Despite my previous post, I think you are probably correct IMHO. Repackaged minis. Not a bad idea but not exactly revolutionary.
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Active Storage Prepping Replacement for Apple's Xserve?
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Despite my previous post, I think you are probably correct IMHO. Repackaged minis. Not a bad idea but not exactly revolutionary.
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I find myself agreeing with you. VMWare is certainly useful for many things but it is not by any means a one size fits all solution. In fact some VMWare solutions are just plain stupid. It is all about having all your eggs in one basket and all.
The other side of the equation is that SoC technology can eliminate many of the reasons for going to VMWare in the first place. Blade tech, with a little help from SoCs, can effectively put a whole server on a 1U high card, though admittedly a 2U card makes more sense. Without much effort a 1U platfom could easily have 16 dual core servers in it.
This makes me wonder if this new server just might take this approach. That is a 2U blade server chassis.
I find myself agreeing with you. VMWare is certainly useful for many things but it is not by any means a one size fits all solution. In fact some VMWare solutions are just plain stupid. It is all about having all your eggs in one basket and all.
The other side of the equation is that SoC technology can eliminate many of the reasons for going to VMWare in the first place. Blade tech, with a little help from SoCs, can effectively put a whole server on a 1U high card, though admittedly a 2U card makes more sense. Without much effort a 1U platfom could easily have 16 dual core servers in it.
This makes me wonder if this new server just might take this approach. That is a 2U blade server chassis.
But it's also reasonable to think he* could build a solution without needing a mac OS x license. Built on top any workable OS even a custom tuned OS to suit the roll. Does seem like they are targeting storage mostly which is why any redirect would be from Xsan only which was licensed from outside apple and runs on non osx in other forms.
*by he I mean the whole he has built around him to target their products.
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I need to leave out the details, but if you don't work in the IT department it is funny as hell. Laugh your a$$ off funny, enough to give you the giggle weeks latter. Especially when the downtime extends well beyound that 4 hour window.
Don't get me wrong virtualization has it's place. But so does a bit of wisdom when it comes to implementing the where when and how's.
Beyound that we are closely getting to the point where it would make more sense to just move images around and let them run on bare metal. With processors like the latest ARM and Bobcat based SoC you can literally put hundreds of cores into a 2U rack if you want to. Even a 1U card these days can be populated with an SSD, RAM, processor and interfaces and be barely a half inch thick. If it happens to be a 4 core arm chip you could easily put 16 cards in a 1U rack, for 64 processors. Each blade might run 20-30 watts total, so at the low end you might be talking 320 watts total for all those processors, with Bobcat you would likely double power and halve the number of cores. Even so being i86 comPatible isnt to bad.
I just see a lot of potential for them (Apple and Active Storage) to go in a new direction with respect to servers. It would be a direction that addresses data center power usage, the bad points with respect to virtualization and acknowledges the reality that cores will be very plentiful in new hardware going forward.
Cores here are very important because even on what might be thought of as a slow processor; being able to give each thread it's own CPU can be a big win overall. The fact that you can now effectively put a complete server on a very small card at very low power usage means that these can go into a rack in large numbers with very modest power usage. My power numbers above are guesses but look at what an iPhone can do with about 2-3 watts of power. Up the power budget a bit for faster RAM and a big SSD and you still have a very low power card.
Granted this machine won't accel at every server task and there is the issue of a backplane but it will do many jobs just fine.
I need to leave out the details, but if you don't work in the IT department it is funny as hell. Laugh your a$$ off funny, enough to give you the giggle weeks latter. Especially when the downtime extends well beyound that 4 hour window.
Don't get me wrong virtualization has it's place. But so does a bit of wisdom when it comes to implementing the where when and how's.
Beyound that we are closely getting to the point where it would make more sense to just move images around and let them run on bare metal. With processors like the latest ARM and Bobcat based SoC you can literally put hundreds of cores into a 2U rack if you want to. Even a 1U card these days can be populated with an SSD, RAM, processor and interfaces and be barely a half inch thick. If it happens to be a 4 core arm chip you could easily put 16 cards in a 1U rack, for 64 processors. Each blade might run 20-30 watts total, so at the low end you might be talking 320 watts total for all those processors, with Bobcat you would likely double power and halve the number of cores. Even so being i86 comPatible isnt to bad.
