Filed under: Mac OS X Server

Apple yesterday posted a few new server-related updates for Xsan and Mac OS X Server.

The first, Xsan 2.2.1, improves file system reliability and cvfsck repair utility. This update is available for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. There's also an updated version of the Xsan uninstaller.

Next, Mail Services Update 1.0 addresses issues affecting overall mail service reliability and performance. This update is available and recommend for all users on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

These updates are available in Software Update, or from Apple's Support Downloads page.

Unboxing the server (sorry, no unboxing movies this time...) unveiled a plastic-wrapped mini Server and the traditional power brick, along with a small box containing Mac OS X 10.6 Server and assorted manuals. While I didn't check for the usual Apple stickers, I did find the server software serial number cards that are essential during the setup process.

There was a bit of a holdup when I discovered that the server came with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter, while I had brought my old VGA display with me. Fortunately, one of the employees on-site had a monitor that was quickly pressed into service, and after plugging in the keyboard, mouse and power, the server quickly booted up.

Apple is marketing the Mac mini Server as "Easy to set up. Easy to run," and they're right on -- to a point.

Just days after all the hardware updates on Tuesday, Apple has posted two new support downloads.

The first, Pro Applications Update 2009-01, contains several updates for applications in Final Cut Studio. This update includes Final Cut Pro 7.0.1, Motion 4.0.1, Soundtrack Pro 3.0.1, Color 1.5.1, and Compressor 3.5.1.

This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

You can download this update through Software Update, or on the Apple Support Downloads page.

Also, Apple released Apple Server Diagnostics 3X106, which replaces Apple Server Diagnostics 3X104 to provide support for Snow Leopard Server. This is compatiable with the Xserve (Early 2008 or Early 2009) or the Mac mini server config (Early 2009).

This download is also available on the Apple Support Downloads page.

Steve Sande actually did a brilliant job of explaining just why the Mac mini is so awesome the other day (and we've certainly had our share of mini-love here on the site before), but this is worth a read as well if you're interested in Apple's littlest Mac. Macminicolo, the very company that Steve lauds in his piece for colocating mini servers for a while now, has posted a "state of the mini" piece, complete with unboxing of the new mini server, pictures of its guts and how they all work together. If you've ever wondered why the mini is such a marvel of desktop OS X-ness, check out their writeup (and drool at the beautiful setup above -- so many minis!).

There are a few good things to take away from the big release this week -- while Steve is exactly right that releasing a mini server means Apple is getting on the server bandwagon, it also means that Apple is officially on the mini bandwagon. When these machines were first released, they were marketed as a switchers' computer -- bring your own mouse and monitor, and we'll show you what being on a Mac is like at a fraction of the cost. Frankly, they never shined at that purpose, prompting many people to proclaim death sentences for the little machine that could. But by releasing a server, Apple's saying, "we get it." They get that the mini is much more of a workhorse than it appears (or was meant) to be. In my mind, that's a whole new lease on life -- the mini may have never made much of a splash as a switchers' computer, but it's got a long future as a tiny but powerful computer you can use for all sorts of things.

[via DF]

A few minutes after we heard about all of the new product announcements this morning, this email came in from TUAW reader Daniel:

Can you god blessed brains explain in some easy-to-understand way what are the possibilities for a Mac mini server for us non-tech brained mortals?

Why, of course we can, Daniel! That's why we're here.

I have personally used Mac minis as servers since shortly after the first G4 models came out on the market. In fact, at one point I personally had two of them at Macminicolo.net, a wonderful little company that was founded on the belief that Mac minis were great servers. I've installed at least a dozen for clients, and they are excellent for small businesses for the following reasons:

They're inexpensive. When you start looking at an Xserve, you want to start looking at mass storage and tape libraries as well. Pretty soon, the cost of a fully-loaded Xserve starts looking astronomical to a small business. That's not to say that Xserves don't have their place -- in fact, I have had two of my clients start with Mac minis and then move to Xserves when they found that they were outgrowing the mini servers. With the new $999 price point for a mini with an unlimited Mac OS X Server 10.6 license, two built-in 500 GB drives, and 4 GB of RAM, almost anybody can afford to own a server that provides email, instant messaging, calendaring, a wiki, podcast production, and more to a small workgroup.

They make it simple. The advantage of Mac OS X Server's software suite is power with a pretty face; it exposes the UNIX power of Mac OS X (including the industry-standard Apache, PHP, Samba and Jabber/XMPP stacks) with the relative ease of the Mac. While you can certainly roll your own server setup using conventional Mac OS X (either using Apple's shipped versions of Apache & PHP, or bumping them up), having the server administration tools makes everything a lot nicer. What's more, the standalone unlimited-license version of Server is a full $499, making this a straightforward bargain.

