As reported in Military and Aerospace Electronics Magazine (MAE, Jan 2005), until recently the US DoD primes opted for less rugged COTS suppliers, but "lately they have watched those products fail in the harsh environments of Iraq and Afghanistan." These increasingly unforgiving battlefields are requiring more rugged and more flexible equipment as the DoD standard. And while these extreme field requirements reinforce the need for durability, the technology must also be easily upgradeable and seamlessly reconfigurable, like the future-proof computers, displays and storage solutions made by Z Microsystems. As technology quickens its pace, the costs for resources and time lost, upgrades and replacements can become insupportable. To make the cost of upgrading to more rugged and flexible components feasible, Z Microsystems has created the following advantages in the form of future-proof system maintenance:
Rugged Computers
Z Microsystems is leading the trend toward future-proof computers with swappable drives, interchangeable power supplies, and chassis that host all of the necessary shared peripherals, such as CD and DVD drives, for multiple motherboard access. Another Field Ready deployable computing solution is a line of rack-mountable ZX Stations, designed for the extreme military environment, equipped with Sun or Intel processors with IDE and/or SCSI peripherals. And now the ZXt Station is available in HP technology.
Rugged LCD Monitors
"Until recently, a 10.4-inch screen was the industry standard, yet tactical users now need 12.1, 13.3, and 14.1-inch screens," according to a report in MAE. And the larger the better. Z Microsystems is offering up to 23 inches in high resolution, rugged displays. And these displays can replace multiple displays, which took up valuable rack space in the past. For example, "The U.S. Air Force is using [Z Microsystems'] Orion displays on the RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft to reduce the number of displays that must fit inside each plane" (MAE, Jan 2005). The larger Z Microsystems' displays render up to eight picture-in-picture outputs, making one large screen the space and information center of the mission workspace. One end-user system command and functionality reduces both potential for mistakes in pressure situations, as well as longer training cycles.
Rugged Mass Storage
Z Microsystems has already proven its solutions effectively reduce costs in upgrades with its ultra-rugged TranzStor family of storage systems. With removable controllers and hard drives, the TranzPak 7 storage modules are already changing the way the DoD market stores mission critical data. Pocket-sized and shock-mounted, this deployable medium is the foundation on which TranzStor was developed. Its lightweight, yet rugged, design hot-plugs into any of the TranzStor systems, from TranzStor 1Xi to the massive 8X, hosting up to 8 TP7s (up to 2.4 terabytes total) for advanced deployable military tactics.
About Z Microsystems, Inc.
Z Microsystems is the leading supplier of "field-ready" deployable computing solutions designed to meet the rigorous requirements of military and government users. Z Microsystems' field-ready commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products include flat panel displays, computers, and storage systems are considered to be a superset to traditional MIL-STD equipment. Z Microsystems also develops ZViDEO, a sophisticated multimedia news system with the ability to capture, monitor, index, search, and retrieve video assets in real-time.
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