Vicom Systems Delivers High Availability for Xserve RAID in HD Broadcast and Post-Production
High Availability Made Easy with Mirroring Appliance

NAB2006, Las Vegas, Nevada – April 24, 2006 — Vicom Systems, provider of transparent wire-speed data services for systems and storage, today announced Vmirror™, a new family of high-availability and data protection appliances for Apple Computer’s popular Xserve RAID storage systems. Vmirror appliances deliver
continuous, high-availability access and mirrored data protection for mission-critical as well as performance-critical environments such as HD video broadcast and postproduction.

Powerful Mirroring Appliance

Vmirror is a purpose-built, Fibre Channel appliance that routes and transparently mirrors data from any number of Apple hosts to Xserve RAID storage systems at Fibre Channel line speed. The appliance architecture is highly scalable: the Vmirror appliance operates singly for continuous data protection and in multi-unit clusters for high availability operation with instantaneous failover in the event of storage system outage, preventing interruption of the host system a key requirement for applications like HD video broadcast.

“The demand for HD video has made continuous delivery a mission-critical requirement in the broadcast industry,” said Samuel Tam, CEO of Vicom Systems. “Vmirror appliances not only provide high-availability video access and data protection, but also the kind of operating simplicity that Apple’s Xserve customers
have come to expect,” said Tam.

High Availability Made Easy

For continuous access and data protection, the Vmirror appliance mirrors one or two pairs of Xserve RAID arrays and presents these to connected host systems as a single, “unbreakable” storage unit. In the event of an array outage, data is made instantly available from its mirrored counterpart through hardware-based mirroring.
Recovery from an outage is also instantaneous and invisible to the Apple host systems. There is no software to install, and adding the appliance to an Xserve RAID configuration requires only a few mouse clicks, without need for proprietary device drivers or software agents on each host. Vmirror supports PowerMac G5, Xserve G5, Xsan, and Xserve RAID storage systems.

“Apple developers are bringing a host of innovative solutions to the broadcast industry, especially in HD video where demand is skyrocketing,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “Vicom’s mirroring appliance is an excellent example of a high-availability Xserve-RAID based solution that is packaged and priced to meet production and broadcast needs.”

Each Vmirror appliance is a dedicated fabric device with its own proprietary, realtime operating system, processor and customized FPGA design, specifically built to move data at Fibre Channel line speeds. The design is solid-state and uses no disk drives; two power supplies and fans are included for maximum up-time. A modular, clustering architecture enables performance and availability to be expanded in building-block fashion by including additional appliances.

Pricing and Availability

Packaged in a 1U, rackmount package, the Vmirror appliance includes mirroring software and hardware, and supports up to four Xserve RAID systems. Model VM-1 is a single appliance that provides continuous, mirrored data protection and instantaneous failover in event of an array outage. Model VM-2 is a dual, clustered appliance that provides continuous, high-availability data access and mirrored data protection with twice the data throughput of VM-1. VM-1 is priced at $8,950 and VM- 2 at $14,500. Both appliances are available immediately from Vicom Systems.

About Vicom Systems

Vicom Systems is a privately held company in Redwood City, California. Vicom specializes in the delivery of transparent, wire speed data services for systems and storage. Vicom delivers on the long-standing promise of SANs: seamless consolidation, any-to-any connection, simplified management, and high availability. Vicom products and technology have been selected by OEMs including IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard. Enterprise customers include financial services and manufacturing firms in the Global IT 2000, healthcare organizations, retail, and entertainment companies. For more information on Vicom, please visit www.vicom.com

Media Contacts:

Karen George
562-283-2083
Karen@accessm3.com

Larry Kubo
408-858-9663
larry.kubo@1stwavemktg.com