The Thai Ministry of Interior maintains the second-largest relational database in the world. This ambitious project includes photographs and fingerprints. In addition to storing an extraordinarily large amount of data, the system must be exceptionally secure, so that biographical data cannot be altered or lost. A storage solution from Large Storage Configurations (LSC) has been critical to the project's success.
Ambitious Thai Project Maintains Complex Population Data.
Thailand has a population of more than 60 million people. In the mid-1980's, the government of Thailand began to develop the Central Population Database of Thailand. The textual portion of the database was completed in 1992; it is updated to reflect population growth through births and immigration. (The rate of population growth is less than two percent.)
In late 1992, the scope of the database was expanded to include scanned photographs and fingerprints. Currently, this information is being added at the rate of 7,200,000 photographs and 4,320,000 fingerprints annually. This portion of the data base is expected to be complete in 1999.
New Identity Cards Must Thwart Forgers
In conjunction with the Central Population Database project, the Ministry of Interior introduced a new identity card issuing project in early 1994. The new process creates identity cards in minutes, instead of months, and is much more secure against forgers than the previous system. An image of the person's right thumbprint is scanned and stored in the national database at the time of card creation. The card contains printed biographical information and an identification photograph on the front side, and a magnetic strip containing biographical information and a reference to the person's thumbprint on the back side. Verification of identity is easily accomplished by comparing a person's appearance with the displayed photo or by scanning a person's thumbprint and comparing it with the thumbprint reference record in the database.
Data Retrieval Time Limited to Two Minutes
When completed, requests to the system will come from more than a thousand terminals throughout Thailand, requiring record retrieval and display in under two minutes.
To meet this rigorous speed requirement, the government selected a turnkey network storage server system from Large Storage Configurations, Inc. (LSC). The LSC system, comprised of its Integrated Data Server (IDS) hardware and Storage and Archive Manager File System (SAM-FS) software, was able to meet the two minute requirement because of its unique access system.
Rather than staging (copying) files to magnetic disk like most hierarchical storage management (HSM) systems, the IDS/SAM allows direct access to the nearline optical media on which the record is stored. The efficiency gained by eliminating the staging step allows the government to access any record in the database within seconds.
Capacity and Security Are Paramount
The LSC system was also chosen for its extensive capacity and disaster recovery features.
The system utilizes 1.5 terabytes of magnetic and optical storage capable of storing the over 60 million records which will make up the database upon completion. WORM optical media was chosen for it high level of data protection. WORM media cannot be altered, is very rugged and has a rated life of 10 to 30 years.
The IDS/SAM system also provides extensive disaster recovery features, including file system recovery, multiple archival copies and self-recoverable archival media. To provide an even higher level of protection and redundancy, a second "hot standby" system that duplicates all hardware, software and storage peripherals was installed in Thailand.
Bangkok is scheduled to be the first city to use the system, beginning in 1996, with the entire project scheduled for completion in 1999.
Among the most ambitious database projects of all time, the Thailand government project was the 1990 winner of Computerworld''s Smithsonian Award.
For more information on storage solutions from LSC, call 1-800-831-9482.
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