Federal Department of Justice and Police - HP Integrity NonStop ...

NONSTOP COMPUTINGCUSTOMER SUCCESSSWISS LAW ENFORCEMENTBANKS ON NONSTOP SYSTEMSHigh availability, low TCO cited by Federal Departmentof Justice and Police

This article is scheduled to appear in an upcoming 24x7, HP’s magazine of NonStop computing.To view an online version of 24x7 magazine, go to nonstop.compaq.com/view.asp?PAGE=Success_Mags.For a complimentary subscription to 24x7 magazine, please e-mail 24x7@avantpub.com and include your name, title,e-mail address, and complete mailing address.SWITZERLAND HAS A UNIVERSALreputation for quality, strength,and reliability. Swiss watches.Swiss army knives. The SwissGuard. Swiss bank accounts.So it should come as no surprisethat, when Switzerland’s FederalDepartment of Justice and Police(FDJP) built its data center in1982, it chose the most reliable,available, scalable computingplatform on the market—the HPNonStop server—for its mostcritical applications. “We startedwith the NonStop II system,”recalled Christian Baumann,director of FDJP’s IT Service Center(ISC). “In all these years, we havenever experienced a data loss or hadany problem with data integrity.”GUTEN MORGEN, BONJOUR,BUON GIORNOFDJP’s information technologyenvironment is challenging, to saythe least. The organization isresponsible for evaluating anddeveloping business-critical applicationsfor such diverse entities asthe Swiss Federal Aliens Office,the Federal Office for Refugees,and the Federal Office for Police. Itsupports 26 different cantons, orstates—each with unique laws,government, politics, police force,and computing infrastructure. Andbecause Switzerland has threemain written languages, all applicationsmust be written to handleinput and output in German,French, and Italian.ISC FDJP has developed manydiverse applications to serve itsbroad constituent base. “We haveone for searching for people whoare wanted in Switzerland, andanother for tracking stolen carsand missing property,” saidBaumann. “We are connected toInterpol, the international policeorganization. Interpol gives usinformation about stolen cars inother countries, and that informationgoes into our database.”ISC FDJP also has an applicationaimed at combating organizedcrime. “Our application helps theSwiss justice system discouragethis activity.” The application wasbuilt to assist the police unit thatfights money laundering. Anotherapplication helps the Swiss police

◆◆◆detect patterns in different kinds ofcrime. There’s a criminal recordsapplication, which registers offendersin a secure database. There areapplications to issue proper identificationto aliens and refugees.As diverse as they are, theseapplications have one thing incommon: They all run on the continuouslyavailable, massivelyscalable NonStop platform. Andthey always have.THE BETTER CHOICEWhen FDJP constructed its datacenter in 1982, it saw severalviable server choices, includingthe NonStop platform. “Our applicationsrun 24 x 7, so we needed asystem that could deliver extremelyhigh availability,” noted Baumann.FOR SWITZERLAND’S FDJP,NONSTOP SYSTEMS:Provide innovative supportof diverse police and justiceoperations for 26 differentcantonsEnsure 24 x 7 availability ofcritical applicationsAllow easy linear scalabilityto keep up with organization’sgrowth“Our applications run 24 x 7, so we neededa system that could deliver extremely highavailability. We also evaluated the total costof ownership, or TCO, of various alternatives.From every perspective, the NonStop systemwas the best choice.”Christian Baumann, director of IT Service Center,Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police“We also evaluated the total costof ownership, or TCO, of variousalternatives. From every perspective,the NonStop system was thebest choice.”ISC FDJP now has a NonStopS74008 server for production,with 2 gigabytes of memory perprocessor and a 50-terabyte datastore. The agency also has aNonStop S7004 server for development.“We were the firstcustomer in Europe to move to theNonStop S-series system in 1996,”Baumann recalled proudly. “Before,we had two NonStop K-seriesproduction systems; now we haveonly one S-series production system.The NonStop S-series is morepowerful, and it is also more costeffective.”Some 13,000 usersinterface with the system. The averagetransaction rate is 10 transactionsper second, sometimes rising to 50to 110 transactions per second.The NonStop systems interoperatesmoothly with IBM systems locatedin other departments of the Swissgovernment, and with Windows NTservers located at ISC FDJP.While continuous availability wasthe main reason for choosingNonStop systems, scalability isalso important to ISC FDJP. “Weneed the ability to expand our system—to add disks and controllers,and configure new productsonline—without difficulty,” commentedBaumann. “We have noproblem when we need morepower in our system. We can buyanother processor, and the downtimeto change the system is veryshort, or we have no downtime atall. With NonStop systems, wedon’t need to compromise betweenscalability and availability—wehave both, and with superior value.”OPEN ARCHITECTURE A PLUSBecause ISC FDJP develops itsown applications, the open architectureof the NonStop platform isan extremely valuable feature.

“We will move our developmentenvironment to the Java 2Platform, Enterprise Edition environmenton the NonStop platformin the next two years,” observedBaumann. “With NonStop EnterpriseApplication Server software, wewill be able to buy off-the-shelfsoftware in the future. Today, thisis not possible in the police environment.With the J2EE architecture,we can buy applicationsdeveloped for another platformand transfer them to the NonStopserver.” The fact that applicationprogrammers will be easier to find,further reducing total cost of ownership,is another factor in ISCFDJP’s decision to adopt NonStopEnterprise Application Servertechnology.“With NonStop systems, we don’t needto compromise between scalabilityand availability—we have both, andwith superior value.”Christian Baumann, director of IT Service Center,Swiss Federal Department of Justice and PoliceBaumann is unequivocal in hispraise of ISC FDJP’s NonStopservers. “With the NonStop system,we have very high availability, withgood scalability and good TCO,”he summarized. ◆For more information, go to www.hp.com/go/nonstop.November 2002. Java is a U.S. trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Windows NT is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All otherproduct names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors oromissions contained herein. The information is subject to change without notice. The warranties for HP products are set forth in the express limitedwarranty statements accompanying such products. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.02-0793©2002 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.