Gaming machine services and monitor Unitab will undertake a development project to help manage information gathered by some 700 Linux-based appliances.

Attending this year"s AUUG conference in Sydney, Darryl Green, gaming technology innovation architect of Queensland-based Unitab, said the company has developed its own custom software to monitor gaming systems and is now looking to give a "higher-level view".

This includes a project to achieve a three-dimensional view of locations where gaming machines are installed as even their positions are government-regulated.

The venue-based monitoring systems consist of an embedded Linux appliance at each location to collect data. The appliances, about 700 of them scattered throughout Queensland and the Northern Territory, are engineered by Cyberguard (formerly Snapgear) and run the Linux operating system.

"We have an exception-reporting system working over a private gaming machine network," he said. "Those devices, one per club, build up a log of exceptions such as machine faults and door openings. Once a day the logging machines dial into the central site and transmit the data."