Submitted by “A couple of weeks ago, Apple invited me to its campus to get a close-up look at Apple’s Xserve Xeon. It is a marvel of physical design, so much so that I find that it implausible that Xserve Xeon and Xserve G5 could have been designed by the same company. Xserve G5 was pretty tight, but Xserve Xeon makes its predecessor, not to mention ever PC 1U rack server I’ve seen, look slapped together. I was struck by perfectly Xserve Xeon was designed, and in particular by how easily it comes apart. I have high standards in this regard. I told a friend that I will only buy or recommend servers that I can install, remove, disassemble and repair with one hand, a TSA-approved butter knife and no instructions.”
Given the title of the article I should probably clarify that by “fall apart” the author didn’t mean it was cheap, he meant that it is easy to disassemble/access.
“Given the title of the article I should probably clarify that by “fall apart” the author didn’t mean it was cheap, he meant that it is easy to disassemble/access.”
In all fairness, that title for the article DID get you to read it, didn’t it? I know it got me to read it, and and I’m sure it will for many others.
Have you ever actually tried to take apart type of server? Whenever I think of the hardware design of servers, the word, ‘kluge,’ always comes to my mind.
In all fairness, that title for the article DID get you to read it, didn’t it?
I almost didn’t read the summary, on account of the topic not really interesting me. I still haven’t read the article, and I won’t. But, if I hadn’t read the summary at least, I would have thought that the guy was saying that XServe Xeon is a piece of garbage that literally falls apart.
This isn’t meant as a criticism; the headline is effective for those who read the summary. The question is, how many people read past the headline, and how many get the wrong idea?
I told a friend that I will only buy or recommend servers that I can install, remove, disassemble and repair with one hand
I am all for making it possible to include disabled people in the workforce. I don´t know if that is case here.
Otherwise I find the one-hand requirement at bit odd, to say the least.
That is just daft.
I am also all in favour of equal oportunities, however suggesting that some one with only one hand should be handling many k’s worth of equipment, taking things out of racks, putting them back in again, etc is just daft.
May be I am just being really ignorant, but I just can not see it.
Unlike for example, one handed keyboards, that allow users to learn how to “touch type” with one hand, and be an effective employee (from a typing perspective).
May be I am just being really ignorant, but I just can not see it.
Hyperbole: (noun) deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect, e.g. “I could eat a million of these”.
What’s he doing with his other hand? Pr0n in the workplace?
I think it’s pretty obvious what he’s doing with the other hand, considering the way he seems to drool over the Xserve Xeon. Hrm.
sounds like short circuit waiting to happen…
I don’t understand how people don’t see this as a figure of speech? Anyone heard of a hyperbole.. gesh
I think he just likes the hardware a lot and has expressed it quite oddly.
I’m a sys/net admin, i’ve seen a lot of models including the xserves (g5).
They were well built, but even a supermicro is well built.
I don’t quite get his dismantling fetish. The main things should be, disks that come out easily, easily replaceable fans and psu’s.
There are other servers that are easily just as well built, sun’s T1/2K comes to mind.
I’m not saying the article is made up of lies, but it’s contents are quite useless and irellevant …
Why would you want to gut one and rebuild it that much ? Usually, you do that when things break, they are servers, not a box of lego technics which you build up and break down incessently.
– Kevin
Just based on the spelling and grammar, the article is not worthy of my time to read beyond the first paragraph.
It seems like anybody can write an internet article these days.
I’d be embarrassed to have my name attached to that article.
A server is a plain box that gets installed and then runs, runs, runs. That’s all there is to it. Since I don’t see it every day, I don’t care at all how it looks like. As long as I can administer it from remote, that’s ok for me.
Seriously, who in the world would buy an Apple server???
part one: couldn’t agree more, especially in a datacenter.
As to why anyone would buy one … os X
Windows servers are popular because of their relative ease of use and administration (when they work).
OS X has all that and on top of that, it runs.
On the hardware side, again, i say … nothing special … quite a premium for the blinkenlights.
Even my old pa-risc workstations have plenty of blinky leds.
At my last company I loved my XServe running OS X Server. The admin tool was very cool.
When the admin tool broke it was a pain in the arse. The only advice I could get on how to fix it was to reinstall the OS, or restore a backup. I learnt to live without the admin tool.
We then started to get more traffic, and had lookupd crashing more and more frequently, effectively killing the machine. It was possible to recover from this if you had a root terminal open. I think they may have finally fixed the lookupd bug in one of the later versions of 10.4, but it’s a bug that had been around since early versions of NeXTstep.
