I have working on a new product line of servers for the internet industry. We are going to be the first company to put the Mac in a rackmount platform. We have initially had a lot of interest from companies that need 64-bit power, but don't like having to suplicate themselves to Sun Micro pricing. We should have sample production models in about 45 days.
I realize this sounds like an advertisement, but I don't mean it as such. There is a lot of sharp guys in here, and you guys know the industry. I sincerely want your opinions about the idea. Do you think there will be a substantial interest in this product?
:rolleyes:

The phrase "Mac in a rack" just says it all.

"Mac in a Rack" sounds good. You could maybe get a trademark for that slogan?

Originally posted by IPC PRO
I have working on a new product line of servers for the internet industry. We are going to be the first company to put the Mac in a rackmount platform. We have initially had a lot of interest from companies that need 64-bit power, but don't like having to suplicate themselves to Sun Micro pricing. We should have sample production models in about 45 days.
I realize this sounds like an advertisement, but I don't mean it as such. There is a lot of sharp guys in here, and you guys know the industry. I sincerely want your opinions about the idea. Do you think there will be a substantial interest in this product?
:rolleyes:

Aren't there Linux or Windows machines with 64-bit power? What version of the Mac OS would you be running? What databases would be supportable?

Windows has been working on 64-bit OS for the ltanium processor from Intel. Unfortunately, both of them will probably screw it up for another year or so. Yes, Linux can definately be installed on them. After all, linux is a Unix derivative. The Cerritos LUG has a few imacs with Mandrake on them.

Oh! The trademarking of the term... can't do it legally. Anyway, I am keeping an even better little slogan under my pillow......
:stickout ;)

Weve run side by side test on the stability of mac os with almost every other OS, MAc is one of the worst server platforms ever, Im sure youll whole heartedly disagree since your trying to sell that platform, but our reasearch doesnt lie, im very OS neutral but mac just sucks for a server environment.

Did you try, OSX on the MAC charles? or just hte standard OS8 or whatever they call it

Jay

I have a MAC OS X Server running on a G4 500Mhz... and let me tell you, the POS is the worst server I have even encounter, stability "0" .. looks "10" .. also, i keep loosing connection to the others servers in the network ..

Netherless to say, we are replacing it with a PC, this is a Media 100 Network (MAC), and we tought it would make sence to have the server to be a MAC as well, but not like this :(

Thanx, for the tip carlos and charles, we were thinking of getting into some mac streaming and such. But not now. I have enough headaches with NT :)

wouldn't the mac in a rack give you the following:

the good ol' ID10T error

?????

:uzi: :homer:

p.s. get it? the IDIOT error :D

Originally posted by alpha
the good ol' ID10T error
hehehehe :D :D :D

"mac in a rack" ....

Sounds like jack in the box... do you wind it up till it pops its top ??

:eek:

Tim L

Originally posted by IPC PRO
...
We are going to be the first company to put the Mac in a rackmount platform.
...
If you're the first, then what are these?
http://www.marathoncomputer.com/products.html

Hahhahaha..

I wasn't planning to dist. them with the standard Mac OS and OSX. The majority of them will be sent out with a customized Mandrakesoft, Macintosh-specific, server distribution. I do agree with the problems Charles mentioned, and would not sell my company down the river like that. The bottom line is that the platform is macho muscle. Give it the right OS, and a lot of doors can be opened....:rolleyes:

Originally posted by IPC PRO
I realize this sounds like an advertisement, but I don't mean it as such. There is a lot of sharp guys in here, and you guys know the industry. I sincerely want your opinions about the idea. Do you think there will be a substantial interest in this product?
:rolleyes:

Most of these guys have no clue how stable the Mac platform is, and you are not likely to get much in the way of value-add from this forum. My brother has been running a Mac based hosting service for the last 4 years and has done very well.

The market will continue to be limited for OS 9 and standard Mac OS applications, but OS X as a high performance *nix server is probably a great market waiting to be exploited. I've not configured Apache yet on OS X, but 1.3.19 runs on OS X. Maybe I'll configure a server just for grins. I know my 450mhz G4 running OS X will run circles around my 850mhz Intel box running Linux.

Do you have any benchmarks?

Thanks for the info. The comparitive benchmarks are difficult. This I can say with authority...

A single processor 733mhz G4 machine is 57% more powerful than a 1.5Ghz Pentium 4. I didn't cheesy it up, either. I used Fujitsu-Siemens P4 board. (The best of the best) So if you compare it to something like a dell, compaq, hp...............hhhmmmpphhhh!!
;)

If you're the first, then what are these?

