Amazon.com Offers On-Demand Computing

Chris Pepper (apparently) - 12:44pm Aug 26, 2006 PST
via email

>Sure, this makes me curious. The recently introduced Intel-based Mac
>Pro towers are Xeon-based. And, of course, Apple doesn't allow its
>operating system to be virtualized or run on generic Intel hardware.
>Still, with a company like Amazon.com offering this sort of service,
>could Apple license Mac OS X for this sort of purpose? It seems
>unlikely given Apple's history, but it's not unreasonable or
>impossible that they would make such a deal. The advantage of this
>would be for an Xserve owner, say, who would replicate his or her
>setup to run identical instances of on demand without having to
>manage Mac OS X on their core, "real" computer and Linux on virtual
>machines.

        I don't see much question about Apple's end. I'm pretty sure
Amazon can run as many Mac OS X VMs as they want on Apple Xserves,
and Apple won't make any accommodation for Amazon (or anyone else) to
run MOSX on anyone else's hardware.

        The questions I have are:

        What hardware is Amazon using? It's probably not Xserves
given the timing.
        Is Amazon considering Xserves? Hopefully.
        Is it logistically difficult to build a MOSX image on your
own Mac, and deploy it? Hopefully Apple (likes Parallels) and Amazon
(likes Xen) will facilitate.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
                             <http://www.reppep.com/weblog/pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>