Data Robotics delivered their "super-sized" version of the Drobo earlier this year. DroboPro has 8 drive bays into which you can drop 3.5" SATA drives of almost any capacity, from the old 160 GB model you've been using to hold the backup of your iTunes library to that 2 TB Western Digital Caviar drive you just purchased. Using a proprietary storage technology called BeyondRAID, Data Robotics makes it easy to use a DroboPro to give you a big box 'o storage right now, and easily expand in the future.

Data Robotics recently lent me a DroboPro for a detailed review, and I was able to give it a thorough workout. Read on to find out more about the DroboPro and an excellent deal available to readers of TUAW.

One of the largest personal iTunes libraries I've ever seen belongs to a client of mine. This client, who was a DJ in the 50's and 60's, has a huge collection of vinyl albums and singles that he painstakingly digitized, cleaned up, and catalogued in iTunes. Needless to say, opening iTunes on his Mac Pro is an exercise in patience.

Thinking about his music storage needs, and the huge amount of digital photos and video that my wife are accumulating, got me musing about other ways to do mass storage inexpensively. At this point, I'm probably OK with a DroboPro, but what if I needed petabytes (1 petabyte = 1,024 terabytes = 1,048,576 gigabytes) of storage? Most solutions at this point in time are quite expensive.

As of 6 AM PDT this morning, off-site backup vendor BackBlaze has put their solution to mass storage needs, the BackBlaze Storage Pod, out to the world as an open source project. Their solution is a relatively inexpensive box (US$7,867 for 67 TB of storage) made up of off-the-shelf components that can be reproduced and/or improved upon by others who also need huge amounts of cheap storage. See those red boxes in the picture to the right? Each one of those contains 67 TB of RAID 6 storage in a 4U box. For a petabyte of storage, you're going to need to spend about $117,000 on about fifteen of the boxes.

After the big upgrade to Snow Leopard last weekend, Apple has posted three new updates, fixing various OS and firmware issues.

The first is Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2. This update "improves compatibility with the latest Apple memory kits on Mac mini computers." This update is only needed for Mac minis introduced in March 2009 or later.

Next, there's an update to Mac OS X Leopard Server, Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 Update v.1.1, which includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes for a few other issues. This update is available as a Combo or Standalone update.

Finally, there's a firmware update for SuperDrives. This update "will eliminate the noise made by the optical disk drive during system startup and wake from sleep on your Mac." This update is only needed for iMacs and Mac minis introduced in March 2009 or later.

As always, these updates are available through Software Update on your Mac, or you can download them from Apple's Support Downloads page.

In this morning's rush to figure out what had changed at the Apple Store, one of our readers pointed out that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server (US$499 for an unlimited license) was priced lower than Leopard Server (US$999 for unlimited users). While this is nothing new -- we've known about the price change since June -- it bears repeating.

For businesses with small, single offices to large enterprises with racks full of Xserves, Snow Leopard Server makes a lot of sense. That $499 license provides a lot -- a mail server (not Exchange-compatible, however), CalDAV server for group calendars, group-wide Time Machine backups to a server, a podcast producer, a wiki server, an iChat server, and the new Mobile Access Server, in addition to a plethora of other administrative and client management options.

Along with the Xserve, which I've found to be comparably priced to other enterprise-class servers, and the Mac mini, which makes a great little inexpensive headless server for small offices, Apple has created a set of powerful business tools. Considering that it's now half the price of Leopard Server, Snow Leopard Server is something that more system admins may want to look at, especially in Microsoft-dominated shops.

When a Leopard user wants a backup of the data on her computer, she might just attach an external hard disk to her machine and let Time Machine perform its magic. But how do you do backups for Xserves or large groups of Mac users? In many cases, you use tape libraries attached to servers, client software on the Macs that directs backup data to the server, and an application on the server to sort it all out.

Many Mac, Windows, and Linux system administrators rely on an application from TOLIS Group, Inc. called BRU Server. Last week, TOLIS Group announced BRU Server 2.0, an upgrade to their flagship backup product. The new version has a redesigned GUI that is common to all three OS platforms, and a faster encryption algorithm. One new feature is that client machines running the BRU Server Agent can now initiate their own backups and file restores via drag-and-drop. There's also full support of Access Control Lists (ACLs) and extended attributes on Mac OS X and Linux clients.

TOLIS Group is also offering complete backup bundles consisting of the BRU Server software and tape drives or libraries (up to 96 slots) that have been fully tested for compatibility with Mac OS X and Linux. BRU Server 2.0 starts at $599 for two clients, and workgroup and enterprise licenses available.

Seems a little redundant, doesn't it? What else would an app named Server Admin Remote do? Well anyway, if you're in the market for something to remotely administer your servers (to a point), particularly Mac OS X servers, this is one handy and powerful tool. View logs, enable services, even reboot the server all from your iPhone (or iPod touch). Plus, there's support for multiple server instances, which you switch between just like in Tweetdeck -- a quick swipe left or right does the trick.