Didn’t love it quite so much by that stage. Also the poor performance when the machine ran out of RAM and started thrashing the disc for VM wasn’t great.
The next two servers I bought were Opteron Linux boxes…
“he next two servers I bought were Opteron Linux boxes…”
And you’ve compared these to AAPL’s most recent XServe?
When the admin tool broke it was a pain in the arse. The only advice I could get on how to fix it was to reinstall the OS, or restore a backup. I learnt to live without the admin tool.
As written on the Apple’s website the aim of the admin tools are to let non IT people configure the server. The command line is here for sysadmin as for all unixes.
We then started to get more traffic, and had lookupd crashing more and more frequently, effectively killing the machine.
Usually, you can prevent the crash of lookupd by disabling the crashreporter in /etc/hostconfig.
The fact is that thousands of Xserve are running each day in the world, do you really think that nobody found a workaround ?
That everybody is living with a lookupd “killing” the machine ?
Also the poor performance when the machine ran out of RAM and started thrashing the disc for VM wasn’t great.
ALL OSes get poor performance when no memory is available because all OSes use VM. It is YOUR role as a sysadmin to avoid this issue: we call that capacity planning …
The next two servers I bought were Opteron Linux boxes…
And you think that using linux will prevent all the problems you had ?
Example:
we run some RHES 3 here and the /dev/random doesn’t work as it should on some hosts. So we are obliged to reboot our servers each week to prevent our https to hang as it cannot generate random number anymore. We have also issues with AIX and Solaris as well.
So no, linux or any other OS are bug free or “magic”. They will also have issues but with other bugs.
Anyway you can still buy Apple’s Xserve and use linux on it, Linus does so. This article talks about the hardware and a Xserve can run without Mac OS X on it.
As written on the Apple’s website the aim of the admin tools are to let non IT people configure the server. The command line is here for sysadmin as for all unixes.
Spoken like a true CLI fan. 🙂
Whilst I’m comfortable doing command line based admin, why shouldn’t I use a GUI tool? IMHO it was much more convenient than using the CLI for most common admin tasks.
Usually, you can prevent the crash of lookupd by disabling the crashreporter in /etc/hostconfig.
The fact is that thousands of Xserve are running each day in the world, do you really think that nobody found a workaround ?
That everybody is living with a lookupd “killing” the machine ?
Of course people found a workaround – and I applied two of them. The Apple originated workarounds for the issue however simply did not work.
It is important to consider here that not all people running XServes will be aware of the need for the workaround. Establishing that lookupd was the cause of our problems was far from being a trivial task, taking quite some time to narrow down. I’m sure that plenty of XServes are running with this bug in place and no workaround. When those XServe’s crash they will just get their reset button pressed.
The fact remains that Apple/NeXT shipped an OS for over a decade that had a significant bug in a vital OS component.
ALL OSes get poor performance when no memory is available because all OSes use VM. It is YOUR role as a sysadmin to avoid this issue: we call that capacity planning …
You’re quite right. The server had been set up with no thought at all given to capacity planning – not by myself I may add.
The fact remains though that the performance under heavy load on the XServe G5 (dual processor) was worse than on our more modest Xeon (single processor) Linux box.
The next two servers I bought were Opteron Linux boxes…
And you think that using linux will prevent all the problems you had ?
Experience, as noted above. Both of the new Linux servers performed admirably. By that stage however I’d solved all the problems and the Mac OS X server was also performing well.
I will consider using XServes and Mac OS X server again on future projects. I’m also going to look at other options, such as a Sun Niagara box running Solaris.
why shouldn’t I use a GUI tool?
I never said that you should not use the graphic tools, I like them too.
I just said that you can not rely only on them (because all graphic tools are less reliable than command line).
I’m also going to look at other options, such as a Sun Niagara box running Solaris.
We already have two of them here. They are just great but have also issues (no magic as I said ;-). Just check on sunsolve for Solaris 10 + T2000 and you will see what I am talking about.
Seriously, who in the world would buy an Apple server???
A pro-sumer user who doesn’t want/need to learn ye olde Linux command line in order to set up a meat and potatoes server.
A small business where the IT person is the “techie person” and needs an easy to service and admin machine.
A printing/graphics business that’s already full of PowerMacs and needs a server and perhaps some dedicated render machines.
