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Apple Discontinues Xserve, Only Available Until January 31st
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It was like that in the Java depreciation related discussions, comments such as:
"Java sucks"
"I've never used a Java app"
"Java is slow"
Then in this...
"Your not the type of customer Apple wants"
"Apple made billions of $$ last quarter"
Quite sad attitude really.
These people would change their tune if Apple made a decision that affected their day to day Mac usage.
I get that, but the question is not "what," but "how." How are they doing administrative tasks without an administrative account? The preflight of this process if you will.
Completely depends on for whom you work, if you work, and in what industry you work, if you work. In my line of work, I would estimate roughly 3/4s of my fellow administrators are running at least one, generally many more, Xserve in their datacenters. Believe it or not, OS X Server (and by default the Xserve) is pretty popular in graphic design, fashion design, music, education, and communication (i.e. television, radio, and newsprint) industries.
So to say no one is going to be impacted by the loss of the Xserve is like saying no one would be impacted by the loss of Yellowstone National Park. Just because not everyone uses something, does not mean it is irrelevant.
No way man, this time it totally is the end of Apple. They're going down. Just like they did when they brought out the iPod, or renamed the iBook and PowerBook, or when... (insert other BS reference here).(yes, that was all sarcasm)
While I loved the design of the XServe this move by Apple totally makes sense. They never had a very strong hold on the enterprise market even in their prime, and now with the iPad and iPhone breaking ground in the enterprise market, I believe Apple is working on that more. Most people here have probably never touched an XServe, much less seen one.
Not the end of Apple, but it may be the end of MacOS. All hail iOS (unless you are running business or graphics-intensive programs...)
Yep.
I have a meeting next week with our Apple rep. Should be interesting.
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Agreed. That's why a few bank companies went crazy when BeOS and OS/2 were discontinued. That's why Windows CE is on almost every embedded device now. ATMs, Cash Registers, whatever. One time a saw a Windows CE system crash at the Make-a-Mr. Potato Head Store.
As far as I know, without hacking, OS X Server only runs on VirtualBox on a Mac OS X Host. What's the point?
Next Week: Apple discontinues Mac Pro for a slighly larger Mac Mini server
Agreed.
+1
Yeah, an iPad and iPhone in every handbag. Who needs desktop systems anyway?...
Me, and I seem to be the only one too.......
My dad works as a graphical designer and he runs OS X Snow Leopard.
I really think Apple should have designed some kind of GUI-less OS X and make it as a Xserve option before ditching it. Or maybe Debian Linux without X11.
Or better yet, make Darwin a separate operating system, give it away for free, and make it an option. Yeeeeaaahhh.
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All I can think of is..."The rent was too damn high!"
I think this is a sad day. Apple is posed to dominate this market if they'd just get serious about pricing for professional sector expansion. Sadly OS X Server never got a good set of features...like, um...Print Sharing! Dowp!
I think this is a sad day. Apple is posed to dominate this market if they'd just get serious about pricing for professional sector expansion. Sadly OS X Server never got a good set of features...like, um...Print Sharing! Dowp!
The Mini and MacPro are not viable enterprise solutions by any stretch of the imagination. Not Rack mount, Single power supply, No LOM, can not be serviced in a rack, not hot swappable drives. each of these things by itself is a deal killer, add them all together and the Mini/Pro idea is a joke not even worth laughing about.
James.
Real Server issues
I manage more a total of 300 Windows and LINUX servers, and we have 7 XServes too. We also have 7 XRAID storage racks.
Real issues are:
- XServe has redundant power supply (MacPro does not)
- XServe and MacPro lack integrated RAID (my $800 DELL has it)
- XServe and MacPro lack real LOM (via Safari - not TELNET TERMINAL)
- Mini lack of PCI slot for FC-SAN is a no go
- MacPro lacks LOM and RAID, and is too big also (we just bought 35 1-U servers)
In on word, Xserve desperately needed a refresh - and Apple decided that it's not worth doing. So far so good (still sad though).
Unfortunately, neither MacPro nor Mini (I have a Mini server at home) are real datacenter machines. Possible solutions:
- Apple releases OSX server core (without GUI) for IBM or HP hardware
- Apple delivers disk image for VmWare (this would be my preferred choice)
We had the AIX server, and Apple's servers are great machines in every respect.
I manage more a total of 300 Windows and LINUX servers, and we have 7 XServes too. We also have 7 XRAID storage racks.
Real issues are:
- XServe has redundant power supply (MacPro does not)
- XServe and MacPro lack integrated RAID (my $800 DELL has it)
- XServe and MacPro lack real LOM (via Safari - not TELNET TERMINAL)
- Mini lack of PCI slot for FC-SAN is a no go
- MacPro lacks LOM and RAID, and is too big also (we just bought 35 1-U servers)
In on word, Xserve desperately needed a refresh - and Apple decided that it's not worth doing. So far so good (still sad though).
Unfortunately, neither MacPro nor Mini (I have a Mini server at home) are real datacenter machines. Possible solutions:
- Apple releases OSX server core (without GUI) for IBM or HP hardware
- Apple delivers disk image for VmWare (this would be my preferred choice)
We had the AIX server, and Apple's servers are great machines in every respect.
