Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Monday unveiled several new products for the enterprise storage, backup and electronic
surveillance markets.
Sony made the announcements at the ASIS Security Conference opening in New Orleans.
The company said its created a “heterogeneous backup” solution which makes
up its new “Corporate Data Protection bundle.” The enterprise storage
solution combines Sony’s StorStation specialized server with NetVault 7.0
backup software from BakBone Software, along with Sony’s “2U slim Advanced
Intelligent Tape (AIT) library.”
“Sony’s new StorStation Data Backup and Recovery system (StorStation DBR)
can virtualize diverse data storage configurations into pools — tape,
optical and SAN included — to simplify management and make the most of
available storage space. By sharing tape drives and other hardware
resources, users can increase availability and protect their data through
failover of backup files from the preliminary drive to a standby drive,”
Sony said in a press release.
Sony said the system is able to “create block-by-block disaster recovery
images of clients without re-installing their operating systems. The
StorStation DBR system even lets users perform file system replication to
tape at a local or remote site,” Sony said.
Sony says its DBR solution include the FSV-M5 specialized server with 720 GB
capacity, gigabit Ethernet connectivity and hot swap HDD RAID protection,
along with the 2U AIT library with up to 4.1 TB of native storage capacity.
Sony said its line of “corporate data protection bundles” will be available
starting in October with prices around $20,000. Sony said its solution will
work with a variety of operating systems “including Linux, and Microsoft.
Windows. 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP and Server 2003.”
On Monday, Sony also said it is teaming up with Cisco Systems to launch what it its calling a “fully integrated IP surveillance
solution.”
“Sony Electronics today announced that it has developed a plug-and-play,
fully integrated IP monitoring solution together with Cisco Systems. The new
IP surveillance solution combines Sony’s IP video monitoring cameras,
servers, and sophisticated software (Real Shot Manager) with Cisco’s
networking infrastructure,” Sony said.
The Sony-Cisco electronic surveillance system is targeted at schools, facing
problems with violence and vandalism.
“Sony and Cisco have created a solution that allows Sony’s IP Surveillance
cameras, its robust surveillance software application and information
gathering technology to be integrated with Cisco’s routers, networking
infrastructure and software. Each of the cameras and other sensors provided
by Sony has its own Internet Protocol address, making it as easy to monitor
school facilities as it is to surf a web site,” Sony said.
“Embedded-web servers in the IP Surveillance cameras allow up to 50
simultaneous feeds using 25x optical zoom lenses and 12x digital zooms.
Working through the Internet infrastructure, users can control the cameras
or access information from PCs, laptops or even handheld PDAs. All the
information generated by the cameras is in fully Internet-compatible
formats, which means that still and video images can be monitored, recorded
and printed anywhere on the network by authorized personnel,” Sony said.
The system utilizes a variety of technological components, including Sonys
networked cameras, FSV-M5 network attached storage servers along with Sonys
Real Shot camera manager application software over Cisco’s networks. Cisco
brings its Catalyst 3550 Series switches, Cisco Aironet Access Points,
PCMCIA wireless LAN adapters, PIX 500 Series firewalls, VPN’s and
CiscoSecure ACS for Windows.
Grossmont Union School District, spanning 11 high schools in San Diego,
decided to be the “initial reference site” for the Sony-Cisco IP-based,
electronic surveillance system.
“Initially, plans for the pilot campus system for Grossmont consisted of
four Sony SNC-RZ30N Pan/Tilt/Zoom network cameras connected to a Sony
Network Attached Storage server running Sony’s Real Shot camera manager
application software over the Cisco Systems network. The system’s 720 GB
storage capacity holds approximately 30 days worth of archived images,” Sony
said.
In a separate announcement on Monday, Sony Electronics said it is out with
two new “professional multi-format video monitors for security,
surveillance.”
“Sony Electronics is screening two new professional multi-format Trinitron
color video monitors, models SSM-14L1 and SSM-20L1, which offer high
performance, robust reliability and versatile functionality for
cost-conscious security applications,” Sony said.
“Sony’s new 14-inch (model SSM-14L1) and 20-inch (model SSM-20L1) (viewable
areas, measured diagonally) monitors display 600 TV lines of resolution and
feature adjustable color temperature. Other highlights include selectable
4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios, both NTSC and PAL operation and two video
inputs,” Sony said.
Sony says the two monitors are scheduled to be available in November, with
the SSM-14L1 for $580, and the SSM-20L1 for $1,050.
In late August, Ingram Micro started a new marketing
program called “Target: Surveillance” focused on the enterprise surveillance
market.
Ingram said it expects an expansion of the market for networked monitoring
equipment in several sectors, including education, government, military,
transportation and retail.
Ingram Micro said its marketing push would be in tandem with several
manufacturers, including Cisco, Sony, Hewlett-Packard ,
wireless network device maker Proxim and Axis, a
network camera maker.
Ingram cited research projections saying there will be
a huge increase in IP-based camera monitoring. Ingram Micro said research
forecasts the network camera market in the U.S. to be worth $500 million by
2007.
