Hampshire Constabulary Policing Costs with Thames Valley Police to Deliver the Best Possible Value for Public Spending

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IBM Systems and Technology Government Case Study

Hampshire Constabulary Policing costs with Thames Valley Police to deliver the best possible value for public spending

Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police are responsible for policing neighbouring regions in the south-east of the United Overview Kingdom, employing thousands of police officers, police community The need support officers, special constables and volunteers committed to cutting Facing falling budgets and escalating crime and improving community safety. demand, Hampshire Constabulary set out to cut costs while maintaining services by pooling resources with Thames Valley Detecting a chance to cut costs Police, and needed a shared IT strategy. As part of an ongoing drive to reduce costs in the face of shrinking The solution budgets, Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police initiated The two organisations migrated business- a Bi-lateral Collaboration Program to share resources. Data volumes critical applications to a four-node were rocketing for both organisations as the demand for digitised IBM® Storwize® V7000 storage solution, leveraging IBM Easy Tier® to raise services increased, and storage systems were struggling to keep up, so performance with solid-state technology. they decided to find out if presenting a united front could hold the answer to growing pains. The benefit Expected ROI within four years while significantly enhancing storage As part of the scope of this plan, the two organisations set out to merge performance; cuts backup time by up very different IT landscapes. The end-goal was a centralised, ultra- to 50 percent; enabled faster problem efficient storage solution that served the needs of both police forces. resolution with an end-to-end view of storage infrastructure. Making a judgment To maximise use of existing investments, Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police set out to find a scalable solution that could replace ageing storage while integrating with existing, more up-to-date storage systems from a variety of vendors.

Using IBM Storwize V7000 as a single interface to provision storage across multiple systems, Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police are optimising use of resources. “By providing us with one management tool that integrates with different types of storage, IBM Storwize V7000 helps us make the most of our existing investments,” says Duncan Watkins, Storage Infrastructure Analyst at Hampshire and Thames Valley Police. IBM Systems and Technology Government Case Study

The new, combined IT team discovered that the IBM Storwize V7000 Solution components could deliver on this goal, providing a catch-all storage solution that would allow the organisations to avoid replacing everything. Hardware • IBM® Storwize® V7000 Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police deployed a Software four-node IBM Storwize V7000 along with IBM Tivoli® Storage • IBM Easy Tier® Productivity. The solution supports a variety of critical applications, • IBM Tivoli® Storage Productivity such as a records management system that generates crime numbers for Center every crime reported to both organisations and an Automatic Number Plate Recognition system used to track vehicle movements.

Impact on the bottom line Offering significant energy savings, Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police anticipates that the ultra-efficient IBM Storwize V7000 will prove a zero-cost solution over four years. Migrating to the highly compact Storwize V7000 system has also yielded impressive floor space savings, a factor that is expected to be an advantage when the organisations move to a different data centre.

Duncan Watkins, Storage Infrastructure Analyst at Hampshire and Thames Valley Police explains, “IBM Storwize V7000 takes up less than half a rack in our current data centre, a 90 percent saving compared to our previous solution. We have to relocate to another data centre soon, and it will be both simpler and more cost-effective to host the more compact Storwize V7000.”

Better performance, ongoing optimisation Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police saw an immediate impact on performance following the migration to the Storwize V7000 environment. Cutting backup times by up to 50 percent has decreased the risk of them overrunning and affecting day-to-day operations. Before, other systems were often waiting on the storage to respond; whereas now it is the other way around, with the Storwize system responding faster than other hardware.

By making use of Storwize’s integrated diagnostics features, the Hampshire and Thames Valley IT team was able to identify ways to optimise the implementation. Following the system’s recommendation, the team chose to deploy solid-state drives to form a 3-percent proportion of the overall storage infrastructure, and leverage the inbuilt IBM Easy Tier® function to drive even better performance.

Easy Tier moves the data used most often to ultra-fast SSDs [solid-state drives], enabling Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police to maximise performance where it matters. By helping to target use of investments where they make the most difference, the solution offers a significant advantage for a public organisation.

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Benefits of a joint approach The Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police IT team “Choosing IBM Storwize utilises intuitive Storwize V7000 management tools in combination V7000 has helped us with IBM Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center to effectively manage a succeed in driving greater larger storage environment with fewer people than before.

efficiency.” Using IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center, the organisations have gained end-to-end visibility of their storage infrastructure and — Duncan Watkins, Storage Infrastructure can spot performance problems more easily than before. They can Analyst, Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police also use the tool to find out what might be causing issues, helping to accelerate resolution.

Duncan Watkins concludes, “Deploying IBM Storwize V7000 as the core of a centralised storage infrastructure, serving both Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police, has helped us succeed in driving greater efficiency, which ultimately translates into better service and value for citizens.”

For more information To learn more about IBM solutions, contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/systems/storage/storwize_v7000

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Produced in the United Kingdom August 2014

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