Bringing data infrastructure to justice

Pure Storage says that Scotland’s prosecution service, The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), experiences better performance, a more enjoyable user experience; better stability with no downtime; and increased cybersecurity preparedness.   

COPFS plays a crucial role in the Scottish justice system — investigating and prosecuting crime; and looking into allegations of police misconduct. Since 2016 COPFS has processed more than 900,000 reported cases which had created a large data challenge for the organisation. 

Adam Biggs, Head of IT Services, COPFS, explains: “Our data consumption was growing rapidly, and a long term solution had to be found to avoid an operational issue we couldn’t manage. Our legacy disks were at their physical limit. We had to take decisive action and move to a modern data solution that could solve our challenges and support wider COPFS digital transformation in the future." 

By moving to Pure, COPFS has dramatically expanded its capacity and capability to process, manage, store and access the many terabytes of case data it is responsible for. This includes images, CCTV footage and mobile phone extracts in addition to operational data such as emails.  

Through Pure, COPFS has consolidated its production workloads, virtual desktops, virtual servers and Oracle databases to create one stable infrastructure. Since moving all Oracle case management databases to Pure, COPFS has seen a 15% operational improvement in core applications. Pure’s guaranteed 3:1 data reduction has saved COPFS 18 sq. ft.in its datacenter — lowering power consumption and reducing environmental impact. 

Biggs added: “With Pure Evergreen, we now have the OPEX predictability and IT agility to upgrade and scale seamlessly, without disruption. The upgrades just happen and we don’t notice. We have the peace of mind that regardless of what happens with the technology we're always going to be up to date, and our costs won’t spiral. From the start, Pure has been such a breath of fresh air from our hideously complex legacy infrastructure. It is truly empowering us to monitor, upgrade and manage our environment in the effortless way we dreamed. 

In addition to supporting day-to-day operational workloads, Pure’s technology is adding value to COPFS in other priority areas such as cybersecurity, as Biggs explained: “Pure’s SafeMode feature and immutable snapshots mean we are protected whatever happens. In a worst-case scenario, we can now restore everything in our virtual server environment in a couple of clicks, which is massive from a recovery point of view.” 

Shaun Collings, Director, UK Public Sector, Pure Storage comments: “The COPFS team needed, above all, peace of mind and certainty. We worked closely with them to provide a solution which is simple, flexible and provides predictable operating expenses while delivering high service levels and excellent performance.  

In addition, meeting energy efficiency goals is increasingly a key pillar of any public sector organisation’s technology commitment. Pure supports COPFS with this goal through infrastructure which can provide up to 80% reduction in direct carbon usage, coupled with reducing floor space, power and cooling requirements”.