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"Our applications run 24 x 7, so we needed a system that could deliver extremely high availability. We also evaluated the total cost of ownership, or TCO, of various alternatives. From every perspective, the NonStop system was the best choice."
- Christian Baumann, Director of IT Service Center, Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police
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 Switzerland has a universal reputation for quality, strength and reliability. Swiss watches. Swiss Army knives. The Swiss Guard. Swiss bank accounts.
So it should come as no surprise that, when Switzerland's Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) built its data center in 1982, it chose the most reliable, available, scalable computing platform on the market the HP NonStop server for its most critical applications. "We started with the NonStop II system," recalled Christian Baumann, director of FDJP's IT Service Center (ISC). "In all these years, we have never experienced a data loss or had any problem with data integrity."
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Guten morgen, bonjour, buon giorno
FDJP's information technology environment is challenging, to say the least. The organization is responsible for evaluating and developing business critical applications for such diverse entities as the Swiss Federal Aliens Office, the Federal Office for Refugees and the Federal Office for Police. It supports 26 different cantons, or states?each with unique laws, government, politics, police force and computing infrastructure. And because Switzerland has three main written languages, all applications must be written to handle input and output in German, French and Italian.
ISC FDJP has developed many diverse applications to serve its broad constituent base. "We have one for searching for people who are wanted in Switzerland, and another for tracking stolen cars and missing property," said Baumann. "We are connected to Interpol, the international police organization. Interpol gives us information about stolen cars in other countries, and that information goes into our database."
ISC FDJP also has an application aimed at combating organized crime. "Our application helps the Swiss justice system discourage this activity," said Baumann. The application was built to assist the police unit that fights money laundering. Another application helps the Swiss police detect patterns in different kinds of crime. There's a criminal records application, which registers offenders in a secure database. There are applications to issue proper identification to aliens and refugees.
As diverse as they are, these applications have one thing in common: They all run on the continuously available, massively scalable NonStop platform. And they always have.
The better choice
When FDJP constructed its data center in 1982, it saw several viable server choices, including the NonStop platform. "Our applications run 24/7, so we needed a system that could deliver extremely high availability," noted Baumann.
"We also evaluated the total cost of ownership, or TCO, of various alternatives. From every perspective, the NonStop system was the best choice."
ISC FDJP now has a NonStop S74008 server for production, with 2 gigabytes of memory per processor and a 50-terabyte data store. The agency also has a NonStop S7004 server for development. "We were the first customer in Europe to move to the NonStop S-series system in 1996," Baumann recalled proudly. "Before, we had two NonStop K-series production systems; now we have only one S-series production system. The NonStop S-series is more powerful, and it is also more cost-effective." Some 13,000 users interface with the system. The average transaction rate is 10 transactions per second, sometimes rising to 50 to 110 transactions per second. The NonStop systems interoperate smoothly with IBM systems located in other departments of the Swiss government, and with Windows NT servers located at ISC FDJP.
While continuous availability was the main reason for choosing NonStop systems, scalability is also important to ISC FDJP. "We need the ability to expand our system to add disks and controllers, and configure new products online without difficulty," commented Baumann. "We have no problem when we need more power in our system. We can buy another processor, and the downtime to change the system is very short, or we have no downtime at all. With NonStop systems, we don't need to compromise between scalability and availability we have both, and with superior value."
Open architecture a plus
Because ISC FDJP develops its own applications, the open architecture of the NonStop platform is an extremely valuable feature.
"We will move our development environment to the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition [J2EE] environment on the NonStop platform in the next two years," observed Baumann. "With NonStop Enterprise Application Server software, we will be able to buy off-the-shelf software in the future. Today, this is not possible in the police environment. With the J2EE architecture, we can buy applications developed for another platform and transfer them to the NonStop server."
The fact that application programmers will be easier to find, further reducing total cost of ownership, is another factor in ISC FDJP's decision to adopt NonStop Enterprise Application Server technology.
Baumann is unequivocal in his praise of ISC FDJP's NonStop servers. "With the NonStop system, we have very high availability, with good scalability and good TCO," he summarized.
"We need the ability to expand our system-to add disks and controllers, and configure new products online-without difficulty. We have no problem when we need more power in our system. We can buy another processor, and the downtime to change the system is very short, or we have no downtime at all. With NonStop systems, we don't need to compromise between scalability and availability-we have both, and with superior value."
Christian Baumann, director of the FDJP's ISC
Business case
Requirement: Provide innovative support of diverse police and justice operations for 26 different cantons. Ensure 24/7 availability of critical applications. Allow easy linear scalability to keep up with organization's growth.
Solution: FDJP now has a NonStop S74008 server for production, with 2 gigabytes of memory per processor and a 50-terabyte data store. The agency also has a NonStop S7004 server for development.
Results: Some 13,000 users interface with the system. The average transaction rate is 10 transactions per second, sometimes rising to 50 to 110 transactions per second.
Customer snapshot
Agency: Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP)
Mission: The organization is responsible for evaluating and developing business critical applications for such diverse entities as the Swiss Federal Aliens Office, the Federal Office for Refugees and the Federal Office for Police. It supports 26 different cantons, or states each with unique laws, government, politics, police force and computing infrastructure.
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