Between all the updated MacBooks and Snow Leopard news items across the web, you’d almost forget that Apple also has its own server operating system which will also got updated from Leopard to Snow Leopard yesterday. It benefits from the same improvements as the client version, but of course also has a set of its own, server-specific improvements.
The biggest improvement is that Snow Leopard Server is now completely 64bit, meaning it can access up to 16TB of RAM, a theoretical amount of RAM, obviously. Overall server performance should benefit from this move to 64bit; especially virtualisation will really like the extra RAM.
Snow Leopard Server also comes with Podcast Producer 2, a new version of the tool which allows you to, well, create and publish podcasts; one of its new features is Podcast Composer, which allows you to automate the completion and publishing of podcasts. iCal Server has also been bumped to version 2, which includes, among other things, real-time calendar access from iPhones, and a new web based calendar client.
It also comes with Wiki Server 2, Address Book Server (which makes sharing contacts easier), and Mobile Access Server, which enables you to access firewall-protected services with your mobile Mac or iPhone. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, ZFS support has been dropped completely from Snow Leopard Server.
Snow Leopard Server will be released alongside the client version in September, and it’s Intel-only as well, obviously. Snow Leopard Server, with an unlimited amount of client licenses, will set you back 499 USD.
I know a long time ago anandtech did a benchmark run comparing OSX, Windows and I think Linux in terms of server runs but I haven’t really seen anyone do it of recent versions. Would be great to see how OSX fairs
Especially since they all run Intel hardware
Edited 2009-06-09 21:34 UTC
I believe OSX fares so poorly, that probably even Apple is giving up on OSX as a viable server platform.
It seems apple is positioning OSX server as more of a workplace app server.
I dunno. It seems to do just fine. Phoronix ran a good comparison between it and Ubuntu 9.04 and OS X did better to much better in many tests. See here:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_jaunty_os…
The new iCal2 server, built-in Postfix mail server and the group management makes it a pretty viable small office (< 50 users) server, especially if you have a few Macs in house.
Edited 2009-06-10 05:37 UTC
most tests don’t seem to be related to server duties. but the two database benchmarks are interesting:
sqlite ubuntu 111 sec. vs. osx 25 sec.
postgresql ubuntu 389 transactions/s vs osx 1028 transactions/s
omg! osx totaly powns linux!!!!11eleven!
but as the text points out, the sqlite results are caused by a serious performance regression in the linux kernel used . looking at this results: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_2629_bench…
osx should still be a bit faster, maybe 10-20%.
this kind of benchmark doesn’t say much about which os is the faster server os. they can only tell you which version of which server app works well on which os. a meaningful comparison would have to pick a job and use the best combination available on every platform to do this job. for example, mysql seems to a better fit for linux and postgresql a better one for osx.
apple also provides some marketing numbers: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/performance.html
the file serving seems to get a significant improvement. but it might be telling that apple only shows one comparison with a competitor (even running on very different hardware).
As the previous poster pointed out, most of those benchmarks are pretty irrelevant for server duties.
If Apple was serious about the market space, I assume they would have spent more time in adding features like a modern/scalable filesystem, robust failover and recovery, and most importantly… gather some support from big vendors like Oracle, SAP, etc.
Alas, I still think OSX is a fantastic desktop OS. And I assume Apple knows it and wants to focus on that marketplace for the time being.
That being said, for a small workgroup… or media collaboration utility, OSX server is pretty attractive.
I don’t see this as Apple ditching ZFS, but I see this as Apple choosing to focus on other things and make a really stable release here instead of introducing something new into the mix. I do however, hope that Apple brings full ZFS suport into 10.7
Yup, it’s been real quiet for a while now about ZFS. I’m not sure if anyone is using it all. I would like to see it come to light too at some point, but maybe it’s not as feasible as they first thought. I am assuming it is still an unstable format? What else could be holding it back?
I’m just guessing here, so don’t take my word for it. Here are my hypotheses on the matter:
Possibility 1: Apple lost interest and in ZFS and won’t bother with it anymore. I can’t see any reason for doing this, but Apple has previously disappointed people for no visible reason.
Possibility 2: The ZFS implementation in Snow Leopard was rather incomplete (fact), and Apple wants to instead fully implement in in a later release (10.7?). ZFS was not supported in the desktop version, and was only supported as a secondary FS in Server (eg. can’t have ZFS boot volume); this really was a rather dull and ugly setup.
Add On Speculation: Maybe Apple wants to integrate ZFS fully with OSX, both desktop and server. HFS+ is getting rather outdated now, and will be due for replacement soon enough. ZFS as default FS to replace HFS+ in 10.7? ZFS based Time Machine maybe??? They might just be wanting to introduce it in a more complete form.
With the current status between Oracle and Sun, what is the actual state of ZFS? Anybody here care to speculate? I think this is the main reason it was pulled… We’re going to have to let the dust settle between Sun/Oracle before we see it again…
My bet is still on ZFS entering into OS X when licensing issues with Oracle [not to mention the merger of Oracle and Sun] have been finalizing between both parties.
When is a Linux company going to make a Workgroup server like Mac OSX server or Windows server. A server that provides a easy to set up LDAP directory services that can replicate out the box, file sharing to Windows, Linux, Unix and Macs.
And other things like policies, easy user management etc.
The Mac server is not ideal but its pretty slick and has all the features that one needs to do file and print serving, user management etc. 🙁
how about this?
http://www.novell.com/de-de/products/openworkgroupsuite/
i’ve no idea how it compares to win & osx server.
Yes I have tried it and it has all the components BUT its overly complicated (As Novell has always been) and as always Novell has 10 interfaces to do the same tasks.
Novell should look at Apple and Microsoft and refine their Openworkgroup suite.
Also they should make some OS user interfaces and not go all Web.
And the Novell client at this point sucks. For instance when you install the client on XP SP3 or Vista you can’t log in and get a separate profile for each user. Like on Windows server or if you connect your Windows machine to Mac server you then get a profile in Documents and settings (Users in Vista) but not any longer using the Novell client. (Bad!)