Apple to use Sun's ZFS in Leopard
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A file system loved by all Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz may have let the cat out of the bag on Apple's plans for Mac OS 10.5 Leopard's file system.â¦
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First a little background. I stopped using a Mac in 1997, as Apple was transitioning to the new operating system. I started using the Mac again as my primary OS in late 2005, a little more than two years ago. This is the first new version of the OS to come out since I switched back. Based on a tour of the new features, pretty late at the end of a long week, it's safe to say an OS is still just an OS, the purpose of the OS is to stay out of your way until you need it. Leopard may be prettier than the last version, I'm not sure it is or isn't. Not sure I'll use many of the new features. For people who hadn't used VNC before, "screen sharing" would certainly be a big new feature if they're working in a networked enviroment. And maybe the new backup code will fit into my routine. I have some ideas about that. (Maybe I'll just have one computer on my LAN that is backed up and copy things there if I want them backed up.) File sharing is more convenient in Leopard, the shared computers are listed in every Finder window, and this is good. FInding the disks that are available on each of these computers is one step easier too.  The Preferences applicaiton appears largely unchanged, except the Networking section where a lot of functionality seems to be missing. I have to look at this more closely. The Download stack is lost on me since I don't use Safari or Apple's mail app. I would find it useful if Firefox had a similar feature (but they kind of do, I can direct all downloads to a specific folder). All in all, changes to an OS aren't that important. The action is in the apps, and for me, just a couple of primary ones, the web browser and my integrated writing and programming environment. It's been quite a while since there have been meaningful improvements to either, and those improvements would end up meaning a lot more to me than improvements to the OS. There isn't much you can do, after the Mac has been around for 23 years, that hasn't already been done.  Net-net, my first impression of Leopard is that it isn't a big deal one way or the other.  PS: I wonder if the next version of the OS will be called Leonard, to honor Leonard Rosenthal, a famous Mac developer in the 80s and 90s.
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Apple Computer&#39;s rack-mounted storage system received a vote of confidence Monday, with database giant Oracle endorsing the Xserve RAID as part of an initiative to cut storage costs.
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Sun Microsystems's CEO Jonathan Schwartz said Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard would rely on a file system that his engineers created: ZFS.
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MacCentral - Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday announced that it is shipping its Xsan Storage Area Network (SAN) file system, now available for US&#36;999 per client and per server. Xsan is a 64-bit cluster file system that enables Mac OS X Server users to share files and volumes up to 16 TB (Terabytes) in size on a Fibre Channel network. Apple also announced an upgrade to its rack-mountable Xserve G5 file server, upping the top-end and "Cluster Node" configuration's processor speed to 2.3GHz and its system bus speed to 1.15GHz.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple may have a jones for secrecy, but that doesn't mean it can keep its partners quiet. On stage Wednesday in Washington D.C., Sun Microsystems Inc. CEO Jonathan Schwartz revealed that his company's open-source ZFS file system will replace Apple's long-used HFS+ in Mac OS X 10.5, a.k.a. "Leopard," when the new operating system ships this fall. "This week, you'll see that Apple is announcing at their Worldwide Developers Conference that ZFS has become the file system in Mac OS X," said Schwartz. ZFS (Zettabyte File System), designed by Sun for its Solaris OS but licensed as open-source, is a 128-bit file storage system that features, among other things, "pooled storage," which means that users simply plug in additional drives to add space, without worrying about such traditional storage parameters as volumes or partitions. "[ZFS] eliminates volume management, it has extremely high performance.... It permits the failure of disk drives," crowed Schwartz during a presentation focused on Sun's new blade servers. Apple's operating system currently relies on HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus), a 1998 extension of 1985's HFS. ZFS was touted by many as a possible successor to HFS+ last summer, immediately after Apple's CEO Steve Jobs first showed off Time Machine, the new backup feature planned to debut in Leopard. In the intervening months, however, the ZFS-Time Machine connections were downplayed or dismissed by most observers. Even today, after Schwartz talked up ZFS, bloggers seemed skeptical about the file system's place in Leopard. "I'll stick to my prediction that Apple, as with HFS+, will put ZFS on OS X Server first before bringing it out later for the great unwashed," said Robin Harris on his StorageMojo blog. Most objections centered around the short time between now and Leopard's October release, and the implications of such a major makeover. Others at Sun, however, seemed to confirm that ZFS would be the default file system. "Jonathan noted that Apple will announce this week that the ZFS file system from OpenSolaris will become Apple's new default file system," said Marc Hamilton, Sun's director of technology for global education and research, on his company blog. "So how does that help Sun? It is pretty simple, now every Apple developer will know ZFS and how to use it on our SunFire x4500 storage server and other Sun products." A Sun spokeswoman would not confirm or deny that ZFS would be Mac OS X 10.5's default file system. "I can't tell you anything more than what Jonathan [Schwartz] said today," she said. Apple does not comment on unannounced products or product features. Schwartz may have unwittingly stolen some of Jobs' thunder for next week, since Apple watchers expect the Apple CEO to tout Leopard -- especially features previously not made public -- during his WWDC keynote next Monday.
