---
It's $49.99 for Lion Server for a Unlimited License and it also some with Xsan Admin and Unlimited Xsan clients since Xsan is now part of Lion.
You can install this from scratch on any of the supported hardware below.
Hope this helps clarify the pricing. In my opinion it's an amazing deal especially with Profile Manager to manage you Mac and iOS devices (MDM), Xsan, Netboot, Filesharing for iPad, Wiki etc...
Lion Server does not require any existing Snow Leopard server license. <This is the key part of my message and clears up the statement on the Lion Server Buy Now page, step #2.>
"Pricing & Availability Mac OS X Lion will be available in July as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard® from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (US). Lion will be the easiest OS X upgrade and at about 4GB, it is the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store®. Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $49.99 (US).
Lion requires an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM. The Lion upgrade can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs."
---
additional email information of interest from same source
---
Yes, you are correct that Profile Manager will manage iOS and Macs and there is no cost per device. And it uses PostgreSQL on the backend so you could potentially do some interesting scalability from there on non-Apple hardware or use a distributed set's of Mac Mini's. <challenging Casper and others?>
As far as Apple-certified rack-mounted hardware I hear you… but you have to put your "Apple think different cap on"…
Apple has Thunderbolt now. You have Thunderbolt to FC adapters coming from Promise. The Mac Mini Server is faster then the original Intel Xserve. We now have SSD's and power supplies don't fail like they used to and the Mini Server uses 15W of power and Xsan is free and there are some really cool rack mounting 3rd party solutions
http://h-sq.com/products/minirack/index.html for the Mini Server that make it "blade" like.
The cost of Lion Server and the Mini Server can be very compelling and you can buy 2 or 3 or them for the cost of a 1U server. <I know most of you will gasp when you see this comment but think about it for awhile. What do you want your servers to do? Run applications, serve files, what else? If they are simply running Lion Server, a cluster of minis might be enough, especially if/when Apple comes out with upgraded versions.>
Obviously we are not going after the Server market since we want to fit into the customers infrastructure as much as possible with this but there is a compelling story there.
Peter Link
Cyber Security Analyst
Cyber Security Program
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
PO Box 808, L-315
Livermore, CA 94550
email@hidden