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electronic data helps keep criminals at bay
Dorset Police’s Hi-tech Crime Unit is using Sun StorageTek to help meet its growing data storage requirements and provide a more efficient retrieval process...
The Dorset Police Hi-tech Crime Unit is one of the Europe’s leading electronic investigation teams. Its primary role is to gather, store and analyze electronic evidence from a myriad of devices, from PCs to PDAs and mobile phones. Once the data is stored investigators undertake lengthy and detailed examinations of the content within. The unit has been in operation for six years and through this period its workload, staffing and storage requirements have increased significantly.
Through the installation of a Sun StorageTek storage array, the unit has been able to meet its mushrooming data storage requirements and cut the length of time required to examine evidence and complete intensive investigative tasks.
The business need
The initial system installed in 2001 consisted of a desktop computer and external hard disks. As each disk reached capacity members of the unit would have to purchase additional disks to cope with the ever-increasing demand for more storage. This created delays and frustration for investigators, and initially meant only one person could examine data at any one time. As the Internet developed and downloads of both music and films become commonplace -- first to PCs and now to a variety of other devices -- the hi-tech crime unit’s storage requirements began to grow exponentially.
To cope, it implemented a network with 100 gigabytes of storage capacity, considered a significant amount of storage at that time. However the network soon hit capacity and unit investigators were forced to physically move 500-600GB of data each time a disk filled up. This had a massive effect on the speed in which investigations could be completed.
Crucial investigative tasks could take up to 5 weeks to complete. The unit tried upgrading network processing capacity and bandwidth, but that alone was not enough to keep up.
Detective Constable Tristan Oliver of the Hi-Tech Crime Unit commented, “We needed to install a scalable SAN that would allow us to add-on storage incrementally. With the previous system it was difficult, expensive and a distraction from our core responsibilities. We also needed a system where we could store all of our data in one place and out of the way.
“Our plight wasn’t helped by the fact that the files themselves were getting fatter, and the number of formats was, and still is, increasing in both type and complexity. We weren’t just dealing with emails, we were also having to store and examine vast amounts of MMS and SMS messages, call records, images, videos and sound files from each new generation of mobiles, PDAs and smart phones.
“The amount of storage required was doubling year on year. With this in mind we required a system that would allow us to examine vast amounts of data in a short timeframe effectively.”
The solution
After looking at a number of options Dorset Police settled on a Sun StorageTek system storage array based on LSI Logic technology. Implementation and support were managed by Sun’s reseller partner Compusys.
The unit deployed 9 RAID 5 arrays, at 2 terabytes of capacity each. It looked at a number of competitive solutions, but found that the SUN system offered the flexibility, performance, robustness and scalability their budgets and growing workloads demanded. Tristan added, “Budget considerations also meant that we could not afford to invest in a back up and recovery infrastructure. So the storage network had to be 100% reliable not fail under any circumstances.
“We actually spent a couple of days with LSI engineers testing the new system to ensure it was fit for purpose and as robust as promised. In one of the tests we actually pulled the disk out of the rack whilst attempting to store data on it, in every instance the data remained safe.”
Oliver added, “We wanted someone who would be available just in case any part of the system went down. With a lot of work being time sensitive we couldn’t risk delays and Sun StorageTek were very good. If we had a drive fail at midday, by 1:00pm a new one would have arrived and we would be up and running again.”
Results
The chosen solution has provided Dorset Police Hi-Tech Crime Unit investigators with the ability to scan vast amounts of data in shorter amounts of time, and deliver evidence to the other areas of the criminal justice department more efficiently.
The unit can now store all of its data in one place, and scale its storage needs incrementally to predict very precisely its future budget requirements.
Oliver concluded, “The strength of this system can be seen by the fact that since its implementation we have not only had a number of other police forces interested in the set up, but also a large number of commercial organisations have come to look at it and the benefits it offers. I can’t imagine anything working better.
“I am totally happy with solution and it has never been offline.”
