E N D - U S E R I N S I G H T
With data volumes per individual case routinely passing the four terabytes mark , the
West Midlands Police ’ s onpremise IT infrastructure was being pushed to its storage limits and data analysis was becoming time-consuming . To resolve these challenges , Node4 built and delivered
FTK Central , the UK ’ s first cloud-based digital forensics analysis solution .
West Midlands Police Force is the UK ’ s second-largest police force . It covers an area of almost 350 square miles and serves around three million people . The force deals with more than 2,000 emergency calls each day while also patrolling the streets and responding to incidents . West Midlands Police established its digital forensics team in 2003 to help officers deal with an increasing volume of digital evidence .
It ’ s estimated that 90 % of UK crimes have a digital footprint and the team ’ s task is to sort that data into actionable intelligence . Today , the digital forensics team ’ s services are a vital crimefighting tool across the West Midlands and Warwickshire , covering all areas of criminal activity but with a strong focus on investigating and prosecuting child exploitation and abuse .
The challenge
The digital forensics team relied on on-premises IT infrastructure . But with per-case data volumes routinely passing the four terabytes mark and multiple cases on the go at any one time , they struggled to manage the necessary IT infrastructure , such as physical storage , processing power and SQL databases .
West Midlands Police ’ s Digital Forensics / Incident Response Supervisor , Detective Sergeant John Price KPM
Plus , the team was acutely aware of their responsibility to ensure their data was secure and managed to policing standards . However , their biggest concern was that data analysis had
NODE4 ENABLES FASTER EVIDENCE PROCESSING FOR WEST MIDLANDS POLICE FORCE
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