Server Admin Remote (iTunes link) is currently $7.99. We're planning to have a more in-depth look later, so stay tuned.

This concludes our WWDC video series. Thanks to all the developers kind enough to stop by and show what they are doing. Your efforts make Apple's desktop and mobile platforms truly amazing.

If you have Mac servers in your business, you weren't left out of the Snow Leopard fun during the keynote earlier today. Apple also announced that Mac OS X Server 10.6, A.K.A. Snow Leopard Server, will be shipping in September. Like Snow Leopard, the server version of the OS provides 64-bit support, and many of the Apple applications have been updated to take advantage of that. For example, SMB file server performance is 2.3x faster than Leopard Server, and AFP file server performance is now 1.3x faster.

New features include:

iCal Server 2 -- This upgrade to Leopard's iCal Server now provides push notification, wireless accessibility to your calendar from any iPhone, a new web-based calendaring interface, and updates to CalDAV that now allow you to invite colleagues to meetings via email.

Podcast Producer 2 -- Podcast Producer, which was added to the server mix in Leopard, is now improved with Podcast Composer. This new feature lets you create your own workflows for automating completion and publishing of podcasts. There's also a new Setup Assistant in Server Admin that can set up Podcast Producer 2 in a manner of minutes, even if you're setting up a cluster of servers.

Wiki Server 2 -- Workgroups wishing to collaborate now have a little bit more to love from Wiki Server. The only real new feature is iPhone support; users can securely log into confidential wikis and content, and even review content and comments from the iPhone.

Mobile Access Server -- The piece that I'm probably the most excited about as an Xserve admin is Mobile Access Server. This new feature is like a custom VPN for Mac and iPhone users. As long as they're set up in the server's directory service, users can get secure, encrypted access to the server and network with very little hassle.

Mail Server -- The engine running Mail Server has been totally redesigned for much faster service, and now provides push email, vacation messages and server-side rules, and improvements to mail server clustering.

Web Server -- The biggest change to Web Server is that it can now do HTTP live video streaming. Performance is about 1.3x faster than Leopard Server's web services as well.

Client Management -- Organizations that are deploying many iPhones will love the new client management piece of Snow Leopard Server. It has an iPhone configuration utility for creating profiles that can be emailed to corporate users, thus setting up secure services in a few seconds. Administrators can now also use NetRestore to rebuild Macs over networks, based on either a custom build disk image or a standard OS X install disk.

Best of all, Snow Leopard Server will cost $499 for unlimited users (a sharp reduction from Leopard Server's price of $999 unlimited, $499 for 10 users) and should be shipping at the same time OS X 10.6 is available to the rest of us. I'd just be happy if Apple has finally fixed a lot of the issues with backing up network users to Mac OS X Server using Time Machine.

The Data Robotics Drobo brought easy mass storage to power users and small businesses back in 2007, and since then, higher hard disk capacities and word of mouth have turned it into a popular storage solution. The simple design, proprietary BeyondRaid redundant-disk technology, and easy expandability are perfect for anyone who has a lot of information to store, and for businesses with up to 25 employees. However, Data Robotics wanted to move further into the lucrative SMB storage market and didn't have a product that would handle up to 100 people and fit in a standard server rack.

That all changed this morning, with the announcement of DroboPro. Think of Drobo on steroids, with slots for eight SATA drives instead of four, two FireWire 800 ports, a USB 2.0 port, and an Ethernet port that is used for iSCSI connectivity, and throughput rates in the 75-80 megabyte/second range. Give this über-Drobo the same easy setup and management, quiet operation, and cool looks of the original device, and you have a winner.

I interviewed Tom Loverro, Director of Product Marketing at Data Robotics, last week about the company's new product.

We've talked about the Data Robotics Drobo storage solution here on TUAW a few times, but there hasn't been a hands-on review of the device on this blog...until now.

The Drobo is a mass storage solution that takes advantage of RAID -- Redundant Array of Independent Disks -- to provide a single large volume by combining two to four "naked" (not in an separate enclosure) hard disk drives. Drobo uses a proprietary system called "BeyondRAID" to do this while eliminating a lot of the administrative headaches that are normally associated with setting up RAID arrays.

Drobo uses a combination of RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 5 (striping) to provide relatively fast response times and redundancy. If a drive fails, you simply pop it out of the array and pop in a new one. Drobo takes care of rebuilding the new disk while the array is in use. While many traditional RAID solutions require all drives to have exactly the same capacity, you can mix or match drive sizes with Drobo. This makes storage growth quite easy to manage -- as new, larger capacity hard drives appear in the future, you just need to pull out a smaller drive or two and replace them with the larger drives. Drobo takes care of integrating the new disk or disks into the array. Click the Read More link for the rest of this post.