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Departmental Network
The University of Akron Police Department maintains it's own departmental network which is connected by fiber to the campus backbone.
From Small Beginnings
In 1988 the University of Akron police department purchased an IBM System 36 Mini mainframe along with Mentor Shield Computer Aided Dispatch and Records software. The system 36 was utilized until 1996 when a system hard drive failed. Prior to the failure, the department had already begun investigating a replacement and implemented an ethernet network. While the University of Akron mainly consisted of Banyan servers, UAPD was able to implement a Novell network for one third the price. Starting at Novell Version 4 the department has continued with the Novell OS and currently is running version 6.5. Our first servers were simply high end Gateway PC's but in 2000 UAPD purchased a Dell Optiplex Server. With triple redundant power supplies and 6 - 9Gb hard drives, this server was a workhorse for 5 years until increased demand became too much and the speed of the system deteriorated.
In 2005 UAPD upgraded to twin HP Proliant DL380 servers along with an HP Modular Smart Array 500 G2. The servers are clustered so that if one should fail, it's work would be picked up by the other. The smart array has 175Gb of mirrored storage space which is roughly four times as much as the Optiplex. Considering the amount of space taken up by photographs and video files, it will be necessary within the next year or so to expand the storage pool. The storage array is currently only one third full so there is plenty of room for expansion!UAPD maintains it's own firewall to isolate it from the campus backbone. Inside the firewall are two switches, one for station one and one for station two. The two switches are connected by fiber and all ports are running at 100 mbs.
A virtual private network connects UAPD to Columbus for inquiries to the Ohio Law Enforcement Sharing and Information Network so that UAPD can participate in this Homeland Security initiative.