LOS ANGELES — What better time for Apple to annunciate the discontinuance of the Xserve than right in the middle of a league of Mac IT professional person and developers ? But that was the level here at the firstMacTech Conference .
Friday morning , before the league ’s general sessions lead off , group discussion organizer Neil Ticktin advert that it was the end of the line for Xserve , and opened the floor to public discussion .
I was expecting the gang ’s humor to be highly negative , but that was n’t necessarily the reception . sure enough , there were a fair routine of people who were upset , but there was also a sense that Apple realized they had n’t really won a spot in the host rooms of the world , and hence , the Xserve ’s departure was fairly bear .
A popular notion was that IT personnel would n’t care at all about the departure of the Xserve if Apple would simply admit ( via a licensing change , and perhaps a small bit of code modification ) the installation of Mac OS X Server on non - Apple hardware . They would then be able to set up and run Server on their existing box , probably in virtual machines on those existing boxes . ( As an aside , representatives of both Parallels and VMware stated they ’d bed to plunk for this frame-up , if Apple were to only countenance it . )
For those business that need to run Mac OS X Server , but are n’t willing to wait for Apple to retool its licensing policy , they ’ll be look at using Mac Pros ( or Mac miniskirt ) alternatively of Xserves . One commenter sharpen out that Mac Pros are notably quieter than Xserves , and as such , can be hidden in many place where you would n’t think of placing an Xserve .
In answer to a interrogative about the redundant systems in the Xserve , such as redundant power supplies , one attender humorously answer by saying , “ Get two Mac Pros … that ’s 100 % redudancy on everything , right ? ” While technically right , that ’s really not a good alternative to true server - level redundancy .
Overall , it seems the IT professional here at the MacTech Conference understand the coming death of the Xserve , and are making plans to work around it be active forward . They ’d roll in the hay it if Apple slacken the licensing restrictions on Mac OS X Server , but it does n’t sound like any of them are making plans around that becoming a world .
