Adding a bit of uncertainty to what exactly Apple is doing up in North Carolina with two (maybe three) datacenters, it’s now public on the Apple website that after January 31, 2011, you’ll no longer be able to purchase an Apple Xserve.

Maybe it’s because of the datacenters, that Apple cannot keep their own internal systems online and still sell the servers at retail? Doubtful. Apple is suggesting administrators transition over to either Mac Mini or Mac Pro based servers. Neither of which are particularly rack mount friendly.

It’s just hard to imagine Apple doing any sort of massive datacenter project and fill it with such inefficiently designed server systems, yet it’s equally hard to see an Apple datacenter with Dell or HP systems. I’m sure they have something interesting up their sleeves and maybe will be releasing a new server lineup down the road.

Yesterday and earlier today we talked about the construction going on near Apple’s massive 500,000 square foot datacenter, and what seems to be their plans to build an identically massive datacenter in the same 183 acre parcel of land. As it turns out, the fun may not stop there. Digital Daily has uncovered information from the Catawba County Geospatial Information Services, which indicates Apple also owns an slightly smaller yet also large (70 acre) parcel of land just across the street.

While this space could be used for anything from an office complex, to what Digital Daily jokes as “using it to build some Jobsian theme park” it could also be used to build a third datacenter full of shiny new XServes.

Apple better have some grand plan for their new cloud that is equally as impressive as the real estate and facilities they’ve been collecting. It is a bit concerning though that they seem to be focusing all their money and energy into the hills of Maiden, North Carolina. While it’s totally possible Apple has purchased equally huge tracts of land in other corners of the country (or globe) under the radar of the press, as it stands right now they’re putting all their data into one very large set of baskets in Tar Heel Country.

There is a lot of speculation out there pointing that Apple will be using the Thanksgiving holiday to move their iTunes backend over to their new North Carolina datacenter. 148Apps.biz says that Apple will be locking developers out of their iTunes Connect accounts for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

In typical Apple super-secret fashion it’s unknown exactly what this datacenter is being used for. Apple could be locking developers out just because turtle-neck decided that they needed to spend more time with their families. However, as this is Apple’s first significant datacenter presence, and it’s generally expected to come online by the end of the year, chances are pretty good that the lockout is due to a massive data and routing migration.

The 500,000 square foot facility has cost Apple nearly a billion dollars, and they’ve already begun expanding.

Apple has been building a massive 500,000 square foot datacenter in Maden, North Carolina for the last year or so. Even though this datacenter is not even fully operational, Apple has already started work on another matching facility just behind the recently built one.

From All Things Digital:

It’s worth noting that doubling the 500,000-square-foot space may have been Apple’s plan all along. Photos posted to a Catawba County, N.C., Flickr page and labled “Apple_Maiden-07-06-2009-114″ and “Apple_Maiden-07-06-2009-115″ show architectural renderings of the Maiden, N.C., facility with one and two data center structures. An alternate theory being batted around here and at MacRumors, as well: The data center in the video above is actually just 250,000 square feet, and the construction occuring next to it is the beginnings of a second identical structure that would bring the total square footage of data center space to that 500,000-square-foot number. Again, just a theory. I’ll ask around and update here if I discover anything more.

Either way, Apple has got a lot of space and what we presume is a lot of hardware at their disposal now. The presumed purpose of these datacenters will be iTunes/App Store downloads and future streaming content offerings. The two most recent Apple keynotes have been pushed from this facility as load tests for their network.

Over the last decade, HP has developed the Superdome platform to provide mainframe performance and stability. According to a 2008 Dataquest Insight survey, the cost of downtime within large organizations (2,500+ users) has jumped from $40,000 in 2005 as the average cost per hour of downtime of mission critical business systems to $128,000 in 2008, an increase of 120%. These same companies reported that the amount of downtime they had experienced during the 2005-2008 time frame had also increased 69%. With statistics like that, it becomes painfully obvious that IT downtime downtime directly affects the bottom line. Throughout the growth of the HP Superdome platform, features like redundant cell board components, double chip spare memory, and hot swap I/O have been developed to provide resiliency and to prevent downtime, all with the goal of providing near perfect availability.

With the goal of providing near perfect availability always in mind, HP also knows that the total cost of ownership is a major consideration for its customers. With the tremendous costs of traditional mainframe systems, both initial and operational, the Superdome platform has been developed from its inception with the goal of providing mainframe comparable reliability and performance at a fraction of the cost, both in the initial purchase and installation as well as the management and maintenance, providing a considerably lower TCO for its customers.

One of the ways the HP Superdome platform provides these cost savings is by reducing power consumption and producing less heat than a comparable mainframe solution. The IBM z10 mainframe uses 42% more power than a comparably equipped HP Integrity Superdome system. That same HP Integrity Superdome also produces 42% less heat and requires one-third less physical space than its IBM mainframe counterpart. Mainframe owners who have migrated to HP Superdome systems typically report savings of more than $30 million over four years. With the previous examples of rising downtime costs, that’s an impressive savings.

The HP “CIO Real Talk” webcast series features chief information officers (CIOs) and IT executives from leading companies on a panel moderated by Jonathan Eunice, principal IT advisor at Illuminata. The panel for “Delivering a Next Generation Data Center”will include:

• James Coakley, president and chief executive officer at Power Loft, which specializes in the development of high-efficiency data centers
• Jim Thomas, director of IT operations at Pella Corporation, a premium-quality commercial and residential windows and doors manufacturer
• Rob Zelinka, director of IT for TXX Company, which owns and operates more than 200,000 rail cars used by the largest railways in the U.S. and Canada

The “Delivering a Next Generation Data Center” live audio webinar with online question and answer session will take place Thursday, Aug. 13, at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT. Users can preregister for and attend the webinar at http://www.ibtalk.net/index.php?cmp=attendx_meeting&mt_number=00350216.