Re: [Fed-Talk] Xserve discontinued?
Re: [Fed-Talk] Xserve discontinued?
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Xserve discontinued?
- From: "Blackmon Jerry (Contractor)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:36:18 -0500
- Acceptlanguage: en-US
- Thread-topic: [Fed-Talk] Xserve discontinued?
Pure speculation, but …
When's the last time the Mac Pro was radically redesigned, along the lines of the G4 to G5 switch? LOOOONG overdue, and I'd imagine Apple is tired of hearing stories about its pro hardware being inadequate for X task because of Y and Z. The current tower is designed with the cooling needs of the G5 processor in mind which is largely irrelevant nowadays, is it not?
So what if they were to do the below and create a box that can work equally well under a desk and, with slight modifications, also be rack mountable? Would be great for small shops that need the power of a blade server without the data center overhead, and equally great for Enterprise in that you can throw one into the data center and add whatever horsepower/storage configuration you need, all in 6U horizontal. You want a Mac Pro, what you're ordering/customizing is what kind of hardware you have inside the box; the actual form factor will be as irrelevant as it is now. Want a cheap one? Get a standard "blade." Need a real server? Customize it to the nth degree with four 12-core blades and two drive blades.
As you outlined below, Apple solves four or five problems in one, reduces costs, and redefines desktop computing all in one fell swoop. Steve worthy.
"Would any application be able to make use?" Any compiled in Xcode (iOS developers anyone?) would because Open CL support would be automagically cooked in. And this kind of hardware would not only force the software world in the multiprocessing direction, but boost sales and interest in Mac OS X proper since Microsoft couldn't begin to touch it until Windows 8.
---
Jerry Blackmon <email@hidden>
Senior Systems Administrator
Department of Treasury
From: "Link, Peter R." <email@hidden<mailto:email@hidden>>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:07:18 -0500
To: "Bracy, Jason T." <email@hidden<mailto:email@hidden>>
Cc: Fed Talk <email@hidden<mailto:email@hidden>>
Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Xserve discontinued?
#2---The Mac Pro is built with a slide out processor tray (CPU and memory). Reduce the size of the heat sink (provide additional cooling somehow) and you have the beginnings of a blade configuration. Add the necessary I/O hardware circuitry and redundant power supplies to the 6-8U cabinet and you have the next version of a server-capable system. I could see this system running OSX client or server depending on the end user. Having a 4-6 blade system (up to 12 cores each blade, mix and match) would be really nice for heavy computing applications (3D animation, modeling, etc.) as well as a nice computing box with external storage for a powerful server farm.
Would Apple build this? Would any application actually be able to make use of all that computing power? Would there be enough people buying them to make sense for Apple to build one? Apple doesn't seem to want to reduce the size of the Mac Pro so I don't really see a smaller box coming from Apple other than a minor height tweak to get it to fit sideways in a 19" rack.
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