MacStadium’s two new patents include an injection-molded helmet design that was rapidly prototyped via 3D printing.
ATLANTA—Two patents recently secured by MacStadium include one for retrofitting current racking designs with injection molded keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) devices, also known as “helmets,” to provide local and remote KVM access to Mac servers. The other patent is for a new rack shelving architecture and design aimed at optimizing server density, the company said in a release.
MacStadium is a private Mac cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider enabling macOS workloads.
MacStadium’s helmets sit atop a Mac mini or Mac Studio and are specifically designed to retrofit the company’s current shelving offering. Leveraging 3D printing technology to rapidly prototype and refine the design, this innovation is reported to dramatically reduce time-to-market and yield low cost per unit.
While the helmets remain compatible with former shelving, the new shelf design is reported to offer six times the server density of older Mac Pro racks and 50 percent more server density than existing Mac mini racks. Each Mac server is provisioned with an Apple-focused KVM device, providing significant capabilities and advantages while slashing rack shelving costs by 50 percent or more, the company said.
“These patents offer an exciting glimpse into how much we have grown and evolved our technology to better service our customers with scalability on-demand and faster deployment made possible via our enterprise hardware program,” said MacStadium Senior Vice President and COO Paul Benati, in the release. “MacStadium has been and remains at the forefront of Apple enterprise innovation. As the first to market with new Apple servers, we continue to innovate, prioritizing reduced system friction, increased customer ease and satisfaction, and decreased costs.”
MacStadium’s proprietary helmet, currently in production, houses a temperature probe, LED light, OLED display, and a servo, which allows for granular remote control of Apple devices’ power button. These KVM devices can remotely control the Apple devices to which they are connected, eliminating the need for customers to request server control and for IT teams to physically go to data centers to correct issues, the company said.
With these remote control and self-service features, customers can unlock new capabilities, including the ability to dynamically define the purpose of the Apple device, access to network storage, and the long-awaited ability to run FileVault. The KVM system is securely accessed via SSL, SSO integration, and authentication and authorization via lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP).
The shelving system is reportedly scheduled to begin production soon. It is designed to hold 24 Mac minis and 24 Apple-focused KVM devices, increasing the capacity of a standard rack to 144 Mac minis. In addition to increased operational efficiencies and secure server access from anywhere in the world, the shelving design is said to offer significant cost savings due to its injection molded manufacturing. The manufacturing is offered globally by a multitude of vendors, and it also allows for reduced shipping costs and more server density per square foot due to the product’s reduced bulk and weight, the company said.
MacStadium said these innovations “provide a clear competitive advantage for customers and are just some of the foundational elements of MacStadium’s offering, aimed at driving Mac compute to customers via self-service.”