KPMG places forensics platform in ControlCircle data center

The forensics advisory business of accountancy practice KPMG is being hosted across 16 racks at UK colocator ControlCircle.

ControlCircle is providing data center space in London where KPMG has currently taken 16 racks, along with power, cabling, and physical security which includes separate cages within its data center suite, CCTV and biometric access. BGP Internet connectivity is provided as part of the fully managed service, as well as consultancy services to design, specify and install the systems in the data center.

Because of the project based nature of KPMG’s work Controlcircle has offered pay as grow storage options and flexible network terms and power and rack use.

Stephen Gallagher, partner, data analytics, KPMG Forensic, said: “In the old days, when a big investigation job came in, we would have had to add to our systems as we went which we recognised wasn’t a sustainable way of working. The beauty of the new platform is we’ve now got an infrastructure which is totally flexible which means clients can be better served.”

NetApp’s multi protocol FAS3170 storage platform has been installed, with KPMG able to pay per client project based on the amount of data stored. With the system in the data center configured to provide up to 34TB worth of storage today, but with the head unit able to scale to 840TB of raw data, KPMG has a class leading platform available to cope with a myriad of future forensic projects.

Damian Milkins, ControlCircle’s chief executive officer, said: “The pay as you use storage approach based on a per gig stored basis means that KPMG avoids large upfront costs normally associated with storage where you have to over provision based on what you might need. Equally there are no delays when extra capacity is required as the system is already configured and ready to go. This means KPMG can respond to client needs and deliver projects far faster, turning the storage on and off as they like, and paying accordingly, which is perfect for a business which is so project based.”

The NetApp FAS system is connected to UNIX-based Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 servers through Brocade 5000 fibre channel switches running at 4 gigabit per second connectivity. The Sun servers feature dynamic domain and zoning – in effect offering a virtual server capability - to enable multiple UNIX-based applications to run on one physical box so that the data analytics team can maximise their capacity.

KPMG’s data analytics environment comprises a range of best-of-breed tools from various vendors. From a data management and cleansing perspective, KPMG utilises tools like Datanomic and data mining tools from SAS to look for trends and patterns in the clean data. In addition, KPMG’s own bespoke written KTrace and KLean software allows staff to specifically look for irregularities in financial transactions. It employs 150 staff and had 2008 revenues of £60 million.