Apple Discontinues Xserve, Only Available Until January 31st

[Eric-PTEK]

I've got a unique perspective as I visit many businesses in a year and get to see their internal network structure. Judging from what I've seen most companies use a standard PC as a server for just QuickBooks or something else they share. If they do have a server it's usually just for sharing files. Very few companies use a server for applications. Cloud computing may seem like a big deal to major corporations but for small-to-medium businesses it's just going to be too expensive.

Apple would be better making the Mac mini server, marketing it to those smaller businesses, and making some money. And that appears to be what they're doing.

Actually the opposite. We install a lot of servers in small businesses, very small businesses, 2-15 employee's. Part for file share but more for running internal applications.

SharePoint 2010, Search Server 2010, SQL, etc...

Enterprise level search for a small business is very interesting to them and you need a local app server.

I'm not big on the whole cloud computing thing, I'd love to find the person who came up with the name and slap them.

Hosted Exchange is a PERFECT cloud app because it is incredibly high cost to run yourself in any business with less than 50 people with a real Exchange admin.

Beyond that....hosted SharePoint is useless for the most part although BPOS does offer more of the high level features turned on than the rest but still lacking. In a hosted environment most of the really useful features cannot be used.

Plus security is still lacking in most cloud initiatives. Google's use policy alone means most should not use it.

I do think Apple will need to come out with something like Windows Home Server and I wish they would. Low powered, low cost, expandable storage, just to host files since Apple is insistent on Aperture libraries and the like being hosted on a AFP share.

 

[trollied]

3- No Blu-ray option for any computers, even if we are willing to pay for it

I can understand why Apple haven't gone with Blu-Ray. The complicated DRM is terrible. Apple are strategically going towards cloud-based media.

4- no USB 3

Light Peak is going to destroy USB3. Intel don't even care about USB3.

Remember that Light Peak can be used to connect just about anything to a computer.

 

[peter2]

Goodbye Apple

Either OS X Server can run on any (virtual) machine, or there will be no OS X Server. In that case, goodbye Apple...

 

[chrono1081]

And Apple continues it's abandonment of pro users.

Yes because I'm sure all pro users like myself have an xserve in the house

 

[Powers]

What don't you use it for

What do you need to do in Terminal? Explain.

When the GUI does not play ball, terminal will over ride. Run scripts that do hundreds of operations in one go across all network Macs. Sorry the GUI does not offer this type of control

 

[RobQuads]

Mac pros can be rackmounted in a 12U 2 at a time:
So, people who needed 1Us have no option now, but 12U racks can use pros.

EDIT: Now that i think about it, the form factor shift made them perfect for 1U racks. I'll bet that was the point.

12U and you get 2 Pros - ouch. You can get over 112 cores in that sort of space with a bladecenter

 

[sirozha]

Many posts here suggest that the fact that Xserve is being discontinued means that Apple is concentrating more on the consumer market than on the enterprise market. I completely disagree with this conclusion. The company I work for (a very profitable insurance company) has a high-priority project to bring Macs, iPads, and iPhones into the sales force by the end of the year. Millions of dollars are being spent on this project. Software is being developed to support iOS devices, and testing is benig done to make sure that the Apple devices are 100% compatible with all systems.

I believe that Apple is concentrating on making Macs and iOS devices work well with the existing corporate infrastructure rather than fighting an uphill battle of pusing their own infrastructure devices (like Xserve) into the enterprise.

In light of recent Gartner advice for Fortune 500 companies to integrate Apple computing devices into the corporate environment, we are about to see an explosion of Apple devices in the enterprise. These devices are client devices (Macs, iPads, iPhones, and possibly iPod Touches); therefore, Apple has shifted its priorities from trying to build a completely isolated ecosystem with its own client and server devices to concentrating on the client devices' interoperability with the existing corporate server-side infrastructure running Unix, Linux, and Windows servers.

 

[DTphonehome]

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Well Apple is seriously trying to kill itself, isn't it?

I would sell AAPL as fast as humanly possible, Steve thinks they are going to be a consumer device company and has 0 loyalty to the people that helped Apple get here.

Where I work we have probably spent well north of $1 million on Apple stuff, and this is the final straw, we are moving everything to Windows. Apple will not see another penny from us.

And since I no longer will be using a mac to do my work, I see no need to continue to use a mac for other stuff either. I see no reason to keep my iPad when there are plenty of good Android tablets coming, I see no reason to continue to use an iPhone if there are good android devices out there. I don't need to integrate with any Apple products anymore because Apple said they aren't interested in the "pro" market.

Just a warning though Apple, not too long ago there was this company called Sony that was like you are now, the absolute dominant player in the portable entertainment market. But now look at them, they are a shadow of their former selves. However, Sony had a lot of other businesses to fall back on when times got tough, the rate you are going you are going to turn your back on those same industries. However consumers are a fickle bunch and they will eventually turn their back on you and you, unlike Sony, will have nothing to fall back on.