If you will read carefully. Marathon does not supply systems in any way, shape or form. They sell steel boxes with a piece of paper inside that tells you how to tear your Mac apart and put it in their box. I hardly think that can be considered a production model server.............:cool:

You cant compare them with intel based processors their compl. different architectures, and while in some apps mac may have a slight improvment, other apps Intel will tear the crap out of a mac. Your figures I no for a fact can not be accurate when you quote it is 57% more powerful, ive done a lot of research and even if you used a program made for a mac, optimized for a mac, and had a good mac :) in real world tests you would even come close to 57%....

And as for the witt, you say it will run circles around a intel box, I cant say for sure on speed, but I can tell you as far as stability Intel will whoop mac no questions asked, throw a box up and ill throw thousands and thousands of connections at it, and ill do the same with a linux box, I guerentee the mac dies!

Originally posted by cbaker17

And as for the witt, you say it will run circles around a intel box, I cant say for sure on speed, but I can tell you as far as stability Intel will whoop mac no questions asked, throw a box up and ill throw thousands and thousands of connections at it, and ill do the same with a linux box, I guerentee the mac dies!

You will get the opportunity to do that soon. I'm going to bring up a dual processor G4 running OS 9 and stress test it, then do the same with the same hardware running OS X. It will be an interesting test.

Now as for your guarantee, think hard about that one my friend. My experience is that the Mac in a web server application is stable as #%!!. That has not been my experience being hosted on Intel hardware running Linux.

Until we get actual test results from controlled tests however, it's more a religious discussion than a technical one - and no one wins those.

very true, Id be int. like i said im os unbiased if mac can run circles around intel, Id have a int. in even offering it to our customers, but that has not been the case in my past benchmark tests.

Why not just:
MacRack
or
RackMac

Or does that sound too much like that duck in the TV ad?

Not making fun of the MAC. I have three at home and two plus a piece at work.


Gary

ya see that's what always happens...

You non-Mac people try to set-up a Mac and cant get it to run right so you complain. Tisk, Tisk. We've been using Mac servers for YEARS and have had very few issues with them. Why? becuase we kno what we are doing.

Same could be said for you "MacUsers"

You non-Intel/Linux people try to set-up a pc and cant get it to run right so you complain. Tisk, Tisk. We've been using Intel/Linux servers for YEARS and have had very few issues with them. Why? becuase we kno what we are doing.

Actually, we have both intel & Macs. They both have their advantages. If you go to www.motorola.com, then search for MTX Plus, you will find many articles from well-known universities, with benchmark results of the P4 versus the Power PC chips. Seems that PPC has no competition in the intel world, yet.
Also, Mac OS10 is coming out. It is Mach kernel based, and is undoubtedly an extremely powerful and versatile OS. The president of our sister company raves about it, and they are strictly a Sun Micro (ie. Solaris) house. Besides, Linux can be (and has been) installed on Mac platforms. The performance difference is definately incredible, but it's one of those things you have to see for yourself.

Originally posted by CRego3D
Jay

I have a MAC OS X Server running on a G4 500Mhz... and let me tell you, the POS is the worst server I have even encounter, stability "0" .. looks "10" .. also, i keep loosing connection to the others servers in the network ..

Netherless to say, we are replacing it with a PC, this is a Media 100 Network (MAC), and we tought it would make sence to have the server to be a MAC as well, but not like this :(

If you want to dump that POS and take a tax write-off, I'll pay shipping :D to send it to Maine.

-t

:D :stickout :)

A friend of mine runs a busy Hotline file & chat server on a Mac Quadra (for those who don't know, that model is 6-10 years old). He lives in a college dorm, and has the Quadra set up at home without a screen connected to it in the basement. Usually, there are around 20 people connected, with downloads and uploads running at the same time. It's running a clean install of Mac OS 8.1 with a HTTP server and Hotline server. It hasn't crashed a single time in the last year, and was only restarted once during that time (as a precaution). He tried to run Linux on it before, but Linux couldn't cope with the Quadra's slow processor.

The only real problem I see with classic Mac OS is that it does not have protected memory. This means that if an application crashes, there's a good chance the system will too. On the other hand, Mac's are unhackable.

All this has changed with Mac OS X of course, because it's Mach and BSD based. I haven't upgraded to Mac OS X myself yet, but from running the public beta last year, I did not experience one single system crash.