Finally, provided I had need for a server at home, I would choose an XServe. Easy to service should I need to swap anything out. Easy to administrate when it comes to setting permissions and deciding on what services to turn on or leave off.
If you needed a server at home, buy a new mac and use the old one as a server.
Seriously, who in the world would buy an Apple server???
Well, in short:
– the Unliversity of Illinois
– the COLSA Corporation (U.S. Army)
– EchoStorm (U.S. Army)
– MGM MIRAGE
– Rotech Healthcare, Inc
– Oracle
– Cisco
More here: http://www.apple.com/itpro/
Well just read Apples pages about Xserve – many companies are listed there that uses Apples servers.
Edited 2006-10-18 14:36
1) Rails have to be easy to install in the rack. The best I’ve worked with are Dell’s square hole rapid rails. The worst where the iron bar things that came with a Sun V20Z. Getting servers on and off of rails also has to be easy. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of room, there is only one of you, or the server is mounted high in the rack and having to fiddle with clips or ‘buttons’ and such is a pain in the *.
2) Hard drives have to be easy to remove and install. The IBM x335’s are the absolute worst I’ve seen in hot swap carriers. They have these springy, thin, fragile metal grounding fingers that bend way too easily. I believe that a total idiot designed these. Of course, having to slide the server out, take the cover off to replace or upgrade HDs is stupid beyond words.
3) Expansion cards have to be easy to install and remove.
4) Memory has to be easy to install and remove.
I’ve only had to replace a power supply once and never any fans, so no comments from the peanut gallery on these topics.
I’ve seen the trays you are talking about for those ibms, i don’t quite get the choices they made there.
As to why you need to slide it out and take the cover off … again, i find myself looking for answers but can’t seem to understand why they did it.
Fans gave out all the time where i used to work, but that was a problem inherent to the building (dust from plaster and wooden tile floors). Dells and compaqs are reasonably good when it comes to fan swapping.
On the rail issue, dells are easier to mount, compaqs and hps are horrible except for the springy bit.
The HP9K series unix machines are … something else, but they come in their own racks usually.
And i am 1.7 meters tall, i feel you on the height issue.
It’s a good headline. 😉
Damn shame that Apple doesn’t follow Sun’s example and allows you to order the server with Linux preinstalled.
If they did, I might be interested in their wonderful hardware design. But using OS-X as a server is useless to me and my clients. If you need to know why, we don’t like its performance as a web, mail, or database server.
f they did, I might be interested in their wonderful hardware design. But using OS-X as a server is useless to me and my clients. If you need to know why, we don’t like its performance as a web, mail, or database server.
Why Linux?
A more natural fit for Apple would be a FreeBSD customization, since they borrowed heavily from FreeBSD to build OSX.
You don’t know how to install LINUX yourself?
“If you need to know why, we don’t like its performance as a web, mail, or database server.”
Can you give more specifics of waht you were running? You didn’t like Apache under OS X? What mail, DB? Could you virtualize?
I know how to install Linux, thank you.
What I get when Linux is pre-installed is the notion that the hardware vendor has actually taken the time to certify that its hardware works well. Any potential issues have been solved.
I also may get hardware diagnostic tools, specific for that hardware that happen to run on the preinstalled distribution.
As to what applications run poorly?
Here’s a list:
MySQL DB is much, much slower on OS X as is Oracle.
Samba File serving is slower on OS X than Linux.
Plone CMS (built on top of Zope and python) is much, much slower.
Postfix is slower in larger loads.
Finally, OS X doesn’t have good package management for many of the thousands of packages that you will find in the Debian tree (and yes I know about fink).
wow, it’s a good thing that the G5 architecture is the EXACT same as the xeon intel architecture.
You forgot to comment on that he wanted to use Debian packages on his Xserve G5 with OS X.
He is one AWESOME admin!
Finally, OS X doesn’t have good package management for many of the thousands of packages that you will find in the Debian tree (and yes I know about fink).
OSX doen’t need to hack around dependancy worries an so doesn’t need the huge library of packages. Neither do the other professional Unixes like Solaris or AIX.
Servers generally only need a handfull of programs (most of them well established) and they should be carefully selected and validated for use by your company, not downloaded of teh interweb.
no photos or videos of how simple it is to take apart?
i dont belive it until it see it myself
Check out: http://www.webmin.com/. Also a question (a bit off topic though) to those Windows 2K server admins: Why oh why does Win2K come built in with games? An idea server should just have a terminal, or command prompt, no gui – the ultimate in server – just built then left alone.