Submitted by “Recently, I had a chance to sit down with a few folks from Apple who gave me a guided tour of Apple’s upcoming server operating system, which is slated for release sometime in the spring of 2007. Mac OS X Server 10.5, or Leopard, will be the seventh release of the server operating system since 2000 and the second version to run natively on Intel processors.”
Sounds like the new XServe could be a very competitive box in the server market. Especially the pricing. The Server Maintenance package for $999 is pretty sweet when you think about that fact that you could potentially get the next three releases of OSX server for the price of one. Also, that fact that it will now actually be a true Unix, not Unix-based can only help them in the high-end/mission critical server market.
Who here uses OS X on their servers?
Apple employees do not count.
I recently met a guy through work that uses osx server for about half of the servers deployed in his place of employment (it is a decent size company) and he loves them, he said there were a few odds and ends things to get used to when they switched over but it has been a couple years now and he has nothing but good to say about them.
this is rather ironic really because recently i have been tossing around the idea getting an xserve but i didn’t know anybody that had experience with them so i was a little reluctant to take the dive.
Nobody, they’re just too pretty for a server room.
We do.
Beats the hell out of “inst” (IRIX 6.5).
$100k and a PhD.
http://ussg.iu.edu/usail/man/irix/inst.1.html
http://freeware.sgi.com/
http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/6.5inst.html
I went to a OS X 10.5 Leopard Server preview last week and it is finally going to live up to it’s hype.
(not that hype is a *bad* thing
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/more.html
hylas
we do at my work, granted, we’re a pretty small business, but we have 2. one is a host for about 16 TB of xRAIDs, ftp server, and print server. the other is a mail server, file server, web server (with php and sql).
had a problem with the second one (dual xeon), where it would boot into a kernel panic after the firmware upgrade, but a reinstall fixed it, otherwise, everything is running swell.
edit: added a couple things, fixed spelling
Edited 2006-12-07 20:13
Deleted.
Edited 2006-12-08 01:55
I work at a university and I run the Xservers on top of my Oracle duties.
My six years as McSoft sys admin was pure hell from NDOS, to NT4 to 2k and then 2k3. Patch – reboot – patch reboot – … and hope to hell one pacth didn’t crap the server.
On the Xserver, once you understand the logic and work flow it is an absolutely sweet system and a breeze to manage.
Some people just talk while the rest of us actually get work done with our X and Linux servers.
Edited 2006-12-08 04:22
from the article: Leopard server promises to be an exciting release with many new features for both the enterprise and small-business environments. Keep an eye out for more reports as the release date draws near.
Yeah, it’s a gorgeous OS. Question to Apple, where is the “small office” hardware? It’s either a dual-proc Xeon workstation or a dual-proc Xserve. A small 10 person office has no need for that. Run it on a Mac mini you say? Not an option. Needs more disk space, more “space” for heat dissipation, the ability for a RAID 1 setup and the option of a internal tape or at least more ports out the back then the Mini has. Not to mention, if you tell the pointy haired types you’re going to be running their data storage on a Mac Mini you’ll get chucked out the door.
Servers don’t need to be gorgeous.
Well, gorgeous not necessarily in the sense of looks, but pure application strength. My aterm sure isn’t gorgeous
Heh. Fair enough.
No, aterm can be made gorgeous too.
Try a custom theme and translucent console background.
Buy a low-end MacPro tower and OS X Server separately and install it yourself. Done deal. A small office wouldn’t have a rack for the XServes anyways.
I would look to install one of these in the SMB enviroment. When you look at the cost of purchasing a similar server and SBS Premium 2003 R2 through Dell, the apple prices seem to be pretty competitive.
just don’t expect to be able to hear yourself talk in that smb office of yours once you setup of these puppies…
we have a few of them in our network, but they’re fairly limited in their use, basically dealing with the public computing mac clusters, software licensing and such from what I understand. not really that great for real server usage though, particularly if you’re using something that requires a decent file system on it. HFS just doesn’t cut it for that type of usage. what you’re getting is basically a bsd/unix-like OS, with the option of a pretty gui on a machine that’ll likely be running headless anyhow. not a bad thing, but you can easily get much the same deal with a cheap linux box instead, and one might say with higher quality (I’m talking server usage here, not desktop) e.g. better file system’s support, easier to get X random package working and running (apt-get install whatever, or yum install foo), etc.
Personally, I think the new Sun servers are prettier.
http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/x4100
Yes, but you can’t run garageband to play your creations when the disk is full.
Suns always had beautiful hardware.
Can anyone tell me if its possible to securely (ie at least password protected) expose services like the wiki server, ical server, spotlight server, file server and so on? (I’m presuming the email server can use authenticated smtp)
thanks!
There should be support for .htaccess at the very least.
Best handled over the network using a VPN. Look into OpenVPN and PPTP.
now that mac is on intel I would like Apple to have the same kind of variety that you have with HP or Dell. I don’t want a mac mini and I can’t afford a mac pro. More power than I need but what a nice box! Can’t we have a mac pro form factor with mac mini specs?
Why would you want a box 20x bigger than a Mac mini, but with Mac mini specs?
Unless you want to change the graphics card…
“Why would you want a box 20x bigger than a Mac mini, but with Mac mini specs?
Unless you want to change the graphics card…”
so you can fit in more hard disks and a tape drive, how much better a graphics card do you need? i dont want it for games! its a server!
No one said anything about games. All those things you can add to a Mac-Mini with Firewire. If you can’t tolerate the slower speed (after all you are running a server) you probably don’t want a Mac-mini in the first place.
“All those things you can add to a Mac-Mini with Firewire.”
can you get an eSata card for the mini? That is a lot fast than firewire 400.
I have been like most people waiting to see them in some networks but after having them in action I can say that I prefer them over any windows 2k3 system and look forward to Leopard now I still run Linux as my spam filters and gateways. I have to admit that OSX server on the backend is something to noted.
I know that you can install ldap and install a gui makes a huge difference when it comes to our MS-babies who have had the unfortunate experience of a MS only world. The unix certification will open doors for Leopard, and the potential for 3 possible upgrades in the support contract is great because unlike microsoft 5 year gap apple actually delivers OS’s
unlike microsoft 5 year gap apple actually delivers OS’s
Windows 2000 in 1999
Windows 2003 in 2003
Windows 2003 R2 in 2005/2006.
No R2 was more like a service pack far from a new OS! don’t mistake the 10.2 10.3 for service packs. Which is truly what r2 was service packs all rolled into what is known as R2
something we PC users are used to.
something we PC users are used to.
what is your point?
Just as a thought for those of you who would like a cheaper box to run the software; keep in mind that in another year or so the 10.6 software will require more from the hardware, so buying a cheap box now will not help to future-proof your investment. So that XServe you think is ‘too much’ for your needs now will end up ‘just right’ 18 months from now, AND you won’t have to buy another box.
If you are worried about your server sitting idle or being under utilized for the time being – let it run one of the @Home modules in its idle time and contribute to the global good. (albeit this isn’t, strictly speaking, good practice on a server, but in a low load environment… why not? (there are a hundred reasons, i know))