If understand you correctly, you are going to pull Apple Macs apart and stuff them into rack mount units? You know I've got a hunch that *if* Apple wanted to stop you from doing this they could. Its just a hunch, I vaguely remember reading once about some similar type of case. Firstly, if you call it a Mac server you are breaching Apple trademark, or whatever; and if you don't call it a Mac server you are passing off someone elses product as your own. Don't hold me to this - I'm just saying that the deep recesses of my mind recall reading of something that makes me wonder whether Apple could stop you if they wanted to. Then again I could be complety wrong :p

On the other hand, Mac's are unhackable.

Any OS is hackable given time. Bugs/Exploits lay dormant for many years before being found. Don't be too confident - it may cost you :D

I've worked with and setup Mac servers running AppleShare IP, MacOS X Server.... and they are very stable if you know how configure it right.... the OS X Server I setup streams QuickTime video, and hasn't crashed yet, and that was in January....

Originally posted by IPC PRO
Actually, we have both intel & Macs. They both have their advantages. If you go to www.motorola.com, then search for MTX Plus, you will find many articles from well-known universities, with benchmark results of the P4 versus the Power PC chips. Seems that PPC has no competition in the intel world, yet.
Also, Mac OS10 is coming out. It is Mach kernel based, and is undoubtedly an extremely powerful and versatile OS. The president of our sister company raves about it, and they are strictly a Sun Micro (ie. Solaris) house. Besides, Linux can be (and has been) installed on Mac platforms. The performance difference is definately incredible, but it's one of those things you have to see for yourself.

Mac OS 10 is out...it's OS X.

X = 10

Originally posted by qasic


Any OS is hackable given time. Bugs/Exploits lay dormant for many years before being found. Don't be too confident - it may cost you :D

Maybe so, but it hasn't been done yet. I remember one or two years ago the makers of WebStar had a contest to see who could hack into a Mac. They put up some prize money. The Mac was not behind a firewall and it was just a standard system install and a standard install of WebStar server with no configuration changes made. The deadline was extended several times, and there were a lot of hits to the site (as well as hack attempts). However, none were successful. I have yet to hear of a Mac being hacked (unless you email the owner of the server a trajan horse and he/she executes it on the server).

The reason you can not hack into the Mac OS is simple: its complete lack of a command line interface. This only applies to servers running version 9.x or older system software of course.

I personally haven't tried to stress test a mac as I haven't had the need yet but I do know that this idea has already been done.

http://www.marathoncomputer.com/pr_prg3bw.html
http://www.marathoncomputer.com/download.html

I think the only way I'd use a mac server is if there was a strong demand for it. So far only one customer has specifically requested a mac server and with that small of a demand there is little reason to get in to the market. Perhaps some of you already have the demand for such a product but after reading this thread it doesn't sound like it. :)

What is more interesting to me is Mac OS X Server in a rack mounted configuration.

The hardware is so much faster than the Intel hardware, the software is virtually anything that runs on Linux today.

I'm going to stress this baby and see if it's more cost effective to run OS X servers on Apple hardware than Linux servers on Intel or AMD hardware.

There are certainly applications for Mac OS servers out there, but I don't think I'd fill a NOC with them.

-t

The following URL might be of interest:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

Check out the screen shots. Really neat GUI for setting up virtual hosts, file servers, etc. :)

Actually, here's a direct link to the screenshots page:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/screenshots.html

Enjoy

I think the best use for an OS X server is streaming media.... although they do include WebObjects with the server...

On the other hand, Mac's are unhackable.


What a stupid thing to say :stickout

Originally posted by Nicholas Brown


What a stupid thing to say :stickout

I should probably have added something like 'essentially' or 'more or less'.

Also, try doing this: hook up any Mac (MacOS 9.x or older) to a fast connection with a static IP. Use personal websharing to share a public folder, or install a package like WebStar. Leave everything at the default configuration. If you're using WebStar, use a password that can not be guessed. I guarantee to you that nobody will be able to change anything on your hard disk, or view any items that are not in your shared folder.

You can set all that up in less than 5 minutes if you know how to click a few install buttons and enter some IP addresses. And it's idiot proof as well (which Linux or Windows NT aren't). Actually, not quite idiot proof. What about those idiots that use "pass" as their password? ;)

As a footnote, I would like to add that I use Windows, Linux (just for a server), and Mac. All these platforms have their pros and cons. Mac OS X, as Apple calls it, is basically "Unix for the rest of us". As such, while its default configuration should be more secure than standard Unix, it is likely to share many of the security issues with *nix-type operating systems.

