Q: Xserve dead ?

Yeah, we're all ranting about it over here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2637894&tstart=0

So far we're all feeling a little lost.

Just for the record, Apple has not mentioned anything about killing Xsan.

I think smaller houses will probably just cope with a Mac Pro as a metadata controller instead of an Xserve. As for the bigger houses, I'm not so sure.

we moved from XSAN earlier this year because it wasn't the most stable pltform. We are using this now

http://www.quantum.com/Products/Software/StorNext/Index.aspx

works on the same basic technology, but it is run with Linux MDCs instead of macs. We have had pretty good luck with it so far. The only tricky thing is dealing with the permissions on the volume. Luckily for the most part all that was set on the data before we switched over, so it was just changing the security for the file servers for those connecting over LAN instead of fiber. The other thing that ***** is their licensing is not cheap. You can use XSAN client licenses for the mac clients, but for the windows and mac servers you have to connect each license is like 4k.

But their support is exponentially better then Apple's.