Located at the Eastern-most end of Long Island is the Town of East Hampton. It has a year-round population of 25,000 which can swell to 250,000 between the months of April and October. With approximately 65 sworn officers, 12 radio operators and a support staff of 14, the police department plays a vital role in this diverse community. Like many municipalities, the town must do more with less as it navigates a substantial fiscal crunch. In an effort to reduce costs and manage complexity within the police department, the town’s police chief, Edward V. Ecker Jr., turned to a solution based on Microsoft’s Windows Azure technology and applications developed and maintained by Total Computer Group, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. East Hampton Town Police Department is among the first in the country to run a Cloud-based computer aided dispatch and records management system.
Situation
The East Hampton jurisdiction covers some 90 square miles of territory that annually generates between 16,000-18,000 calls to the police department resulting in 800-900 arrests in any given year. In addition to its calls for service, the department assists the much smaller East Hampton Village Police Department. The police department is headquartered in Wainscott and operates two additional precincts within the town extending all the way to Montauk Point.
East Hampton implemented its local-area network (LAN) and wide-area network (WAN) in 1989. The infrastructure was installed and continues to be maintained by Melville, NY-based Total Computer Group.
In 2004, the software division of Total Computer Group implemented an application called Total Enforcement, in an effort to automate East Hampton’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management system (RMS) operations. The move was a success, improving the ability to analyze, organize and allocate the relatively small police force over the large geographic area. In 2010, a new police chief took the helm of the department. The arrival of Chief Edward V. Ecker Jr., coincided with a pivotal point in the technology refresh cycle of the Town.
Ecker met with the representatives from Total Computer Group to discuss how to upgrade a technology infrastructure that needed to keep pace with the growing needs of the community, while holding the line on costs. The Chief was introduced to the idea of using cloud technology to solve many of his needs. After addressing serious questions about governance, security and control, the chief was ready to reallocate the way he invested his technology dollars away from a capital expense-intensive (CAPEX) structure to an operating-expense (OPEX) oriented strategy that provided more flexibility to address both the department’s and the town’s needs. Beyond optimizing the allocation of financial resources, Ecker wanted to focus his own human resources on the business of policing the town – not managing technology. Armed with this line of reasoning, he approached the municipality’s elected leadership.
“Once we got in front of the town board and explained the benefits of moving our technology operations to the cloud, they were all for it,” says Ecker.
Solution
In terms of the transition, Vincent Tedesco, President of Total Computer Group, worked with Ecker to leverage the existing investment in the RMS/CAD system by moving it into a cloud environment that revolved around Microsoft technology. The department moved to the cloud with Total Computer Group’s second release of its flagship product: Total Enforcement 2 (TE2). TE2 was developed for both on-premise and Windows Azure Cloud platform deployments. The Windows Azure Cloud platform environment, officials say, enabled the municipality to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters.
“We ported our entire TE2 solution to the Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud-Computing platform,” explains Tedesco. “The solution offers uncompromised functionality, simplicity, enterprise scalability, and high automation,” he says.
“What this means is that East Hampton is using an enterprise level system that dynamically interacts with the cloud platform and consists of a large scale infrastructure, highly advanced replicating technologies as well as load balancing, dynamic resource allocation, and much more,” he explains.
The product is built as a pure .NET solution that has fully integrated CAD, RMS, and mobile field reporting components. The technology allows East Hampton to access National Crime Information Center resources, and supports electronic ticketing as well as state-specific auto accident reporting. Since moving these applications to the cloud environment, the police department has expanded the range of things it can do.
“The department has been able to streamline arrests. It is much easier for officers to capture and document court information, crime reports and case reports. Keeping track of everything would be impossible without the system we have now,” says Ecker.
The technology migration took place over a six week period.
“The speed at which the agency trained itself using a ‘train-the-trainer’ model was among the fastest I’ve ever seen,” says Tedesco.
The foundation for the successful technical implementation, however, was laid out by very careful preparation that involved the entire East Hampton Town Police Department.
“We spent six months reviewing all our processes, determining what had to be done, and speaking with the town board,” says Ecker.
During the six-month period, experts from Total Computer Group explained what could be done, as well as the benefits that were to be gained. They also addressed the security and control questions that were raised in the context of moving sensitive information and processes to a Cloud environment.
Tedesco also used the preparation period to identify a small group of people within the department who could serve as resources to teach the rest of the police officers and staff all they would need to know once the project went live.
“There were some excellent people in the department who actually proliferated the intelligence and the training throughout the agency. They took the information we taught and then ran with it,” he says.
“I don’t think anyone could anticipate how smooth this move has gone...there have been very few bumps in the road…I’m very proud of the people who were involved in the transformation,” says Ecker.
Benefits
Since moving to the cloud environment, Ecker has seen the following benefits for the East Hampton Town Police Department:
Reduced hardware and software costs
Reduced maintenance costs
Reduced data entry
Reduced error rates from manual processes
New functionality in applications
Greater reporting features
Improved productivity – much of it from the ability to work offline in a mobile environment.
All of these factors, he says, have combined to significantly enhance the ability of officers to focus on what they do best, which is policing.
“This is extremely important in the context of the financial hardships that our town is facing. We, like everyone else, are looking for cost-effective ways to be a lot more flexible and responsive,” says Ecker.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400
. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Total Computer Group products and services, call (631) 777- 7477 or visit the Web site at: www.totalcomputer.com
For more information about Town of East Hampton call (631) 537-6863 or visit the Web site at: www.town.east-hampton.ny.us
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
