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By Mel Duvall

Taser International, the company that supplies stun guns to police forces around the globe, announced that it has adopted Cisco's Unified Computing System in a data center that will power a new crime-fighting business.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-headquartered company said this week that it had launched a new cloud-based service called Evidence.com, which will store video captured by small cameras worn by police officers. Taser believes the new service will be quickly adopted by global police enforcement agencies, in much the same way that video cameras are now a regular feature in police cruisers.

When a police agency subscribes to the Evidence.com service, its officers are outfitted with a small video camera, usually worn over the officer's ear. The camera captures video in a 30 second loop, but it can be directed to record continuously with the push of a button.

Typically an officer would press the record button when they are arresting a suspect or when they encounter a situation that they think might lead to a confrontation. At the end of a shift, officers dock the unit at the station and the recorded video is sent via encryption to the Taser data center. The video cannot be altered before being uploaded, and once in the Taser data center, the raw footage can be accessed for evidence in a trial.

Taser said it expects the service will generate massive amounts of video data, captured from police forces around the globe. Initially, it has built a data center capable of storing 10 petabytes of video and associated data, but it has plans in place to expand to 200 petabytes in three years.

The company could become a showcase client for Cisco, which launched its Unified Computing System (UCS) earlier this year. UCS, which is essentially a server-networking-storage bundle, put Cisco in direct competition with computer server manufacturers like IBM, HP, Dell and Sun.

Taser says it was able to complete the new data center in less than 100 days using the Cisco technology. The data center uses virtualization technology from VMware, and while it primarily runs on Cisco blade servers, it accesses an IBM storage area network (SAN).

Taser said the Evidence.com service can also be used in combination with mapping and analytics software to synthesize captured data with location and other relevant information.

Comments (2)

	1. 12-27-2009 17:33
	This is a very innovative application of technology, although I suspect like most technology deployments its success will depend on the training and adoption of its core user base, the police department. Relying on the officer to initiate recording while under stressful circumstances seems like a potential flaw in the process. Registered

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	2. 12-27-2009 17:33
	This is a very innovative application of technology, although I suspect like most technology deployments its success will depend on the training and adoption of its core user base, the police department. Relying on the officer to initiate recording while under stressful circumstances seems like a potential flaw in the process. Registered

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