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Operational Efficiency – how Lancashire Constabulary uses virtualisation to improve security, increase efficiency and reduce costs

  • Artigo

Lancashire Constabulary provides policing and public safety in the county of Lancashire in north-west England, serving a population of around 1.5 million people. The force employs 7000 people, over 55% of whom are serving police officers. As is the situation for most public sector organisations, Lancashire Constabulary need to get more value from their current investments in ICT to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.

The force is implementing virtualisation for all desktop users using Microsoft virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The force is realising substantial improvements in such areas of operation as:

  • Standard desktop configuration – all users have access to an identical PC desktop with a consistent suite of productivity applications in the appropriate versions. The virtualised desktop infrastructure eliminates the ‘surprise’ additional overhead of discovering local applications installed
  • Improved security for confidential and restricted information – access to confidential and restricted information is available to authorised users from a single desktop environment
  • Faster remote access – police officers in local communities spend over 80% of their time with their communities. The virtualised desktop improves their overall quality of service and speed of access to information and systems
  • Reduced carbon footprint – the ability to manage all desktop devices remotely using Microsoft System Center is also helping to reduce Lancashire Constabulary’s carbon emissions by ensuring more effective power management of desktop devices and more efficient use of datacentre resources

Lancashire Constabulary also use the secure Microsoft VDI environment to access the Police National Database in accordance with security and confidentiality requirements. This represents a saving of £12m over a dedicated confidential network.

You can see how Lancashire Constabulary are achieving these operational efficiencies by viewing the video here.

Posted by Ian