Apple Servers Deserve More Publicity, Fail to Generate Media Buzz

Marketing plays a major role in determining whether potential customers will buy certain product or service by appealing to their wants and needs. Apple has neglected promoting its line of Mac-based server solutions to the point of being completely irrelevant in the server marketplace. There is simply not enough news about Apple Servers in the media.

Here at Palluxo!, we even wanted to discontinue “Mac Servers” news category from our web site. It’s a category containing the least number of news posts, not because of our lack of interest - but because of Apple’s failure to generate enough media buzz about its server solutions. 

The iPhone 3G, iPods, and the App Store still remain Apple’s leading news breakers. Apple’s product line of servers includes XServe, XSan, Mac Pro, and Mac OS X Server. Here is a quick overview of each server solution from Apple. They certainly deserve more publicity due to their top of the line quality, simplicity, and performance.

Xserve is the name of Apple’s 1U rackmount line of server computers. When the Xserve was introduced in 2002, it was Apple’s first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Servers of 1996. It initially featured one or two PowerPC G4 processors, but was later switched over to the new PowerPC G5, and now runs on two quad-core Xeon CPUs. The Xserve can be used for a variety of applications, including file server, web server or even high-performance computing applications using clustering - a dedicated cluster Xserve, the Xserve Cluster Node, without a video card and optical drives was also available.

Xsan is Apple’s shared disk file system for Mac OS X. Xsan enables multiple Mac desktop and Xserve systems to access shared block storage over a FibreChannel network. With the Xsan file system installed, these computers can read and write to the same storage volume at the same time. Xsan is a complete SAN solution which includes the metadata controller software, the file system client software, and integrated setup, management and monitoring tools.

The Mac Pro is a workstation computer based on an Intel 5400 chipset (formerly Intel 5000X chipset) and Xeon microprocessors. When configured with Mac OS X Server, the Mac Pro is a powerful SMB (’Server Message Block’) server solution. The Mac Pro was formally announced on August 7, 2006 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), while on January 8, 2008 Apple unveiled the first 3.2 GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon (Harpertown 45nm) -based Mac Pro.

Mac OS X Server is Apple’s UNIX server operating system. Based on the same architecture as Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server includes additional services, applications and administration tools for managing and deploying servers. Mac OS X Server is included on Xserver; it is also sold separately for use on Apple desktop computers including Mac Pro, iMac and Mac mini. Mac OS X Server is available in 10-client and Unlimited-client editions. Client restrictions apply only to simultaneous file-sharing services for Mac and PC clients. It is commonly found in small business, education and large enterprise organizations.