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Sun Microsystems is planning to beef up its network-attached storage product line with support for utility computing and its new zettabyte file system, according to Balint Fleischer, vice president and CTO of the network storage products group
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âWith Leopard, Appleâs operating system widens its lead aesthetically and technologically,â states Ed Baig . Baig âmigrated to Leopardâ from Tiger âwithout pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; thereâs mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system upgrade.â Calling Leopard âone cool cat,â Baig praises Time Machine with its automatic backup and effortless file retrieval; the new videoconferencing features in iChat Theater; stationery, notes and To Do options in Mail; Cover Flow, Spaces, Stacks, and the ability to âhighlight and copy any portion of a Web page inside the Safari browser and turn it into a live Dashboard widget.â
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Parallels Desktop, virtual machine software for Intel Macs, has been updated for Leopard.
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After announcing a deal with Lexar last week to distribute its technology, Eye-Fi moved onto Macworld Monday, announcing support for Leopard and Safari.
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The 2008 Macworld Conference and Expo begins Jan.14. In addition to new Apple announcements, we're likely to see a flood of new desktop applications making use of all the latest enhancements to Apple's Leopard operating system.
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MacCentral - Apple on Tuesday announced that its Xserve RAID storage system is now available with up to 5.6 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity -- up from 3.5TB in previous models. Apple has also received certification for the Xserve RAID from Cisco and SUSE Linux, and has optimized the RAID system to work with Apple's own Xsan Storage Area Network (SAN) file system.
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Ina Fried reports for cnet News.com, &#147;Apple Computer&#146;s rack-mounted storage system received a vote of confidence Monday, with database giant Oracle endorsing the Xserve RAID as part of an initiative to cut storage costs &#133; Additionally, Oracle is using the Xserve RAID in its own technology department to store e-mail, voice mail and calendar information &#133; Meanwhile, Apple also said Oracle is moving ahead with previously announced plans to offer its 10g software for the Mac sometime before the end of the year.&#148; [Dec 07]
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InfoWorld - SAN FRANCISCO - BakBone Software will showcase this week at Macworld Expo new storage backup systems designed for small- and medium-sized businesses that rely on Mac OS X, using its NetVault software, first announced for the Mac this past summer.
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According to Jim Dalrymple , one of the goals for Xsan 2 was to make it easier for customers to set up a storage area network (SAN). âOne of the ways Apple has accomplished this is with the SAN Setup Assistant, which is integrated into Mac OS X Leopard Server or as an application that can be run on its own.â  âThe setup assistant, Dalryple explains, does âall the heavy lifting for you, setting up everything including Open Directory permissions.â
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You can't spend five minutes online these days without learning about the release of Apple's newest operating system upgrade. If you have Macs in your workplace, here's what you need to know so you're ready to run with OS X Leopard.
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Apple Computer is shipping its Xsan storage-area network file system, a 64-bit cluster file system that can be used in mixed-platform environments that include the Windows, Unix and Linux operating systems.