Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Planning New Server Farm in North Carolina

Would you look at that? Tax breaks to incentivize business. I wonder if that kind of thinking applied to oh, your regular ordinary citizen taxpayer would work too?
 
jackbenimble4 said:
This is what's wrong with our government.

Subsidization distorts natural market forces and creates monopolies, the same monopolies people then cry for regulation of.
Click to expand...

Don't be silly. No "natural market" exists in the world of web and software services. Saying "no" to Apple just mean Google or Microsoft will say yes to someplace else.

We're not talking about mom and Pop. They got bought up a long time ago. When dealing with big corporations, extolling the free market only results in a contest between a few corporations for market control. How free is that?
 
simon-says said:
Isn't North Carolina always in the path of a hurricane or tropical storm yearly? Is it the wisest choice for a server farm location?
Click to expand...

The eastern third of North Carolina sticks out in the Atlantic and often bears the brunt of flodding brought on by hurricanes. This facility looks to be located in the western region of the state, some distance from Charlotte, where it is hllly if not mountainous. The danger poaed by hurricanes there is flooding.
 
simon-says said:
Isn't North Carolina always in the path of a hurricane or tropical storm yearly? Is it the wisest choice for a server farm location?
Click to expand...

North Carolina stretches from the Atlantic to the Appalachians. Apple is reportedly looking at an area about 300 miles inland from the coast.

I wouldn't worry about a hurricane there. Just Interstate highways linking East/West and North/South. A pretty ideal location.

Also, the second biggest banking center is just a short drive away in Charlotte. And the famed Research Triangle Park (CISCO, Sony, etc) near Raleigh is not that far either.
 
i hope that apple is doing this. they need to be doing this. we all know that their mobileme services need a little something more, and this would help
 
gustheprimate said:
Don't be silly. No "natural market" exists in the world of web and software services. Saying "no" to Apple just mean Google or Microsoft will say yes to someplace else.

We're not talking about mom and Pop. They got bought up a long time ago. When dealing with big corporations, extolling the free market only results in a contest between a few corporations for market control. How free is that?
Click to expand...

And providing tax breaks to corporations somehow prevents a system with only a few corporations battling for market control?

Maybe I'm just dull-witted, but you're not making sense. Competition is desirable. I would much rather have corporations competing than one single government-granted monopoly.
 
Saladinos said:
Moot. Apple isn't really a services company, and one of the great things about the company is that it knows what its market is.

Microsoft, for example, thought the internet wouldn't amount to anything and were caught on the back foot when it took off, so they went overboard on their internet services - introducing services such as MSN that really don't feed in to their core market of operating systems. MSN has gone through numerous organisational upheavals as it haemorrhages cash. Microsoft still don't understand their core market, and through "Windows Live", have still been trying desperately to make internet services a part of their market.

Windows Live started off sounding great, and it reached its peak when we got the first working demos of Photosynth. Since then, it's been diluted and gone through yet more organisational shifts and Microsoft simply fails to accept the idea that they are not an internet services company and it has nothing to do with their market.

Apple haven't fallen in to the same trap. They have the iTunes store, which has been positioned as a key part of the iPod/iPhone product. In that case, the internet service is treated as a tool (i.e. it's only available inside the iTunes application. The web aspect of it is hidden), and it's a direct part of Apple's market. .Mac didn't take off because it was a world away from Apple's market. They brought it closer in line with MobileMe, but it's still weak when you consider how it ties in to the Mac market.

Hopefully this isn't a sign that they're going to launch new services further from their market.

Remember the four M's: Market, Market, Market, Market.
Click to expand...

They have done some stuff right. Skydrive is great. They give you 25Gb and it actually works great. Live sync is not that bad. Isn't hotmail the biggest email provider?
 
$1B is a lot of cash to spend, even over 9 years. That buys a hell of a lot of hardware. Is this a typical amount to spend on setting up a new data centre/server farm? It seems abnormally large to me.

If I am right, and it is unusually large, it suggests they are preparing for a new massive growth market/service which would suggest some kind of movement in the mobile/portable arena. Perhaps storing all media online to be accessed from anywhere on any device? That would surely need a monster of a server farm.
 
robinp said:
$1B is a lot of cash to spend, even over 9 years. That buys a hell of a lot of hardware. Is this a typical amount to spend on setting up a new data centre/server farm? It seems abnormally large to me.

If I am right, and it is unusually large, it suggests they are preparing for a new massive growth market/service which would suggest some kind of movement in the mobile/portable arena. Perhaps storing all media online to be accessed from anywhere on any device? That would surely need a monster of a server farm.
Click to expand...

I think the 1B is total $ spent in 9 years. Some for the building(s) that has to be like a fortress, made to survive most acts of god. Some more for connectivity to the internet backbone. Hardware, software, systems management, staff, training, backup generators, wiring, racks, power supplies, fire suppression systems, etc. Thats all before startup. Once in operation, Staff, electricity, systems upkeep, etc. Over 9 years it adds up.
 
