A growing amount of digital material from CCTV, crime
photos and digital recording has led Humberside Police to install
more capacity on their storage area network (San).
Roy Macdona, computer development manager of
Humberside Police, said, "Ever since we moved over to San
technology we are having exponential increases in demands for
storage."
The increases are driven by the growth of digital media, with
officers at the scenes of crimes using digital cameras, more CCTV
being used, and officers wearing headcams. The force's former
storage area network was not expandable enough for future
requirements.
Macdona said the force has bought more capacity from Dell,
meaning storage of data can be centralised - so it can be backed up
and recovered a lot easier.
A lot of police data, such as evidence in a criminal case, needs
to be kept for a lifetime or more in case of appeals. The force
also relies heavily on e-mails, which also often need to be
stored.
While they had not been losing data, Macdona said they were
getting to a stage where space was starting to run out. The new
addition to the San will keep the force going for four to five
years, after which it will review the technology then
available.
Macdona, who lost a computer suite in the June floods, moved his
department into new premises a couple of weeks ago. He is also
virtualising the network, with plans to run 35 servers on three
boxes, plus another two boxes for resilience and backup.
He said, "This is keeping power and cooling costs down."