Cost motivates potential sea change in way police computing is run
Police across the UK are considering a major move to cloud computing, dumping on-premise IT in an aggressive bid to cut costs, ComputerworldUK.com can reveal.
In a move likely to be seen as controversial given the sensitivity of police data, the Metropolitan Police is planning how to run a variety of front-end systems – for managing patrols, operations, incidents and investigations, managing evidence and forensics, and collating information – in the cloud. It is understood that if the project goes ahead, the Metropolitan Police would be the lead customer, with other forces buying services through a framework deal.
Under the Strategic Cloud Programme the systems would be supported by to collaboration, knowledge management, risk management, information sharing and business intelligence analytics tools. The aim is for them to be standards-based and scalable, with strong security, consumption based pricing and high service level agreements