1B$ over 9 years is not a lot

robinp said:
$1B is a lot of cash to spend, even over 9 years. That buys a hell of a lot of hardware. Is this a typical amount to spend on setting up a new data centre/server farm? It seems abnormally large to me.

If I am right, and it is unusually large, it suggests they are preparing for a new massive growth market/service which would suggest some kind of movement in the mobile/portable arena. Perhaps storing all media online to be accessed from anywhere on any device? That would surely need a monster of a server farm.
Click to expand...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/data_centers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403723

Inside Microsoft's $550 Million Mega Data Centers

A tour of Microsoft's gargantuan, under-construction San Antonio data center reveals a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure on an immense scale.​

14P1010001_full.JPG
16P1010004_full.JPG
5IMG_0843_full.jpg



These server rooms literally have aisles for driving semi-truck sized containers in to bring the computers into the room.

The building is 475,000 square feet - about 11 acres (4.4 ha), or 10 American football fields.
 
winmacguy said:
Coal fired is NOT carbon friendly, wind and solar are.
Click to expand...

Wind is not all its made out to be, if we went for it massively wouldn't the resistance eventually stop the world from turning ? I'm not saying it wouldnt take a long time......but it could happen couldn't it ?
 
mrfrosty said:
Wind is not all its made out to be, if we went for it massively wouldn't the resistance eventually stop the world from turning ? ...
Click to expand...

According to NASA the earth's winds do affect the earth's spin, sometimes adding a fraction of a millisecond to a given day. Perhaps the added resistance of a bazillion wind farms would help us regain some part of that thousandth of a second. Or maybe we could raise massive legions of trained butterflies to act as a counterbalance. ;)
 
iGarth said:
Why do people consider Google a giant relative to Apple? It's a rhetorical question, I know why, it's because people haven't adjusted to the fact Apple is no longer struggling and is extremely successful...

Just to prove the point, relative Market Caps:
Apple = $109Bn
Google = $124Bn
Microsoft = $175Bn
Click to expand...

Where is Michael Dell's Dell mkt cap? Anyone else who is a Windows user and bashes the Apple fanboys, better check above numbers and see what is considered a successful company. I would not be surprised that Microsofts number will only go down hill some more.

:eek:
 
organerito said:
Isn't hotmail the biggest email provider?
Click to expand...


I used to have a hotmail account which I have not used in about 8 years or more. I remember things that people sent and never got there. This has happened several times with Hotmail and thus, I stopped using it.

Is it just me or did someone else also had the experience of things disappearing or not getting there with Hotmail?
 
*LTD* said:
It will be called The Orchard.

Apple: Web Services done right. Finally.
Click to expand...

Cute name, but Apple has never gotten web services right in the many many many years they've tried. Unless Steve-O has gotten some special epiphany while on break, I see no reason to expect that to change.

Still, a mobile-me service that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg (how DOES Google do it, BTW), lets you share the content on your harddrive at home effortlessly, and provides off-site backup for the 500GB - 1TB of your photos, home movies, and important documents would be worth paying something for...
 
AtlasBoy said:
I don't think the article said it would contain Apple xServe servers. My assumption is that it will house whatever type servers they need to run their stuff.
Click to expand...

If Jobs has any say in it, I'm pretty sure that it would run on Xserves. At least on several occasions in past, Apple showed that they often "eat their own dog food". Why actually usability of their products doesn't suck as much as of rest of the industry.
 
Apple wouldn't be that stupid...

philips said:
If Jobs has any say in it, I'm pretty sure that it would run on Xserves.
Click to expand...

Is this the Steve Jobs who used to be the head of Apple? He's not there anymore, in case you haven't noticed.

The Xserve is a toy - a severely constrained 1U two socket server. It would be OK for the web server tier (scale out) of a datacenter - but for the application and database tiers you'd need some serious memory and IO capability. The Xserve doesn't have it.

Nobody should care if Apple is using HP or IBM or Sun servers in their datacenters. Apple doesn't play in the enterprise game - there's no embarrassment in buying from the vendors who do. It would be silly to use a bunch of Xserves if what you need is a 256 CPU HP server with 1 TiB of RAM.
 
AtlasBoy said:
I think the 1B is total $ spent in 9 years. Some for the building(s) that has to be like a fortress, made to survive most acts of god. Some more for connectivity to the internet backbone. Hardware, software, systems management, staff, training, backup generators, wiring, racks, power supplies, fire suppression systems, etc. Thats all before startup. Once in operation, Staff, electricity, systems upkeep, etc. Over 9 years it adds up.
Click to expand...

as I started out... '$1B is a lot to spend, even over 9 years'. I still maintain it is a hell of a big investment
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back