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points by ttul 4 days ago | 0 comments
I have no idea if this is true, but I would not be surprised if Apple has its own unreleased server variant based on the Mac Mini or Mac Studio platform that is deployed in data centers for specific clients.
[–] pnw 4 days ago
Apple published an article about the design of those servers in 2024. Custom hw with a custom OS.

https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

[–] LoganDark 4 days ago
That article has only software details, unfortunately.
[–] chippiewill 4 days ago
They do. They have their own custom 2U rack machines which they use for AI and private cloud stuff.
[–] garymiklos 4 days ago
Ok, I work for NoMac cloud hosting, and it might be interesting how we do it, in short:

A 21U rack at a datacenter (currently 2 in EU). It holds three MyElectronics 1.25U steel mounts at 2U pitch (3 Mac Minis each, rear ports, open floor for the bottom intake, 18 slots in all). 12 M5 Pro 15-core/24 GB/1 TB/10GbE NoMac Sendbox hosts at two 6-vCPU/8 GB VMs each, four M5 Pro 48 GB NoMac Simulator hosts at about 20 phones each.

Power comes from two Netio PowerPDU 8KS units (8 × C13, per-outlet switching and metering over an API) on the A and B feeds. Hosts are split evenly across the two feed and connected with C14-to-C7 cords, and an APC AP4421 transfer switch feeds only the network gear. The rack peaks around 1.3 kW and averages about 0.3 kW.

The network is a MikroTik RB5009 holdin the only public IP, doing outbound NAT and inbound WireGuard only, plus a MikroTik CRS312 giving 10GbE to every Mac on a 1 Gbit/s uplink. It has three VLANs: management (PDUs, KVMs), hosts with port isolation so they can only reach the gateway, R2 and the public internet.

Every host is commissioned with FileVault off and pmset autorestartatconnect 1, autorestart 1 and sleep 0, with auto-login on the phone hosts, hostd as a LaunchDaemon, zero-touch MDM enrollmen through Mosyle, and updates deferred 90 days.

Basically that's it. Fortunatelly, we did not have supply problems, but we are also smaller.

[–] throwaway_1016 4 days ago
Do you have any recommendations for 10G external ethernet for macs?