Apple introduced Xserve, a rack-mounted server today as expected, featuring:
- single or dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processors
- 2MB DDR L3 cache per processor
- three PCI slots, two of which are 64-bit, 66 MHz PCI slots
- up to 2GB of DDR high-performance memory running at 266 MHz
- software RAID mirroring, RAID striping
- VGA graphics card supporting headless booting
- optional AGP 4X graphics card with connections for keyboards and a mouse for “Mac-in-a-rack” solutions; (which could appeal to audio/music users, especially at this price and with triple onboard FireWire)
- three 400Mbps FireWire ports with two accessible on the back panel and one on the front panel for quick access
- two USB ports, one DB-9 serial console port and an optional Ultra3 SCSI card
- optional fiber Gigabit Ethernet adapter
- Mac OS X Server software with QuickTime Streaming Server, WebObjects with Apache, Samba, PHP, MySQL and Tomcat (which Apple credits to the Open Source community)
- Native protocol support for AFP over TCP/IP, SMB/CIFS, FTP and NFS
Apple is taking orders now, with availability next month, in two configurations:
- single 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 256MB DDR RAM, 60GB ATA/100 Apple Drive Module, dual Gigabit Ethernet, CD-ROM and Mac OS X Server with unlimited clients for a suggested list price of $2,999 (US); and
- dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processors, 512MB DDR RAM, 60GB ATA/100 Apple Drive Module, dual Gigabit Ethernet, CD-ROM and Mac OS X Server with unlimited clients for a suggested list price of $3,999 (US).
Xserve also features Server Admin for remote monitoring and management of OS X Servers and Server Monitor for remote monitoring and notification via cell phone/pager, e-mail, and PDA. The Xserve RAID storage companion product features industry-standard 2Gb Fiber Channel I/O and will come out at the end of the year.
Our early analysis: this thing looks incredibly cool. It sounds as though Apple is indeed listening to its customers: the Xserve is yet another intelligent “no brainer” product whose time has come. I’m especially interested in the Xserve’s educational and audio applications. It’s not hard to imagine the Xserve running in an audio rack with a MOTU 1296 FireWire interface (or three, thanks to dedicated FireWire ports!) or streaming QuickTime. Industry leaders Oracle, Sybase, and HP, as well as Mac regulars Adobe, 4D, Dantz, and FileMaker are onboard. Will you have a use for the XServe? Has Apple finally come up with a decent server product? Could this finally achieve Apple’s elusive grail: increased market share? Let us know; hit that feedback link.
