The new Developer Transition Resource Center is targeted at developers who have been tasked with moving their applications to Apple’s forthcoming Intel-based Macs, scheduled for release in 2006. The site ties together topics, resources and tutorials, some of which were previously available on other parts of Apple’s site, including QuickTime archives of WWDC sessions. In addition, Apple today updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 7 terabytes of storage capacity at an aggressive price of just $1.86 per GB.
at an aggressive price of just $1.86 per GB
Is this a joke? If Google were using Xserves for its Gmail service, each account would be worth $4,823!
I really dont get your logic there.
Gmail only uses 2.5 gigs that the moment (and growing fast) so each account would only be worth a few dollars.
Also i wouldnt say no to a bit of 7 terabytes of storage.
dude, maybe you should work on your maths.
got a problem with multiplication?
current size of my gmail account: 2.593 GB
2.592*1.86 = $4.823
– Jesse McNelis
but your forgetting one thing.
apple charges 1.86 per GIGABYTE not mb!!! If it was megabyte that would be correct but we are in gigabyte’s here.
Even then we’re talking worst case scenario. Google would probably have lazily-allocated mailbox quotas and model the typical storage needs of their users. Thus while the typical user would have x GB of assigned potential storage, the actual cost per account would be much less as most users don’t use anything near their maximum capacity.
oh i agree. Its very unlikely there will be gigs just sitting around waiting to be filled. Why do you think when you sign up for gmail then can give you a couple of gigs straight away because they know you wont fill it. Its all a clever mathemical plan based on the average size of the mailbox.
The XServes sore there hard drive capacity bumped to 1.5tb (500gb/drive) as well.
“If Google were using Xserves for its Gmail service.”
Actually, I believe they are.
Anyone administered XServes? I haven’t heard any first-hand experiences with it… Will transition from FreeBSD be easy?
I have not, but my old uni used OS X server they were apple mad.
Apple have great documentation on their site on the server itself.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/
I be interested to know what OS X server is like. (yes i have heard the old Linux vs. OS X vs. windows 2003 arguments time and time again) but be interesting to hear from an OS X admin if you’re reading this.
Apple has done very well with Java integration into the OS. Most java apps will work without modification on Intel Macs. However, maybe this will be a good place for Apple to concentrate on really getting a solid j2se 1.5 out there..good enough to be the default jvm on OSX.
Many have indicated that Java performance on OSX isn’t too great, but hopefully Apple can optimize their jvms to run better on Intel chips.
Anyone who understands JVM architecture know the chances of this?
Sign up for an ADC account (Free one even) and download the J2SE 1.5 Preview 1 dmg and test it out.
Maybe this is one of the true reasons for the second great architecture switch:
Maybe Apple won’t be developing internal versions of Java for OSX any longer. Maybe Sun will be doing the porting to x86 OSX as they wouldn’t have to optimize JIT for yet another processor arch, leaving only dealing with purely OS problems.
Price: Anyone that thought that x86 macs would == cheaper was smoking/snorting something.
On the other hand do you seriously think that a company like Google who was/is probably buying 100s of XServes is going to pay the same price that the rest of us schmucks pay? Google probably paid slightly above cost for each XServe, just like in the old days when Apple academic discounts really were discounts. e.g. a IIcx was oh, ~$6k retail, and ~$2k or so through the university… and the University package was FAR more customizable, e.g. strip overpriced memory, overpriced harddrive, overpriced underpowered NuBus video, etc. It’s why I used to love Apple’s build to order in recent years when you really used to be able to strip powermacs of just about everything, but unfortunately not entirely bare, as frankly I would have been just as happy with the case, motherboard, and processor. And geez with x86 I’d be happy with just the case(maybe) and motherboard as every other component would be as of similar quality and lower price from elsewhere. (Oh, and OSX too… they can keep the iApps…)
…that Apple is not doing enough, but I think that they are providing all the tools, and a place to search for answers.
I think they are doing a great job. I am looking forward to an early MacTel and I believe all the apps I use will be ready by then. This is all very exciting.
Now I hope they are able to address the database/webserver performance issue…
If everything you want to do is in the manual, you’ll be mostly ok. If you want to deviate, you’ll get into trouble. I manage 20 Xserves for about 1000 users, and I run into bugs and frustration often. Apple does not quickly release fixes for things they break, also. I am generally NOT happy with OSX as a server os. I’ll be investigating switching away as budget allows.
The Xserve RAID is a great piece of hardware. I use a 3TB Xserve RAID with an x86 box running FreeBSD. There’s a java program for configuring the RAID, and once you do that it just shows up as a big fibre channel disk. (I use an LSI fibre channel controller .. the mpt driver on FreeBSD works fine with it) If you’ve used any other fibre channel devices, this works just the same. (Except that it uses cheap ATA drives.)
The Xserve is ok, but Mac OS X Server isn’t a great server OS. It’s good if you need to do AppleShare, though, and it’s pretty good for samba. I run their OpenDirectory, which is a pretty nice combo of OpenLDAP and Kerberos. It made setting up LDAP a lot easier.
I don’t recommended it for Apache or mail or databases. Never use it as an NFS server .. it has many many problems. (it’s fine as an NFS client to mount stuff and reshare ti through appleshare or cifs)