CastleCops® - UK Police Force Outsources Disaster Recovery, Storage and Backup Management

webitpr writes "UK Police Force Outsources Disaster Recovery, Storage and Backup Management of Electronic Police Line-up System to GlassHouse Technologies

Award-winning VIPER system that revolutionised crime fighting for Britain’s police forces requires data management and support services to match growth from the success of the system

WEYBRIDGE, United Kingdom (August 8, 2005) - The West Yorkshire Police, the UK’s fourth largest police force, has chosen GlassHouse Technologies to support its electronic police line-up system: VIPER (Video Identification Parade Electronically Recorded). This system is critical in the battle to reduce the amount of UK street crime by increasing conviction rates and deterring future offenders. GlassHouse Technologies will deliver a two-phased project that supports the growing amount of VIPER data and ensuring that information meets storage, retention and recoverability objectives.

Before electronic identification parades were introduced, a police line-up cost roughly Ł750 to Ł1250 and typically took six to 10 weeks to set up, depending on the availability of “look-alikes,” witnesses and the suspect. The VIPER system has enabled the West Yorkshire Police to carry out more than 18,000 electronic line-ups since April 2002. This is far more than would have been possible using traditional “live” line ups or ID parades and has saved the UK Government in excess of Ł37 million. However, the increasing demand for the system was driving higher levels of data protection and system availability requirements.

“We have benefited from a strong working relationship with the GlassHouse team. The project was groundbreaking stuff for the police service and the support of a company experienced in complex storage and backup networks was crucial to its success and continuity. The achievement of a national level IT system across the country in a matter of a few months is no mean feat and has been a fine example of a public service outfit and private sector companies working together,” said West Yorkshire Police Detective Superintendent and Head of Scientific Support Michael Fickling.

“Information management, when employed intelligently, plays a fundamental role in resolving issues in today’s complex, modern day society. GlassHouse’s expertise in designing, developing and implementing data protection and management services, combined with our competence across leading technologies, allows us to help our customers manage that information judiciously,” said Mark Shirman, president and CEO of GlassHouse.

The first phase of the project is to design and build a storage and backup solution for the West Yorkshire Police’s new disaster recovery site that will ensure continuous 365x24x7 availability of the VIPER system, which is used by 31 regional forces and has more than 100 remote sites accessing the application at any given time. The second phase of the project is an outsourced storage and backup contract to support the entire VIPER production and disaster recovery environments.

The storage and backup support contract is a two-year agreement for GlassHouse to provide West Yorkshire Police with key elements of the GlassHouse OSS (Operational Support Services) family, which will ensure that the police force’s backup and recovery systems are running efficiently and effectively. These services include 365x24x7 remote monitoring from one of the GlassHouse Service Operations Centers. GlassHouse’s storage and backup capacity planning allow the West Yorkshire Police to achieve total data protection by understanding current and future capacity and utilisation, while GlassHouse’s change management processes ensure that the infrastructure is compliant with the West Yorkshire Police’s standard operating procedures and that hardware and software compatibility is not compromised during upgrades. "


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