Apple Ships Enterprise Class Xsan Server

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) today announced it has begun shipping Xsan, a high-performance, enterprise-class Storage Area Network (SAN) file system with a US$999 price tag.

Apple said the 64-bit cluster file system for Mac OS X enables organizations to consolidate storage resources and provide multiple computers with concurrent file-level read/write access to shared volumes over Fibre Channel.

The system is certified with Apple's suite of professional applications, including Final Cut Pro HD editing software and Motion, a motion graphics production application.

Need for Speed

"Apple's pro video and IT customers now have an affordable, high performance SAN file system on Mac OS X," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. "Together, Apple's Xsan file system software and Xserve RAID storage hardware deliver a powerful, easy-to-manage, enterprise class SAN solution at a breakthrough low price."

Xsan targets customers who need high-speed access to centralized shared data for storage consolidation and workflow in video postproduction, data center, broadcast and high performance computing environments.

For the first time on Mac OS X, up to 64 video professionals can simultaneously access a single storage volume that supports multiple high-bandwidth video streams for efficient workflow in video and film editing, broadcast, visual effects and motion graphics creation.

"Xsan is the holy grail of shared storage for Final Cut Pro," Mark Raudonis, director of postproduction for Bunim-Murray Productions, said. "We can now take advantage of Final Cut Pro HD in a fully networked environment to edit groundbreaking reality TV series such as MTV's 'The Real World' and 'Road Rules' and Fox's 'The Simple Life' in real time at a third of the cost of existing solutions."

Breaking the Mold

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told MacNewsWorld that the film industry is one field where Apple still has a presence and the company is hoping Xsan will open up opportunities to peddle broader technology solutions there. However, Enderle is skeptical.

"For the most part, Apple is still not seen as a real server player," Enderle said. "The majority of its installed servers often end up running Linux instead of the Mac OS, which has been problematic for the company long-term in terms of penetrating and holding on to the market."

Ironically, Enderle said Apple and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) are making similar, yet opposite moves, each without widespread success . Sun keeps trying to open up a desktop business, he said, while Apple keeps trying to open up a server business.

"Neither firm is really designed to open up the alternative business that they are pursuing," Enderle said. "They would do so much better if they merged or partnered to go after those respective markets."

High Performance Computing

For now, Apple will go it alone and is not just betting on the film industry. Apple said Xsan is not only ideal for demanding professional video workflows, but also for storage consolidation for business, government, education and high performance computing.

Advanced features such as metadata controller failover and Fibre Channel multipathing ensure high availability; file-level locking allows multiple systems to read and write concurrently to the same volume, which the company said is ideal for complex workflows; and sophisticated volume management results in more efficient use of storage resources.

Setup, administration and monitoring is built into the Xsan administration software that provides volume management, SAN file system configuration and remote monitoring in one integrated application. User quotas and access controls allow administrators to restrict storage usage and file access for data security.

Since Xsan is interoperable with ADIC's StorNext File System, it can be used in heterogeneous environments, including Windows, Unix and Linux operating system platforms. Additionally, Xsan is supported by ADIC's industry leading data management software, StorNext Management Suite.