The Customer
Sensormatic is the world leader in electronic security, Their customers include 93 of the top 100 retailers worldwide. Their security systems protect more than half of Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
The Problem
As a fully integrated supplier of electronic security systems to retail, commercial and industrial markets, Sensormatic's electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems, video surveillance and exception monitoring systems are used by all types of retailers to deter shoplifting and internal theft. Also, Sensormatic's video surveillance, access control and electronic asset protection (EAP) security systems are used to protect assets, information and people. Also, Sensormatic is the leader in source tagging - a process where anti-theft labels are applied to merchandise at the point of manufacture. To accomplish these goals, Sensormatic needed a way to monitor, track and trigger on packets over local area networks (LANs).
The RightHand Solution
In the mid to late 90's, RightHand developed software for Token Ring and Ethernet Packet Collection, TSR. The TSR registers as a protocol stack using the Open Data Link Interface (ODI), and could be used with up to 4 adapters. This TSR also provided an Application Program Interface (API), allowing DOS applications to collect data frames promiscuously. Later, RightHand made modifications to expand the capabilities of this software to be used with Windows applications. A Windows NT4.0 Network Driver Service as well as an application Win32-based service library of all the required functions currently contained in the previous TSR was provided.