Farewell, I look forward to hearing your bankruptcy proceedings in a few years.

Hey chicken little, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[rmwebs]

You do know that Linux and OSX are both from UNIX?

YES. If you dont know you're a pretty piss poor Apple fan.

I've used Darwin a fair amount, and as a server manager I can tell you OS X is NOT a server operating system and never will be. It's a nightmare to get anything to work on it. Just not worth the time when you can get CentOS up and running on there in a few seconds.

 

[apolloa]

Good, I'm glad they've done this as maybe now they can fix OSX and Safari to make them work properly rather then blame everyone else (cough adobe) all the friggin time! Just fix the stupid massive memory leak in Safari for one!

 

[Ted13]

The issue is that Mini's have a non-standard form factor, as well as 2.5" HDD's that are non-user upgradable. They're not designed in any sense of the word for server racks.

Business opportunity -- build a rack-mount that will hold 4 to 12 MacMinis in a single 1U enclosure -- have ethernet ports on the back of the rack itself with extenders going to the back of the Minis. Power strip inside the rack, with a single plug going out (or dual, for redundancy).

You will get a better maximum performance with improved redundancy, likely at a lower price then. If a HDD dies, you swap out the entire Mini for a spare, ship of the dead one to AppleCare. It is doable, you just need to ever so slightly adjust your mindset.

 

[Eric-PTEK]

Do us all a favour and google it

Obviously they use Win Server for their main stuff, but DNS is all handled by Linux boxes.

Windows Server isn't good enough for enterprise use when it comes to DNS.

Well do us a favor and explain what that REALLY means:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/08/17/wwwmicrosoftcom_runs_linux_up_to_a_point_.html

MS outsources a security function to a company that runs Linux.

Nice try, and MS Server runs DNS just fine in the enterprise, I came from a company running around 250K employee's, 100K machines, in 8 countries, all tied together with MS Server with incredible up time.

Anyone who says MS's server products are not rock solid has either never worked with one, or doesn't know how to set one up.

 

[res1233]

12U and you get 2 Pros - ouch. You can get over 112 cores in that sort of space with a bladecenter

Well, mac pros are not exactly designed to be rack mounted servers, and neither are minis, which you for some reason deleted from my post? hmm, anyway, minis are probably the next best thing because of that new 1U rack mount whose link you deleted. As of now however, they don't have a computer designed to be rack mounted.

EDIT: That also begs the question: What on earth is apple using in their datacenter now? Is it still an apple product even? I'm curious.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

In the guide, Apple explains that they will not be developing a future version of the Xserve.The two alternative server solutions include the Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server. Apple provides transition considerations for customers migrating from the Xserve to these products.

I usually don't second-guess Steve, considering that $42B or whatever it is, but, this is a colossal mistake. Those who use Macs in an Enterprise environment need rackmount servers, period. Apple just pulled the rug out from underneath all the Admins and Enterprise Architects who were telling management that OS X is "serious". The fallout is going to be many fewer laptops sold in Business.

 

[mdatwood]

Thats the point : the *average* user, and the average user only. Anyone else need not apply.

Its depressing to see OSX becoming marginalized.

LTD - do you consider yourself an average user?

This is a great point. Who are 'average' users? Are they the early adopters who tell their friends about this cool new device that everyone will want? Are they the people who hack away and write cool new software for said device? Are they the ones who loudly evangelize for Apple at every opportunity?

By shutting out the base of non-average users, Apple is threatening it's entire population of users.

 

[chrono1081]

They DID know what they were doing. They were making major headway in the consumer, enterprise, pro, and casual markets because they offered the complete package. Had Apple continued on it's previous course I think they would have made a huge dent in Microsoft's bottom line and become even richer.

Up until a few weeks ago when they first deprecated Java I was a huge mac fan and evangelist(I've convinced at least 5 people to use the platform) PRECISELY because of that reason.

Now the problem is that it seems success went to Steve's head and he thinks that consumers will stay with him forever. If history is any judge, he is sorely mistaken.

Realistically, outside of Macrumors, most people and businesses won't even notice that the xserve is gone. Really.

As for Java, Apple handed the reigns over to Oracle which should have been done long ago. No one seems to be bitching that apple was a release behind at all times, but now that Oracle updates it which will be faster there is suddenly huge problems. That makes no sense to me. Oracle is not going to abandon Java for Mac. If they did, I'm pretty sure Apple would pick it back up.

As for history, read about it. Steve got fired. It had nothing to do with fans abandoning him. The new CEO ran the company into the ground and Steve brought it back to where it is today.

 

[DTphonehome]

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Your post is useless for anything more than flame bating.

Really?
Show me anyone who uses an air for anything other than as a fashion accessory or very lightweight stuff.
It's useless for anything serious.

The 13" has 90% of the power of a 13" MacBook pro. People get plenty of "serious" work done on those.

