GTSI and Cubix solve CSI Forensic Lab configuration challenge
Case Study CSI Forensic Laboratory
Cubix LaserSystems solved a challenging forensics lab configuration problem. Given the following demanding requirements, how would you solve it?
The chief lab administrator told GTSI® and Cubix that he had the following requirements:
- I have 18 forensics technicians that need to process a lot of analytical information and evidence using the latest, fastest processors available.
- I want to centralize the data on blade PCs that I can lock up in the data center to eliminate any worry about compromising evidence.
- The blade PCs need to access the Internet and they need to access a Storage Area Network (SAN) with over 80Terabytes (80TBytes) of storage.
- The technicians must to be able to do database searches from their workstations at faster than 1Gigabits per second (Gbps) Ethernet speeds.
- At each lab technician’s desktop, I need dual-link DVI, high-resolution (2560 x 1600) monitor support to display forensic evidence.
- At the desktop, I also need USB 2.0 dongles to use the full functionality of the forensic software, plus I have camera devices that use FireWire.
Due to the high-speed performance demands at both the desktop and data center locations, the IT engineers and technicians at the lab knew that these requirements could not be satisfied with thin-client, virtual desktop or PCoIP blade PC products.
They knew that Cubix LaserBlades in the data center connected to LaserCubes in the lab via PCIe bus extension would be the only remote desktop solution that would meet and exceed the project requirements.
Here’s how they addressed each of the chief lab administrator’s requirements:
- I have 18 forensics technicians that need to process a lot of analytical information and evidence using the latest, fastest processors available.
The lab installed 18 LaserBlades that featured dual quad-core Intel® Xeon® processors, 36GBytes RAM and Microsoft® Windows® XP 64 running Guidance® Software EnCase® Forensic and other criminal investigation software applications. - I want to centralize the data on blade PCs that I can lock up in the data center to eliminate any worry about compromised evidence.
The LaserBlades were installed in 3 rack mount enclosures using only 24U of space in the data center, which was located about 75 meters from the lab. - The blade PCs need to access the Internet and to access a Storage Area Network (SAN) with over 80 TeraBytes of storage.
Each LaserBlade features two 1Gbps Ethernet ports, one of which was connected to a Cisco® Ethernet switch for access to the Internet. - The technicians need to be able to perform database searches from their workstations at faster than 1Gbps Ethernet speeds.
Each LaserBlade was configured with a QLogic® iSCSI adapter to access the NetApp® SAN device at 10Gbps. 
At each lab technician’s desktop, I need dual-link DVI high-resolution (2560 x 1600) monitor support to display forensic evidence.
At each of the 18 lab stations, a LaserCube-Workstation was configured with a dual port NVIDIA® graphics adapter that supports dual-link DVI resolutions. LaserCubes use Cubix PCI Express (PCIe) Generation 2.0 (Gen 2) bus extension technology that allows the Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) to be located next to the operators where they can run graphics at full real time speeds (200+ frames per second) at the highest resolution (2560 x 1600).- At the desktop, I also need USB 2.0 dongles to use the full functionality of the forensic software, plus I have camera devices that use FireWire.
PCIe bus extension enables LaserCubes to have PCIe slots operating at PCIe Gen 2 speed. These LaserCubes were configured with USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire adapter and sound.
For details, visit the LaserBlade and LaserCube pages or contact Cubix. Look to GTSI and Cubix for remote desktop solutions that meet and exceed the most demanding remote graphics and desktop I/O performance requirements.