Posted on 12/07/2009 9:00:15 PM PST by Swordmaker
As the world descends on Copenhagen this week for the United Nations Climate Change conference, the city’s police must manage protests, secure world leaders, and handle all the other issues that come with a major global event.
Perhaps surprisingly, the force is doing it with Macs.
The Danish Police Department isn’t using Apple computers on the go, or keeping in touch with iPhones. No, the entire central command is now run by Mac Pros and Mac Minis, with not a single PC to be seen.
The Danish police force has been using Macs since 1996, running NeXTStep. But five years ago, the force needed to upgrade, as spare parts were becoming scarce.
It started looking around at what systems other countries were running, even touring the UK to find a setup that was innovative enough to catch the force's eye.
It didn't find one. Anywhere.
Karsten Højgaard, Police Inspector and the driving force behind the upgrade, told IT PRO: “We were looking at the leading [systems] on the European Market to see what they were able to do for us… we didn't like it and went back empty handed.”
Then, two years ago, with the United Nations Climate Change conference looming, a decision needed to be made. The force's previous supplier Frontline suggested creating a bespoke system using Macs.
The system
Running since mid-July, the new bespoke Mac-based system uses 25 Mac Pros and 73 Minis.
The operations room features 14 workstations, with each hooked up to multiple large displays.
Because the system lets operators be more efficient, the Danish department uses a third fewer call takers than other forces in Europe. Shifts of six to eight people using 14 workstations are all the city of 1.2 million needs to take 800 to 1,200 emergency policing calls.
“When we were looking around [for a system] – we have been almost everywhere in the UK – we saw some problems with the speed of how they did things. It’s not very fast in the US either,” he said.
“We have compared them well, and they very much look alike,” Højgaard said.
“It takes a lot of human resources to… produce the same amount of call cards. We use eight people. In Kent and Surrey and Glasgow, they use 30, 40, 50,” he added.
The force's Windows-based systems didn’t allow for multiple calls to be open at the same time, and was slow to process data, so operators had to keep paper and pen at their desks “because the system can’t cope.”
“We do not have paper and pens… that’s one of the major advances for Macs, they can handle a lot of calls at the same time,” he said, noting over 40 can be open at once on the current systems.
“We haven’t seen any other system that can do that,” he said.
Major operations
Aside from the daily operations setup, there are three other floors in the centre. One is a local datacentre, running Mac Xserve machines in a RAID 5 setup.
Another floor is for major policing operations, such as this week’s summit. It features more Apple computers, hooked up to a series of massive displays, with 32 screens as large as 55in, so managers can keep an eye on what’s going on using maps, photos, and GPS to send resources to the right places. Data requests can be brought up, and video links patched in from anywhere.
The last floor features workstations for military, ambulance and other emergency services. It uses the same system on a closed network. “That’s so each can see what the others are doing,” said Højgaard.
One major problem with Macs is their price – often more expensive than Windows-based equivalents. That didn’t hold true for for Copenhagen, however. “It was just about the same price, that’s the funny thing,” he said.
The force is yet to turn to mobile policing, but has plans to do so in the future. “They will have [mobile devices], but this system is so new,” that it hasn’t happened yet, Højgaard said, saying the force had its eye on tablet computers.
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I thought they were referring to Mac 10’s. Those would be more useful.
Oh Dear... should I be happy that they are using a good stable computer? (yes) Should I be dismayed that they are doing it for such a purpose? (yes)
Happy or sad? I'm so confused... ;-) /sarc
Racks of Minis can make a really fine computing environment, quiet, low power, reliable...
I think from my reading of the article that their use for the conference is merely the hook to report that the Danes are using Macs to manage their equivalent of the 911 system in Denmark—not just for security at the conference—and that the Macs are much more efficient at managing the calls than the Windows systems used by neighboring nations.
I, in my heart of hearts, kinda hope that the anti-AGW protestors break down the conference doors, tar and feather the AGW believing attendees, and ride them out of town on a rail, before forcing them to fart tons of methane into the atmosphere by force feeding them baked boston beans and bad beer—but even idiots are entitled to be protected by the authorities from violent counter opinions, and are entitled to call 911 (0r is it 999 in Denmark?)) for help—and they should not have to call a system that is overloaded and underpowered because they are using the crippled Windows OS on inefficient hardware and be unconscionably forced to wait for rescue.
Sad to say... I have to support them in their inalienable right to be stupid idiots... and their right to call the Danish authorities and their beautiful, efficient Mac OS X computers for help when those righteous protestors come to educate them on the wrongness of their opinions... It's a tough call... but I just have to bite my tongue and do it... ;^)>
Ah, right you are. That's comforting....
IMO, the Mini is the non-flashy, unsung hero of the Mac line. Simple, unassuming, unobtrusive... yet plenty powerful for most home users and many professionals.
My old PPC Mini is running Linux now, and the newer Intel model is dual-booted with Leopard and Windows7 (both of which do just fine)... It's really noticeable when I crank up one of the big towers -- noisy fans and hard drives. I love how quiet the Mini is. Someday if I build a multi-processor array, I'll do it with Minis. Cool little lumps of compute power... ;-)
I love this part: “One major problem with Macs is their price – often more expensive than Windows-based equivalents. That didn’t hold true for for Copenhagen, however. “It was just about the same price, that’s the funny thing,” he said.”
Didn’t seem to dawn on the author that the “major problem” is with the conventional wisdom, not the reality.
My MacBook Pro and my Lenovo ThinkPad T60p are about the same age. The ThinkPad is a couple months newer and has a slightly faster and more advanced processor. But the Mac runs rings around it. And it cost a little less.
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