There's a 99% probability that due to Apple's cult of secrecy the people who gave you the presentation are shocked as well. (And possibly job-hunting - if you axe all of your enterprise hardware, you no longer need enterprise sales and marketing.)
XSAN is software, but the XServe RAID disk arrays were discontinued a long time ago. XSAN is still listed in the Apple online store.
If you'd done any kind of checking, you'd have seen many stories saying that Pixar is a Linux shop.
Bandwidth is a big concern too.
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Woah. I barely managed to get two Xserves into our 400-box datacenter. And that was with a lot of ass-kissing and promises that Apple swears that they're serious about the enterprise, and the next version will be enterprise-compliant. Mac mini isn't a serious server, and I'm never going to get a hulking Mac Pro in there.
NetBoot: gone
Open Directory: gone
My entire workstation management infrastructure: gone
I'm so incredibly screwed. Paris Hilton-screwed. Blood test and anti-biotics screwed. The only way I'm not is if they allow Server to be virtualized on top of non-Apple boxen.
NetBoot: gone
Open Directory: gone
My entire workstation management infrastructure: gone
I'm so incredibly screwed. Paris Hilton-screwed. Blood test and anti-biotics screwed. The only way I'm not is if they allow Server to be virtualized on top of non-Apple boxen.
There's a good discussion at: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/11/xserve-gets-put-down-in-january-2011-mac-pro-server-takes-its-place.ars?comments=1#comments-bar as to what a monumentally stupid decision this is.
This sucks. They were supposed to be upgrading XRaids and they never did and now this. I can understand that storage is getting so small that even the "Blade" form factor is beginning to get antiquated but there are still companies that need lots and lots of CPUs and RAM in a small space. Th Mac Pro tower is not helpful and at this point I haven't seen many good ways to stack Mac minis.
Looks like you are eating crap for trusting Apple in Enterprise level.
What you have is an example of why apple is not in the enterprise and bussines market for computers. No one trust any road maps Apple puts out. No one trust Apple not to screw them over with some change just months down the road.
Ending the Xserver just made it worse.
It just another nail in the coffin for apple in the business world.
Time for people to start *nixing and using open source frame works. Scary stuff but Netboot is a must for us!
Considering Apple can't even standardize on a monitor connector for more than 3 months in a row, we shouldn't be surprised.
Well, first off, in Terminal you can do everything (and much, much more) that you can do in the UI and way much faster (and I'm not talking about the typing speed, I'm talking about lunching processes without the lag of the Finder App). Have you ever tried to lunching a copy of a 30GB folder from the Finder vs from a Terminal command? Don't be shy, try it, you'll understand...
P.S. I know you're a Terminal user
Amen. I work in a clinical environment, and our Xserves are stuffed to the grills with highly confidential patient records, images and recordings. I can't put that on the cloud - hell, it's not even allowed outside the (encrypted) network.
I saw some of this conversation earlier, but not the build up for this; so excuse me for stepping in somewhat blind...
Casper/JSS creates a ssh account while imaging and manages all administrative processes via said account through a bundle of apps installed for the purpose of administration.
I will admit, the whole thing is pretty slick -- especially when you add in the ongoing client management features, ability to schedule updates or app deployment via policies, ability to scope network segments, utilize smart lists, create dynamic install configurations and so much more.
Deploystudio is a really fantastic tool for deploying images. Casper is a really fantastic tool for deploying images and then handling ongoing administration (including scheduling reimaging) down the road.
I'm currently handling 54 schools across a fair sized city (our Mac population is minuscule compared to our Windows population... 1000 odd Macs to 14000 odd Dells), and handling it all on a 1st gen Xserve as our OD master, a G5 Mac Pro as a second OD box, an '08 Xserve for JSS, MySQL, AFP and some other tools and a new Xserve for Netboot and SUS.
The new Xserve was just racked in the last two weeks (so I could split netboot and SUS off the initial). But that single Xserve and I refreshed 70% of our Macs this summer and deployed close to 100 new Macbooks by ourselves.
Not bad...
Back to the subject at hand... I'm really hoping Apple is about to open virtualization on vanilla hardware. 'Cause there's slim to no chance of dragging Mac Pros in the server room (that G5 is unwanted as it is)...
So, you're basically saying, I brought it on myself. For doing everything that is industry-standard, best-practice in the Mac world.
Presumably you would have me roll my own solution and then have to maintain it myself. Or trust some rag-tag bunch of geeks won't get bored and abandon their little projects.
Or, that I should never have bothered to manage 1000 Mac workstations. I should just do everything in Complete Opposite Land: give all users admin access; a free-for-all on software, whether licensed or otherwise; let support engineers rebuild every machine by hand, starting with the install DVD.
You say "no one" as if you speak for everyone. You don't. If you're so informed, where are your solutions to these problems? Clearly you've come up with non-Apple solutions to managing Apple workstations, because you're so adamant that "no one trust(s) Apple". You must have seen this coming. So, where are they? It's all very well to stand there and snicker, wben you don't have anything to actually contribute.