Tag Archives: Contractors

Rackspace Wins Joint Server Farm Tender To Support Ministry of Defence (MoD) Websites

Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leader in hosting, has announced it has won a three year, competitive deal to provide fully managed support to the Joint Server Farm (JSF), a secure hosting environment for Ministry of Defence (MoD) websites. The partnership will see MoD, Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force websites consolidated onto a single, virtualised infrastructure to enable easier management, greater efficiencies and scalability.

Rackspace beat 18 other companies to win the contract to support the JSF following a European Journal Competition and tender for contract. Through the deal Rackspace will provide MoD partners with the flexibility to manage and change websites quickly to meet user demand. It will also provide enhanced security from firewalls and intrusion detection devices, which constantly monitor for threats, round-the-clock access to certified engineers and a 100% network uptime guarantee, backed by its service level agreement.

Rackspace’s EMEA managing director Brian Thomson said: “We are delighted to have extended our relationship with the MoD by winning this tender in what was a hard fought pitch by lots of companies. At a time when costs and efficiencies are being brought to the forefront, we know we can truly help simplify the MoD infrastructure to meet these challenges.”

The JSF is a single infrastructure for all services, websites and applications. It currently supports a number of well-known MoD campaigns, such as the recruiting website for the Army, Start Thinking Soldier as well as the Army Pathfinder programme. It also supports Navy and Air Force recruitment campaigns, all of the cadets’ sites, a number of admin sites and facilitates small short-term public information campaign sites.

The MoD created the JSF because it had lots of disparate sites on different infrastructures, which were hard to maintain, inefficient and unscalable. With the growing influence of the internet it was also decided that a central hosting UK resource that departments could tap into for their web requirements was needed. In addition to this, the MoD was bound to meet the Transformational Government Agenda (TGA), which requires rationalisation of websites across all government departments. The MoD also moved to virtual servers for its consolidated infrastructure to provide greater flexibility when managing the sites.

Around 70% of MoD websites are currently hosted on Rackspace infrastructure and this deal extends the company’s partnership with ArmyNET, the award-winning portal which allows soldiers to keep in touch with their families.

Rackspace consolidated 67 servers to 12 physical hypervisors and 72 virtual servers by implementing virtualisation across the MoD infrastructure. This solution when combined with a raft of changes to the contract cost model, including a reduction in SAN spindle storage costs, resulted in a reduction of overall costs. It also provides greater efficiencies for power and space, with a lower number of overall servers.

Via EPR Network
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Mango DSP, a leading provider of intelligent video solutions for OEMs announced today the launch of Condor VS-8, a rack-mount 19″ 1U eight camera encoder

Mango DSP, a leading provider of intelligent video solutions for OEMs announced today the launch of Condor VS-8, a rack-mount 19” 1U eight camera encoder. The Condor VS-8 utilizes Mango’s IVS™ patent pending embedded software to deliver state-of-the-art video and audio streaming while enabling integration of 3rd party video content analysis. These capabilities enable the upgrade of existing analog systems to IP based video surveillance without running new cabling or losing the investment in analog cameras already installed.

The Condor VS-8 is a powerful eight-channel IP Video Encoder designed to transform analog cameras to high quality IP video streams. This industry leading IP Encoder is capable of delivering DVD quality video plus advanced video analytics. The critically acclaimed Mango IVS™ software embedded in the Condor VS-8 is able to capture and encode analog video and audio while actively monitoring cameras for intruders and rule violations. Mango IVS™ provides an easy to use built-in web based interface to control all aspects of video encoding and analytics.

The Condor VS-8 IP supports H.264, MPEG-4 and MJPEG video compression as well as AAC and G.711 audio compression, for streaming digital media over the network. The compressed audio and video is delivered over a TCP/IP network via standard streaming protocols such as RTP/RTSP or HTTP. Each input stream can be encoded at different quality levels for recording and for live view. The image size, frame rate, resolution and bitrates are all adjustable from the remote viewing location.

Mango IVS™ is an open architecture that allows the Condor VS-8 to run video content analysis software from a variety of leading video analytics vendors. Mango DSP’s 3rd party network offers algorithms such as object detection, classification and rule violation detection. Other algorithms include image stabilization, object counting, auto tracking, and face and license plate recognition. Several analytics companies have already signed on to support the Condor VS-8 and will be available in the 2nd half of 2009.

Mango IVS™ enables integration with 3rd party IP cameras, encoders and DVRs. The Condor VS-8 can capture compressed video from the network and apply one of the video content analysis algorithms. The Condor VS-8 is supported by major video management software brands and can integrate with OEM built applications using DirectShow® or RTP server.

“OEMs and video analytics companies alike have been asking for a cost efficient solution that can extend the lifespan of existing analog installations.” said Joel Moss, CEO of Mango DSP Inc. “Condor VS-8 allows our OEM customers to deliver powerful centralized video encoding and analytics solutions at an attractive price point”

About Mango DSP
Mango DSP is a developer and manufacturer of intelligent video surveillance devices. Mango’s encoder, DVR and IP Camera technology powers many of the OEM solutions sold by fortune 500 companies in the Homeland Security, Defense, Retail, Mobile and Transportation markets. Mango’s encoder, DVR cards and IP Cameras are powered by Mango IVS™ (Intelligent Video Server) Operating System. This patent pending technology combines state of the art H.264 encoding with 3rd party analytics.

Via EPR Network
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