Intel Xserve Business

The Xserve was often regarded as a wise step by Apple into the business-oriented world of servers. NASA, the US Navy, Virginia Tech and transaction operator xTech were high-profile clients who used the rackmount servers as an energy-efficient and sometimes more powerful alternative to Opterons and Xeons. However, there was always a disclaimer attached to the purchase: because Xserves used PowerPC processors, IT managers were beholden to PowerPC's intermittent performance updates and running PowerPC-based versions of even standard Linux software. ITJungle's Timothy Morgan notes that the advent of Intel-based Xserves should offer a dramatic change: Xserves might be able to run more operating systems (including more Linux distributions), receive more predictable performance upgrades similar to Windows counterparts, and even offer better performance for the price.

By Electronista Staff