QUAD G4 Apple Server Platform for Enterprise

O

ohmelas

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I heard a Rumor that Apple was going to produce a full scale Enterprise solution for OSX Server and that it was going to have four G4s and still cost under $10k killing the Compaq and IBM product offerings in this market and probably putting the nail in the heart of Sun.

Any body else out there validate this?

Regards,

Howard
 
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is the person who made this serious. BTW its dated 1999 and 2001, highly doubt this will be a new Apple business solution
 
Found some more information on the business model of a Quad G4:

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/topic/6400-1.html

It seems that there are only rumblings about it. I don't know why Apple hasn't come out with a pentium slashing blade model yet.

I know that Yellow Dog Linux or Terrasoft systems makes something wonderful called the Yellow Brick. It's about the size of a drive bay and you can put 8 of em in a rack if you want! That's a cluster and think of the FLOPS you'll get from that if you're serving up a University or major business! Killer!
 
Ugh! I hope (and doubt) Apple won't put G4's in the next Xserves. They wouldn't be much different than the current models! G5 is the only way to go, if Apple wants to keep up in that kind of market. They'd be crazy not to put a G5 in there!
 
I'm thinking G5 here. There may be a gap in time where Apple's offering falls short, but sticking with the G4 on their server line doesn't seem smart to me. It'll take time to get a G5 xserve, but it's time that is better spent than if they tried to mess around with a G4 as well. Developing and trying to sell an expensive new G4, while everyone is waiting for a G5, would be shooting yourself in the foot. You lose sales while they wait for the G5, then when you bring on an updated G4 xserve, you lose sales while they wait for the G5. Better to make a clean jump, I say.
 
I think a split line would be good. with the upcoming IBM G3 (fx? gx? the one with "altivec"), and the G5 of course. you can then pick if you want cheap effective processing power(G3/(could be marketed as the IBM G4)), or big time number crunching (G5).
 
It would be easier to stuff 3 or 4 G4's into an Xserve than one G5 right now, but they definitely need to release a G5 Xserve ASAP.

When they do, G5 Powerbooks probably won't be far around the corner because the Xserve is not a lot bigger than the Powerbook compared to the tower.
 
For the record, I never stated that they would never be able to fit a G5 into an Xserve, just that Apple can't do it right now, considering the cooling requirements they needed for the G5 towers. I'm sure they'll get it worked out over the next couple months in time for MWSF.
 
Isn't a blade server a bit bigger thatn the Xserve? I thought the IBM blades were 3U while the Xserve is 1U. I'm sure Apple will be able to fit a G5 in their Xserves soon, since IBM is moving to 90nm pretty fast and rumors say Apple already has some chips to experiment with. These smaller chips would allow both for higher clockrates and less heat dissipation. The only question is the timeframe... Jobs said the G5 would reach 3GHz (at the end of) next summer ... but I have heard the PPC 970 as it is now won't allow for such a speed: this means that they anticipate to be able to use a new version on the 970, perhaps at 90nm, or the next generation "980" (from POWER5).
These could also be the chips intended for the Xserves, so they could be released also (at the end of) next summer. The announcements probably will not be made now at MWSF but later ... What/where/when will the summer expo be? New (dual) 3GHz PowerMacs and Xserves could be announced there and then.

Disclaimer: this is obviously based on my limited understanding of processor technology, on unconfirmed rumors and hearsay on the internet. ;)
 
Well blade is a term used to describe the technology. See with blade technology the idea is density. In 4U or 5U they can fit 20 computers worth of processors! That's a lot of power in a litte bit of space.

When examining the server market its dominated by HP for this reason. They're reliable have great service and can have the highest density with out getting into Mainframe technologies like that from IBM (which is using the G5!)

I'm wondering a couple of things:

Does Apple have an agreement with IBM for this reason to not enter that high-end of a Server market because of their arrangement with the design of the Power PC and that arrangement creates this synergy?

What could blade technology do for Apple? I initally began this thread talking about quad processing G4s. Most Macintosh users are high end desktop people so this discussion usually misses its targeted audience.

When large companies need to distribute load bearing databases over a cluster of databases you're buying some serious computing power. The Power PC can definately come in cheaper in that market and more powerful--what every server guru wants.

Here's the better part and why its a good idea:
  • It's more reliable than Windows 2003 Server and definately with UNIX as the underpinings will have uptime comparable to UNIX vs. Microshaft (er. soft).
  • It's an Apple so your company won't have to spend $10,000 just to get your tech up to speed on servicing it (maybe $2500)
  • Apple technicians won't cost a company as much as a MCSA/MCSE, MCDBA, or other Microsoft Certified anything. They'll be like the Maytag guys with the reliability factor under most circumstances compared to the Wintel geeks.
  • It's a Solaris, Sun killer running Apache
  • Samba plays well with everything most of the time.
  • Microsoft CAL licenses are horribly expensive compared to Apple. Although a Linux can do this for free the upside to Apple is that its idiot proof.
  • A 20 blade Xenon 2MB HP costs too much and Apple coule deliver a Pentium crushing blow with the cheapness and availability of the G4.
  • They've got a friend with Terrasoft systems and Yellow Dog Linux or Black Dog Clusters! The Navy, several big schools have allready done this with their supercomputers and they scream!
 
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