Cut costs...buy Apple (?!)
Category: Apple/Mac OS...
Posted Friday, January 28, 2005 at 02:02 PM [GMT-6]

Just ran across this report from CNet News that "database giant" Oracle is switching to Apple's Xserve RAID as a way of cutting costs. When's the last time you heard the term "cutting costs" used as a recommendation for an Apple product?

According to the report:

Oracle is using the Xserve RAID for a task once reserved for pricier Fibre Channel-based disk arrays. The software giant noted in a white paper that the Apple approach was about three times lower on a cost-per-megabyte basis.

"Its performance is excellent," Oracle said in the document. Apple said Oracle plans to use 50 to 100 terabytes of Apple storage. Apple itself has been shifting much of its data storage capacity from EMC and IBM systems onto Xserve RAID.

This move seems to break a couple of stereotypes that have plagued Apple for a long time. The first is that Macs are not compatible with "big corporate IT needs." I've never understood that one.

The second is that Apple products are just too dang expensive. And that may be true in some cases for the initial investment. I've seen a number of studies that indicate that on a "total cost of ownership" basis, Apple competes very well, but that's always hard to compute on an individual basis so most corporations just take the easy way out and focus on the initial purchase cost.

I'm glad to see that a savvy company like Oracle recognizes the value that an Apple solution offers.

Of course, I have no explanation as to why Apple hasn't been using its own RAID product all along.

Tip o'the hat to Jon Gruber at Daring Fireball.

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Comments

Um, XServe is Fibre Channel RAID. Now, it is definitely cheap...in the biz, it's known as ghetto RAID.

I gotta admit, I was waiting for the first Mac-head to start talking up Xserv like it was something whoopdy-do. Took about a month to filter down to the blogs. heh heh

Posted by: Scott Chaffin at January 29, 2005 10:07 PM
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