not_mac

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1141476.cms

Even though Pixar was running Linux Renderman that doesn't necessarily mean that wasn't on Mac Pros or XServe. Once those switched to Intel processors can run Linux just as well. [ And if primarily just want to funnel money into Apple's coffers... it doesn't have to run Mac OS X after they sell it. The money would be just as green either way. ] Compared with similar Dells and HPs the XServes are competitively priced. If Pixar went with a more generic vendor or with blades that would be different ballgame.
The XServer would make their machine room "look nice". If that was criteria it would likely win. :)


On the second part. IBM will run anybodies hardware if you pay them to do it. IBM Services is not the IBM Hardware. They certainly like to double dip, but they'll run other folks stuff if that what the job entails. I'd also doubt you want to outsource management of the render farm for you movies to a lowest cost outsource vendor. The very custom, business critical stuff is often best kept in-house.