News Apple kills off Xserve server range

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2010/11/05/apple-concedes-server-defeat/1

 

I never knew Apple even made servers.

 

"The Xserve range was sold at a significant price premium over competing x86 server ranges from Dell, HP, and others, and while there was no denying its aesthetic appeal Apple missed a key point: servers are traditionally hidden where nobody can see them."

Sums the whole thing up really. I'm not surprised at all.

 

so does this mean that apple won't be working on osx server anymore? this will be a disappointment since apple JUST allowed virtualbox to use osx server in it and now they might ditch it, so what are we left with?

if apple stuck with PPC, their servers would do soooo much better. x86 is not ideal for servers, its too limited. ppc, sparc, and cuda are the best for servers.

what shocks me is how bit-tech says apple's servers are too expensive. for an x86 server, yes i'm sure its immensely overpriced, but ibm servers are RIDICULOUSLY expensive. but, ibm's servers are a lot more reliable.

i'm not really sure why apple bothered to make servers, because as far as i'm aware, osx server still uses the same basic desktop that regular mac has, it just doesn't have the same programs. that basically means you get an os spending a lot of resources on the GUI, which doesn't matter. i'm sure mac's servers are also a lot more restricting than linux or even windows servers.

the really interesting thing is, what will apple be using for their own servers if they stop making their own?

 

If you'd read it properly the article answers your question:

And how come you think Apple's servers are reasonably priced? While we migrated file servers at my former job some people asked us to evaluate Apple's offering as well. We had a good laugh and moved on.

 

Good riddance.

Needlessly pretty boxes.

 

At last.

 

The Xserve wasn't actually too badly priced and, when paired with an Xraid, was an excellent file server. We used several of them at the publishing and design firm I used to work for. Not that I'd recommend them for any company that wasn't heavily Mac based to start with. And all our webservers were 1U HP boxes running Linux (which our developers kept calling Blades, bless 'em).

Skip forward to now and the Xserve has been discontinued for years, Apple is pushing Xsan and the Mac Pro is far more capable than the Xserve. Goodbye redundant product. Xserve, you will be missed. Just not for long.

 

Such a shame they didn't introduce ZFS in Snow Leopard. That would have given them a great edge.

 

Perhaps purchasers of servers have a bit more sense than apple's usual customers?

 

Honestly who isn't surprised here?

 

@sb1991 +1
Anyway Apple market is clean looking system you can't really tweak, it kinda fell the opposite of server market.

 

Having worked for a manufacturer in pre-press publishing systems, I have seen a lot of companies using servers who are primarily mac based. Very very few used mac servers and those that did were some of the most frequent support calls. Aside from being more expensive than the equivalent competition, they were unreliable and too closed. A file server should do just that, serve files, in an efficient, open and easy manner. Mac servers didn't like anything without a mac badge really.

The worst case of this was one customer who lost ALL their work (TB of the stuff) because when a windows machine was updated with some patches it decided not to let the client complete the changes to it's files on the server, thus borking the lot. Silly apple.

 

I'm sorry, but IBM servers are expensive and not hugely reliable. The rediculous thing about them is the licensing model IBM have. It's about £15k per CPU license last time I checked!

I know, because we've had a P Series sitting in our data centre with hardware sitting there not being used, despite us needing capacity. Absolutely rubbish.

Worth saying that we're replacing these with Windows X86 servers that are hugely cheaper and massively quicker.

Not bothered about OSX servers, but it's a shame with Apple's reputation for producing stable software that they didn't think a little more about their server pricing and design.

 

I noticed the sneaky BSG reference in the subtitle

Apart from that, not really much to add... if they're as closed platform and as expensive as their other products it's not really surprising.

What I do find surprising is that products with inherent disadvantages like this repeatedly make it to market in the first place.

 

hmmm shiny

 

they are still making osx server, just not this hardware, will still be available to order but in a mac pro or mac mini.

osx server is just osx with less gui and more server admin stuff, the main selling point for the mac mini server is unlimited seats, it costs not alot more than microsoft sbs with say 25 cals but you get unlimited cals and the hardware to run it.

most biz are use to exchange and outlook though, so not as easy to configure or as flexible as sbs, blackberry enterprise server as a example doesnt work with mac osx server, its a comprimise thing really, if you know what you are doing and have users who also know what they are doing osx server does almost everything and is very stable, if you have users who dont want change or cant be bothered making a comprimise then sbs still wins hands down.

 

We use an Xserve at work as DC and print server. Love the admin panel, hate the setup!
To get them running the way you want is a pain in the back, but when they run they run good.
Biggest problem is the switch from AD to OD and the way samba works

 

Unsurprising, nobody would use Apple servers over a *NIX/Windows box unless you had a bunch of Mac clients anyway. Looks like its time for those using Xserve to switch away from Apple for their servers.

 

Now please make a Mac Pro that will fit in a rack - for all the people who'd like that, not just server admins. Yes, yes, I know, there's sporadic availability of rack conversion kits for them, but for pete's sake...