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Other than administering client macs, there really wasn't any benefit to running a cluster of mac servers. Apple's game has always been getting the difficulty t
by sudont 16y ago
Other than administering client macs, there really wasn't any benefit to running a cluster of mac servers. Apple's game has always been getting the difficulty threshold low enough that mom and pop can do whizzy things. In terms of servers, anybody running that type of hardware will probably have the expertise to do it from scratch, cobble together a solution, or outsource it to a contractor.
While there could be something in enterprise iPhone management, I think they play well enough with exchange's provisioning.
- masklinn 16y ago> Other than administering client macs, there really wasn't any benefit to running a cluster of mac servers. Bingo. Apple's server offering have always been (and will continue to be) expected to support a whole network of apple hardware. In that situation, xserves don't really make sense anymore, they're fairly crappy general-purpose servers and you don't need an xserve to support an OSX-based network and OSX's group utilities. The Mini Server is much smaller for minor networks, and the base Mac Pro Server offering is the same price as the entry-price Xserve, not really rackable but with far superior hardware: 2.26 quad, 3GB RAM and 160GB HDD for the Xserve, 2.8 quad, 8GB RAM and 2x1TB HDD for the Mac Pro. Plus the Mac Pro * comes with a GPU if you want a render farm * scales to more memory (up to 32GB versus 24 for the Xserve, and bumping the Mac Pro to 24GB is $450 cheaper than the Xserve) * scales to much bigger CPUs (you can get a better CPU on the Xserve by switching to the $3600 model, which starts with 2x2.26GHz quads and can get up to 2x2.93 quads, but the mac pro can still be upgraded to 2x2.93 hexas)
- chrischen 16y ago> Apple's game has always been getting the difficulty threshold low enough that mom and pop can do whizzy things. So that anyone can do wizzy things.