Apple server and storage products have enabled us to forge a new model for consumer statistical modeling and analysis that allows us to turn data around at lightning speeds with a high-availability, low cost IT infrastructure. Gordy Meyer, CEO, eBureau

Finding powerful and effective ways to store, access, protect, and recover data is a top priority for any organization. Adhering to IT budget restrictions and stringent regulations for maintaining corporate data, like Sarbanes-Oxley, just adds to the challenge. Apple offers a variety of solutions to help your organization meet these goals without sacrificing business productivity or worrying about system performance. With built-in services and no per-user or per-seat licensing fees, Xserve running Mac OS X is an affordable and scalable alternative to network-attached storage (NAS) systems; Xsan delivers an enterprise-class storage area network (SAN) file system; and Mac OS X Leopard provides automatic backup capabilities with Time Machine built in.

Share terabytes of data. Zero bottlenecks.

Mac OS X Leopard Server makes it easy for you to set up central network storage that’s accessible to clients throughout your organization. Running on Xserve, with or without external RAID storage, Mac OS X Server provides a compelling alternative to traditional NAS systems. Using native protocols, it delivers file services to all the clients on your network: AFP for Mac, SMB/CIFS for Windows, and NFS for UNIX and Linux, as well as WebDAV and FTP for Internet clients. These flexible cross-platform file services enable groups to work more efficiently, sharing resources, archiving projects, and backing up important documents. Mac OS X Server even works in organizations with an existing Active Directory deployment, allowing you to provide lower-cost file services while still integrating with Active Directory for user and group account information, permissions, and authentication.

Xsan, the 64-bit cluster SAN file system for Mac OS X, is also a great way to share, manage, and use data on your network—at a fraction of the cost of other SAN solutions. Specifically designed for computing environments that demand the highest level of data availability, the specialized technology in Xsan enables multiple Mac desktop and Xserve systems to share RAID storage volumes over a high-speed Fibre Channel network.

Unlike other SAN solutions, which only consolidate hardware physically, Xsan centralizes your company’s data as well, eliminating the need for complex storage provisioning. And because it is completely interoperable with Quantum’s StorNext File System, Xsan provides direct Fibre Channel block-level access to the data in your Xsan-managed storage pool to clients on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX platforms. This increases flexibility for your organization’s storage infrastructure—providing better utilization of resources and lowering IT storage costs.

Xsan can be used to consolidate data, manage it centrally, and allocate access to any application or user anywhere on the network. It can also be used with Xserve as a “NAS head” to provide NAS functionality for scalable, high-performance file services for Mac, Windows, and Linux clients on the network.