I just see a lot of potential for them (Apple and Active Storage) to go in a new direction with respect to servers. It would be a direction that addresses data center power usage, the bad points with respect to virtualization and acknowledges the reality that cores will be very plentiful in new hardware going forward.
Cores here are very important because even on what might be thought of as a slow processor; being able to give each thread it's own CPU can be a big win overall. The fact that you can now effectively put a complete server on a very small card at very low power usage means that these can go into a rack in large numbers with very modest power usage. My power numbers above are guesses but look at what an iPhone can do with about 2-3 watts of power. Up the power budget a bit for faster RAM and a big SSD and you still have a very low power card.
Granted this machine won't accel at every server task and there is the issue of a backplane but it will do many jobs just fine.
Could be a good thing if it is under strong supervision of Apple ... Hope here is that the former Apple employees learned some lessons and cooperate with Apple and that they don't do this with every startup that wants to make a quick buck.
Or hopefully so.
Nothing is going to be cloned anyway. They were called clones because the hardware had to be cloned. Apple had to licence hardware designs. Apple run on Intel now.
So whose hardware would Apple be running in their NC Data Center?
Whose hardware is Apple running their own site on?
If it's not their own, doesn't it make them vulnerable not just in security, but also as far as supply?
To what extent is Apple "self contained" = independent as far as the hardware they use to run Apple itself? Obviously Apple can't make everything themselves, but in this case, particularly with NC Data Center coming, I would think they'd want as much independence as possible?!
But then, Apple is no fools... They know what they are doing... Thus, it'd be silly to second-guess them, but curiousity would be understandable!
Apple is running a whole lot of Sun hardware as a large portion of their servers have been running Solaris for a long time. Yes they do run OS X server but not as much as they run Solaris and other forms of Unix.
If you dig deeper in the website, there are videos where they NOTE how they intend to be more Apple-oriented, mention things like Xsan, and even on their website lists "Native OSX Management suite"
So if not OSX, something built to allow it to be very Apple friendly.
What does a 2U server give you that a 1U server or a blade doesn't ?
That aside, a VMware-licensed OS X is clearly the best and most obvious solution to the discontinuation of the Xserve. Virtualisation is unquestionably the future for the vast, vast majority of server applications. The benefits are simply to huge to ignore.
The list of things VMware does poorly is vanishingly small. Heck, even if you only have a single server, you're nearly always better off running it as a VM on the free ESXi product, rather than direct on the hardware.
The biggest benefit from virtualisation is in manageability, not density. Most datacentre facilities barely even let you max out your racks with 1U servers, let alone blades, because they can't provide sufficient power and cooling.
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I have wondered what hardware would be used in Apple's new data Center.
Can't imagine it would be rack upon rack of MacMini / MacPro servers.
I have wondered what hardware would be used in Apple's new data Center.
Can't imagine it would be rack upon rack of MacMini / MacPro servers.
The previous scenario had nothing to do with licensed designs (the PowerPC/AIM architecture was similar in licensing terms to those from Intel) - the issue is whether to allow use of OS X and custom chipsets with other brands, nothing else.
So if Active Storage DOES create a new Mac box, it's gonna be a new case of "clones" indeed - unless they are repackaging Mac Minis, of course.
The last time we had Mac "clones", they were in direct competition with Apple's own range of computers so they ended up having a negative impact on Apple.
Apple has decided to drop the X-Serve product range so I can't see what the fuss is about if they decide to license their server OS to another company to fill that particular gap in the market. It won't be competing with the Mac mini and Mac Pro servers because they are products that cater for a totally different part of the server market.
Just thought I'd note, for those who haven't been back to the active storage site, that they've changed the slogan on the teaser to "when one door closes, another opens."
That seems to much more explicitly state that it's some kind of server for Apple environments. Can't wait to learn the details.
