Overland and Mobotix Into Strategic Alliance

Overland Storage, Inc. announced the formation of a strategic, global alliance with Mobotix Vision Systems, in high-resolution IP network cameras, to deliver video surveillance and archiving solutions for the under 100-camera system market. Mobotix will offer a bundled solution including Overland’s Snap Server network attached storage (NAS) appliance family with Mobotix’s line of high-resolution digital, network-based video security solutions.

The move comes as a response to the growing demand from organizations of all sizes and across many different market segments seeking affordable, easy to install, fully functional surveillance systems for a number of applications, including security, litigation protection, employee and customer monitoring and asset control.

The high-resolution digital images provided by Mobotix’s IP cameras offer far superior quality over their analog counterparts, therefore tremendously improving the performance of a variety of security and video analytics applications. Though extremely advantageous for an assortment of security and video analytics applications, high- resolution images require pairing with a storage solution that delivers additional capacity as well as performance, flexibility and scalability with rock-solid reliability.

Mobotix pioneered the development of IP cameras and encoders that can cost-efficiently record directly to network storage over an Ethernet network via CIFS or NFS using open MxPEG format. This efficient approach to video recording utilizes less bandwidth while storing high-resolution video images over the network directly to a file share.

According to Steve Rogers, director of solutions for Overland Storage, the company’s Snap Server family is perfectly positioned to address the increasing interest in the market for video surveillance solutions. "Overland’s Snap Server line is well suited for this application," he says. "The product’s small footprint combined with outstanding scalability and ease of use delivers exceptional storage capacity while also providing expansion potential for accommodating future growth."

As a market leader in IP network cameras, Mobotix offers one of the most efficient recording formats (MxPEG) for recording high resolution video direct to network storage, thus eliminating the need for network video recorders. "The partnership between Overland and Mobotix gives companies an easy-to-use, turnkey solution bundle to meet their video surveillance needs," says Peter Mckee, international director for Mobotix. "We are thrilled to team with Overland, a storage solution provider with a longstanding reputation for delivering high-performance products that are easy to use, flexible and reliable. These traits appeal greatly to Mobotix installers while helping usher in the newest generation of IT-savvy security CCTV installers."

For SNP Security, one of Australia’s largest privately owned security firms, the Overland-Mobotix partnership delivers the latest in state-of-the-art security solutions. With more than 85 years experience providing integrated security solutions to companies of all sizes and industries, including the Australia Post and Sydney Airport, SNP recommended the combined Mobotix and Overland solution when one of the largest financial institutions in Australia asked the company to completely overhaul its dated video surveillance system, which included analog cameras and a maxed-out 16-channel digital video recorders (DVR).

Due to the inherent security risks of Windows-based DVR, the financial firm’s policy prohibited the system from being attached to its network, resulting in it also being separated from the consciousness of the IT staff. As a result, routine maintenance and system upgrades often were missed, causing further isolation and neglect as well as an inability to respond to the company’s future needs. The installation of 33 Mobotix IP network cameras and three Overland Snap Server 110 NAS appliances has given the financial institution a leading-edge solution that also supports future demands.

"Mobotix and Snap Server provided the perfect solution," says SNP Security consultant Neil Whipp, who was instrumental in the implementation. "By combining Mobotix and Overland Snap Server in a joint solution, we were able to provide this customer with distributed intelligence combined with distributed storage."

Overland’s Snap Server NAS solutions offer exceptional price/performance for individuals, remote offices, workgroups, departments, and distributed enterprises. Whether a fixed capacity system is required or one capable of providing massive scalability, Snap Servers’ ease of use paired with ‘set it and forget it’  reliability will minimize the demand for IT resources while lowering the total overall cost (TOC) of any storage solution.