As far as I know the OS X uses FreeBSD as base system with a fancy desktop. But a webhosting client doesn't have graphical access (or do you want to enable that?) to the system. So my question is, what are the advantages over a BSD system? For the webhost the costs for hardware and software are higher and maybe not all programs will run on the motorola cpu.

I don't see the benefit of this idea...


- domi

Just stumbled across this post over at telnet://bbs.isca.uiowa.edu
And I instantly thought of this thread. I don't know the validity/info behind it, I just wanted to offer this as "info only."

Last week we were discussing MacOSX as servers....While I certainly understand
that Apple needs to add hardware features to their boxes to make them suitable
as enterprise servers, MacOSX's performance seems to justify their use...

On a related note, the high level of performance both the Apache and Zeus
servers achieved during the Mac OS X tests was very similar to their respective
performance under Linux, suggesting that the Mac OS is finally a legitimate
option for enterprise-level servers

Taken from this article... http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2706908,00.html


:D Bailey

Sorry, But Marathon Computing has had rack mounted macs and imacs for several years now. The racks are excellent!

Hmm another thing, people who often have trouble with macs are because they are jumping over from windows or linux enviroment. Right now my os x (public beta!) has been up a hell of alot longer than redhat linux 6.2 (not 7 yuck) Also as far as streaming, it depends what your are planning to stream, nt is a lot worse than os x for streaming, bottom line i've had to work in both enviroments for the last few years and know them well, i don't care either way personally.

Originally posted by Voodoo Web
As far as I know the OS X uses FreeBSD as base system with a fancy desktop. But a webhosting client doesn't have graphical access (or do you want to enable that?) to the system. So my question is, what are the advantages over a BSD system? For the webhost the costs for hardware and software are higher and maybe not all programs will run on the motorola cpu.

I don't see the benefit of this idea...


- domi

The acid test of this environment is not that it's based on BSD, but that it's on such hot iron. The G4 processor and system infrastructure may indeed deliver 4x the performance of the Intel iron. I'll come back and let everyone know the results of my testing. I have not seen anything that limits itself to the Intel CPU in the BSD environment.

Ckizer,
You are mistaken. Marathon has been selling steel boxes for a long time, not rackmounted Macs. They sell the case. You tear apart the Mac and put it in. (And void your Apple warranty in the process.) I am talking about warranted, production line, servers. Different ballgame.

My bad, i should have paid closer attention:

Side note:

The PowerPC processer is just dying to be used in heavy duty servers it is a awesome risc design, if anybody here knows about microcoprocessor design they know what i'm talking about.

now if only apple make really kick ass rack mount boxes we could all use either a linux or mac os x server, and then we could kiss intel goodbye.

What's unfortunate here is that Jobs' ego is so big, he'll never authorize a rack mounted Mac - unless someone can convince him that designer colors in a rack is a cool thing to do.

I cannot imagine Steve looking at a rack full of Mac OS X servers in basic black or steel gray and thinking "This is way cool."

I would think it was, but Jobs? Not a chance.

-t

In who's dreams? I have a G4 sitting right next to an NT machine. Guess who crashes with a simple program like WordPerfect? It's the year 2001 and you still have to buy speakers for a Windows Box..gessh, The macs have had speakers built in for over 10 years! HA...anyway....

The benchmarks are correct, a 733 MHZ will run dances around the 1.5 GHZ Pentium, check out ZDNET, the proof is there, but it is true that they are different architectures, and EVER chip designer agrees that the PowerPC chip is MUCH more advanced.

The problem with the PowerPC chip is that they are only able to tap into its potential with the speed and stability now, with Mac OS 10.

"What's unfortunate here is that Jobs' ego is so big, he'll never authorize a rack mounted Mac - unless someone can convince him that designer colors in a rack is a cool thing to do."

Dark Green w/ black peripherals. I'm working on it!
:stickout


Also, Check This out : www.appleisp.net

I have an update. Here is the first one off the production line....

Interesting...

Just a couple of days ago MOSR (http://www.mosr.com) posted this rumor that Apple Computer might suspend its own plans for enterprise level hardware

Interesting...

All the better for the guys who pioneer the way......;)

Okay, MacOS X certainly looks sweet, and the BSD pedigree makes my mouth water, but has it actually been put to the test yet?
I'm talking uptime. Has it been up, in a high load environment (think typical shared hosting server) for a long period of time?
Or hey, has it even been up for a long period of time?