That seems to much more explicitly state that it's some kind of server for Apple environments. Can't wait to learn the details.
more U's means more CPU, memory and I/O
HP DL360 - 1U, 192 GiB RAM, 2 PCIe slots, 2 GbE, 2 sockets (up to 12 cores), 8 internal disks
HP DL380 - 2U, 192 GiB RAM, 6 PCIe slots, 2 GbE, 2 sockets (up to 12 cores), 16 internal disks
HP DL580 - 4U, 1024 GiB RAM, 11 PCIe slots, 4 GbE, 4 sockets (up to 32 cores), 8 internal disks
HP DL980 - 8U, 2048 GiB RAM, 16 PCIe slots, 4 GbE, 8 sockets (up to 64 cores), 8 internal disks
look at http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/sm/proliant/proliant-dl.html
Blades are a whole other ballgame, they run from less than a 1U to 2U and 4U expansion. Blades are also typically more expensive to purchase than the equivalent 1U/2U box - a blade usually doesn't make sense until you factor in the cost of floor space, air conditioning, support, ....
look at http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02d/3709945-3709945-3328410.html
HP DL360 - 1U, 192 GiB RAM, 2 PCIe slots, 2 GbE, 2 sockets (up to 12 cores), 8 internal disks
HP DL380 - 2U, 192 GiB RAM, 6 PCIe slots, 2 GbE, 2 sockets (up to 12 cores), 16 internal disks
HP DL580 - 4U, 1024 GiB RAM, 11 PCIe slots, 4 GbE, 4 sockets (up to 32 cores), 8 internal disks
HP DL980 - 8U, 2048 GiB RAM, 16 PCIe slots, 4 GbE, 8 sockets (up to 64 cores), 8 internal disks
look at http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/sm/proliant/proliant-dl.html
Blades are a whole other ballgame, they run from less than a 1U to 2U and 4U expansion. Blades are also typically more expensive to purchase than the equivalent 1U/2U box - a blade usually doesn't make sense until you factor in the cost of floor space, air conditioning, support, ....
look at http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02d/3709945-3709945-3328410.html
Darwin-powered server
This might be a long shot, but the server could be powered by Darwin and a front-end would be a Mac app that is used to administer the system.
This might be a long shot, but the server could be powered by Darwin and a front-end would be a Mac app that is used to administer the system.
A 2u server will give you 16 internal hard drives. Going external will cost you $2000 or more for the cage plus drives and raid controller
Could only dream!
image if Active made a virtualization platform, with true clustering in a 1u server, with light peak to cluster them together.
and it ran OS X Server, because Apple invested in them.
But doubt it lol.
it will be a 1u/2u appliance for user who want a SAN but don't trust apple to be around in the large storage market / OS X Server for long. easy-ish to setup like Xsan and will be run via a webapp.
image if Active made a virtualization platform, with true clustering in a 1u server, with light peak to cluster them together.
and it ran OS X Server, because Apple invested in them.
But doubt it lol.
it will be a 1u/2u appliance for user who want a SAN but don't trust apple to be around in the large storage market / OS X Server for long. easy-ish to setup like Xsan and will be run via a webapp.
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Yes, except that key Mac OS X server software has yet to be ported to FreeBSD. My main concern is Final Cut Server (FCSvr), it has so much untapped potential. I'm experimenting with the FreeBSD port of Darwin streaming server (DSS) and would love to use FCSvr for cataloging videos and publishing to DSS. FCSvr could further be expanded for publishing images to a web based gallery CMS, digital signage and other media related areas.
If FCSvr were open sourced a lot of useful features could be added. For example a node based GUI for creating workflows, a data abstraction layer to support multiple databases aside from the current postgres DB, a proper documented web API for accessing the DB and FCSvr functions, etc...
I'm pretty surprised Apple has bothered to add these features/capabilities there's a market.
I hope FCSvr doesn't go the same way Shake did and Apple releases the code as open source. It would be shame to see a great product go!
FreeBSD is the way to go!
If FCSvr were open sourced a lot of useful features could be added. For example a node based GUI for creating workflows, a data abstraction layer to support multiple databases aside from the current postgres DB, a proper documented web API for accessing the DB and FCSvr functions, etc...
I'm pretty surprised Apple has bothered to add these features/capabilities there's a market.
I hope FCSvr doesn't go the same way Shake did and Apple releases the code as open source. It would be shame to see a great product go!
FreeBSD is the way to go!