Apple is reportedly working with Chinese server vendor Inspur as it seeks to bring the infrastructure for its cloud services in-house.
Apple currently relies on third-party companies to host its cloud content, most of the capacity currently provided by Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, with Google also recently joining the roster. However, the company is said to be working on developing its own data network and infrastructure in a project codenamed McQueen.
While part of the motivation will be cost, it was also recently reported that security is another significant consideration, Apple being concerned that servers received from third-parties may have been tampered with prior to delivery …
The Digitimes report is lacking in detail, but the report has credibility given that Inspur has more than a 60% share of the Chinese server market and its client base includes many big players.
Many IT players including Microsoft, LG Electronics, Ericsson, Intel, IBM, SAP, VMware, Nvidia and RedHat, have formed partnerships with the China-based server vendor, looking to quickly expand in China’s server market.
Inspur also has a Californian office, which includes both R&D and production facilities.
We first reported that Apple was upgrading its cloud servers back in May of last year, with Bloomberg reporting the following month that Apple was working on designing its own storage and network equipment, and building its own private fiber optic links, rather than relying exclusively on third-party companies.
Image: Inspur
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I wonder if apple would use its own chips if it were to built its own servers?
Also, what server OS are they using?
Using their own chips would require a very heavy bit of engineering not to mention that their chips lack advanced instruction sets and have a Pathetic I/O. Guess they would use Swift as a language for backend with OS X server who knows? Maybe they would buy IBM powerpc chips or AMD or Qualcomm but most likely it will be intel
Pathetic based on what specifications you have that we don’t have?
Are you seriously comparing mobile SOC’s with Xeons and PowerPC’s? That is a pathetic comparison, indeed!
And what “advanced instruction set” you’re referring to?
Your argument lost all credibility when you suggested that Apple should use Qualcomm processors, really sad, Apple haters…
There is a point where using public cloud services becomes cost-ineffective. AWS, Google, Microsoft, and the rest all need to profit from their cloud services. If you have the volume, it is cheaper to build out your own infrastructure and manage it yourself.
Dropbox is also moving off the public cloud, for many of the same reasons.
I imagine that Apple is also interested in keeping encryption keys far, far away from their cloud infrastructure. Trusting a mostly anonymous overseas commodity hardware or software vendor is an incredible risk. What does AWS, Google, and Microsoft do to validate their low-level components?
Think of that next time you buy a cheapo internet security camera, wifi router, or hard drive.
Funny seeing Apple come full circe. They use to be in the server market.
Go ahead Apple and put a few Mini’s in a back closet. There is a fantastic app in the App store Called “Server” (search for it, it’ll be easy to find) for only $19.95 that you can use to run all the services. PS don’t trust all the 1 & 2 star reviews, those people don’t know what they’re talking about….
/sarcasm
Haha, best comment. Yeah, my old job still had Xserves running a lot of the stuff…Unfortunately.
I’m glad Apple got out of that game though, they were HORRIBLE at it!
Even still, today, the Server app is fkn atrocious, anyone who runs Mac “servers” for their business should seek mental health counseling ASAP.
Another bullshitter, the server app is based around open source technologies that are industry standard, just providing an easy to use and uncomplicated GUI.
You should seek mental health…
Full circle? Hardly. The path Apple is pursing is straight forward like an arrow into the future.
A hardware “server” like a Mac Mini or even an XServe or other 1U (or larger) server from Dell or Sun or IBM has nothing to do with a cloud infrastructure. Using a traditional server or desktop computer is exactly how a cloud provider fails, as cloud hardware design is ALL about Performance per Watt.
When you have 100,000+ physical machines in a dozen self-managed data centers, you don’t have any want for USB ports, video-out, audio-out, wifi, bluetooth, or anything other than CPU, memory, a little power, networking, and some storage services. All those other things are just liabilities, eating power (by far the most expensive part of cloud infrastructure) and reducing reliability.
I’d think the best hardware for a cloud-centric datacenter could be a custom A9-based logic card with some networking: Small (perhaps 30 mm x 30 mm x 5 mm), capable, and with very lower power consumption and a simple bus connector. Easy to cool, and easy to stack 100,000+ of these in a small building. Add some storage arrays and you’re good to go.
Guess you missed the sarcasm part.
Apple had server resources 6 years ago and basically killed everything off. Server is a joke and is guaranteed to take your IT infrastructure down if you are dumb/naive enough to adopt it.
My point is all the stuff you mentioned could have been developed over the last 6+ years but no one at Apple saw no need for servers back then even though everything was going to the cloud. Extremely short sighted on their part.
OK, but personally I’d be nervous about working with any Chinese company on a server/security initiative.
Most Servers are manufactured in china. Namely Quanta which makes servers for nVidia Intel AWS Azure
Buying servers from China to improve security ?
Working with =/= buying from.
Are Apple going to migrate Chinese customer cloud data away from the Chinese state owned servers that they currently reside on?
Well, if they didn’t abandon X Serve, this might not be an issue…