The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) file sharing service in the MacOS Server is gone. The AFP file server capability was dropped in MacOS version 11, aka Big Sur back in December last year. The AFP clientis the last remaining piece in MacOS and may see its days numbered as well as the world of file services evolved from the simple local networks and workgroup collaboration of the 80s and 90s, to something more complex and demanding. The AFP’s decline was also probably aided by the premium prices of Apple hardware, and many past users have switched to Windows for frugality and prudence reasons. SMB/CIFS is the network file sharing services for Windows, and AFP is not offered in Windows natively.
MacOS supports 3 of the file sharing protocols natively – AFP, NFS and SMB/CIFS – as a client. Therefore, it has the capability to collaborate well in many media and content development environments, and sharing and exchanging files easily, assuming that the access control and permissions and files/folders ownerships are worked out properly. The large scale Apple-only network environment is no longer feasible and many studios that continue to use Macs for media and content development have only a handful of machines and users.
NAS vendors that continue to support AFP file server services are not that many too, or at least those who advertise their support for AFP. iXsystems™TrueNAS® is one of the few. This blog shows the steps to setup the AFP file services for MacOS clients.
It’s another quarter and both Gartner and IDC reports on disk storage market are out.
What does it take to slow down EMC, who is like a behemoth beast mowing down its competition? EMC, has again tops both the charts. IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Tracker for Q1 of 2012 puts EMC at 29.0% of the market share, followed by NetApp at 14.1%, and IBM at 11.4%. In fourth place is HP with 10.2% and HDS is placed fifth with 9.4%.
In the Gartner report, EMC has the lead of 32.5%, followed by NetApp at 12.7% and IBM with 11.0%. HDS held fourth place at 9.5% and HP is fifth with 9.0%. Continue reading →
Steve Jobs was great with what he has done, but when it comes to Cloud Computing, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is the one. And I believe the Amazon Web Services (AWS) is bigger than Apple’s iCloud, in this present time and the future. Why do I say that knowing that the Apple fan boys could be using me as target practice? Because I believe what Amazon is doing is the future of Cloud Computing. Jeff Bezos is a true visionary.
One thing we have to note is that we play different roles when it comes to Cloud Computing. There are Cloud Service Providers (CSP) and there are enterprise subscribers. On a personal level, there are CSPs that cater for consumer-level type of services and there are subscribers of this kind as well. The diagram below shows the needs from an enterprise perspective, for both providers and subscribers.
Also we recognize Amazon from a less enterprise perspective, and they are probably better known for their engagement at the consumer level. But what Amazon is brewing could already be what Cloud Computing should be and I don’t think Apple iCloud is quite there yet.
Amazon Web Services cater for the enterprise and the IT crowd, providing both Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) through its delectable offerings of the
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
SimpleDB
Simple Storage Service (S3)
Elastic Block Store (EBS)
Elastic Beanstalk
CloudFormation
many more
And AWS has been operational and serving enterprise customers for 5-6 years now. Netflix, Zynga, Farmville are some of AWS customers. This is something Apple iCloud do not have, a Cloud Computing ecosystems for enterprise customers. Apple iCloud do not offer PaaS or IaaS. Perhaps that’s Apple vision not to get into the enterprise, but eventually the world evolve around businesses and businesses are adopting Cloud Computing. Many readers may disagree with what I say now in this paragraph but I will share with you later that even at the consumer level, Amazon is putting right moves in place, probably more so than Apple’s vision. (more about this later).
But the recent announcement of Kindle Fire, their USD$199 Android-based gadget, was to me, the final piece to Amazon’s Phase I jigsaw – the move to conquer the Cloud Computing space. I read somewhere that USD$199 Kindle Fire actually costs about USD$201.XX to manufacture. Apple’s iPad costs USD$499. So Amazon is making a loss for each gadget they sell. So what! It’s no big deal.
Let me share with you this table that will rattle your thinking a little bit. Remember this: Cloud Computing is defined as a “utility”. Cloud Computing is about services, content.
The table was taken from a recent Wired Magazine article. It featured the interview with Jeff Bezos. Go check out the interview. It’s very refreshing and humbling.
I hope the table is convincing you enough to say that the device or the gadget doesn’t matter. Yes, Apple and Amazon have different visions when it comes to Cloud Computing, but if you take some time to analyze the comparison, Amazon does not lock you into buying expensive (but very good) hardware, unlike Apple.
Take for instance the last point. Apple promotes downloaded media while Amazon uses streamed media. If you think about it, that what Cloud Computing should be because the services and the contents are utility. Amazon is providing services and content as a utility. Apple’s thinking is more old-school, still very much the PC-era type of mentality. You have to download the applications onto your gadget before you can use it.
Even the Amazon Silk browser concept is more revolutionary that Apple’s Safari. The Silk browser splits some of the processing in the Amazon Cloud, taking advantage of the power of the Amazon Cloud to do the processing for the user. Here’s a little video about Amazon Silk browser.
The Apple Safari is still very PC-centric, where most of the Web content has to be downloaded onto the browser to be viewed and processed. No doubt the Amazon Silk also download contents, but some of the processing such as read-ahead, applet-processing functions have been moved to Amazon Cloud. That’s changing our paradigm. That’s Cloud Computing. And iCloud does not have anything like that yet.
Someone once told me that Cloud is about economics. How incredibly true! It is about having the lowest costs to both providers and consumers. It’s about bringing a motherload of contents that can be delivered to you on the network. Amazon has tons of digital books, music, movies, TV and computing power to sell to you. And they are doing it at a responsible pace, with low margins. With low margins, the barrier of entry is lower, which in turn accelerates the Cloud Computing adoption. And Amazon is very good at that. Heck, they are selling their Kindle Fire at a loss.
Jeff Bezos has stressed that what they are doing is long term, much longer term than most. To me, Jeff Bezos is the better visionary of Cloud Computing. I am sorry but the reality is Steve Jobs wants high margins from the gadgets they sell to you. That is Apple’s vision for you.
Photo courtesy of Wired magazine.