 

[foidulus]

yeah, foolish people buying that Apple stock. Have you watched that stock price in the last decade? Financial analysts the world over would probably disagree with you here.

Just because Apple discontinues a poorly selling, overpriced enterprise product, does not mean you should feel bad about implementing Mac systems into your enterprise. If I was your IT Director or CIO, I would NEVER have allowed you to purchase such overpriced and underpowered hardware in the first place. It isn't a necessary component of the infrastructure for supporting the Mac end user...it just isn't.

As far as worrying about developing software, etc, for the platform....I don't think you need to worry. There is no way in hell you will develop anything that is so groundbreaking or revolutionary that it won't be obsolete in the next five years (this is not a personal attack on you or your creativity or programming skills, just the nature of the tech industry), so I hardly doubt that you need to worry about investing time/resources at this point only to see Apple abandon you ten years down the road (or whatever this time frame would be) at a point when the issue would be moot anyway.

We first went XServe in the powerpc era where that was really the only way we could get good compatibility with our existing products. After the intel transition Apple actually kept the XServe relatively competitively priced and had a decent server offering. It's really only until recently that the XServe has become overpriced.

Open directory is infinitely less of a pain than Active Directory when you only have Mac and Linux boxes on your network and the XServes have proven themselves to be a lot more reliable than the POS Dells we use for our Linux boxes. It's also easier to manage than any Linux LDAP setup, but there is simply no way we can accommodate having 30 mac pros in our racks(not all of those are OD servers mind you, but thats roughly how many XServes we have).

As part of our overall strategy the XServe was a perfect fit. We have over 200 users and don't really need a permanent sys admin because the fact that OS X is unix and much more stable than Windows gave us an edge. However, if Apple is unwilling to make any commitments for more than 3 months then it's impossible to continue to use Apple because we cannot constantly be redesigning our hardware configuration and software platforms every time Apple decides on a whim to discontinue a platform.

As per not being able to make anything that lasts 5 years, the code we run has been in production(with enhancements along the way of course) for over 20 years now.

 

[bizzle]

EOL'd and still the same price. Only Apple!

 

[DTphonehome]

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AAPL will be bankrupt before the end of the decade.

Put your money where your mouth is and short the stock then.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Thats the point : the *average* user, and the average user only. Anyone else need not apply. Thats the way things are going.

Its depressing to see OSX becoming marginalized. OSX will exist only to support iOS - a very narrow tunnel vision of the world.

LTD - do you consider yourself an average user?

This is what we were talking about in 06, Apple had in the past dictated what consumers wanted, and gave the pros a little of what we needed. Now I see that Apple does listen to the pro market still, but is very slow to react.

The consumers will be feed what they need to hear and see. It's successful, not arguing that at all.

But as Apple grows with iOS and Core2Duo chips in 2010 laptops that higher end market will start to see updates being pushed back further.

I am still tending the wound I got from FCS 3.0 and although it runs far better than Premier CS5, the later has killed the need to spend hours rendering and transcoding, which is what we asked for, not direct upload to Mobile Me.

 

[Popeye206]

Sad, but makes sense. XServe is not their market. To really win in this area you need to have a well organized corporate support team and that is just not Apple's focus.

I think this is good. It will allow them to focus on more toys for the rest of us. Let IBM and others have the server space. You have to pick your playing field and Apple's is definitely in consumer computing and mobile computing.

Party on!

 

[xper]

This is really really sad, this news did not kill my company but it effectively made it a support company, we are a small company and i want to keep it that way but we need more servers and the only options is Linux based but this means that staff that made new products now have to make a small "it team" managing those new servers.

What makes me really sad is that OS X Server is so freaking easy and i can only imagine how good it would have been if Apple focused more on it, i dream of a qmaster cluster but for the web, imagine a bonjour aware setup for scaling your webcluster with webservers, databaseclusters, memcacheclusters and an Apple branded next gen storage system like the Dell Equallogic series, that would be so incredible nice, all with its own loadbalacing and managing of files and databases for redundancy and so on.

 

[henryhbk]

Nice, someone on these forums with a common sense.

+1

I'd be happy to show you xserve's in the wild. They're right across the hall in our datacenter. A mac mini or time capsule isn't going to serve my entire department's backup needs with multiple raid, 2 ethernets and redundant hardware. It's true that our subversion server could happily live on redhat, but time machine server is a key feature of the xserve (yes we could somehow put mac pro's in the room, but that is TOTALLY the wrong form factor. Anyone who has a real data center has racks. period. Don't get me wrong, I love my mac pro, but it's under a desk, not stacked up with some rack-mount raids, and other hardware.

As for the mac mini server, we have one, and under heavy IO or major crunching (say a build) it completely chokes. Great little low-volume web/mysql server though.

 

[sirozha]

EOL'd and still the same price. Only Apple!

Do you know what you are talking about? I don't think so. Cisco, for one, does the same thing.