MacProServer
Latest
Xserve End Of Life: Some opinions and ideas about Apple's server strategy
As an Apple Consultants Network member who has installed his share of Apple Xserves, I have mixed emotions about Apple's decision today to pull the plug on the only "real" server that they've been selling. On the one hand, Apple hasn't been selling a lot of the pricey pizza boxes to big business, so it makes sense that Apple would simply re-purpose existing products -- the Mac mini and Mac Pro -- as servers. On the other hand, I think it sends mixed signals to the enterprise market about Apple's commitment to business. Apple Senior World Product Marketing Manager Eric Zelenka stated in a post to the Xsanity forums that Apple is still committed to the server products, technologies, and devices, and that the decision to kill the Xserve has no impact on future Xsan or Mac OS X Server development. I'm wondering if that's just a lot of marketing-speak to try to calm down admins who have a huge investment in Mac OS X Server, Xsan, and Xserves. According to our own Victor Agreda, who is at MacTech 2010 this week, many Mac IT admins feel that the Mac OS X Server flavor of Mac OS X is safe for the time being. I'm not so sure -- read more of my personal thoughts on the next page.
Mac Pro Server quietly introduced as Xserve heads for the grave, starts at $3,000
Sneaky Apple... real sneaky. Just as the company announced that it would be axing its rack-mountable Xserve come January 31st, in flies an all-new Mac Pro to effectively take its place. The Mac Pro Server -- which is slated to ship in "two to four weeks" -- has joined the fray this morning on Apple's website, with the workstation equipped with a single 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Xeon 'Nehalem' processor, 8GB (4 x 2GB) of DDR3 ECC SDRAM, a pair of 1TB (7200RPM) hard drives, one 18x SuperDrive, ATI's Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory, and a fresh copy of Mac OS X Server (the unlimited-client license version, for those wondering). Curiously enough, this marks the second time Apple has thrown a "server edition" into the mix, with the Mac mini Server popping up in June. As you'd expect, the $2,999 base price can be pushed far north by slapping in a pair of 2.93GHz six-core 'Westmere' chips (a modest $3,475 increase), 32GB of RAM (only an extra $3,400), a Mac Pro RAID card (pocket change at $700) and a quad-channel 4Gb fibre channel PCIe card (just an extra grand). But hey, financing is available! [Thanks, Adrian]
