Tiger Server Roars, Too

The Apple Weblog Server again leverages open source and combines it with Apples own special packaging. The software is based on Blosxom, open-source blogging software originally developed by Rael Dornfest, chief technology officer of OReilly Media. But it includes a number of Apple-created templates and other extras.

The blog server software automatically creates RSS and Atom syndication feeds for content, and allows users to post entries from a Web browser—including integration with directory services for authentication and access policies. "The software can be used for traditional blogs, but we see it being used for group project tracking," said Zelenka.

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Tiger Server shares a few important technologies with the client version of the OS that are purely Apples work. One of those is Xgrid, Apples distributed computing environment. Tiger Server includes Xgrid Controller, a grid "master" that can farm out computing tasks to any computer on the local network—including Tiger client machines that have been configured to hand over compute cycles whenever they are idle.

And, like the client, Tiger Server has the ability to run 64-bit applications in "native" mode. While the operating system itself is 32-bit, the OS includes XCode 2, Apples integrated development environment for 32- and 64-bit applications, and a full set of 64-bit libraries, so developers can build applications that can address up to 8GB of RAM. This ability is even more critical on Tiger Server, where it can be put to use by applications like database servers, image processing and scientific applications.

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