Linux/*BSD are proven here:

vince@host:~$ uptime
11:56am up 401 days, 9:39, 2 users, load average: 0.07, 0.02, 0.00
vince@host:~$ uname -a
Linux host 2.2.14 #2 Tue Mar 21 23:16:26 CST 2000 i686 unknown
vince@host:~$

Can I expect the same results from MacOS X?

Regards,
Vince.

Vince,
There are several comments here in this post by folks who have them using Macs for webhosting application. Not to mention www.appleisp.net who hosts everything on Macs. However, very soon we will make an announcement that a certain Mac is up and running. It will be set up with a fake (virtual) online ordering site, and we will give the interested world a shot at placing virtual orders, watching the dollar signs add up, watching the hit counter scroll up, and see if they can bring her down.
Now, for obvious reasons, there is a certain amount of security involved in this proposition. There are a few folks out there that would love a shot at hacking it, or swamping it with garbage traffic, to make it seem like it went down. Therefore, we are still in the planning stages. The hardware is sound. We haven't decided if we are going to launch it with Mac OS, or with Yellow Dog. For marketing purposes, I would love to launch it with Mac OS. We are having a little trouble getting support for that out of Cuppertino, so we might end up having to launch it with Yellow Dog Linux. The folks at at Yellow Dog are up to it, and I think they might provide a more realistic real-time test bed.....
What do you guys think?

So, now that the new OS-X Server is out, are you going to ship your rack-mac with this?

So, now that the new OS-X Server is out, are you going to ship your rack-mac with this?

Hmmm... look at the flic below. What do you think of my 1RU USB KB/Mouse/KVM/13.3" TFT???

Originally posted by IPC PRO


Hmmm... look at the flic below. What do you think of my 1RU USB KB/Mouse/KVM/13.3" TFT???

Sweeeet! :D

-t

I think I have the answer everyone wants to hear.

Apples hardward is the ****. Their OS's suck. Put linux on a Mac and it's surely never to go splat.

I guess this isn't the place to start a long Mac OS discussion. Also I don't know enough about it...

Linus T. made some bad comments about Mach somewhere and he meant OS-X had even added some more mistakes to it. But that's him and I don't know...

Basically, a microkernel seems to be a good thing...

Originally posted by Sharpnet
I think I have the answer everyone wants to hear.

Apples hardward is the ****. Their OS's suck. Put linux on a Mac and it's surely never to go splat.

Spoken like a true, well, this is a family list...

The benchmarks I've done so far on Apple OSX Server makes the comparable Intel iron running Linux look like a TRS80. It's very impressive indeed.

I'm going to add WebStar and Zeus benchmarks to the Apache ones for OSX Server as both products claim to be faster than Apache. We'll see.

I'll be publishing them soon, as well as putting up a server that will run the benchmarks against your web hardware configuration if you are not on a shared server. There are some interesting issues with letting the benchmark server pound your NOC as well - the benchmark runs great on a private network but can quickly flood the network connection to a rack and really piss off the NOC owners in a hurry!

-t

Are you using MacOS X Server 2, or 1.x for these benchmarks? I think I read that due to some special chaching modules, the version of Apache included in Server 2 can process millions of requests per day.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

I never installed the pre-production release of OSX, and I'm running a no-cache benchmark by making sure all pages and graphics are delivered fresh each time...

So far, no special tuning either - just running everything out of the box.

-t

I was not suggesting that you were running a prerelease version of MacOS X Server -- version 2 recently went final.

From the MacOS X Server page:

"...allows Mac OS X Server to provide up to 2645 hits/second in WebBench 3.0. That's enough to almost saturate three T3 lines, or an OC3 line, at more than 130 Megabits per second..."

That's almost 230 million hits per day. My Cobalt RaQ feels somewhat weak now. :bawling:

Here's the biggest issue, while the PowerPC processor is great for this, alot of the webhosting software that is now on Mac OS X is freshly ported from x86 and isn't very well optimized. Even linux on mac isn't optimized that well. Just ask the maintainers of GCC they have a very good explanation of it.

I really would like to use os10 to host, i've seen some uptime and it looks really good. I just hope that now all these companies continue to develop the latests version of the software for Mac OS X as welll as the x86 versions.

The nice thing about OS X is that it has a mix of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and a few other BSDs. The did this to pull the best of everything. The netstack/ tcp/ip stack handling is the best of any unix os, it's just dying to be put to the test.

I'm curious to see now that oracle bought a huge amount of g4s to host ORACLE 8i on how it will hold up.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Also i know apple is planning to release enterprise hardware as they keep talking about their 8 processor version of a g4 they also just swung a huge deal with verizon.