New and awesome

Two of the major gripes that data center managers had about earlier Xserve models involved power redundancy and lights-out management capabilities. "Apple listened closely to its customer requests and delivered on the most-requested features," said Doug Brooks, product manager for server hardware at Apple. The dual power supplies are load-sharing and hot-swappable, and a second power supply is included in the Xserve emergency parts kit in case it's needed.

As for the lights-out management, it's for real this time.

Apple has incorporated the IPMI standard into its management interface, which allows the CPU to be monitored and controlled remotely by any IPMI-compliant device and software package, such as HP OpenView. The management card has its own IP address and account, but setup is simple and added to the OS build. Initially, the system management account is used to provision the card. Here's a more detailed look at IPMI.

Best of all, Apple offers something small, seemingly insignificant to anyone who has not had to do inventory or determine a MAC address in the dark. Included in every Xserve is a pull-out plastic card that remains connected to the machine. It has room for an asset management tag of standard thickness, with the Xserve's serial number, configuration data and MAC addresses of the NICs all in white -- yes, white -- lettering.