FBI boosts finger print database processing power
The FBI’s fingerprint data is growing, what with the growing use of biometric measures to authenticate identity; the agency needs more juice to manage this growing database
Checked your finger prints lately? The FBI has. It had little choice: As more and more governments and companies use biometric measures for identification and authentication, more and more finger prints are being collected. The FBI’s finger print data base has thus grown by leaps and bounds, and the agency needs more processing power to manage it. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has been awarded a contract to provide the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division with Hewlett Packard Superdome and Uplift Kits. The award will have a total package value of more than $16 million over five years, if all options are exercised. The agreement calls for Lockheed Martin’s Enterprise Solutions and Services business unit to build on its previous contract with the CJIS program by providing Hewlett Packard Uplift Kits for 15 Superdome servers and 1 Flatsdome server. ockheed Martin will also provide a PA-8900 Superdome server to the Clarksburg, West Virginia facility as part of a project to modernize computer and communications technology at CJIS.
The contract was designed to upgrade the FBI’s existing HP Superdomes, giving them additional processing power. A Superdome is a multiprocessing computer which is produced by Hewlett Packard and runs a UNIX operating system. It is used by the FBI for the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. These upgrade kits will add additional processors and additional processor speed to the Superdomes that were originally installed in 2003 by Lockheed Martin. The 2003 Superdome installation streamlined and modernized the information technology infrastructure underlying these systems. The project was part of a multi-year contract that was awarded through competitive competition.
